Outsider (6 page)

were a pretty staid lot.

'Can you show me, then?' asked Sharon. 'I'd like to get unpacked, before

everything creases.'

'Yes, of course. But wouldn't you prefer to wait for Mr—er—Lang?'

'It doesn't matter.' The girl shrugged shapely shoulders, grimacing slightly.

'He's probably forgotten all about me,' she confided without rancour. 'I

wasn't supposed to be coming with him today, but I was free, so I thought I

might as well, and save on the train fare later. I suppose I'm a bit of a

surprise.'

You can say that again, Natalie muttered under her breath. Aloud she said,

'Have you just the one case? Then you go up here.'

Making no attempt to conceal her reluctance, she led the way up to the flat. It

was like stepping into a different world from the one she remembered.

The big sitting-room was russet now, and the woodblock floor had been

sanded and polished. There were no easy chairs as far as she could see, but

two large sofas, deeply cushioned in cream hide. She noticed an antique

writing desk, and a tall cabinet, beautifully inlaid, before she turned towards

the bedroom.

The walls here were gold now, a warm shimmering colour that seemed to fill

the room with sunlight, even though it was overcast outside. There was gold

embroidery too on the predominantly cream quilted bedspread which had

been flung over the wide bed. That, and the fact there were curtains hanging

at the windows, revealed that Beattie hadn't been able to restrain her

curiosity.

Natalie said, 'This is where you'll—sleep.' She despised herself for

stumbling slightly over the word.

Sharon looked as if she'd been sandbagged as she gazed round her. She said

slowly, 'Bloody hell.'

Perhaps their relationship had been confined to the impersonality of hotel

rooms up to now, Natalie thought. Sharon was clearly shaken to see the kind

of style Eliot enjoyed at home. She was rather taken aback herself.

She said, 'Well, make yourself at home. The kitchen's just down the hall.'

She hesitated. 'I'm sorry you've been forgotten. If I see—Mr Lang, I'll jog his

memory.'

'Oh, don't worry about it.' Sharon still sounded dazed. 'The horses come first

with him, I know that.'

She didn't sound as if she minded either, Natalie thought, as she went back

downstairs and emerged into the air. She stood for a moment drawing deep

gulps of it into her lungs. She felt curiously at cross purposes with herself,

and told herself it was seeing the home she had created with Tony so totally

changed.

If Eliot was up at the house, she would go back to the office, she decided

rather feverishly.

She turned the handle and walked in, stopping dead, as Eliot got up from the

edge of her desk where he'd been sitting, and walked towards her.

'So there you are,' he observed. 'I thought perhaps you'd gone to lunch.'

'No.' Natalie lifted her chin. 'As a matter of fact, I've been seeing

your—friend safely bestowed.'

'Oh." He looked faintly surprised. 'Well, that was good of you. Has she

settled in all right?'

'I'd have thought that was your concern rather than mine,' Natalie said

shortly. 'Why don't you go and see? The bed's made up and waiting for you.'

She saw the dark brows snap together ominously, and clapped a hand over

her mouth. 'Oh God, I'm sorry! Pretend I never said that. It's none of my

business anyway what you do.'

'I'll second that,' he said coldly. 'Perhaps you'd be good enough to tell me

what the hell you're talking about.'

'Sharon.' Natalie picked up a sheaf of papers and looked at them as if they

were important. 'I—found her hanging round waiting for you, so I took her

up to the flat. She—er—she goes very well with the decor,' she added

desperately into an increasingly icy silence.

Eliot said, 'You took her up—to my
flat
? In God's name, why?' He closed his

eyes for a moment. 'No, don't tell me. Let me guess. She's female, under

fifty, no hump, no squint, therefore I must be having an affair with her. Is

that how it reads?'

She felt herself beginning, hatefully, to blush, and turned away. 'As I said,

it's really none of my business. This is the nineteen-eighties, after all...'

'Oh, but Sharon's very much your business,' he said, with a kind of awful

calm. 'That's why I was looking for you—to give you these.' He handed her

an envelope. He' said savagely, 'Sharon's insurance card, Mrs Drummond.

Her P45, and her references. Beddable though she undoubtedly is, I draw the

line about sleeping with employees.' His voice lengthened into a sarcastic

drawl. 'Sharon's a stable lad, Mrs Drummond, and a bloody good one. She

was with a trainer I rode for regularly near Newbury. The horses she looked

after there, however, are coming here next week, so I offered her the chance

to come with them. I made her no other kind of offer, although heaven only

knows what she's thinking now.' He took the envelope from Natalie's

nerveless fingers and tossed it on to her desk. 'And now I suggest you get her

out of my bedroom, offering whatever explanation seems good to you, and

over to the blockhouse, where she belongs. And later, you and I will have a

little talk.'

Natalie pressed her hands to her burning face. 'I'm sorry—I'm so
sorry.
It

was just—she was there, and Andrew said you'd brought this blonde to

Harrogate...' She broke off, staring at him imploringly.

'Then Andrew wants to be a damned sight more discreet,' said Eliot shortly.

'Now on you way, and let's see if you're as good at repairing damage as you

are at causing it.'

In the end, it was easier than she could have hoped. Sharon good-naturedly

accepted her stumbling excuses about 'a mistake' and was willingly

shepherded to her rightful habitat.

'I knew it was too good to be true,' she said, as she put her case down on the

narrow single bed with its colourful patchwork cover.

'I expect you're hungry.' Natalie prepared to make a hasty departure before

Sharon asked any awkward questions about her original accommodation.

'There's plenty of stuff in the big freezer in the kitchen which you can just

heat up in the microwave.'

'I'll find my way about. Don't worry about me,' Sharon assured her, as she

unfastened her case and began to take out her things.

