‘If you’d like to follow me …’ she told him, determined to sound businesslike and in control.
As he followed her up the stairs and along the landing Brad acknowledged that there was something about Claire that he found profoundly compelling; there was such a dramatic contrast between the warm, emotional woman who had flown at him with such fury to protect the feelings of her young charges and the cool, hostile person he was seeing now.
Claire had stopped outside one of the bedroom doors and was waiting for him to join her. Irene and Hannah had both come with them and Irene frowned as she saw which door Claire had opened.
‘But that’s your bedroom—yours and John’s,’ she protested. ‘I thought you were going to give Brad Sally’s bedroom.’
‘This is larger and more … more suitable,’ Claire told Irene quietly.
‘But where will you sleep …?’ Irene demanded.
‘I—’
‘Look, the last thing I want is to deprive you of your bedroom …’ Brad began.
But Claire shook her head quickly, her face flushing slightly as she told him, ‘I … I had already decided to … to move to another bedroom. This one … John’s … John’s and mine,’ she amended quickly, ‘is too … The decor is much more suitable for a man. It has an ensuite bathroom and there’s already a desk in the dressing room. John sometimes worked in there himself … I—’
‘You’ve moved out of your own bedroom?’ Irene was persisting, apparently oblivious to Claire’s lack of enthusiasm for pursuing the subject. She looked, Brad decided, rather like a guilty schoolgirl caught out in some forbidden act.
Why? Why shouldn’t she change bedroom if she wished? It was, after all, her home … her house. He remembered the look in her eyes as she had talked about her late husband’s love for his first wife, the woman whose “home” it had actually been.
‘I was thinking of having it redecorated. It’s never been my favourite room, and—’
‘But it’s the master bedroom,’ Irene protested.
‘Yes,’ Claire agreed with a quiet irony in her voice which was obviously lost on Irene but which Brad picked up on. So she was passionate and quick-witted too—a dangerously alluring combination in a woman—or so he had always felt.
The room was a good size, he acknowledged as he stepped into it, with what looked like plenty of solidly built dark wood closet space and a generously proportioned, sensibly constructed bed. As he studied it Brad let out a small sigh of relief. British standard-sized double beds did not easily accommodate a man used to the luxury of an American king-size, as he had already discovered. This bed was the only one he had seen in Britain so far that came anywhere near the spacious comfort of his own at home, even if it was a little on the high side.
As he cast his eye appreciatively and approvingly over the immaculate percale bedlinen, he acknowledged that it would be hard for him to find anything to surpass the comfort that such a bed promised. From behind him he could hear Irene saying almost accusingly to Claire, ‘You’ve changed the bedding …’
He could sense from Claire’s response that Irene’s comment had embarrassed her and guessed that the new bedlinen had been bought specifically for him. She really was the most extraordinarily sensitive woman, he thought as she showed him through to the well-planned bathroom with its large bath and separate shower.
The dressing room was small, but plenty large enough for the desk and chair already installed in it, and as she waited for him to rejoin her on the landing he admitted to himself that in terms of comfort and convenience it wouldn’t be easy to match the facilities of this house.
From the bedroom window he could see out into the garden. Long and wide, it was split into a series of areas by a variety of cleverly intermingled structures and plantings, and a rueful smile curled his mouth as he espied the smallest of the enclosed gardens with its swing and scuffed grass.
There was an area of equally stubborn baldness on his own lawn back home. When he had threatened to have the swing removed and the area reseeded the previous fall, the whole family had been up in arms, protesting against the removal of one of their sacred childhood haunts. The house was far too large for him now, of course. He really ought to sell it …
Outside on the landing Claire could feel her face start to flush defensively as Irene reiterated, ‘Claire, I thought you were going to give him Sally’s old room …’
‘I … I didn’t think it would be very suitable. The decor is so very feminine,’ Claire told her, unwilling to admit that she had not wanted her stepdaughter to return from her honeymoon to find that someone else had taken over her old bedroom.
Sensitively she wanted Sally to be able to feel that the house was still her home, that her room was still her own and that she could return to it whenever she wished. Not that she anticipated that Sally would ever do so—nor did she want her to: her place, her home now was with her new husband.
‘But to move out of your own bedroom …’ Irene protested.
‘It isn’t my room,’ Claire told her. ‘It was John’s room—our room,’ she amended hurriedly as she saw Brad walking towards them. How could she explain to Irene—to anyone—how, after John had died, instead of finding comfort in remaining in the room—the bed—that they had shared during their marriage she had found it … empty and that she much preferred the smaller, prettier, warmer guest room that she had now appropriated as her own?
It hadn’t been totally unfamiliar to her, after all; there had been nights during her marriage when she had woken up and, unable to get back to sleep, afraid of waking John, had crept quietly into the solitude of the guest bedroom.
‘So, Brad, what do you think?’ Irene demanded with the confidence of one who already knew the answer she was going to get.
‘I’m sure I shall be very comfortable here,’ he declared, before turning to Claire and saying, ‘We haven’t had an opportunity to discuss the financial details yet, I know. Would it be OK with you if I called back later … say, this evening … to do so?’
‘This evening? Oh, no, I’m afraid I can’t; I’m going out.’
‘You’re going out?’ Irene frowned. ‘Where … who with?’
Claire had started to walk down the stairs, and as they reached the bottom Hannah appeared in the hall just in time to catch Irene’s question and to comment, with a sly smile in Claire’s direction, ‘Well, it can’t be with a man—not unless you’re cheating already …’
Cheating? Brad frowned. Did that mean that there was someone in her life? It must be a man whom she didn’t want Irene to know anything about, to judge from Claire’s uncomfortable and slightly hunted expression.
‘It’s parents’ evening at school,’ she explained.
‘But they can’t expect you to be there,’ Irene said. ‘You only work on a voluntary basis.’
‘No, they don’t expect it,’ Claire agreed, her voice and her manner suddenly a good deal firmer. She could be firm and indeed almost aggressive in her defence of those whom she deemed vulnerable and in need of her protection, Brad guessed—be it a child or an adult. ‘However, I want to be there. I’m sorry I can’t see you tonight,’ she apologised to Brad. ‘Perhaps tomorrow evening.’
The effects of his long flight were beginning to catch up on him and he still had to go out to the warehouse to see Tim, although he didn’t intend to start any in-depth investigations into the difficulties of the British distribution and sales side of the business as yet.
He was already aware of how on edge Tim was in his presence and he could guess why; the spectre of redundancy haunted them all these days. Just as it no doubt would have haunted him were he married with a not quite