Heart On Fire Part 16

Ellis took his eyes away from Claudia, slowly, and gave his brother a wintry stare, face hard.

"About the corporation? Since when did you interest yourself in the business side?"

"Never mind that now, I'd much rather talk about it over lunch reit isn't something for a snap decision. Come on, Ellis, say you'll come."

"If you're going to talk about the corporation, I'd better be there, hadn't I?" Ellis bit out, and the hostility in his tone made Quentin frown with uneasiness.

"Stephen will be a major shareholder one day; he has a right to an opinion about the corporation!" he said sharply.

"It doesn't matter, Papa, leave it," Stephen hurriedly said.

"You'll come out to lunch with me, won't you?"

Quentin nodded.

"I would be happy to." He was still frowning in Ellis's direction, his face stern.

"We might as well all go in one car, then," said Stephen.

"Shall we take mine?"

"You take Papa," said Ellis.

"I'll go in my own car, because afterwards I must drive on to London straight away. I'm off to Germany early this evening."

148 Quentin got up, feeling for his stick.

"I will go and get ready, then. I won't be long, Stephen. Claudia, tell Celeste I need her in my bedroom, will you?"

She hurried away and sent Celeste up to him at once, lingering in the kitchen to avoid running into Ellis again. Stephen joined her a few moments later.

He was flushed and excited.

"I'll get some wine into them before I tackle the subject of my father going back to work. Did you get the impression Ellis was going to be difficult?

Do you think he guessed what I was going to suggest?

He's amazingly quick to pick up ideas, even shadows of ideas! That's probably why he's so good at running the corporation. I'm sure I felt his hackles going up, he gave me such a look! It was likea knife in the back.

He probably feels that Papa would interfere in the way he ran things, and I expect he's quite right, it may well make life difficult for him for a while, but, if it makes Papa happy, Ellis will just have to grin and bear it. " She smiled at him affectionately.

"You really care about your father, don't you?"

He went a little pink.

"He's the only one I've got!" She laughed at his embarra.s.sed expression, and he hurriedly went on, "And I'm very grateful to you, Claudia. You've been such a help. I had a feeling you would be, that night Ellis took me to your family's restaurant, and he went into the kitchen and came out with soup on his hair and his jacket... He wouldn't say what had happened, but I guessed, of course..."

"Guessed what exactly?" She wondered what on earth he had imagined going on in the kitchen!

"Well, obviously, that he had said or done something to annoy you, and you had thrown the soup at him," Stephen said with wide-eyed satisfaction.

"And 14~ very funny he looked, too! I didn't dare laugh, mind you. I had a feeling he might hit me. But it left me very impressed with any girl who could do that to Ellis, and I thought you might just be the girl to face up to my father, too."

"Sometimes I wonder what sort of scientist you are!" she drily said, shaking her head.

He laughed.

"Oh, I'm good, believe me. Put me in a laboratory and I can cope with anything. It's life that is difficult."

"Isn't that the truth?" Claudia said, grimacing. "Anyway," Stephen said, 'that's what made me think that if you could deal with Ellis you could deal with Papa. " He grinned at her.

"And I was right, wasn't I?"

"I'm not sure I can deal with either of them!" "You can wrap them round your little finger!" Stephen said with cheerful amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I admire the way you deal with Ellis. He had made a big pa.s.s at you, hadn't he? He usually gets his own way with women. I like to think he doesn't get anywhere with you. It makes him more human, more like me!" He laughed at himself, grimacing, then opened the door. "Well, I had better go and help Papa into the car. I'll see you when I drive him back. You don't mind not being invited, do you? I'd love to have you join us, but I think we should keep this discussion in the family. It could get very tense, not to say nasty, if Ellis objects."

"I understand," she said, only too glad not to be going, and Stephen looked down at her, his face alight.

"That's the wonderful thing about you--you always do."

Over his shoulder she saw his father coming along slowly, with Ellis close beside him.

Claudia met the cold grey eyes which were watching her and Stephen, and a little shiver ran down her back. Ellis did not even like to see them together, just talking in a friendly way. There was threat in his face.

What right did he have to look at her like that? He was planning to take Estelle to Germany with him, he had lied to her--so why should he feel ent.i.tled to look at her with icy contempt merely because she and his brother were good friends?

