The Independent Bride Page 5

  Jemima cast her eyes to heaven. ‘Dream on.’

  But Pepper was unmoved. ‘I’ve done the market research. And I’ve lived size fourteen. Women are just waiting for Out of the Attic. You’ll see.’

  ‘Excuse me, Master.’

  Steven was miles away. He was standing by the high window staring down into the quad.

  Not with pleasure. Other people saw a medieval hall the colour of warm butter, with mullioned windows that overlooked a succulent velvet lawn. Steven saw crumbling stonework, blocked guttering and the cost of a new roof that made his eyes spin just to think about.

  Queen Margaret’s College was an ancient institution and a historic building. It was also broke.

  Valerie Holmes, who had been the Master’s secretary for so long that she remembered when Steven Konig was a new undergraduate, looked at him with sympathy. Poor chap, she thought. He was the classic compromise candidate: neither the pure academic that the old guard wanted, nor the racy media darling that the politicians had been pushing so hard. As a result, he was disliked by both sides. And he knew it.

  She coughed gently. ‘Master?’

  Steven jumped and turned guiltily. ‘Oh, it’s you, Valerie,’ he said, surprised. ‘Is the car here already?’

  He had an appointment to do a television interview and they were sending a car for him. It was Valerie who had insisted on that. She knew how much he hated the publicity stuff. But when you were Master of a college that was falling down you had to do it.

  But this was not the car reluctantly provided by Indigo Television. This was something a lot more troubling. Though Valerie was much too discreet to say so.

  ‘No, Master. The car won’t be here for another hour.’

  Steven sighed. He pushed a hand through his dark hair. She really should have reminded him to have it cut, thought Valerie, momentarily distracted. But at least he had shaved this morning. Sometimes, when he strode in from his morning jog round the Parks, he looked more like a guerrilla who had been in the jungle for too long than a senior member of the university.

  He gave her his best grin, the conspiratorial one that made his eyes twinkle. Not a lot of people saw that grin. Most of them thought the Master of Queen Margaret’s College was a dour workaholic. And those were his supporters. Valerie knew different—as she told her husband.

  Now he said, ‘So what is it, Val? Do you think I need a pep talk?’

  ‘Of course not. It’s—’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ve read my briefing. Very thorough, as always.’

  ‘Thank you. The stuff from Indigo Television was a bit thin. But—’

  ‘You tell it like it is, don’t you, Val? This one is going be grim,’ said Steven.

  He went back to the big eighteenth-century desk that he habitually covered with papers, letters, reports and old sandwich packing. He began to rootle among the debris. He had only been in the office two hours and the silt was already several layers deep. Valerie sighed and retrieved an empty paper cup and several engraved invitations. She tossed the cup into the wastepaper basket and shuffled the invitations absently into date order.

  ‘It’s not the programme—’ she began.

  But Steven had found her careful notes.

  ‘‘‘Reaching for the Moon,’’’ he read aloud. ‘‘‘Good ideas and bad business. Discussion chaired by Gordon Ramsden—’’’ he looked up briefly ‘—who sounds a pillock from your notes—and American retail consultant Penelope Anne Calhoun—who sounds worse.’

  ‘Master—’

  “‘Daughter of the Calhoun dynasty”.’ He was reading aloud. “‘Main board member of Calhoun Retail and associate Vice President of Calhoun Carter, the parent company, until she left to attend business school aged twenty-three. Still only twenty-eight and a sought-after speaker”.’ He looked up. ‘Yeah, right. What the hell is she going to know about trying to get a new idea off the ground? Or struggling to raise capital? She’s had capital on a plate. And I bet she’s never had a new idea in her life.’

  Valerie said loudly, ‘Steven, there’s a woman at the porter’s lodge who says you’re the father of her child.’

  Steven stopped clicking his tongue over the attributes of Penelope Anne Calhoun and looked up, his eyes suddenly blank.

  Val said more gently, ‘The porter says she insists on seeing you. He’s tried, but she won’t go away.’

  Steven still said nothing.

