Haunted Dreams

‘Ten tomorrow.’ Gavin had been up to Scotland to see a big shareholder in Rendell and Son who was prepared to sell to their prospective buyer for the firm.

‘You’ve got your secretary with you?’

‘She’s here right now,’ Gavin said, laughing in a way that told Ambrose that the two of them were in bed together.

Gavin always had affairs with his secretaries; he chose them for their looks as much as their brains, although the girls always had both. Gavin expected his secretary to work hard, to be ultra-efficient, as well as good in bed. They never lasted long; about a year was the usual time one stayed with him. Ambrose wasn’t sure whether he sacked them or they left, but they kept changing.

Well, he’s good at his job, I don’t have to like him, thought Ambrose. The way he lives is none of my business.

‘Well, work on your report with her during the flight back,’ he said coolly. ‘Get her to type it up as soon as you arrive, and have it on my desk before five tomorrow.’

‘OK. Will you be around when I arrive?’

‘No, I have meetings all afternoon, but I’ll be back by five. I’ll see you then. Goodnight, Gavin, and thank you.’

Ambrose hung up and looked at his watch. The party would soon be over, his guests would start drifting away in half an hour; he had better get out there and circulate for the last few moments.

As soon as he opened the door he was engulfed by people eager for a chance to talk to him. He was just working out how to escape again, when he was rescued by Sophie Grant, one of his senior stock-market experts. She joined the circle surrounding him, waited her moment, and then asked him to show her his latest prize orchid in the heated greenhouse behind the house.

Several others clamoured to see it, but Ambrose explained politely that there should never be more than two people in the orchid-house at a time.

‘It uses up too much oxygen,’ he assured them.

As he and Sophie walked off she laughed softly. ‘What a smooth liar you are!’

Ambrose gave her an amused look. ‘An essential tool in the banker’s weaponry. And it’s true—it isn’t a good idea to have too many people in the orchid-house at one time. Thanks for rescuing me, anyway. Do you really want to see the orchids?’

‘Of course I do! They fascinate me; there’s something luscious and terrible about them. They’re so beautiful, yet they look as if they might eat people.’

Ambrose gave her another sideways glance; there was something orchidaceous about Sophie: she was beautiful and looked as if she might eat people—men, anyway! She had thick, white, perfect skin, dark, gleaming eyes and a ripe, full red mouth. Her body was just as extravagant: ultra-female, rounded, sensual, almost defiantly flaunted in the clinging black satin backless dress with the neckline plunging between her full breasts.

They had had an affair briefly, two years ago. Ambrose had been attracted, even fascinated, for a brief time but had soon realised that he didn’t like what he found under the come-hither smile and the desirable body. Sophie was ambitious and hard-edged; there was no emotion in their lovemaking, apart from lust, and Ambrose wanted far more than that from the woman in his life.

He had discreetly backed off, gradually stopped ringing her, asking her out, and Sophie had accepted it without a word. He was grateful to her for that. He’d been afraid she might make a scene, try to hold on to him. He was convinced she cared no more for him than he did for her, but he also suspected she had been hoping to marry him. He had money and social cachet, and Sophie wanted both. But she hadn’t fought for him. She had behaved impeccably. He had promoted her a few months later, not a reward for good behaviour, simply that her tact and discretion had proved to him how valuable she could be to the bank.

‘How’s Gavin doing on the Rendell project?’ she asked, when they were in the hot greenhouse looking at the massed orchids. He had been collecting them for some years, but lately he no longer found them exciting, and was considering selling them to the friend who had talked him into having his own orchid-house.

‘Everything’s set for the board-meeting on Thursday.’

‘Good,’ Sophie said, her eyes gleaming. ‘I know I don’t usually sit in on board-meetings, but could I come along on Thursday?’

Ambrose frowned. Sophie was the executive responsible for dealing with the Rendell account, admittedly. In fact, looking back, he seemed to recall it had been Sophie who first suggested that they should get someone else in to run the company.

‘I don’t think that would be appropriate, do you? Aren’t you related to the Rendell family, Sophie?’