On sudden, angry impulse Claudia stood on tiptoe, meaning to kiss Stephen' on the cheek, but he turned his head instantly, sensing her movement and her intention, and met her mouth with his own.

It was a brief kiss, warm and sensitive, rather than earth-shattering, and a moment later Stephen turned away.

Claudia stood quite still, Hushed and startled. Why had Stephen kissed her on the lips, instead of the cheek? He wasn't really attracted to her, was he? That was a complication she could not cope with! Stephen was her friend; that was how she thought of him and she would never think of him as anything else, so she hoped he had not begun to like her too much?

Her eyes flashed to Ellis and she flinched at the look in his face.

He frightened her. She hadn't meant to make him jealous, only to show him that she didn't care what he did. He could go to Germany with anyone he chose, he wasn't the only man in the world!

Her pride had pushed her into kissing Stephen, but now she felt sick and miserable and she wanted to cry. Her own motives were such a tangle that she no longer knew why she did anything, but other people's motives were even less explicable. She was beginning to wish she lived on a desert island.

Ellis opened the front door, Quentin walked through it with Stephen, and, through her lashes, Claudia watched Ellis follow them, his long strides taking him further and further away rapidly. He unlocked his car and got behind the wheel, without looking back. She heard the angry burst of fire as his engine started, then he accelerated away at tremendous speed, grinding up the gravel driveway.

Stephen drove away at more leisurely pace, giving her a friendly wave and a grin. Quentin sat beside him, staring straight ahead into his dark world, but smiling slightly, as if he, at least, was very happy.

Another moment and they had both gone, and she stood there alone, feeling icy cold; shivering as she listened to the distant whisper of the river, the sound of the wind in the bare trees.

She had never felt so depressed in her entire life.

CHAPTER NINE.

-STePn pounds drove his father back several hours later, and stayed at the house until the evening, so that there was no work done that day, not that that mattered to Quentin. He was far too happy. Ellis had agreed that he should soon go back at work~ in Switzerland, at the corporation's head offices in Geneva, and Quentin was walking on air all day, with no interest in dictating to Claudia. He could only talk about one subject, and he did, endlessly, while Stephen watched him with amused, affectionate satisfaction.

"How long would you say it would take me to finish my book? Another three months? Four?" Quentin asked Claudia.

"That will be around June, won't it? Yes ,.. Then I think I'll put this house on the market in June--the perfect time to sell, it will look its loveliest in June. When does your contract run out, Stephen? Not long now, is it? And then you'll be coming home, too. Have you ever been to Switzerland in June, Claudia? Oh, you are going to love it. It will take your breath away."

Claudia knew it wasn't very likely that she would see Switzerland for years to come. When Quentin had finished his book, she would go back to London, to another temporary job, to the usual round of auditions, voice training, exercises, saving every penny she could and wondering if she would ever get work in the theatre, wondering if she was wasting her time. Did she have any real talent? Was she deluding herself 152 ~. ~ when she thought she had a future in the theatre? Sometimes she despaired enough to feel like giving up. That was one reason why she had had a strong fellow feeling for Quentin.

~They had had something in common. Both she and Quentin had been beached and without hope.

Now Quentin had been rescued; he was going back into his old life, but she wasn't, she was still waiting for something to happen, and beginning to suspect that she was just wasting her life.

Stephen saw her small, wry smile and understood it. He smiled back at her and said to his father, "You haven't talked to Claudia yet about the job, Papa."

Quentin turned his head, his face excited and flushed.

"Haven't I? I thought I had. Claudia..." He put out his hand and sheleaned over to take it. He patted her fingers, beaming."Claudia, my dear, how would you like to come with me?"

"With you?" she repeated, not quite sure what he meant."To Switzerland," he said, holding her hand, and she drew a startled,incredulous breath, her body jerking. Quentin felt the shock runthrough her and tightened his grip of her.

"Switzerland? But... Why?""I shall need a secretary even more there," he pointed out quietly."And I need someone I can trust absolutely. My work will involve reading very confidential papers, and, as I can't see to read, I'll have to rely on my secretary. The same applies to signing cheques, checking accounts... It is essential that I have someone I know to be scrupulously honest. Someone like you, Claudia."

She flushed, very touched. "Thank you."

