‘Is that so surprising?’ she challenged brittly but not brittly enough to put him off considering a purchase at a later date.
His brows went up in surprise at her tone. ‘Did I give that impression?’ He gave her no space to answer but shrugged and went on. ‘To be frank I’m not au fait with all this…’ A hand came up in a sweeping gesture of the white-walled gallery.
So he wasn’t interested in buying, just whiling away the time, but sometimes a sale came from these time-killing browsers. Still, she couldn’t resist muttering under her breath, ‘And it’s not even raining.’
He heard and got the point and this time she was blessed with a smile that brought a hesitant smile to her own full lips. He turned away from her and left Caroline with a feeling that an introduction should have been made at that point and she wasn’t sure if it was her failure to execute one or his.
‘So what can I help you with, or are you just passing time till the next London train leaves?’ she asked bluntly. She really did have a lot of work on and he wasn’t going to buy, she felt sure.
He was a Londoner, she guessed, surprised at her own curiosity about him because, though her first impression of him had been one of awesome admiration for his dark good looks, she was now beginning to doubt he had anything to back it up. His manner wasn’t exactly warm and hospitable and his clothes—linen suit and mulberry-coloured silk shirt—were a far cry from anything she’d seen in this tiny Cornish coastal town.
‘No, I’m not merely passing time,’ he told her, turning back to face her, the smile gone and a coolness about him now that chilled Caroline. ‘Just weighing up your talent,’ he added smoothly.
Caroline defiantly held his eyes before speaking, wondering what he was getting at and wondering if he practised hard to achieve this haughty air about him.
‘Really? Well, if you’re not au fait with this sort of “stuff” you just might get your calculations wrong.’
‘Ah, but I did my homework before coming,’ he said mysteriously. ‘I asked around, found you were the best bronze sculptress in the south-west. So here I am.’
So he was a customer after all. She allowed her emotions to do an about-turn. She smiled at him encouragingly.
‘You have something in mind?’
She should have added ‘a commission’ to that query because she saw a suggestive remark looming on the horizon. But one didn’t materialise and she realised her assessment of him was punched with holes. Usually she was quite good at gauging people’s characters but this stranger was different. She had nothing definite to go on but he certainly wasn’t the usual run-of-the-mill man. Not a flirt but not a man uninterested in women either. Funny, but she doubted he was married.
His dark eyes locked with hers. ‘I’d like to offer you a couple of commissions,’ he told her.
Caroline pushed for a smile. ‘Two,’ she mused, careful not to sound too over-enthusiastic, careful not to sound sarcastic either. His tone had suggested she might fall at his feet in gratitude. But she found she was wrong again as he went on.
‘I realise that you must be very busy but I would like you to seriously consider the work. It is very important to me.’
Curiosity prompted her next words. Curiosity about what might be important in his obviously successful world. ‘In that case let me offer you a coffee and we can talk about it.’
She gave him another smile and led the way across the gallery, through her vast barn studio, which she had been in the process of tidying, and down a flight of flagstone steps to the main white-washed cottage. The cottage and the bits that had been added on over the decades were tumbled together on three uneven floors, tucked into the cliff-side. The front door was the door of the gallery off a narrow lane and the back door, two floors down in the kitchen, opened on to a patio and a poor excuse for a garden and the cliff-path. An unusual off-beat property that her mother had bought after the death of her husband, not able to face life in the draughty old rectory at Helston on her own. Caroline had moved down to live with her after the second tragedy in their lives, the tragic death of Caroline’s sister, Josie.
Caroline had settled in the seasonal coastal village, surprising herself because as a teenager she couldn’t wait to get away from Cornwall to study in London. And there she had stayed, completing her training and setting up with a group of like-minded friends in a converted warehouse in the Docklands area of London. It had been a wonderful existence, doing exactly as she pleased, gathering inspiration from a busy city and swapping artistic viewpoints with her friends. Then David had happened and her world had been complete and then suddenly with Josie’s death, it had all fallen apart. Her life was vastly different now; it couldn’t help but be with Martha. But all in all she had found a certain contentment and was absorbed with her work and happy that her mother was coping so beautifully at last.
‘Do sit down. I’ll make coffee. I won’t be a minute.’
She left him gazing out of the plate-glass window that stretched almost from wall to wall of the sitting-room. It was a modern window, alien to the rest of the property, one that previous owners had put in to take advantage of the stupendous views. The Atlantic rolled away forever beyond the glass, and below the cliff dropped away to a craggy cove with golden sands. A coastal path that only a few local residents knew about led down to the cove.
‘There used to be a path down to the cove years ago. Is it still there?’ he asked when Caroline came back into the room with a tray of coffee which she placed on a side-table.
She’d slid out of her overalls while the kettle boiled and had picked pieces of plaster out from her wild hair. Now she gazed at him in surprise.
‘Yes, it is,’ she admitted. ‘How did you know about it? Are you local?’
‘I grew up round here,’ was all he said. He took the coffee she offered him and Caroline nodded to the wing-chair by the window.
He sat down, only on the edge of the seat as if he wasn’t planning on staying long.
‘Can you do horses and people?’ he suddenly asked, taking Caroline by surprise again because she had honestly thought he might have settled into reminiscing about his childhood in the area.
‘Depends,’ Caroline said, perching on the win-dowsill, her back to the seascape beyond.
‘Depends on what—money?’ he suggested darkly and then added in a lighter tone, yet laced with cynicism, ‘I can afford you.’
A small rebellious bubble swelled inside Caroline. He had money and liked to show it and he had a contemptuous attitude towards women. She wouldn’t allow the bubble to burst, though; he was a customer, she reminded herself.
‘It depends on whether you want the people mounted on the horses, life-size!’
He smiled thinly and put his coffee-cup down on a side-table. ‘I read about you but I did warn you I’m not very well informed on this type of thing.’
‘So why the commission?’
He shrugged. ‘Personally I find the thought of a bronze bust of someone ostentatious, but I try to suffer my mother’s whims whenever possible.’
Caroline’s full lips parted in surprise. Well, I wouldn’t have put him down as a mother’s boy, she thought, but there you go.
‘She wants it, I jump. Life-size, of course; my mother will hear of nothing less. As for the horse, that’s my whim, my passion. He’s everything I’m not and I want him immortalised in a medium that suits the strength of his character. Can you understand that?’
Caroline wasn’t sure what she was expected to understand so she just nodded.
‘My mother doesn’t travel, neither does my stallion unless it’s to stud, so you will