She gave him another of her cat-like smiles. ‘My mother is old George’s cousin, but our side of the family have no money. We see very little of the mill people; we aren’t good enough for them.’ She gazed at the rich patina on a purple orchid. ‘Gorgeous thing,’ she said in a soft, creamy voice. ‘What a pity they don’t have any scent.’

What was she thinking about? Not the orchid, Ambrose decided, watching her. Whatever it was, that smile made him uneasy. It made no difference to him whether or not she liked her Rendell relatives—his decision had been based purely on financial grounds—but maybe he shouldn’t have given that account to her to manage. He hadn’t realised at the time that she had any connection with the Rendells; George himself had mentioned that to Ambrose some months back.

The heat in the greenhouse was beginning to make his shirt stick to his back and sweat was trickling down his neck.

‘We had better go back to the party,’ he said, making for the door into the house.

People started leaving once he reappeared. Ambrose stood by the front door, shaking hands with departing guests; when Sophie said goodnight he lightly kissed her cheek, and she gave him a tilted, cat-like smile.

‘Lovely party, Ambrose. You made us all feel so welcome—you’re good at that.’

He heard the sting under the sweetness; he smiled back at her without warmth.

‘Thank you. Goodnight, Sophie.’

Sholto had left much earlier; he had said goodnight without meeting his host’s eyes and rushed off, alone. Presumably the girl had gone home already, Ambrose had decided, but a few minutes later Emilie Madelin came along the panelled hall towards him, her hand threaded through someone’s arm in an intimate, confiding way.

Who was she with now? Ambrose glanced at the man quickly, and did a double-take, stiffening as he saw the grizzled hair, the lined face and pale blue eyes of George Rendell.

George Rendell? Why was the girl with him?

The old man smiled cheerfully at him. ‘A very enjoyable evening, Ambrose, as usual. Good of you to invite me. I’m sorry not to have had a chance to talk to you, but with so many people here it was hard to get anywhere near you! Anyway, we enjoyed ourselves, didn’t we, Emilie?’ He paused as Ambrose stared at the girl. ‘Of course, you weren’t around when we arrived. I haven’t had a chance to introduce her—this is my granddaughter, Emilie.’

Granddaughter. Ambrose turned his stare to Emilie Madelin’s gentle face, feeling a strange sickness inside his stomach. There’s something wrong with me, he thought. I’ve been feeling weird all evening. Have I picked up some bug? There was a viral infection going through the staff at the bank at the moment. Maybe that’s it, he thought irritably. I haven’t got time to be ill!

The girl gave him her grave smile, her blue eyes serious.

Automatically, Ambrose held out his hand. ‘I hope you enjoyed the party, Emilie.’

Her hand was small and cool; his swallowed it.

‘Very much, thank you, Mr Kerr,’ she said in that soft, grave voice. ‘You have a beautiful home.’

‘You must have dinner with us soon, Ambrose,’ George Rendell said.

Ambrose detached his stare from her face. He smiled at the old man. ‘I’d like that, thank you,’ he said, but his mind was in confusion. She was George Rendell’s granddaughter?

Why hadn’t he picked up on the name when she spelt it out for him? It was unusual enough, God knew.

He must have the name on file somewhere. He knew that her mother, Rendell’s only child, had married a Frenchman and gone to live in France, had had, in her turn, only one daughter, and had then died of cancer at a tragically early age.

The father had been a flamboyant journalist in Paris; he had remarried rather soon afterwards, his new wife had had other children, and this girl had been sent to a French boarding-school. Ambrose hadn’t realised that she was now living in England with her grandfather; he had assumed she still lived in France. Why hadn’t Gavin found that out? Or had he? But if he had, why wouldn’t he have mentioned the fact?

Ambrose knew all about her, on paper; he had even seen a photo of her, he suddenly realised, but it must have been taken some years ago. She had been a schoolgirl in a very neat green and gold uniform. Her large-brimmed hat had half hidden her face, but he had a feeling she had been rather plump and had worn her hair in two long braids tied with green ribbon and hanging right down to her waist.

She looked very different now.

‘We’re having a dinner party next Tuesday—just a few friends, you’ll know most of them, I expect. Short notice, I know. I don’t suppose you’re free, but if you are…’ George Rendell paused expectantly, smiling, clearly expecting a polite refusal.

