Elusive As The Unicorn

Ashton House had become a haven for Eve and her young cousin, and Evelyn Ashton a source of never-ending love. It hadn’t been until Eve was in her teens that she had realised her only two children’s lives wasn’t the only price her grandmother had paid all those years ago; because of some unsound investments on the family’s behalf by her only son, investments he hadn’t had time to correct before his untimely death, everything but the family home had been sacrificed, too. And the house, far from being the palatial place that Eve had always imagined it to be, was run-down and very much in need of repair.

The money her parents had left in trust for her until she was twenty-one hadn’t been enough to carry out all the work that needed doing, and her grandmother had insisted that she use part of it to pursue the career that might otherwise have been denied her. The first thing she had done when she’d begun to earn money from her paintings was to finish restoring the house to its former glory; Ashton House was now the home her grandmother could be proud of.

‘She’s a wonderful old lady,’ Sophy murmured appreciatively at Eve’s side, having noiselessly crossed the room to join her at the window.

Eve glanced round at her. ‘I wouldn’t let her hear the old part of that statement,’ she said drily.

The other woman grimaced. ‘Now there’s someone I do respect.’

Eve continued to gaze fondly at her grandmother. ‘She’s particularly happy at the moment because Marina is coming home for a few days this weekend.’

‘Your lovely cousin has found time from her busy social schedule to visit the woman who brought her up?’ Sophy said scoffingly. ‘How nice!’

Eve sighed, shaking her head. ‘There aren’t many people you do like, are there?’

The other woman shrugged. ‘I like you, I like your grandmother, I even like Adam Gardener—and not just because of the good he could do your career and my gallery,’ she drawled, without apology for her earlier remarks about Eve’s cousin. ‘I have little time for fools.’ She gave a graceful shrug.

The mention of his name had brought the image of Adam Gardener to mind; somehow she had the feeling he didn’t suffer fools gladly, either. He certainly hadn’t suffered what he considered to be her foolish behaviour without comment!

‘Dinner tomorrow,’ Sophy announced briskly. ‘Can that be arranged? I know you have to talk it over with Paul before making any definite arrangements, but are there any other plans he can put up as a valid excuse not to come?’

‘I doubt it,’ Eve said drily. ‘But of course, I’ll have to check with him first.’

‘I never expected anything else.’ The other woman nodded briskly. ‘Call me as soon as you know for definite. I’ll take it the two of you are coming until I hear otherwise.’

Eve was still smiling ruefully to herself a few minutes later as she went outside to join her grandmother; it was typical of Sophy’s arrogance that she assumed she and Paul would be present at her dinner party ‘unless she heard otherwise’. No wonder the other woman always succeeded in rubbing Paul up the wrong way; he hated it when people made arrangements for him without even the politeness of consulting him on it.

Her grandmother straightened as she saw Eve approaching; she was a tall, grey-haired figure with a deceptively stern façade, behind which lay a mischievous nature, a fact Eve and Marina had quickly learnt once they had come to live with her. ‘Sophy on her usual form?’ she said with affection, the respect between the two women definitely mutual.

‘When is she anything else?’ Eve murmured derisively, running a caressing hand across a perfectly formed pink rose. This garden was her grandmother’s pride and joy, her ‘bolt-hole when caring for two small girls’, she had claimed teasingly when Eve and Marina were a lot younger, and she spent hours caring for the beautiful blossoms, a fact reflected in their perfection.

‘Marriage has softened her a little,’ Eve’s grandmother excused. ‘I can remember a time when she was very brittle and cynical.’

‘According to Paul, she still is—among other things,’ Eve sighed, a little weary after this last conversation of this constant battle between the two of them.

Sophy might be the daughter of an old friend of her grandmother’s, but Paul was the son of her grandmother’s lawyer; he had taken over his father’s law office when Edgar Lester had died two years ago, and Eve knew that her grandmother had affection for both Paul and Sophy, a fact that was reflected in her reply.

‘It wouldn’t do if we were all the same, darling.’ She smiled reassuringly, patting her hand. ‘Paul is uneasy around Sophy because she is what she is, but he loves you for the same reason.’

Because she was what she was.

According to Adam Gardener, she was little more than a ‘walking doormat’ waiting to be walked over. A frown marred her brow as thought of the other man came unbidden to her mind for the second time that day.

