She stared at Henry.
This was clearly not the scenario she had been living.
Hughie took the sugar cube out of his nose. ‘Not a lot of parents would do what you’re doing. Especially on their own.’
‘That’s true,’ Henry agreed. ‘You have spirit.’
‘It’s funny,’ she paused, registering their words, ‘I’ve never thought of it quite that way. Of course, I hadn’t intended to do it on my own …’
‘It’s an opportunity!’ Henry insisted. ‘A wonderful, rare chance to be alone with you that your children will remember for the rest of their lives.’
The little boy had shoved sugar cubes in both his nostrils and was making faces at Hughie. Hughie grabbed him and tickled him until they fell out.
‘Do you really think so?’ she murmured.
‘Without fail!’ Henry pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘Well, we were just admiring this lovely family portrait. I wish you luck in your travels. May I make one last suggestion?’
‘Please.’
He clapped Hughie on the back. ‘When I took my son here to Paris for the first time, some fifteen years ago now …’ he gazed adoringly down at Hughie. ‘Can that be true? Was it really as long ago as that?’
Hughie blinked up at him.
‘Seems like yesterday,’ Henry sighed, ruffling his hair. ‘Anyway, we didn’t bother with things like the Louvre or Notre Dame. We just explored. There’s a wonderful merry-go-round in Les Tuileries and Les Deux Magots make a marvellous hot chocolate. And now of course he speaks impeccable French.’
‘Really?’
They both turned to Hughie.
‘La voiture est rouge,’ Hughie observed sagely. ‘Charles ressemble á un sange. Où est la bibliothèque?’
The woman giggled nervously. ‘Did he say Charles looks like a monkey?’
‘He’s mentally ill,’ Henry explained. ‘But his pronunciation is impeccable.’
Out on the pavement, Henry clapped Hughie on the back. ‘See, that wasn’t so bad, was it? And all we did was observe, make contact and re-frame her experience a little. Easy as pie.’
‘Easy as pie,’ Hughie repeated. ‘Only …’
‘Only what?’
‘Only, it doesn’t quite seem enough.’
‘Really?’ Hughie frowned. ‘What more is there?’
‘I don’t know … some grand gesture … something she won’t forget.’
Henry thought a moment. ‘You’re right! No point settling for half-measures. Let’s push the old girl right over the edge, shall we?’
‘Yes, let’s!’
‘Wait here.’ Henry ducked back into the hotel.
Hughie shoved his hands deep into his pockets to look nonchalant. But his heart was thumping against his ribcage, adrenalin surging through his veins. Taxis pulled up, disgorging well-dressed passengers. Hughie was conscious of trying to look a part, and at the same time, feeling a fraud. He grinned, at no one in particular, nodded to the doorman who moved away.
Then, quite suddenly, he was giggling. He tried to control it. His shoulders shuddered and his eyes watered. The doorman stared straight ahead. And Hughie was reminded of the kind of hysterical relief of performing a ridiculous schoolboy dare.
When Henry came back, it was all Hughie could do to pull himself together and wipe the tears from his cheeks.
‘Travis, Taylor! Come on!’
She stood, gathering the handles of all her shopping bags together; the pile of gold bracelets falling forward on her wrists. ‘Children! Please!’
Taylor and Travis danced around her as they made their way across the lobby and into the lift. As the doors opened again on the fifth floor, they spilt out, racing each other down the long corridor. Rummaging in her handbag, she pulled out the credit-card-shaped room key and swiped it, forcing the door of the suite open. The children bounced into the master bedroom and, giggling, flung themselves onto the bed.
‘Mommy, look!’ Taylor shouted, pointing to the dressing table.
‘What is it?’ She turned, let go of the packages; her handbag slid to the floor. ‘Oh, my goodness!’
An exquisite bouquet of creamy white roses interspersed with fresh, fragrant stalks of eucalyptus, was massed in front of the dressing-table mirror. Buried deep within the blooms was a small card.
She took it out.
‘Are they from Daddy?’ Taylor pressed herself around her mother’s leg. ‘What does it say, Mommy?’
‘No,’ she said in wonder. ‘They’re not from Daddy.’
‘Who are they from?’
‘Yes, Mommy!’ Travis jumped up and down excitedly. ‘Who sent you flowers?’
Looking up, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and paused.
Then she smiled.
Grabbing Taylor’s hands, she spun her round and round until they collapsed on top of the massive bed. Pillows went flying. Shrieks filled the air. Travis clambered eagerly on top of them and she pressed them both to her, these two tiny wriggling bodies, smelling of warmth and youth and cake. She tickled them, covering them in kisses, blowing raspberries on the backs of their necks until they squirmed with delight. The perfectly made bed crumpled and creased as she threw them into the soft pile of pillows, until one of them exploded, sending a cloud of white feathers shooting into the air, drifting slowly, weightlessly to the ground. They were laughing so hard they never even noticed the tears she quickly brushed away.
A Brief History of the Professional Flirt
Now, you are probably wondering why you’ve never heard of a professional flirt before and some of you, the more jaded and pessimistic, might even imagine I’ve made up the entire occupation, that no such position exists.
Well, you’re wrong.
It was during the famously hot summer of 1911, when Valentine Charles’s own great-grandmother, Mrs Rowland Vincent (Celia to her friends), found herself recently widowed and struggling to save the rather dreary ladies’ hairdressing shop in St James that she and her first husband had established with their life’s savings. Poor old Rowland Vincent had died of a sudden diabetic attack brought on by eating too many rose crèmes. (What the crèmes were doing in the house, considering his condition and extreme partiality to them, remains a mystery.)
The fortunes of the Vincents’ small shop were floundering, headed for disaster, when Celia had the good luck to meet Valentine’s grandfather – the very tall, wickedly handsome Nicholas Charles.
Twelve years her junior with no hairdressing experience (in fact, at twenty-six he’d already had a suspiciously long and varied career in domestic service that spanned stable boy to gentleman’s valet), he was nevertheless remarkably popular with her clients, creating hairstyles based on the long plaits fashionable for horses in dressage. (Luckily for him, the Russian ballet was in town that summer performing The Firebird and the Russian peasant look, along with thick braids, was all the rage.)
Seizing