He smiled.

"Also we work well together. When I remember the stupid girls who came before you] I don't think I could bear to go through that again, trying girl after girl, and getting nowhere. I might strangle one of them! Claudia, you will think it over, won't you? I realise it would mean being a long way from your family, but I'm sure you would like Switzerland. You would get a big increase in salary, of course. Once I was back in the corporation, your workload would be different, but it would be k.arder, I realise that. You would have more people to deal with; instead of working in this quiet house we would be in a busy office block, with phones ringing and people coming and going all the time. And it would be a foreign country for you--you would have to learn to speak several other languages, certainly German and Italian, they would be essential, but I'd make sure you had the best of help in learning them, and you would have a flat of your own, and a phone, so that you could ring your sister, and a car."

He broke off as Claudia gave a faint little groan. Quentin's brows worked enquiringly.

"What do you say, Claudia?" he asked.

"Oh, I... I'm overwhelmed, it sounds wonderful, and I'm very grateful to be asked, but..." She bit her lip and Stephen watched her face, frowning.

"But what?" Quentin asked anxiously.

"Claudia, please come... Whatever you want, I'm sure we can agree..."

She gave him a rueful look, then an apologetic one at Stephen, pulling a face.

"I'm sorry... I've loved working for you, and I wish I could go to Switzerland, but I'm not really aiming at a career in business, you know. I want to be an actress, not a secretary, and I can't leave London. If I'm not able to go for auditions I won't ever get my chance..."

Quentin's body slumped in his chair, his mouth turned down, his face disappointed. He let go of her hand and sighed.

"I'm so sorry," Claudia said, watching him unhappily'. "I hate having to say no to you, but I've worked so hard to be an actress; it's everything I want, I can't give up yet."

Quentin nodded heavily.

"Of course, I understand..." he said, but of course he didn't. He was being polite,~ but she sensed that he thought she was fooling herself about a career in the theatre, and maybe she was, but she hadn't yet reached the stage where she could contemplate giving up.

"Well, there is plenty of time yet, Papa," Stephen gently said.

"You have to finish your book first, and that will take some months, you said? Yes? Well, then, you can see how things go." He glanced at his watch. "I must go now, I have a lot of work to do. Claudia, will you walk to the door with me?"

On the way, she said wryly, "I won't change my mind, you know, Stephen. I'm sorry, but " I didn't expect' you would," he interrupted.

"I just wanted to lift my father's spirits. He looked so depressed, Claudia, and I hate to see him sad. He has been much more like his old self lately; always cheerful and busy. I want him to stay that way. And, after all, does it hurt to give him some hope? And who knows what the future has in store, anyway?"

"That's true enough," she said, sighing.

"I wonder, what if I find someone else to take over my job--and I train her over the next couple of months? That might work."

"That's not a bad idea," he agreed.

"OK, see if you can find a suitable girl, but she'll have to be vet ted before she starts working for Papa. We have to be very careful. Anyone who works for one of us has to be thoroughly investigated."

"I wasn't," Claudia said light-heartedly, and Stephen gave her an odd look.

"Of course you were," he said, and she did a double-take, not really believing him.

"You can't be serious?" She laughed, then stopped laughing as she saw his face. Then she began to frown. "What do you mean, investigated?"

"The corporation had your entire life checked out," he said.

"From birth to the moment I hired you. It's purely routine, Claudia--not personal at all. Everyone is checked. Don't worry, I didn't even see the papers. There was no need to--our personnel 'department deals with all that.

I was so sure you were OK that I just went ahead and hired you. After all, you had worked for my brother, so I knew you must be suitable to work for Papa, but you still had to be vet ted because you had only worked for Ellis for a short time, as a temp.

T~ey had to do a full investigation of you before you could come and work here. " A little shiver ran down her spine at the very idea of it.

"If I'd known! What a nightmare world to live in! But what about afterwards, do you keep someone's details on file for as long as they work for your company?"

He nodded.

"Well, obviously... That is the point of it. If there were ever reason to doubt your honesty or loyalty, we might need to know all about you very fast."

157 "How horrible!" she burst out, darkly flushed.

"I hate the idea of having my whole life filed away in your secret vaults!

I'm sure it's illegal. You didn't have my consent to poke and pry into my privacy."