Sir Roland Palmerston, was among the former. She frequently called into the shop, saying delightedly she found Sonya’s arrangements “inspiring".
“But she’ll try, my dear,” Marcus warned. “The Rowlands women are frightful snobs. Money is their aristocracy.”
“Your nephew must see something in her? She’s very attractive and she has a real flair for wearing clothes.”
Marcus gave a dry laugh that turned into a cough. “My nephew wants and needs a great deal more than that in a woman. It’s Paula and her mother who hang in there.”
“Well, he is seriously eligible,” she put forward with a smile.
“David got the best of all of us,” he said with very real pride.
The cautionary voice always at work inside Sonya’s head was issuing warnings. Not of the smug-faced Paula Rowlands, heiress, but David Holt Wainwright, Marcus’s dearly loved nephew. He was the one who was going to cause her grief. She had learned to rely on her intuition. David Wainwright was a very important figure in Marcus’s life. He was already querying the exact nature of her friendship with Marcus. And friendship was all it was. She had her suspicions Marcus wanted more of her. He could offer her a great deal, not the least of it blessed safety, but at this point she was allowing the friendship plenty of time to go where it would.
Afterwards it seemed to Holt that Sonya Erickson had entered his life in a kind of blaze. Very few people did that. It wasn’t just her beauty, ravishing though it was, it was the inbred self-confidence. Beauty alone didn’t guarantee that kind of self-assurance. Paula didn’t have it for all her privileged background. This young woman was the very picture of patrician ease. There had to be a whole file on her somewhere with many secrets lodged therein. Paula was still whispering in his ear, for all she was worth, even though Marcus and his beautiful companion were almost upon them.
“Do me a favour, Paula, okay?” He put a staying hand on her arm.
“Of course, darling. Whatever you say!”
“Then kindly shut up. It’s damned rude.”
Holt made the move forward, his hand extended, a natural smile of great charm on his face. “Uncle Marcus.”
“David.” A matching expression of deepest affection lit the older man’s face.
The two shook hands, then moved into their usual hug. Marcus and Lucille Wainwright had not been blessed with children, though they had longed for them. Holt had been very close to both from childhood as a result. They loved him. He loved them. In a way he had been the son they never had.
Marcus began the introductions the moment they broke apart. “Sonya Erickson.” No further explanation. Just Sonya Erickson. No more was offered. But it was painfully obvious Sonya Erickson had become extremely important to him. If not, why the emeralds?
Remember Lucy’s emeralds.
“Sonya, please,” the young woman invited as she gave Holt her hand. It was done so gracefully—hang on, so regally—he was a beat away from raising her elegant hand just short of his lips. That caused a moment of black amusement. Yet there wasn’t the merest hint of seduction in her beautiful green eyes when so many women tried it on. There wouldn’t be a woman in the country who didn’t know he had a few bob. But Ms Erickson’s glorious green eyes revealed nothing beyond an aristocratic interest and a cool speculation to match his.
Up close she was even more beautiful. Paula, brightly chatting now to Marcus—Step Two in Paula’s plan was to charm all his relatives—must be hating her. Beautiful women were a major stumbling block to their less fortunate sisters. Another man might have been overwhelmed. Not he. He had his head well and truly screwed on. But admittedly he was a man who recognised the fact a woman’s beauty was immensely powerful. The beautiful Sonya had gained Marcus’s attention. No mean feat. Marcus wasn’t the kind of man who’d had passing affairs after Lucy’s death. Rather Marcus had turned into something of a recluse.
Now this! Ms Erickson had mesmerized him. If Holt stood looking into her green eyes much longer, it might well happen to him, such was her spectacular allure.
“Marcus speaks of you often,” she was saying, snapping him back to attention.
“If I need someone to speak well of me I go to Marcus,” he said.
“I wondered if perhaps I should have curtsied?” Sonya smiled at him with aloof charm.
“Maybe I would have returned a bow. Here’s to beauty!”
“No wonder Marcus loves you,” she murmured.
He couldn’t resist. “And he obviously finds you special.”
That self-confidence, the patrician air, just had to be inbred. He began to wonder about her background. Might be an idea to check it out. Who was she? She had a lovely speaking voice to add to her assets. A faint accent. He couldn’t pick it up. Surely indicated a gracious background? Or an intensive course in elocution. Did they still call it that? Elocution, art of speech?
His hand, he found to his mild self-disgust, was still feeling the effect of its contact with her skin. It was like a brief but searing encounter with electricity. It sent sparkles racing up his arm and a stir through his body. He had to take note. The lady was dangerous. She rated attention.
“Marcus is very dear to me,” he said, taking just enough care that it didn’t sound like a warning.
“Then you are both blessed.”
She turned away from him to Marcus, a hint of sadness in her face.
A woman of mystery indeed!
And didn’t she know how to play the part! In fact she was so good it was all he could do not to applaud.
Paula, momentarily sidelined, pushed herself back into the conversation with a smile. “May I say how beautiful you look, Ms Erickson.” She couldn’t quite pull genuine sincerity off.
“Thank you.” A slight inclination of the white-blonde head.
Paula had to be an idiot if she didn’t realize the mysterious Ms Erickson had summed her up on the spot and decided to shrug off the underlying hostility and dislike. Wise move, he thought. Play it cool.
“And the necklace!” Paula, big on jewellery, threw up both hands. “It’s absolutely glorious! You must tell me how you came by it. A family heirloom perhaps?”
Zero tact on Paula’s part. She might as well have shouted: As though that’s possible!
Just as he was debating abandoning Paula for the evening or perhaps treading on her expensively shod toe, Ms Erickson put her long-fingered white hand very lightly to the great glittering emerald. “My family lost everything at the end of World War Two,” she offered very gravely.
God, that woman, Anna Andersen, claiming to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia couldn’t have done it any better, Holt thought. Why on earth would she want to be a florist? She had everything going for her to be a big movie star.
“Really?” Paula exclaimed, incredulously.
He could read Paula’s thoughts. Ms Erickson was only making it up.
“That can’t be true! I feel you’re kidding me.”
“Too true.” Sonya Erickson’s reply was so quiet she might have been talking to herself.
High time to step in. The last thing he ever wanted was to offer the slightest embarrassment to his uncle.
“Shall we go to our table?” he suggested. His voice was as smooth as molasses, when his blood was heating up.
Marcus, who had tensed, gently took hold of the exquisite Sonya’s arm. “Lead the way, David,” he murmured.
He did so, shouldering responsibility