‘I think I am,’ said Ambrose. He thought he had another dinner engagement, with visiting clients, but that was easy to rearrange; someone else could stand in for him.

But why am I accepting? he asked himself silently. This is crazy. Aloud, though, he said, ‘I’d be delighted to have dinner, George, thank you.’

‘Well, that’s wonderful. Look forward to seeing you then—I don’t think we’ve had you at the house before, have we? Should have thought of it a long time ago, but I haven’t entertained much in recent years. Gave all that up after my wife died; been a bit of a recluse, I suppose. All that’s changed since Emilie came to live with me.’ George looked down at his granddaughter, smiling. ‘She’s given me a new lease of life. I’ve started giving dinner parties again, filling the house with young people.’

Ambrose smiled back at him, faintly touched by the old man’s fond gaze at the girl.

He was very well-preserved for a man of seventy; upright, active, with a healthy colour in his face. Ambrose knew he went to work each weekday morning at eight, as he always had, and was at his desk until after six. He still had plenty of energy, obviously, but perhaps he no longer cared whether or not the mills were working at maximum efficiency? Perhaps all his attention now was given to this girl?

‘We have a town house in Chelsea,’ George Rendell said. ‘Your secretary will give you the address, I’m sure. You must have it on file. I know how efficient your office is! Off the Embankment, not far from Carlyle’s house. Easy to find…Shall we say seven-thirty?’

Ambrose nodded. ‘Seven-thirty.’

‘Goodnight, then.’

George shepherded the girl in front of him; she gave Ambrose a fleeting smile and he watched them disappear into the winter night, his face pale and his eyes grim.

I shouldn’t have accepted that invitation, he thought. This time next week that old man is going to hate my guts; the girl will too. I have no business eating their food, sitting at their table, when I am about to pull the roof down on top of them both.

An hour later Ambrose was in bed, the lights off, the room dark and quiet, the only noises the wind rattling the bare branches of trees in Regent’s Park, which he could see from his bedroom, and the unearthly sounds of animals in the zoo on the further side of the park. He normally went to sleep the minute his head hit the pillow. Tonight, though, sleep evaded him until the early hours of the morning. He couldn’t remember the last time his conscience had given him that much trouble.

CHAPTER TWO

EMILIE woke up early on Tuesday to a calm, quiet winter morning, the sun hidden behind cloud, a pale lavender light drifting over the walls of her bedroom.

She yawned, thought drowsily, Something special is happening today, and then she remembered. Ambrose Kerr was coming to dinner.

Somewhere there was a rapid noise, a drumming beat. For a second she couldn’t think what it was, then she realised that it was her heart, beating faster than the speed of light.

She jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom to have a shower. In the mirror on the wall she saw her reflection: over-bright eyes, flushed face, a pink, parted mouth breathing fast.

What’s the matter with you? she accused herself, then looked away, hurriedly pulled her nightie over her head, the movement tightening her slender body, making her breasts lift, their pink nipples harden and darken against the creamy flesh surrounding them. My breasts are too small! she thought, staring at them. I wish I had a better figure. I wish I had blonde hair—or jet-black? Anything but brown. I wish my hair was naturally curly, too, instead of straight. And oh! I wish I had bigger breasts…

She stepped under the warm jets of water, closing her eyes, and began washing, smoothly lathering her body. Her truant mind kept conjuring up disturbing images. How would it feel to have a man touching her like this? Male hands stroking her shoulders, her throat, her breasts. No, not just any man…Ambrose Kerr. Ever since Saturday night she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. Her nipples ached, her mouth was dry.

Are you crazy? she asked herself, even pinker now, and breathing twice as fast. He’s almost twice your age, sophisticated, very experienced…he wouldn’t even look at you!

‘How old is he?’ she had asked her grandfather as they drove back from Ambrose’s home on Saturday, and Grandpa had shrugged indifferently.

‘Must be getting on for forty now, I suppose.’

She had realised he must be much older than she was, but…forty? She had sighed. Her father wasn’t much older than that!

‘Late thirties, anyway,’ Grandpa had said, and that sounded much better. Her spirits had lifted.

She had let a minute pass before asking, in what she hoped was an idle, offhand way, ‘Has he got children? I suppose there is a Mrs Kerr?’

