and when he spoke again he sounded old and uncertain—a million miles from the elegant patriarch of one of Britain’s most celebrated families, the powerful businessman at the helm of a billion-dollar empire. ‘All right. As you say, I have a few things to sort out here. You’ll probably handle her a lot better than I can anyway.’ He sighed heavily. ‘We had an argument, when Mia arrived, and afterwards she completely cut herself off from me. That’s what kills me, Luis—she just wouldn’t talk to me at all. I didn’t push it. Lillian was dying—’
His voice cracked, and Luis took a large swig of whisky while he waited for him to continue. ‘Nothing else seemed important. I thought that afterwards…when Lillian was gone I’d have time to talk to Emily, explain about Mia. But I didn’t get the chance. She left the day after the funeral.’
‘Did she give you any clue that she was going?’
Oscar gave a ragged, humourless laugh. ‘That was the hardest thing of all. Her leaving was so complete and so unexpected. No drama, no big scene. She just…did it—severed all her ties with us completely. She didn’t take anything with her—only her ballet things and the clothes she was wearing. She even left her mobile phone, which was a very obvious way of letting me know she didn’t want any further contact.’
Luis frowned. ‘She was serious about not being found, then.’
‘Oh, yes. But that’s Emily. She doesn’t do anything in half-measures. Never has. Whatever she does she does passionately, with her whole heart and soul. I’ve always admired her for that—I suppose it’s what made her do so well at dancing—but the trouble is she applies the same rigorous standards that she expects from herself to those around her. I’ve let her down—it’s as simple as that. She thought I was decent and honourable, and now she’s found out that I’m not.’
Luis let his eyelids flicker closed for a second. ‘None of us are,’ he said savagely.
‘Lillian was,’ Oscar said simply, ‘and Emily is so like her. She’s good, through and through. But strong too. She’d do anything for the people she loves.’
The memory of the little girl on stage earlier came back to Luis—the way Emily had taken her hand and danced alongside her, giving her the courage to carry on.
‘I’m sorry.’ Oscar’s rueful voice broke into his thoughts. ‘I’m boring you to death. Look, Luis, I’m so relieved that you’ve found her and that she’s all right. That’s the main thing, but if you could…’
The sentence trailed off. ‘Yes?’ Luis prompted. ‘What would you like me to do?’
Oscar laughed despairingly. ‘I was going to say, if you could make her understand…but of course that’s unreasonable.’
Meditatively, Luis swirled the dark amber liquid round in his glass and then drained it in one mouthful. ‘We’ll see, Oscar. Leave it with me. I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Thank you, Luis. I’m grateful.’
‘My pleasure.’
‘You’ll be all right here, Miss Balfour?’
Standing blinking in the doorway, Emily looked around the opulent room in front of her, and then turned to look at Tomás in alarm. ‘I—I don’t understand…whose room is this?’
‘Yours, Miss.’ Tomás’s tone was soothing. ‘Since you’re so tired His Highness thought you might like a chance to freshen up before dinner. Maybe to have a bath and relax a little before eating?’
Emily regarded the elegant antique furnishings, the soft lighting, the vases of flowers, warily, wondering what the catch was.
‘Where is Lu—His Highness?’
‘The Prince has a suite on the floor above, Miss Balfour. He’s in there right now having a drink and making some phone calls. Would you like me to ask him to come down when he’s finished?’
‘Oh, no, thank you,’ Emily said hastily. ‘No, it’s fine. I’d love to have a bath.’
If only to put off the moment when she’d have to face Luis Cordoba over the dinner table, she thought, stepping forward and feeling her feet sink into the thick pile of the cream carpet. The room was huge, decorated in a classic English country house style which—apart from the addition of a Victorian-style bath standing on a raised platform in front of the huge French windows—was poignantly reminiscent of Lillian’s pretty bedroom at Balfour. Or at least how it had been before the paraphernalia of illness had crept in to spoil its carefully designed scheme.
‘Very good, Miss Balfour. Perhaps you could phone down to reception when you’re ready? One of our staff will be there to accept the message.’ Tomás left, quietly shutting the door behind him, and Emily wandered slowly over to the dressing table, running her fingers along its polished surface as if in a dream.
She leaned forward, looking into the mirror, where her own eyes stared back at her—smudged and dark with exhaustion. She was so tired, maybe it was a dream. Maybe she’d wake up any minute and find herself back in the narrow, lumpy bed in her bedsit, beneath sheets from which no amount of trips to the launderette could remove the smell of damp…
But then she remembered Luis Cordoba was waiting for her and felt her stomach clench with painful unease that left her in no doubt that she was wide awake. Compared to where she’d just come from this place might look and feel like paradise, but it certainly wasn’t without its serpents.
She straightened up quickly, tugging the band from the end of her plait and loosening her hair with shaking fingers.
She’d been stupid to let her guard down by falling asleep in the car, but just for a moment it had felt so wonderful not to have to think any more. She was so tired of thinking, and the relief of having someone come along and take over, tell her what was going to happen and what she had to do, was profound.
It’s just a shame that that someone was a shallow, untrustworthy playboy whose interest in women extended only as far as the bedroom, she thought, crossing the room to where the bath stood in decadent splendour. Although today he hadn’t actually shown so much as a flicker of interest in her, she reflected miserably as she turned on the taps and remembered the cool, dismissive way he’d looked her over.
She stripped off quickly, wincing as she pricked her finger on the safety pin that held up the black skirt she’d bought in a charity shop. She threw it onto the bed, where it looked more depressingly cheap and nasty than ever against the silk coverlet and the smooth Egyptian cotton sheets. Quickly she reached for the hotel bathrobe that was folded, fat as a cushion, on the end of the bed and put it on, wrapping its miraculous softness around her too-thin body.
She could hardly blame him for not being interested in her.
Even she was repelled by the jut of her hipbones, the hard ridges of her ribs beneath her skin, so she had no illusions about anyone else feeling differently. Especially not a connoisseur of the female form like Luis Cordoba. Call me when you grow up, he’d taunted. But she hadn’t just grown up in the past year. She’d grown old.
The bath was full. Turning the taps off Emily shrugged off the bathrobe and hastily slipped into the water, lying back so that it covered her body completely. Closing her eyes she inhaled deeply, savouring the exotic, expensive fragrance of the designer bath oil and trying to refocus her thoughts. It was criminal to let anything spoil this moment of rare luxury. Sinking farther down in the deep water she exhaled again, feeling some of the tension that had taken up permanent residence in her shoulders lately ebb away, and with it a little of her iron-hard resolve.
God, she missed the physical comforts of her old life at Balfour. The day after Lillian’s funeral, when she’d walked out with nothing but a heart full of hurt and a head full of moral indignation, if she had known what she was letting herself in for she might have hesitated for a second before slamming that imposing door behind her. Her leaving was hardly planned, it was simply a logical response to what she’d come to consider an intolerable