It was only when they neared their table that she noticed Red was limping. Yes, she thought cynically, he’d probably strained a muscle in bed with some young socialite.
He held her chair out for her, in spite of it already being some distance from the table. Obviously he was trying to prove he was a gentleman.
Once he was also seated, in the same way he was before, at ninety degrees to the table, he nudged her drink towards her. ‘Cool your pistons with a sip or two, and then let me apologise for making such a poor impression on you.’
Cool her pistons? Oh really, these Americans had such an absurd way of speaking! She took a sip of her martini, and then another. She unexpectedly had to force herself to suppress a smile, but failed. The truth was, she did need to cool her pistons.
‘There you go,’ he said, noticing her lips twitching, ‘I’ve always been of the belief that there’s nothing a good martini can’t cure. Now then, as to the reason I so rudely delayed our meeting, which I am genuinely sorry about, I’m afraid it was beyond my control. The thing was, I had an early call from the doc at the hospital that he couldn’t see me tomorrow as planned, only this morning.’
‘Are you ill?’ she asked doubtfully. He didn’t look like he had anything wrong with him. Far from it. She put him in his early fifties, and everything about him spoke of him taking good care of his appearance. In a cream pair of trousers and a short-sleeved Fred Perry T-shirt, as though he’d just come off the tennis court, he appeared the absolute picture of health – tanned, fit, strong and virile, bursting with energy. There was no doubt in her mind that he would be considered an extremely good-looking man, with the type of effortless sexual allure that would attract attention wherever he went. Without meaning to, but out of habit, her eyes drifted towards his left hand. There was no wedding ring.
To her annoyance she saw that he’d noticed her glance. ‘No, I’m not ill,’ he said, a smile playing at the corners of his full lips. ‘And I’m not married either.’ He tapped his leg that was nearest to her, and which was stretched out in front of him. ‘But I had to have a new prosthetic leg fitted this morning.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s not the way I’d ideally like to spend a morning.’ He smiled. ‘Not when I’m supposed to be spending it with a beautiful English woman. But it was the only time this week the doc could see me. He was then delayed by an hour, so I just had to wait my turn. Am I forgiven?’
The humiliation Romily had experienced a few minutes ago was nothing to what she was now feeling. Never had she felt such excruciating shame. She was furious with herself.
‘Hey,’ he said, holding out a fork for her to take when she didn’t say anything, ‘just in case you think this is some kind of elaborate ruse on my part, try pushing that into my shin to prove to yourself that I’m speaking the truth. Just be sure to stab the correct leg!’
‘There’s no need to be quite so—’
‘Melodramatic?’ he finished for her.
‘And there you go again,’ she said, ‘interrupting me.’
He grinned and raised his martini glass to her. ‘How about we drink to many more occasions when I can finish off your sentences?’
‘Let’s just see how lunch goes, shall we, Mr St Clair?’
‘I told you, call me Red. And talking of lunch, here’s our antipasti. I don’t know about you, but I’m famished.’
Once they were alone again, Red said, ‘You haven’t asked how I lost my leg, and from what I know of you Brits, I know that’s a British thing, a display of good manners by avoiding the blindingly obvious.’
‘What precisely do you know about us Brits, then?’ she asked.
‘I spent time there during the war flying with Bomber Command. Unfortunately I let everyone down by getting blown out of the sky and ending up in northern France with a shattered leg.’
‘Well, that puts me resoundingly in my place.’
‘Hey, don’t sweat it. It’s my special skill to rub people up the wrong way. You’re not the first to have their hackles ambushed, and you certainly won’t be the last, you can bet on it. How’s the ravioli?’
‘It’s delicious. Do you always flit from one subject to another?’
‘Only when I’m nervous. And right now, I’m as nervous as two world leaders playing a deadly game of nuclear poker.’
His throwaway remark was a chilling reminder that the world was currently balanced on a knife edge. Which was hard to believe sitting here in such beautiful surroundings. For days now the news the world over had been consumed with what was being called the Cuban missile crisis. Last week President Kennedy had made a lengthy television broadcast informing America that Soviet ships were carrying weapons to Cuba and that the US would do all it could to prevent that happening. US warships were now in position. Who would blink first was the question on everybody’s lips, Kennedy or Khrushchev?
‘I suspect you don’t know the meaning of being nervous,’ she said. ‘You strike me as having an excess of confidence and chutzpah.’
‘Appearances can be deceiving, you know. How about you tell me three things I should know about you? Other than you can’t abide lateness in a person, rudeness, or a brash Yank.’
‘How very perceptive of you.’
‘That’s me. Perceptive as hell beneath the dumb exterior.’
‘Seeing as you have me thoroughly sized up, why don’t you tell me three things I should know about you?’
‘Fair enough. Firstly, and to quote your Oscar Wilde, I can resist anything except temptation. Secondly, I always tell it how it is; I never beat about the bush. Thirdly, my golden rule in life is, if in doubt, do it. Which is why I think we should—’
‘Work together,’ she finished for him.
‘Got it in one kiddo.’
‘Don’t ever call me kiddo,’ she said sternly.
‘Yes ma’am,’ he replied, giving her a salute. ‘I mean, no ma’am. So are we on? Are we going to do this thing?’
Chapter Nine
Melstead Hall, Melstead St Mary
October 1962
Julia
do you think your husband
could really love a pathetic
nobody like you?
The words of the anonymous letter had taunted Julia Devereux ever since that morning when she had opened it after breakfast, and thankfully when her husband wasn’t around. All day she had wondered whether she should tell Arthur about it, but in the end had decided not to. Not when it might send him into a furious rage.