‘I’ve never heard of one. Plenty of women in his life, though, if you believe the gossips. Sophie was one of them, I gather.’

Emilie had felt a stab of shock. ‘Sophie?’

Sophie? Sophie and him? she had thought, shaken and dismayed. She had had no idea. Sophie had never said a word to her about him, but then Sophie never said much about her private life to Emilie.

‘They were seen around together for a few months,’ George Rendell had said. ‘Then it fizzled out, and I would put money on it that it wasn’t Sophie who backed off.’

Emilie had stared out of the window, biting her lip. ‘Do you think she’s in love with him?’

Grandpa’s voice had been dry. ‘I think she fancied being Mrs Kerr.’ He could be quite cynical at times, and Emilie had frowned. Grandpa had continued, ‘Sophie takes after her mother, my cousin Rosa. They use their heads, not their hearts, those two women. So sharp they could cut themselves, both of them.’

‘I like them both,’ Emilie had said quietly, and her grandfather had given her a very different look, his face softening. She’d smiled at him and said, ‘Sophie and her mother have been very kind to me.’

She would always be grateful to them for their friendliness when she had first arrived in England.

Her father’s family had never been very interested in her and, now that he had sons, neither was her father. A hardbitten journalist, he had never spent much time at home even before her mother died. He had remarried shockingly soon after that.

Emilie suspected that he had been having an affair with Marie-Claude while her mother was alive. Had her mother known about it? She flinched at the thought.

Maman had never said a word to her, if she had known—but when she hadn’t known you were looking, the sadness in her face could have wrung your heart. Her mother had had so much to bear: a long, painful illness, which she knew would end in death, made harder by loneliness because her husband was never at home. Emilie hated to think that she might have been hiding the anguish of knowing that her husband was betraying her too.

Maman had wanted to send Emilie away to England in those last months, when she could no longer hide what was happening to her, but Emilie had clung to her, refusing to leave. They had been close; in those last two years even closer than mother and daughter usually were, just because they had both known their time together was going to be short. Emilie still missed her.

Her father’s remarriage had been a shock of a different sort. Marie-Claude had worked on his newspaper; they had known each other for years, Emilie realised. Marie-Claude was in her early thirties, very French, sophisticated, elegant in that French way, understated and witty. Marie-Claude’s clothes reflected Marie-Claude’s mind. It would have been easier if she had been openly hostile—but Marie-Claude was far too clever for that.

She was very polite and gracious whenever she saw Emilie. She bought her new clothes, she suggested a change of hairstyle—as if they were going to be friends. But there was no warmth in her. As soon as she was pregnant with her first child she sent Emilie off to boarding-school. Her visits to her father’s new home were always brief; after a week or so she would be sent off on some activity holiday—skiing in winter, horseriding in summer. After leaving school she was despatched to a residential college in England, to take business studies. When she completed her two-year course Emilie began working for her grandfather at the paper-mill in Kent. She knew she would never live with her father again.

She had accepted it, yet there was always a sadness at the back of her mind. She tried to bury it by concentrating on her new life, on her grandfather and her job.

Emilie was learning the business by moving around the departments; she had spent some months on the most important process—production—moved on to a brief spell in packing and despatch, and was now working in sales.

She was at a very low level, of course. All she did was sit at a desk doing paperwork. Her grandfather didn’t employ any women on the actual sales team; he didn’t think it was a woman’s job, travelling the roads across the country alone by car, staying at cheap hotels. He certainly wasn’t prepared to let Emilie do it. She had to learn all about sales from processing orders as they came in from the salesmen and answering the phone, coping with enquiries.

She enjoyed dealing with people, she liked the other girls she worked with, and she was beginning to be very interested in their product, in the history of the paper-mill, in her mother’s family. After a rather lonely period of her life she felt she had come home, she belonged here, and Sophie Grant and her mother were family too, as well as being the first people she had got to know here, except her grandfather. She would never want to hurt either of them, especially Sophie.

She frowned. Why was Grandpa so cynical about Aunt Rosa and Sophie? They seemed so fond of him.