  Her voice rose. ‘Steven, there are undergraduates down there. People are in and out of the porter’s lodge all the time. Think of the scandal!’

  He flinched visibly.

  ‘I mean, I’m sorry Master,’ said Valerie, reverting to formality now she had his attention.

  He did not say anything for a moment. But the wicked schoolboy look disappeared completely. Suddenly he was completely without expression.

  At last he said, ‘I assume she has a name, this woman?’

  ‘Courtney. She wouldn’t say any more.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I told the porter that your diary was full. That you had an engagement in London. That she had to call and make an appointment. He says—she just won’t leave.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed, still expressionless. ‘She wouldn’t.’

  So he did know her! So maybe the rest was true, too?

  Somehow, Valerie didn’t think so. Steven Konig was not an easy man to know, but she would have staked her life that he would not walk out on his own child.

  He said, ‘How long have I got before I have to go and listen to Penelope Anne Calhoun’s thoughts on why inventors make bad businessmen?’

  Valerie gave a little spurt of startled laughter. Steven Konig was an inventor and a businessman and was rapidly building a reputation for being brilliant at both.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘The car will be here at eleven.’

  He nodded, his mouth hard. ‘Fine. I made some notes. Statistics and stuff.’ He flung a diskette at her. ‘They’re on that. Print them off for me, will you? I’ll go down to the lodge and collect Mrs Underwood.’

  ‘Mrs—oh.’

  ‘Her name,’ he said deliberately, ‘is Courtney Underwood. She was married to Tom. You may remember him. Big guy, mountaineer, read chemistry. He was killed in the Andes four years ago.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Valerie, wooden.

  ‘I am the child’s godfather,’ he said, taking pity on her. ‘I haven’t seen her or her mother for years. Neither Tom nor Courtney were big on keeping in touch.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Relieved?’ he said sardonically.

  Valerie puffed. ‘Nothing to do with me,’ she said haughtily. But, yes, secretly she was relieved. In secret. The college could do without a scandal on top of its crumbling finances. And Steven didn’t deserve it, so hard as he was working.

  He gave her a faint shadow of that sweet smile. ‘You lie in your teeth, Val. But never mind. I forgive you. I’ll get rid of her. And then it’s off to the studios in glamorous Wandsworth to sing for the college’s supper. Just don’t forget to print those notes out for me.’

  Then he was out of the office, running down the stone staircase as lithely as ever he had when he was an undergraduate.

  Valerie went out onto the landing and called after him. ‘Master—what’s the file name for your notes?’

  He did not pause. But he looked up, head back, eyes gleaming with wicked laughter. Goodness, he’s sexy when he’s off his guard, thought Valerie.

  ‘Balderdash.’

  And he disappeared out of the front door, into the rainy spring morning.

  Valerie bit back a laugh and went to tell the porter that the Master was coming down to deal with the importunate visitor. And then to print off his file. And to wonder if the widowed Mrs Courtney Underwood thought he was sexy, too.

  The widowed Mrs Courtney Underwood was still as beautiful as ever. Steven saw it at once. He halted in the doorway of the porter’s lodge, unobserved for the moment.

  Courtne
y was talking animatedly to the porter. She looked exactly the same as she had the morning she had told him she was going to marry Tom, thought Steven. Soft dark hair that shone like wet tar, voluptuous mouth pouting sweetly, prettily apologetic—and quite, quite immovable. The porter was looking harassed.

  Steven sympathised. He knew the way Courtney had of making you feel helpless. And the porter had done nothing to deserve it.

  Unlike me, thought Steven, wincing inwardly. Unlike me.

  He stepped forward. ‘All right, Mr Jackson. I’ll deal with this.’

  Courtney swung round, quick as a snake.

  Just like old times, thought Steven, managing not to wince. Courtney liked being in control. She didn’t like anything—or anyone—to surprise her.

  Then she caught herself. ‘Steven! Darling!’

  A couple of undergraduates, going through the pigeonholes for their mail, stared unashamedly at the Master and the glamorous new arrival.