I'm not worried about you, thought Natalie as she made her way belatedly to

the house for lunch. I'm wondering what Grantham is going to say when he

hears he's had a girl lad foisted on him!'

But the expected eruption was not forthcoming.

'It's not what I like, or what I'm used to,' Grantham admitted when she

tackled him. 'But these horses coming next week can be awkward beggars

by all accounts, and Eliot tells me she handles them like an angel, so I'm

prepared to give her a fair trial.'

A fair trial, Natalie thought wretchedly. A fair trial for her, but never for me.

Beattie said, 'I suggested to Eliot that he lunched with us today, but I think he

wants to get the feel of his new home.' She smiled. 'I made his bed up for a

welcome.' She gave Natalie a wicked wink. 'It's a very big bed—for a

bachelor!'

Natalie was on the point of saying she'd seen it, but realised the admission

would involve her in explanations she didn't feel equal to giving.

She said shortly, 'Perhaps he kicks like his damned horses,' and turned the

conversation to the forthcoming Women's Institute handicrafts exhibition in

which Beat- tie was heavily involved as a committee member.

But there was no way she could avoid the promised interview with Eliot

later that afternoon. It was unpleasant but mercifully brief. She was told

curtly to consult him before leaping to any more wild conclusions, and'

dismissed as if she'd been a naughty child.

So much for her resolution to avoid rocking the boat during her remaining

time at Wintersgarth, Natalie thought, as she sank limply into her chair.

Perhaps, this time, she had learned her lesson.

The two new horses arrived the following week, and were installed in their

boxes by a frankly ecstatic Sharon. Their names were Thunderbird and

Cupbearer, and they were the property, she told Natalie, of Oriel Prince.

'The actress?' Natalie was intrigued in spite of herself.

There couldn't be two of her,' said Sharon with a certain amount of feeling.

'Old bitch. Well, she's not old,' she amended conscientiously. 'And she's in

America just now, thank God, or she'd be up here like a rat up a drainpipe.

Fancies Eliot something rotten, she does.' She giggled. 'They were supposed

to have something going a while back. She used to come down while he was

schooling the horses, and it was "Darling this" and "Darling that" and her

hands all over him. Then she took up with some wealthy Arab.'

Natalie recalled in time that listening to gossip from Sharon was hardly a

dignified occupation. She said, 'I don't care if she takes up with the entire

United Arab Emirates as long as she pays her training bills,' and went back

to the office.

Eliot's arrival in the locality had been enough of a sensation, she thought

with a wry grin. If predatory ac-tresses started descending too, the

neighbours might never recover!

Already the invitations to cocktails and dinners had started to pour in,

particularly from families with unmarried daughters, although she had to

admit he was being selective about those he accepted.

'I can do without the social whirl,' he'd told Grantham, although he accepted,

as her father did, that a certain amount of socialising was inevitable for the

sake of public relations.

But if Natalie had expected him to spend every evening seeking out

whatever entertainment was available locally, she was wrong. Apart from

one foray to the village pub, where he'd played darts with the lads, he had

seemed content to stay at home, getting the flat the way he wanted it, and

playing music.

Beattie had been given the freedom of his hi-fi and record collection, and

had come back starry-eyed. They had similar tastes, it appeared, and were

already talking of joining forces to attend the forthcoming concert season in

Leeds.

'Which will let you nicely off the hook, my darling,' said Beattie, dropping a

kiss on her husband's head.

Natalie had hoped that Beattie's talk of a housewarming dinner at the flat had

been imagination, but she was wrong.

'I'm going to have a rest tomorrow night,' her stepmother announced as she

dished up the roast, with accompanying Yorkshire pudding, which

invariably put Grantham into a good mood. 'We're dining with Eliot.'

'All of us?' Natalie took only one potato, feeling her appetite deserting her.

'Yes, of course,' said Beattie briskly. 'Why, did you have other plans?'

'Why, yes.' Natalie improvised swiftly. 'I thought I'd go into Harrogate to the

cinema—the new Meryl Streep is on.'

'And will be for the rest of the week.' Grantham unfolded his napkin. 'If

Eliot's making the effort to cook us a meal, lass, you can make the effort to

eat it. It's time you two saw each other outside those office walls, anyway.'

He encountered a look from his daughter and said hastily, 'Now I'm not

asking you to marry him—just accept his hospitality, and be pleasant about

it. That isn't too much to ask.'

Natalie cut up her food and pushed it round her plate in a pretence of eating.

The office was safe, neutral territory. Meeting Eliot on his own ground,

watching him play host in what had once been her home, was a frankly

disturbing prospect. But one it seemed she could not avoid.

'Oh, are you wearing that dress?' said Beattie disappointedly when Natalie

came downstairs the following evening.

Natalie glanced down at herself. 'What's wrong with it? It's a little basic

black, the ideal thing for informal dinner parties—the saleswoman told me

so herself.'

'Yes, but how many years ago?' Beattie asked gloomily. 'Darling, it's really

time you went through your wardrobe, and treated yourself to some new

things. You're so slim and your hair's gorgeous—you could wear some

really exciting things.'

'If I had anything exciting to wear them for,' Natalie said drily. 'When I do,

I'll consider it.'

She'd deliberately chosen the black dress because it was on the drab side.

She wanted Eliot Lang to see that her evening self was just an extension of

her subdued office persona. Then perhaps she'd be spared any future

invitations.

All the same, she felt absurdly self-conscious as she followed Grantham and

Beattie into the russet living- room. There was an autumnal nip in the air,

and Eliot had kindled a log fire in the hearth. She loved the scent of

woodsmoke. Tony had never cared for open fires, complaining they were