A Perfect Proposal (17 page)

As the door remained shut, she went and opened it. It was Luke, carrying her shoes. ‘You left these behind.’

‘Oh, so I did.’ Instinctively she clutched at the neck of the robe although she’d shown much more flesh when she’d
been fully dressed. She held out her other hand for the shoes.

‘Do you always kick your shoes off before you run?’ he asked, holding on to them.

‘They’re too big for me,’ she explained. ‘And I didn’t run. I’d sort of lost them under the table.’ She frowned a little. ‘Why don’t you come in?’

She felt embarrassed about entertaining Luke when she was only wearing a silk dressing gown but she didn’t want to have the conversation she felt they needed to have with the door half open.

Luke stepped inside. ‘Why did you rush off?’ His curious-coloured eyes bored into her in interrogating-hostile-witnesses mode, she decided. Or possibly it was to avoid looking at her body, outlined by the gown, which adequately concealed her flesh but did nothing to disguise her shape.

‘The man sitting next to me put his hand on my leg.’

Luke was appalled. ‘That’s outrageous! I’ll go and speak to him now! He can’t behave like that to my grandmother’s guests!’

‘He can’t behave like that to anyone but now’s not the time. It’s late.’

‘Not that late. You and Matilda have both retired early.’

Sophie chuckled. ‘I haven’t quite adjusted to the time difference. But he’s old. I really don’t want to make a big fuss about it. It would be so embarrassing for Matilda.’

He considered for several worrying seconds before tacitly agreeing to let the matter rest.

She held her hand out for her shoes. He didn’t give them to her.

‘Why do you buy shoes that are too big for you? Don’t you try them on in the shop?’

Remembering that he’d had to bring her shoes back to her at the private view too she felt she’d better explain. ‘Well, that first pair were Milly’s; I’d borrowed them. They had
terribly high heels. And those’ – she gave them a longing look where they still dangled in his hand – ‘those I bought because they were so lovely. Look at them! Scarlet heels! How could I not buy them?’

‘Because they don’t fit? Didn’t they have them in your size?’

She considered for a tiny second before confronting Luke with the truth. ‘Not at a thrift store, no. They don’t have different sizes.’

‘But they’re huge!’ He wasn’t discomforted by the thrift-store reference.

Sophie nodded. ‘I know. But so heavenly.’ As he seemed to have loosened his grasp on them she gently removed them.

‘Sophie,’ he said.

‘Mm?’

‘I’ve a favour to ask you.’

‘Really?’

‘There’s going to be a brunch. A big brunch, on Saturday. We’ll all be going. I want you there as my date.’

‘Do you? Why?’ She was astounded. ‘There must be girls queuing up for the privilege of being your date at a brunch.’ She frowned slightly. ‘Although I’ve never been to a brunch. They don’t really have them in England, unless you count having a late breakfast and not bothering with lunch. At least not in the circles I mix in.’

‘Sophie!’ He sounded impatient. ‘I know I have girls queuing up to be my date at a brunch! Being very wealthy—’

‘And quite cute –looking …’

He smiled briefly as if to concede how arrogant he sounded. ‘Whatever. It makes me eligible. Too eligible. And round here, on my home turf, so to speak, any girl I took to—’

‘A brunch!’ Sophie couldn’t take it seriously.

He ploughed on. ‘—would be assumed to be my chosen
one. It would make us practically engaged. I don’t know if you know, but I’m divorced and for some reason any girl I go anywhere with is considered to be the replacement wife. It puts any new friendship I may have under huge pressure.’ He paused, considering how to continue with this sensitive subject.

Sophie decided to help him out. The overheard conversation in the bar made it all very clear to her. ‘But if you took a thrift-store girl from England to the brunch, no one would think there was anything in it?’

Rueful agreement made Luke smile. ‘I would never have put it like that,’ he said.

‘No, but being American, you don’t have the British way with words. It’s what you meant.’

‘No it isn’t!’ He walked across to the window bay where there was a small sofa, an armchair and a desk. He sat on the chair. Sophie followed him over and perched on the sofa, making sure her knees didn’t escape from the robe.

‘You’re a very lovely girl. No one will be at all surprised to see you on my arm. But no one would expect me to marry out of my family’s circle of friends, not when there’s so much money and so many lovely girls to choose from.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said Sophie, to encourage him. Wickedly, she was enjoying seeing him struggle to say what he felt without being rude.

‘So would you very kindly come with me? If I go with Bobbie, for example, the local gossip magazine will have us honeymooning in Mauritius in seconds flat.’

‘I’m sure if you discussed it with her Bobbie would agree to honeymoon somewhere you’d like better. Kayaking in New Zealand or something.’

Luke’s exasperation was beginning to show. ‘I’m sure she would but that’s not the point! I don’t want to marry Bobbie, and I don’t want to take her to the brunch.’

‘She’s going anyway.’

‘Exactly. So I can’t take her, can I?’

‘I don’t see why not.’

Luke frowned. There was something rather sexy about men being stern, Sophie acknowledged. ‘I said, I don’t want to.’

‘Then go alone, you’re a big boy now.’

Luke took a breath, obviously wondering how best to get his point across having failed so miserably up to now. ‘If I go alone every single woman in the place will either be thrust at me by their mothers, or hit on me in packs.’

She raised an eyebrow in mock-scepticism. She knew what he said was true, going on what those girls in the club had said, but she didn’t think he should say those things unchallenged. It was very bad for his inflated ego. ‘Really?’