  Courtney flung herself into his unwilling arms, ignoring her audience. No, thought Steven wryly, make that relishing her audience. While all the time she pretended to ignore them. Oh, yes, same old Courtney.

  Save me from women who play to the gallery, he thought. Out of nowhere he remembered his golden Venus, flustered and shy, and divinely unaware of her sexiness. For some reason, it gave him strength.

  ‘Hello, Courtney,’ he said, at his most dispassionate.

  “‘Hello, Courtney”,’ she mimicked, leaning back and looking up into his eyes reproachfully. ‘Is that all I get? After all this time?’

  As if to illustrate her point, she ran her hands up under the dark grey jacket of his suit. He felt the warmth of her fingertips burn through the crisp cotton of his shirt like sun through a magnifying glass.

  Oh, yes, she was just the same all right. Still with that camellia skin and long, long lashes. Still with that trick of letting her eyes fill up with tears so that they sparkled like diamonds but did not actually fall and make her eyes red. And her lips slightly parted for a kiss.

  Steven did not kiss her.

  There was a time when those brimming, sparkling eyes had twisted his gut into knots. And she had known it. Beauty was licensed to do any damn thing it liked in Courtney’s world. When she’d run off to India with rich, reckless Tom, he’d thought he would never recover.

  But that was fifteen years ago. Surely even Courtney, who was brilliant at not seeing things she didn’t want to, would realise that Steven Konig was out of her thrall by now.

  And I am, Steven told himself fiercely. I am.

  He detached her hands and stepped away from her. ‘You’d better come to my room.’

  She gave a little wriggle.

  ‘Sounds like fun.’

  He kept his face blank, though he was annoyed with himself.

  ‘Don’t get excited. It’s only an office.’

  He led the way out into the windy outer quad. Students milled round them. Their scarves whipped about in the breeze as they balanced books and bicycles.

  ‘How clearly I remember all this,’ said Courtney, looking around.

  For a moment Steven was so angry he could hardly speak. ‘You surprise me.’

  She stared, momentarily disconcerted. ‘What do you mean?’

  He took a moment to master himself. ‘As far as I remember you only came to Maggie’s once,’ he said curtly. ‘The Commem Ball. You remember that? When you picked up Tom?’

  ‘Steven!’ She seemed genuinely shocked. ‘Surely you’re not still bitter about that? Not after all these years.’ Shocked, sure. But quite pleased, too.

  Steven could have kicked himself.

  He said in his most deadpan voice, ‘Just setting the record straight.’

  She laughed. He’d used to think that girlish laugh so charming. Now it set his teeth on edge.

  ‘Oh, Steven! Still fussing over details.’

  ‘Facts are important,’ he said.

  Her brows twitched together in irritation. For a second she did not look so charming. That was new, he thought. Of course, he had never argued with her in the old days.

  He said levelly, ‘You were never in and out of college. In fact, you hated my being at college at all. I remember some scathing comments about dating a student. So let’s not rewrite history.’ He led the way through a small brick arch. ‘This way.’

  He could feel Courtney watching him. She said softly, ‘You are so wrong. I don’t have to rewrite a thing. I remember—everything.’

  The breathy little word was for his ears only, like a private caress. He remembered that trick, too. It was shocking how quickly the old helpless rage boiled up.

  He set his teeth. He was thirty-nine years old. He had not responded to Courtney’s needling in fifteen years.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  She caught his arm, bringing him to halt in the lee of the old wall. He looked down at her. Her eyes were wide.

  ‘I remember that ball,’ she murmured, watching his mouth. ‘So clearly. Didn’t we kiss right here?’ She took a step closer.

  She had changed her perfume. This one was cloying and over-spiced, like an opium den. For a moment Steven’s head swam. He drew a ragged breath.

  Courtney smiled. ‘See? I do remember.’

  Oh, she remembered her devilish game all right. Every time he’d seen her again she had pulled him back onto his knees, with some caressing remark, some implicit promised intimacy that he did not want to want but somehow could not quite put out of his mind. Eventually he had given up seeing Tom entirely. It had felt as if he was skirting betrayal all the time. In the end it was easier just to keep away.

