to take on both roles with avid dedication, which made that last miscarriage and subsequent break-up of her own marriage such a tragedy.
With one shriek their attention was drawn to Matthew who, having pulled off the sock which had been painstakingly restored to his foot, now held it up triumphantly. He squealed a protest as Chrissie tried to clasp him to her, grizzling until she released him, so that he could run on unsteady little legs across the carpet, arms outstretched, to his mother.
‘You’re a scamp!’ Kendal breathed, hauling him up onto her lap. ‘First Chrissie. Now me. You don’t know who you want, do you?’
‘Kissie,’ he gurgled in his baby mimicry, then rewarded Kendal with a chop to the nose with his little flying fist, still tightly clenched around the sock.
Both girls laughed.
‘I don’t know where you get your energy from,’ Chrissie told him as he strained round to look at her, and stuck a determined little foot into Kendal’s groin in the process.
‘Oh, I do,’ Kendal exhaled, wincing, putting a hand under his bottom to transfer him gently to a less sensitive area of her body. He shrieked a protest at even that small amount of restraint. ‘Believe me, I certainly do!’
Because, whether she wanted to admit it to anyone else or not, she couldn’t help but admit to herself that he was very much Jarrad’s child. From that crop of brown hair—growing darker by the day—to the very feet of the long little body that determined that one day he would be tall, like his father, to that burgeoning self-sufficiency that was apparent even in his babyhood. She almost imagined she could already feel that restless determination and energy in him that was so characteristic of Jarrad Mitchell—so characteristic it scared her that she might never be free of the man’s memory.
The only part of her it seemed her son had inherited was those green-flecked, big, beguiling eyes—eyes that Jarrad had once jokingly announced could ‘smite a man at twenty paces’. And with that combination of physical assets and character Kendal could see that Matthew was already destined to break a few hearts.
‘Just like his dad,’ Chrissie supplied—reading her thoughts again, Kendal thought, startled, until she realised her sister was still referring to something they had been saying a moment ago.
‘No, not like his dad,’ she couldn’t help responding nevertheless, on the smallest note of panic, and she clutched her son tightly to her—ignoring his flailing fists now, his straining efforts to free himself—as though she would protect him from the world and anything that threatened to taint him with the same ability to hurt and wound as Jarrad Mitchell had hurt and wounded her. As, similarly, her own father had hurt and destroyed her mother.
‘I’ve got to take that job, Chrissie,’ she breathed over her son’s angry, lemon-clad little shoulder. I’ve got to get away from him. And more determinedly, aloud again, she uttered, ‘I’ve got to go.’
CHAPTER TWO
AFTER dropping Matthew off with her child minder later that afternoon, Kendal drove out to see some clients for whom she had agreed to do some freelance work, her first since coming back to London. The woman and her husband had approached her through her old firm, having been pleased with the work she had done for them in the past.
She hated leaving her son, particularly twice in one day, because every time she watched him toddle away from her it was like losing a part of herself. But she knew what the alternative would mean—being beholden to Jarrad. Oh, she didn’t mind that for Matthew’s sake, because she knew her husband wouldn’t stop short of providing more than a generous allowance for his son.
But she needed to keep herself too. The savings she had accumulated before leaving the matrimonial home a year ago were now nearly exhausted, and there was no way that she intended to take any money from a man who not only flaunted his mistress openly in her face but who could be so callous as to do what he had done to Ralph—because it had been callous, no matter what Chrissie said.
Forcing herself to forget Jarrad, she focused her thoughts on the job ahead. She had her sketchbook, notepad, colour charts…
She made a quick note in her mind of everything she would need, after negotiating one particularly busy junction, and by the time she pulled onto the drive of the large mock-Georgian house she was mentally as well as physically prepared.
Jill and Peter Arkwright were a middle-aged couple, with two golden Retrievers who sat obediently looking at Kendal from a hopeful distance as she nibbled the oversized slice of rich sponge cake that Jill had insisted Kendal have with her coffee. At the same time, diligently she sketched her plan for the ornamental mouldings and alcoves she had suggested for the lounge, to help take the squareness off the large room.
By the time she left she had a very clear picture of what they needed. An overall classic but country feel that would give the prestigious yet modern estate house some individuality.
Keen to get started, so that the job would be completed if Jarrad did back down and let her take Matthew away—which she very much doubted—she drove straight back home, deciding to pick the little boy up within the hour. In the meantime she had colours to decide on, fabrics to order, painting contractors and carpenters to organise.
Home was a furnished ground-floor flat in an Edwardian terraced house which she was renting on a month-to-month basis until she knew what her definite plans were, therefore the furnishings weren’t at all what she would have chosen herself. It was, however, situated in a quiet street, in a reasonably quiet suburb of the city.
As it was a pleasingly warm day she had the French windows open while she worked, and was enjoying the lucid song of a blackbird above the more distant sounds of afternoon traffic, above the sudden low drone of a car pulling up somewhere along the road.
She answered the phone breezily when it rang. ‘Kendal Mitchell.’
’How did you get on with the Arkwrights?’
The pleasant male voice brought an instant smile to her lips.
‘Tony! Hi!’
‘Was she still as generous with the cake rations?’
Kendal laughed. ‘You’d better believe it!’ She liked Tony Beeson. They were roughly the same age and had worked together at the same design firm until Kendal had married. In fact Tony still worked for them, and it was he who had told her about the job that was going in the States, after visiting his brother’s family in Philadelphia.
‘Made up your mind yet whether you’re going to be leaving us?’ He sounded tentative. In a way he had opened this opportunity for her, but, now that it looked as if it might materialise, Kendal knew he didn’t really want her to go.
‘Not yet,’ she parried, not wanting to go into detail. Tony knew she was separated, but that was all. She didn’t see any point in discussing the obstructions that Jarrad might throw in her way.
‘Have you ever thought about a partnership?’ Tony surprised her by suddenly asking.
Kendal frowned, hesitated. ‘A partnership?’
‘Yes, dumbo. A partnership. You and me. Just say the word and I’d come with you. We’d make a very good team, you know, with your creative flair and my cock-eyed business sense. What do you say? Just the two of us?’
Kendal laughed awkwardly. She had never actually dated Tony and wasn’t sure whether he was serious or not.
‘You mean you running the business side and me showing all those Yankees what an English home really should look like?’
‘Why not?’ he suggested, sounding even more serious. ‘No strings attached. Unless, of course, you wanted there to be.’
She laughed again because she didn’t know what else to do.
‘I can’t wait to see that!’ she jested, ignoring that last bit about strings. But, no, she decided. Partnerships, of any kind, were out. Two healthy, attractive