But how could she help but occasionally think about a man she now knew as Adam Gardener—when her own name was Eve Eden?

‘You’re sure he isn’t just being selfish again?’ Sophy sceptically voiced her disbelief while Patrick took Eve’s jacket.

Eve gave the other woman a reproving look from turquoise eyes, her dress a perfect match for their colour; it was high-necked and sleeveless, somehow all the more sexy because of that. ‘I doubt he had the client call him on purpose,’ she taunted.

‘I wouldn’t put that past him.’ Sophy put her arm companionably through Eve’s as they walked through to the lounge of the couple’s elegantly furnished apartment. ‘Anything to avoid spending time with me!’

Paul had telephoned Eve only minutes before he was due to pick her up to drive them both to the O’Donnells for dinner, to tell her that a client needed to see him urgently and that he was going to be indefinitely delayed.

She had to admit that the thought of him having used an imaginary appointment with a client to opt out of the dinner he had only agreed to go to for her sake, had briefly—disloyally—crossed her own mind earlier. He had been so against coming here for the dinner when she’d broached the subject with him, so perhaps she could be excused that one little doubt, especially as she had dismissed the disloyal thought only seconds after it had entered her mind. Paul wouldn’t be that small-minded; he did everything he could to try and please her, always showering her with gifts, his thoughtfulness undoubted. Sophy just didn’t understand him.

‘Leave the subject alone, darling,’ Patrick advised softly from behind the two of them. ‘We should be using this opportunity to try and persuade Eve into agreeing to just thinking about a New York exhibition.’

‘A lot of good talking to her about it will do if Paul doesn’t agree,’ Sophy scoffed disgustedly as her husband crossed the room to pour them all a drink.

Patrick gave his wife a silencing glance—and it was evidence of Sophy’s love for him that she actually took notice of the warning—albeit with tight-lipped self-control.

Patrick’s gaze softened as he handed Eve the martini she had asked for. ‘We would both like you to do this exhibition in New York because we feel it would be the final burst your career needs,’ he told her gently. ‘Not because we want any personal glory from it—no matter what might have been said to the contrary,’ he added with an affectionate smile at Sophy.

Eve sighed. ‘An exhibition isn’t what’s really the problem——’

‘Paul is the prob—— Sorry.’ Sophy held up defensive hands as Patrick flashed her a warning glare. ‘I can’t help it if I think all this secrecy is a waste of a beautiful woman,’ she defended defiantly, exceptionally lovely herself tonight in a figure-hugging dress that showed the perfection of her slender figure.

‘As I recall, you were the one who decided The Unicorn was a great name for an artist, and thought the elusiveness of the person behind the paintings was a great publicity angle,’ Eve reminded drily.

‘That was because I forgot that, according to legend, the Unicorn was so damned elusive he became extinct!’ Sophy snorted, undaunted.

Eve couldn’t help but chuckle at her friend’s utter despair with her attitude towards her anonymity; it was so uncharacteristic of the self-confident Sophy that she couldn’t do anything else!

It was Sophy’s undoing that Patrick began to chuckle, too, her own grin one of self-mockery.

‘Why do I bother, right?’ she grimaced, with a careless shrug of her shoulders. ‘But if I didn’t——’ She broke off as the doorbell rang loudly.

‘That will be Paul.’ Eve instantly brightened at the thought of the man she loved. ‘He must have finished earlier than expected and decided to join us, after all.’

‘How nice!’ Sophy murmured sarcastically as she moved to answer the door.

‘I’d apologise for her, except that I know she’s just as likely to come back in here and be just as rude all over again—but to Paul’s face this time!’ Patrick muttered impatiently. ‘I can’t spend the rest of my life apologising for her outrageous outspokenness.’ He shook his head.

Just as Eve, supposedly, couldn’t spend the rest of her life ‘apologising for being alive’. Once again Adam Gardener’s hurtful remarks came back to disturb her peace of mind.

She had thought back to their conversation several times since Saturday evening, probably because no one—not even Sophy—had spoken to her in quite that forthright way before. Lord knew what he would have to say to her if he should ever realise she was The Unicorn, the artist he so obviously admired, but also a woman he thought in need of care and protection from herself!