‘I’m very grateful to Harry and Rose,’ said Ewen, his voice deepening. ‘Without them I might never have met you.’
Rosanna cast a wary glance at him.
‘I felt I knew Rose already, of course,’ he went on. ‘But I never imagined I’d meet her in the flesh, in the person of her granddaughter.’
‘I may resemble her a little, but otherwise I’m nothing like her,’ warned Rosanna sharply, worried about where this was leading. ‘She was very much a woman of her time. I’m totally different. I could never have been as noble as Rose. When Gerald Rivers turned up out of the blue, shell-shocked and minus an arm, Rose felt she had no option other than to marry him. So she wrote that heart-rending letter to Harry.’
‘Who did his level best to get killed after receiving it. But in the usual way of things, of course, he got himself decorated instead.’ Ewen shook his head. ‘If this were fiction, Rose would have had his child, Gerald Rivers would have brought it up as his own and you and I, Rosanna Carey, would be related.’
His eyes locked with hers. Something molten in their depths touched a dangerous, responsive chord, and she looked away quickly, shaking her head.
‘In actual fact my mother wasn’t born until the thirties. Though she hardly remembers her father. He died when she was four.’
The silence which followed was so protracted, Rosanna grew restless at last and got up to break it. ‘Shall we make a start?’
Ewen followed her through the sitting room into the hall. Rosanna was suddenly so burningly conscious of his physical presence in the confined space that she tripped on a rug and his hands shot out to save her, closing on her waist. He drew in a sharp, unsteady breath and turned her to face him. For a long, tense moment they stared into each other’s eyes, then Ewen Fraser pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
‘I’ve been wanting to do that from the first moment I saw you,’ he muttered against her mouth, and kissed her again, his lips parting hers with such hunger she was shaken to the depths. She yielded helplessly, lost in the overpowering intimacy of the sensation as his tongue caressed hers, and he held her so tightly she could feel the powerful urgency surging through his body into hers like an electric charge. He raised his head at last, breathing unevenly, and stared down into her dazed, astonished eyes. ‘Are you going to show me the door, Rosanna?’ he asked hoarsely.
Appalled to find she was trembling from head to foot, she raised her chin militantly. ‘Why? It was only a kiss.’
‘Was it?’ he said harshly.
‘Yes,’ she said in desperation, and broke free to precede him into the kitchen, where the bright overhead light dispersed any remnants of intimacy. Rosanna faced him, suddenly angry with herself. And with Ewen. ‘I admit it’s my fault as much as yours,’ she said, her eyes stormy. ‘I obviously misled you by letting you come here again tonight. I’ve got some information you want, and most of it you can have. But that’s as far as it goes.’
‘Then why the hell did you let me kiss you like that?’ he demanded hotly.
Rosanna’s face fell. ‘You took me by surprise,’ she muttered.
‘You could have called a halt long before you did.’
‘I’m aware of that.’ She shrugged. ‘I suppose I was a bit beglamoured by what happened to Harry and Rose. Some of it must have rubbed off. Would you have preferred a slap in the face?’
‘Damn right I would,’ he said bitterly, and held her chair for her. ‘Right. Down to business. Let’s get this over with.’
The tension lay heavy in the air between them, but they worked quickly. An hour later a pile of neatly correlated research material was stacked beside the boxes.
‘Now comes the awkward bit,’ said Rosanna, squaring her shoulders. ‘I need a favour.’
Ewen ran a hand through his hair, eyeing her narrowly. ‘What kind of favour?’
‘Would you agree to an exchange?’ she asked reluctantly. ‘Rose’s letters for Harry’s? I want to try my hand at a novel. Not a serious, historical novel like yours. Just a romantic story about two star-crossed lovers in the past whose descendants get it together in the present.’
Ewen was silent for some time before he raised a daunting eyebrow. ‘Have you ever had anything published?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever tried your hand at fiction before?’
‘No.’
‘Then I wish you luck.’ Ewen lounged back in his chair negligently, long legs crossed at the ankle. He shrugged. ‘All right. You can keep Rose’s letters. I haven’t seen her diary, of course, but that’s likely to be more use to you than to me, anyway, if you’re concocting a romance. My focus will be on the Great War itself, following the lives of two friends, once students together in Heidelberg, now soldiers in opposing armies. Only a small section will be devoted to the doomed love affair. As a final twist the lovers are torn apart, but the friends are reunited after the war.’
Something in the pejorative way he said ‘concocting a romance’ needled Rosanna. ‘That’s fine, then,’ she said tightly. ‘No harm done.’
‘Right.’ Ewen rose to his feet. ‘If you could spare some photographs of the period to go with Harry’s letters, and the rest of the stuff, I’d be grateful. I’ll take copies and return them, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Rosanna, feeling suddenly depressed. ‘Take what you want.’
He sifted through them again, chose half a dozen, then looked at a more modern photograph of Rose on the beach with her child. ‘The family likeness is very marked. That’s how you’ll look in a few years’ time.’
‘Follow me,’ said Rosanna abruptly, and led him across the hall to another sitting room where several silver-framed photographs were grouped together on a small table. One was her parents’ wedding picture, two others were of herself and Sam in their degree robes and mortar boards. The fourth was a formal portrait of a lady with dark eyes still brilliant under her white hair, the smile familiar from Harry Manners’ treasured portrait of Rose.
‘Taken the year before she died,’ said Rosanna huskily.
‘And still beautiful.’ Ewen gazed at the photograph for a long time, then turned away. ‘Thank you for letting me see her.’
‘It needn’t make any difference to your novel,’ she assured him as she saw him to the door. ‘You’re bound to score a big success again. Mine will be nothing like that, even if I manage to get it written, much less published. No one will ever connect yours with mine.’
Ewen shrugged. ‘I doubt if we’ll trespass on each other’s preserves. If I do,’ he added deliberately, ‘you can sue me.’
‘As if I would!’ she said scornfully. ‘Just one more thing. The portrait of Rose.’
‘Sorry. I’m keeping that. You’ll have to make do with Harry.’
Rosanna looked up at him in entreaty. ‘But we don’t have one like that, Ewen. Couldn’t you take a copy of it with the others and let me have the original back?’
He looked down at her in silence for a moment. ‘I’ll compromise. You can have the copy. I’ll keep the original. Unless,’ he added, with a tigerish, explicit smile, ‘you have some kind of persuasion in mind?’
Heat rose in Rosanna’s face and she backed away. ‘You’re angry with me,’ she said unsteadily. ‘Why?’
His smile was unsettling as he followed her step for step as she retreated. ‘Because I keep confusing you with sweet, passionate Rose, I suppose, whereas all the time cool, practical Rosanna was merely using me for her own ends.’
She