Adam looked at Nicholas, then across to me and back again. ‘I don’t suppose it had anything to do with the meeting your father had with his solicitor, did it? I don’t like anyone suggesting my…sister…would do anything improper.’
Nicholas blinked slowly, and smiled a little, but it wasn’t the kind of smile where the corners of the mouth turned up. His lips merely stretched wider and flattened. ‘Possibly…’ He looked down at me—at least it felt that way. I seemed a lot shorter to myself without my heels. At last I could see something other than complete uninterest in Nicholas’s eyes. ‘I’m sorry if I said anything untoward, cousin. I didn’t mean to imply you were that kind of girl.’
I sucked a breath in through my nostrils and held it, only letting it out again as a wide smile blossomed on my face. I totally forget to do my normal Marlilyn-esque, parted lips thing, and just gave him the biggest, cheesiest grin in my repertoire. It’s not often that people assume I’m not That Kind Of Girl, and I liked the idea that Nicholas was being careful of my honour.
He seemed taken aback by my wide-toothed display of gratitude for a second, but then he smiled back at me—properly smiled—and I saw a glimmer of something banish the greyness from his gaze.
‘Bah. I’ve had enough of this foraging for clues nonsense,’ Marcus bellowed suddenly. ‘I think it’s high time we all went off duty!’
Much to my displeasure, the rest of the guests seemed to agree, and our small group peeled apart and headed back to the sofas, where Robert was serving brandy. The rest of the group caught up with each other’s news, chatting about friends I’d never heard of and relatives I’d rather not have heard of. After a long while the conversation dried up, and they remembered that Adam and I were sitting in the room and turned their attention to us.
Louisa fixed her gaze on Adam, who was lounging comfortably in the corner of one of the sofas, a goldfish bowl of a brandy glass held loosely in his fingers. ‘What is it you do, Adam? And please don’t tell me you work in an office like the rest of these poor chaps.’
Adam smiled at Louisa and shook his head. ‘It didn’t start out that way, but I’m finding myself office-bound more and more. I own my own company and we build outdoor structures.’
Before he could carry on I piped up on his behalf. I blame it on the fact I’d been left out of the conversation for so long, because the words left my mouth like a jack out of a box. ‘It all started when he was fifteen and built himself a treehouse to hide away from his three sisters in the back garden.’
‘Oh.’ Louisa didn’t seem quite as impressed by the non-office job now. She smiled at Adam, but her eyes were flat and dull. ‘How nice for you…to make a living out of something that used to be a hobby.’
‘If only I could do that,’ moaned Jos, who, despite still being in her maid’s uniform, had flopped down in a comfy armchair and joined the rest of us. ‘I’ve dreamed all my life that someone would pay me to lie in bed until noon and then shop all afternoon!’
I think the topic might have been dropped then if not for Julian. He lifted his gaze off his shoes and asked Adam, quite earnestly, ‘And what kind of outdoor structures do you build now, Adam?’
All of them swivelled their heads to look at him, as if he’d broken some unspoken rule.
Julian flushed, but held his ground. ‘Mother’s been talking about replacing the old summerhouse.’ He took a big swig of his sherry, then cemented his gaze back on his brogues.
Adam, however, wasn’t gazing anywhere but straight back into the eyes of those judging him, not perturbed in the least about the lack of enthusiasm for his chosen profession.
‘Actually,’ he said, shooting a meaningful glance at me, ‘it would be more accurate to say that my company specialises in custom-built wooden structures—lodges, garden buildings. Our most popular range is luxury treehouses.’
‘Treehouses?’ Louisa’s immaculately plucked eyebrows almost disappeared under her hairline. ‘How quaint! For children, I presume…?’
All eyes now turned to Adam.
‘Some,’ he replied, with the trademark twinkle in his eye. ‘But you wouldn’t believe how many grown-ups harbour fantasies about having a treehouse all of their own, somewhere to escape when life gets too hectic.’
There was a general murmur of agreement and nodding of heads.
‘But surely you don’t mean luxury luxury?’ Louisa said.
Honestly, I didn’t know what her problem was. Couldn’t she just let it drop and admit she’d been a wee bit patronising about Adam’s ‘hobby’?
Like you’ve been, a needly little voice in the back of my head whispered. You don’t really take much interest any more, do you? Too full of your own business, your own enterprises.
I silenced the voice with a swig of vintage port.
Adam’s twinkling eyes turned steely. ‘That’s what luxury usually means, doesn’t it?’
Louisa gave a fake little laugh. ‘But a treehouse is always going to be a bit…basic, isn’t it?’
‘Hang on a second…’ Izzi said, forgetting to stay in character for the first time that evening. ‘Do you mean the kind of thing Michael Dove has just had built? There was a feature on his new mansion in one of the Sunday magazines the other week.’
Jos leaned forward. ‘Michael Dove? The rock star?’ she asked in a breathy, hallowed kind of voice.
Adam nodded. ‘That was one of mine. And it was great fun to build—two rooms, complete with bathroom, kitchenette, home cinema system and audio gear that will wake the neighbours three miles away. He said he wanted a guest house with a difference.’
‘Up a tree?’ Louisa said, still not quite getting it.
Adam helped her out. ‘Up several trees, actually. We set it between three large pine trees at the bottom of his lawn.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Marcus rumbled. ‘How much would a pad like that set you back?’
Izzi, with the extensive knowledge gleaned from the magazine article, mentioned a price that rivalled the cost of my one-bedroomed broom cupboard in Lewisham.
I took a sip of my port to steady myself, and ended up inhaling rather than swallowing. The choking fit that followed was in no way ladylike. Adam gently led me outside into the hall, so I could hack my guts up without an audience, and motioned for Robert to fetch me a glass of water quick-smart.
When I could finally breathe again, I straightened and looked at the man I’d thought I knew everything about. ‘Why didn’t you tell me business was going so well?’ I croaked.
Adam gave me a look that was half-sad, half-affectionate. ‘Coreen, I’m always telling you about my work.’
‘But you’ve never boiled it down to a hard figure like that before. If you’d done that I would have paid a bit more attention!’
He pursed his lips slightly. ‘You’ve never asked… Anyway, if you actually listened, instead of nodding and pretending you were, you’d have worked it out for yourself.’
My insides slumped like a fallen soufflé. With great effort I looked my Best Bud in the eye. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I should have listened. I should have known you’d take something ordinary like a garden shed and do something wonderful with it. And I should have paid attention—I’m supposed to be your friend.’
Robert chose that moment to return with my glass of water, and I took it from him, all the while looking at Adam, who was regarding me with a very un-Adam like expression.
Finally