Emilie hadn’t seen Sophie since Saturday, since that party, in fact. When she did, she could hardly ask her if she was in love with Ambrose!

I’d better not mention him, in fact, she thought, getting dressed. It would be tactless to say much to Sophie about him. She might have been badly hurt when they broke up.

Why had they broken up, anyway? Had Ambrose ever been in love with Sophie?

She stopped brushing her hair, bit her lip, then glared at herself in the mirror. What’s it got to do with you what happened? Stop thinking about him—he’s twice your age, he probably has another woman now, a man like him isn’t going to be alone for long—I bet he’s forgotten he ever met you!

She ran downstairs to breakfast at a quarter to eight, and found her grandfather already at the table, in his faintly old-fashioned dark suit, with a stiff red-striped white shirt and maroon silk tie, eating toast and marmalade and drinking coffee, his normal weekday breakfast.

He looked up and smiled, his eyes approving of her crisp cream cotton blouse and dark grey pleated skirt, of the way her sleek brown hair swirled around her face, the brightness of her eyes and smile.

George Rendell had lived alone for years; loneliness had been engrained in his mind, had got under his skin. He had almost forgotten how it felt to live with someone else, to have someone running up and down the stairs, talking on the phone, watching television. He had forgotten what it was like to look across the breakfast-table each morning and see another face, meet a warm smile.

Emilie had changed his life. He had wondered at first if it would work for her to live with him, if he would be irritated and bored having a young girl around all day, but within a week it was as if she had always been there.

More than that, he felt a strange new happiness welling up inside him. He wasn’t the type to show his feelings, but the sun came out whenever he saw her come into a room. She called out all his protective instincts—she was young and small and helpless, and George would have killed anyone who hurt her.

Emilie kissed him on the top of his head. ‘Isn’t it a nice day?’

He looked at the window, saw the leafless trees in his garden, the chilly sky. Almost Christmas—he hated winter more each year. ‘At least it isn’t raining.’ He watched her slide bread into the toaster, pour herself orange juice and coffee and sit down to eat opposite him.

‘Everything OK for tonight?’ he asked, and she nodded, spreading thick, chunky marmalade on her toast.

‘We’re having broccoli soup—at this time of year a hot soup is a good starter—then poached salmon in hollandaise sauce, which is light and simple, followed by a sweet omelette…I thought I’d fill it with hot purée of fruit, probably redcurrants or raspberries.’

She had learnt to cook from her mother, first, and one of the activity holidays forced upon her by her stepmother had been a summer at a cordon bleu cooking school on the Loire. Her grandfather had been astonished and delighted by this unexpected skill; he was used to eating dull food plainly cooked by his housekeepers, and he had eagerly begun giving dinner parties to show off Emilie’s talent.

‘Sounds delicious, mouth-watering,’ he said fondly. ‘Is Mary coming in to help you?’

‘Oh, that’s all arranged—there’s no problem, Grandpa, don’t worry. I’ll make the soup in advance. The salmon is easy, it will only take me a quarter of an hour to cook it and make the sauce. The omelettes will take longer, but they aren’t difficult. I shall cook them at the table on a spirit-stove—people always enjoy watching!’

‘Watching other people work is always fun,’ George grunted, smiling. He loved to watch her do anything; she endlessly fascinated him. ‘I’ve never heard of omelettes filled with fruit.’

‘It’s really easy. I’ll have prepared the fruit beforehand, it will be reheated in the microwave and brought to the table in a jug, so that I can pour it into the omelette just before I fold and serve it.’

‘You’re a marvel!’ George Rendell said, and Emilie gave him a glowing look. Knowing he loved her made her feel she could do anything.

They drove to work at the paper-mill in Kent together, and that evening they drove home again, leaving on the dot of five o’clock. Her grandfather no longer worked the long hours he once had, she gathered. He had been a workaholic; now he preferred to be home with her.

It took them an hour to reach the house in Chelsea, and Emilie went straight into the kitchen. Their guests were not due for an hour and a half, which gave her just enough time to prepare most of the food before she went upstairs to dress for dinner.

The woman who came in every day to clean the house always helped with dinner parties. Emilie had left her instructions and Mary had already done some of the work—the vegetables were all prepared, the table laid, the ingredients ready.