Outsider

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 décor,’ 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.