But once Dominic and Dolly had gone nobody had much appetite left. Romy picked up the shards of shattered wineglass while the other four sat disconsolately poking their spoons into untouched portions of chocolate roulade and strawberry pavlova.
Eventually Geraint put his spoon down with a sigh and said, ‘I don’t know about anyone else, but I think brandy is called for rather than pudding.’
‘Good thinking,’ said Cormack, but his voice sounded rather heavy as he looked across the table at Triss.
She gave an apologetic smile. ‘A quick brandy would be wonderful, but then would you mind if I went home? I just sort of want to check on Simon. He’s been teething, and grizzly, and if he wakes up and finds just the babysitter there...’
‘No one minds, Triss darling,’ said Cormack softly. ‘I’ll come with you.’
‘I hope she’ll be OK,’ said Lola suddenly, her blue eyes clouding over. ‘And the baby.’
Geraint stood up and went to the sideboard where he collected brandy and glasses and brought them back to the table. ‘She’ll be fine,’ he said, pouring them all a huge measure. ‘They can save babies who are no bigger than a bag of sugar these days—which will make a seven-monther seem positively obese!’
They all drank brandy, and then strong black coffee, but the party mood was broken, and Romy wasn’t surprised when they all stood up to leave.
‘Thank Dominic for us,’ said Geraint as he bent and kissed her lightly on both cheeks.
‘I will,’ said Romy.
‘And be sure to come and look round the garden first thing,’ Lola dimpled.
‘I’d love to,’ promised Romy, hastily quashing the thought that she might not be here tomorrow...
But once they had gone, and she had helped clear up and then sent Ellen and Gilly home, she still felt in a dilemma, not knowing whether she should stay or go. Whilst instinct told her that leaving was the wiser option, her soft heart remembered the dark, sombre look on Dominic’s face, and urged her to wait for him.
She wandered around the house like a ghost, until she eventually found a small study which was lined with books from floor to ceiling. She was just looking with interest through one of the shelves when she heard the sound of a car engine, and then the front door slamming.
There was a brief silence, and then footsteps began walking slowly but inexorably towards the study.
Romy looked up as Dominic entered the small room, her heart in her mouth as she searched his face for news.
‘WHAT’S happened?’ Romy uttered a silent prayer as she asked the question.
Dominic smiled. ‘We rang the hospital from the airport on my mobile. She’s stable and settled—and at the moment she’s hanging onto the baby. They are cautiously optimistic.’
‘That’s wonderful.’
‘Yes.’ He threw her a narrow-eyed look. ‘So are you. Archie liked you very much.’
‘Did he?’
‘Mmm. And he’s decided to sell me the land I want. He told me in the car. He grew quite sentimental about the fact that I had interrupted a dinner party in order to drive him and Dolly to the airport. That seemed to make his mind up. He appears to have lost some of his prejudices about southerners along the way!’
Romy smiled. ‘Geraint told me that if this particular deal fell through then there were loads of other places you could buy in the north of England.’
‘Did he? He’s right, in a way. But that land means more to me than any other.’
‘Because...?’
There was a pause. ‘Because I spent the first twelve years of my life near there, I guess. My mother brought me up there on her own, before moving down here.’
Romy tipped her blonde head to one side. ‘So you’re not a southerner at all?’ She remembered asking him this question once before, in the restaurant, and he had avoided answering with spectacular charm.
His grey eyes glimmered, as if he was recalling his evasiveness, too. ‘No, I’m not.’
‘But you sound so...’
‘I know I do.’ His reply was dry. ‘I learnt very early on that internationally successful businessmen do not have broad Geordie accents! Oxford ironed most of it out for me.’
‘But surely if Archie had known that—?’
‘Then he would have decided to sell me the land, anyway?’
‘Well—yes.’
He smiled. ‘He might have done.’
‘So why on earth didn’t you tell him?’
He smiled again. ‘Because I wanted him to be swayed by my sound business proposition, and not by sentiment.’
‘Even though he was?’ she queried. ‘Swayed by sentiment, I mean. Having fixed ideas about people who are born in the south. Why didn’t you just play him at his own game, Dominic?’
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘Because it isn’t the modern way, is it? To be sentimental.’
‘No,’ she conceded, and a wave of dejection suddenly washed over her. She hastily changed the subject. ‘So this land that you’re buying—it has lots of potential, does it?’
‘I don’t know if that’s the ideal way to describe it.’ His laugh was tinged with cynicism. ‘Run-down factories and vast areas of wasteland—that’s all it consists of. It was a bleak, soulless place then, and it’s not very much better now—though it has one thing going for it in these overcrowded urban times. It has plenty of space.’
‘So why on earth do you want to buy it?’
His grey eyes looked almost dreamy. ‘Because I always knew I was lucky.’ He must have seen the surprise on her face for he nodded sagely. ‘Oh, yes—I count myself lucky, Romy, because at least I knew I had it in me to escape the poverty trap I was born into. Others weren’t so fortunate.’
His mouth took on a sort of grim, determined line. ‘I vowed that one day I would put something back there. Something that others, not so blessed as me, could enjoy for a while to forget their problems...’
Romy let her gaze fall to her lap, reluctant to look him in the eye. He had grown up poor and illegitimate, and yet he could say that he was blessed... Suddenly he made her feel terribly, terribly humble.
Over the years, Romy had accredited Dominic with many attributes—overt sex appeal and the ability to make lots of money being the predominant ones. But she had never realised that at heart he was such a good man. Geraint was right.
She stiffened suddenly as she became aware of the natural progression of her thoughts. Because being a good man did not exclude him from having sex without any commitment, did it?
He shot her a narrow-eyed glance, as if he had sensed her sudden discomfiture. ‘I could use a brandy.’
So could she. But...
‘I was thinking of going,’ she confessed bluntly. ‘Home.’
He did not look remotely surprised. ‘No doubt you were, Romy, but I’m not going to let you.’
‘So it’s cave-man tactics now, is it?’ she mocked.
He gave a glimmer of a smile. ‘It can always be arranged, sweetheart, if that is—as I suspect—what