He sighed, not yet aware she was teasing. ‘It’s not because I’m “cute”’ – his eyes flickered, acknowledging that he remembered her saying that he was – ‘or a good lawyer, but because I come from an old family and they couldn’t bear to see all that money go out of the group.’

‘I see. It’s a clan thing.’

‘That’s it. Keep the wealth in the circle; that way we all just get richer and richer.’

‘So you want me for protection, so I can beat off the single women for you.’

‘No—’ Then he stopped. ‘Sophie, you’re maddening sometimes.’

‘Luke, I thought you considered me maddening all the time.’

The corner of his mouth lifted. ‘I do, but I still want you to come to the brunch with me.’

She shook her head. ‘I hate to be unhelpful, but I’m afraid I can’t.’

‘Why on earth not? You’re not going until Monday morning – this brunch is on Saturday.’

She considered just refusing to go but then she thought she owed him the truth. ‘I will be here but I can’t go.’ She got up. ‘Come with me.’ He followed her across the room to an antique wardrobe. It would presumably have struggled to accommodate half Bobbie’s collection of summer skirts but to Sophie, it was huge. She opened the door. ‘There. There is the sum total of my clothes. When I came here, I didn’t plan for brunch. I’m awfully sorry.’

Luke regarded Sophie’s clothes, huddled up into one end of the wardrobe. They took up three hangers. Her boots, underneath the hangers, had flopped over and suddenly seemed very tatty. He didn’t immediately say, ‘Why can’t you wear that? Or that?’ He just looked at her clothes and then back to her. He thought for a moment before clearing his throat.

‘Sophie, I’m going to say something you’re bound to find offensive. It is not intended to sound offensive or be offensive, or, in fact, be anything apart from a way to make it possible for you to help me out.’

‘What?’ Sophie frowned.

‘I want you to come shopping with me and buy an outfit for brunch. If you do this for me, I’ll expedite the search for your relative.’

‘But, Luke! I thought you hated spongers. I thought that was why you didn’t want Matilda to be friends with me, in case I tried to get something from her!’

‘I know, but that’s my grandmother, this is me. I can afford it.’

‘In spite of your very expensive divorce?’

‘Yes. Please. Do this for me.’

Sophie fought with Holly Golightly. Holly won. Holly would not have objected to having an outfit bought for her
by a very rich young man so she could do him a favour.

She smiled. ‘OK. Can I send it back if I don’t spill brunch on it?’

He smiled back. ‘You’re almost bound to spill brunch on it, Sophie.’

Sophie went to bed thinking very hard about Luke. He really wasn’t quite the same as she’d thought him. He was preppy; he was quite stuck up and impossibly rich; he was arrogant, and possibly a bit pleased with himself; but he had a sense of humour, and he could be kind. And he did have really interestingly coloured eyes …

Consuelo brought Sophie breakfast in her room at seven. Had Sophie been asleep she wouldn’t have heard her don’t-want-to-wake-you knock, but she’d been reading for a while, luxuriating in the most delicious sheets she had ever slept in, hoping she wouldn’t mind going back to the ordinary kind.

‘You didn’t need to bring me breakfast in bed!’ she said, having opened the door. ‘I would have got up. I just didn’t know what time.’

‘It’s fine, honey. Mrs Matilda thought you might appreciate breakfast in bed. She wants you to be thoroughly spoiled.’ She put down the tray on the bedside table so Sophie could smooth the bedcovers ready for it. ‘Luke has gone for a run as usual and it’s not late but we figured you might be awake now.’

‘You’re psychic. I’m starving.’

‘Well, I hope I got your choices right. You have scrambled eggs, bacon, mushroom, croissants, orange juice, coffee and boiling water and a tea bag.’ She paused as she adjusted the tray. ‘Oh, and some toast. You English like it cold, right?’

‘I like it anyhow, thank you so much!’ Sophie sighed with happiness as she looked at the food. ‘It all looks delicious!’

‘Well, eat it up while it’s hot. I’ll take you to see Mrs Matilda in about an hour and a half. Is that enough time?’

Sophie nodded, retrieving a knife and fork from the napkin.

‘You want cereal?’ asked Consuelo, spotting a gap in the breakfast menu.

Sophie was eating a strip of the crispest, most delicious bacon she had ever tasted. She shook her head. ‘I’ll struggle to eat all this.’

Consuelo shook her head, smiling, and left the room. Sophie, alone with her breakfast, tucked in. As she ate her eggs and bacon and nibbled croissant and toast she contemplated what the day might bring. Could she really go to a brunch with Luke as his date? Well possibly, if Matilda was in favour, but could she let him buy her clothes? Surely not.

She tried to see it from his point of view. He needed her for a task. If she didn’t have the right clothes she couldn’t perform the task. He could easily afford to buy her the clothes; there really was no moral reason why she shouldn’t accept. But it was the Holly Golightly thing – having clothes bought for her made her feel just a little bit like a kept woman. In the cold light of day, she couldn’t do it.

‘Was everything all right for you, darling?’ asked Matilda when Sophie joined her in her room later.

‘It was perfect! And luxurious, breakfast in my room!’

‘We thought you might be hungry. You didn’t eat very much last night.

‘I thought—’

‘Anyway, enough about that. Luke tells me he’s taking you shopping?’

Sophie shook her head. ‘I can’t go. It makes me feel cheap. I’m having this lovely holiday with you, I can’t accept clothes from Luke. It’s just not right!’

‘If Luke wanted you to go skiing with him, for his own reasons, and you didn’t have the right clothes, would you let him buy you ski clothes?’

‘It’s not the same!’

‘It is from his point of view. You need the tools for the job. Let him buy you them.’