Separate Rooms. Diana Hamilton
darling. I thought you were supposed to be an early riser.’
Levering herself up against the satin-covered pillows, Honey grumbled, ‘Weekdays I am. Sundays I ain’t,’ but her grumble was forgiving because she was always wide awake by eight on the one day a week she took off from business, even though she’d promised herself the luxury of a long lie-in. Maybe her dreams had made her restless, for some unknown reason...
‘So where did you and Ben get to last night?’ Sonia wanted to know. ‘Graham was furious when he found out you’d sloped away—I thought I ought to warn you. Mind you,’ she continued at her normal breakneck speed, ‘I don’t blame you. If I were a single woman I’d take off with Ben Claremont, no question. He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?’
Was he? Honey’s thoughts strayed, looking back. Yes, she had to admit his looks were fantastic. Not as conventionally good-looking as Graham—but then who would be? she thought sourly—but he had masses more presence, and there was something significantly compelling about those assertive features, those brilliant blue eyes with the thick fringing black, black lashes...
‘And he doesn’t only excel in the looks department, either,’ Sonia was still gushing away. ‘According to Colin, he has a brilliant mind and, of course, he’s fabulously wealthy. I envy the woman who eventually ties him down—’
‘He’s not married?’ Honey got a word in sideways then wondered why she’d bothered. Ben Claremont’s marital status was no concern of hers.
‘No, and hands off! He’s my house guest, not yours!’ Sonia giggled. ‘I wonder if I could persuade Colin to take one of his precious fishing holidays? In Scotland. Or at the North Pole! No, but seriously—I just felt I had to warn you. Ben came back to the party and told me you’d gone home. You’d had a busy day and were developing a headache.’ Tactful, at least, Honey thought, glancing at her watch to discover the fingers marching towards ten o’clock. ‘And when I relayed the message to Graham he was absolutely furious! You’re going to have to come up with a good excuse for disappearing with Ben and making your apologies through him and not through Graham.’
‘Graham doesn’t own me,’ Honey pointed out sharply, not bothering to add that neither would he. It was a waste of breath. Graham made a point of acting as if she were his property. Which didn’t do her love-life much good—always assuming she had the time or inclination to get involved with anyone. She added quickly, before Sonia could dispute that statement, ‘Thanks for phoning but I must dash. If I’m late for Sunday lunch Mother will skin me alive.’
Late or early, Avril Ballantyne would give her a hard time today. Pointing out her foolishness—not to mention selfishness—in refusing to even consider accepting Graham’s persistent proposals, Honey thought despondently as she dressed in a softly gathered cream cashmere skirt, tan leather boots and a Cossack-style tawny over blouse, neatly belted around her small waist.
The minimum of make-up—just a smear of moisturiser and a slick of copper-toned lipstick—and she was ready. Leaving her hair loose—’all over the place’, her mother would call it—she hitched the narrow strap of her leather bag over her shoulder and made for the stairs. She had given up on trying to please her parent long ago because nothing she did ever seemed to be right. Her father, God bless him, had been just the opposite. She had been his ‘Princess’ and his death, when she was fifteen, had been the severest, most traumatic blow she had ever had to suffer. Even now, eleven years on, she still missed him.
The phone began to ring as she was halfway down the stairs and she hurried on down, making for the instrument at the rear of the shop. And if it was Graham, itching to vent his annoyance over what had happened last night she would tell him that she never wanted to set eyes on him again, in any conceivable circumstance, and that she would do as she damned well pleased with the BallanTrent shares her father had left her, sell them to whoever offered to buy if she felt like it! And fell over a gatelegged table in her hurry, scattering her display of Victorian pincushions, which gave her rising temper a rapid push upwards, made her voice growly as she snatched up the receiver and fulminated, ‘Well? What is it?’ to whoever.
‘My, my! Did you fall out of the wrong side of the bed, Honey?’
It was quite amazing how that smooth, drawly voice could soothe her. It was like pouring cool ointment on a sore place, she thought as her mouth twitched upwards towards a smile.
‘No. Over a table.’
‘No harm done?’ He sounded as if he cared. Her smile deepened.
‘Only to my dignity. What can I do for you?’
Too late, she regretted the loaded question then released the breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding when he didn’t take the question as an innuendo and told her, ‘It’s about the problem you have, the one we were discussing last night. Sonia filled me in on it over breakfast this morning. She seemed to be under the impression that the pressure put on you by various people was too intense to be resisted forever, that you’d end up marrying Trent for the sake of a quiet life. And before you jump down my throat and tell me—probably with justification—to mind my own business, let me tell you that I’ve come up with a perfect solution to the problem.’
‘You have?’ Her smile deepened. There was no solution that she could think of, except for sticking it out and refusing to do a single thing she didn’t want to do. But she was perfectly willing to listen to what he had to say, even if it meant she was late. She had enjoyed his company last night, the way he’d listened as she’d let off steam, his comments both sensible and objective. It had been years since she’d talked problems over with anyone who hadn’t had some kind of personal axe to grind, a biased viewpoint. Not since her father had been alive. He had always encouraged her to bring her worries to him, to talk them out, showing her how to solve her problems logically, his loving kindness never failing to ease them out of the way, put them in their proper perspective.
‘But of course,’ the dark, velvety voice was assuring her now. ‘I’ll give you dinner tonight and put the solution to you.’
‘That’s not possible,’ Honey said with a regret that surprised her, considering she hardly knew the man and, in any case, knew his ‘solution’, whatever it was, would not be worth a row of beans. ‘I always spend Sunday with Mother.’ If she didn’t there would be hell to pay: constant phone calls complaining about loneliness, vague and unconfirmed illnesses—palpitations were the ‘in’ thing at the moment. ‘Can’t you tell me now? Or is it a state secret?’ she found herself teasing. Most unlike her.
‘Over the phone?’ His voice was a curl of amusement and she supposed he had a point. Sonia probably had her ear glued to a crack in the door at this very moment, straining to hear every word he was saying in case he let slip something gossip-worthy. ‘I’ll pick you up at seven this evening.’
Somehow, the arrogance of that statement didn’t annoy her as much as, on reflection, she felt it should and she merely reminded him, ‘You don’t know where I live.’
‘I’ll find out. And don’t stand me up,’ he warned lightly. ‘Or you’ll be missing out on an offer I might not be inclined to repeat.’
CHAPTER TWO
OFFER? What offer? What had he meant?
‘Sorry?’ Honey had to drag her mind away from that strange conversation with Ben and forcibly concentrate on what her mother was saying. For the second time, obviously.
‘I was asking you, if you can be bothered to show an interest, whether you thought I’d enjoy a Mediterranean cruise more than my usual quiet three weeks in Bournemouth this year.’ Said with barbed patience.
Avril Ballantyne, a well preserved fifty, her expensively tinted pale brown hair worn in the style favoured by the older members of the royal family, clad in a well pedigreed lightweight tweed skirt topped by an oyster silk shirt, looked completely at home in her conventionally furnished luxury bungalow on the outskirts of