  ‘Convinced?’ said Courtney, all charm and sweet, unstated challenge.

  Steven stepped away.

  ‘We never kissed in this archway,’ he said crisply. ‘It only leads to the Master’s Lodging. Twenty years ago I never came through here. It was out of bounds.’

  He turned away in disgust. No doubt she would get out of the hole she had dug herself. Courtney was good at that. He just didn’t want to watch.

  He unlocked the ornamental gate and led the way into the Master’s house. It was the oldest part of the college, a late medieval tower, with a spiral stone staircase and some fearsome gargoyles. Normally Steven smiled at them as he passed. Now he did not even look at them.

  He put his head round the door of the secretary’s room.

  ‘Mrs Underwood is joining me in my study for a few moments, Valerie. Could we have coffee, please? And let me know when the car arrives.’

  He opened the door to his study and stood back to let Courtney precede him. The new perfume was powerful stuff. It was stifling.

  He closed the door behind her and then strode across the room to fling open a window.

  ‘So—have a seat,’ he said, keeping as much furniture between them as he could manage. ‘This is a surprise. What are you doing in Oxford?’

  She was not stupid. She knew that he had deliberately retired behind the magnificent oak desk. She let her eyes fill.

  ‘Don’t be mean to me, Steven.’

  And she still had that little catch in her voice, he thought, irritated. From nineteen to twenty-four it had set his pulses racing. Now he was thirty-nine and had exactly forty-eight minutes before he had to leave for an interview. And that little squeak was still sexy.

  After all this time! How could he be such a fool? He stopped playing nice.

  ‘What do you want, Courtney?’

  She blinked those wonderful lashes. Fifteen years ago it would have brought him out in a cold sweat. But in the intervening period he had known a lot of women. These days he recognised it for what it was—a charming little trick that she turned on and off at will. Oh, for his flustered goddess who had no tricks! The thought startled him with its intensity.

  Courtney did not notice that she had lost her audience. ‘Oh, Steven,’ she sighed. ‘Are you still hurting after all these years?’

  He looked at his watch. ‘Whate
ver this is about, Courtney, I suggest that you shift it along,’ he said courteously. ‘I’ve got an appointment in London and a car coming at any moment.’

  She moistened her lips, still watching him intently. He remembered that trick, too. In spite of himself, he felt his body respond. Damn.

  She saw his expression. ‘Send the car away,’ she said huskily.

  He stared at her, unblinking. ‘You really think that you can get anything you want, don’t you, Courtney?’

  She widened those wonderful blue eyes. ‘You were always too clever for me, Steven.’

  Oh, he was clever, all right, thought Steven with savage self-mockery. Three degrees and more research papers than you could shake a stick at. And the once eager lover in him still went weak at the knees when she looked at him like that. Even though he knew it was all a sham. Even though his instincts reminded him of red hair and a shy laugh that was no sham at all. Idiot!

  ‘I think that depends on how you define clever,’ he said, full of wry self-mockery. ‘Come on, Courtney, I haven’t got time for games. What is it this time? Money?’

  A faint look of annoyance creased the creamy brow. She sighed.

  ‘You’ve got so—so commercial. I hardly recognise you.’

  ‘It’s a tough old world. I’m surprised you haven’t found that out, with a child to look after.’

  She bent her head. Her dark hair shone. The uneven Victorian glass in his leaded windows fractured the thin spring sunshine into a hundred rainbows. It made her look as if she were surrounded by a halo. Did she know that? thought Steven, irritated.

  But he was relieved, too. He found it easiest to resist Courtney when she was in her ineffable Madonna mood.

  ‘Actually, that’s why I’m here. I need to talk to you about Windflower,’ said Courtney, at her most soulful.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Yes?’

  When Tom died, Courtney had arrived at the Underwood household claiming to be penniless. Steven had been in Australia at the time. He’d got back to find Tom’s widowed mother on the verge of bankruptcy. She had also been watching over the baby every night while Courtney went out to ultra-smart restaurants with men she said goodbye to in their darkened-windowed limousines.