She took her thumb out of her mouth and smiled gappily. ‘I’m Luthy,’ she lisped. ‘Mummy’th going out—she’th going to wear a party dreth. I’m thtaying up to thee it.’
Matt worked his way through the lisp to decipher the underlying words, and wondered if he would be able to delay long enough to see Mummy in her party dress, too.
The boy thundered downstairs and skidded to a halt. ‘Mum says come and sit down, she’ll be out in a minute.’
‘Well,’ Matt said, ‘perhaps your father—’
‘He’s dead,’ they chorused, apparently unmoved.
‘Ah.’ Matt trailed obediently after them into a scene of utter chaos. The cushions had been taken off the furniture and stacked like a house of cards, to make a sort of den behind the big settee. The chairs had been shoved every which way, and the curtains had been dragged out from the windows to drape over the top, so that they hung at a crazy angle.
‘Oops,’ said the boy, and grabbing cushions, he began piling them haphazardly onto the furniture. Matt helped, discreetly turning cushions round so the zips were at the back and they went into the right place.
It reminded him of his childhood. How many times had he done that? And how many times had he been skinned for it? He hid a smile and straightened the curtains, just as the woman appeared in the doorway, her hair twisted up in a towel, her feet bare, an ancient towelling robe hastily dragged on and belted with symbolic firmness.
She looked impossibly young to be the mother of these two little scamps—young and vulnerable and freshly scrubbed. His heart beat a slow, steady rhythm, strong and powerful. Lord, she was lovely.
‘Hi again,’ she said.
‘Hi.’ His voice sounded rough and scratchy. He tried again. ‘Sorry to come at a bad time—’
‘That’s all right. I’d forgotten I was supposed to be going out.’
‘Somewhere nice?’ he asked, although it was none of his business, but she wrinkled her nose and shook her head.
‘Not really. It’s a charity auction for the hospice.’
Guilt prickled at him. He’d been invited and had turned it down because he hadn’t expected to be back early enough. Perhaps he ought to go anyway—and he could see her, of course. Not that that had anything to do with why he wanted to go, of course!
‘I expect you’ll enjoy it,’ he said encouragingly, but her nose screwed up again doubtfully.
‘Shouldn’t think so, it’s duty. I’m selling my services.’
His mind boggled. He just hoped to hell what he was thinking didn’t show in his eyes, because it was likely to get him arrested.
‘What do you do?’ he asked, just as the house phone rang.
‘Oh—excuse me,’ she said, and whirling on her heels, she went into the kitchen and shut the door.
‘Mummy duth gardenth,’ Lucy told him.
Which explained the riot of colour outside the front door. How useful, he thought, and his mind ran on. A gardener, selling her services at a charity auction—so if he could somehow wangle a ticket at this late stage, he could buy her services in the garden—and several hours of her time. Fascinating.
And she was a widow—not married, and apparently no man around the place playing the part to get annoyed at his interest.
‘So—is Mummy going on her own?’ he asked, pumping the children ruthlessly with only the merest prickle of conscience.
‘No. Peter’th taking her.’
And who the hell was Peter? ‘Peter?’ he said guilelessly. Oh, wicked, wicked man to take advantage of their innocence!
‘Peter’s a friend,’ the boy told him flatly, right on cue.
‘Joe doethn’t like him,’ Lucy put in for good measure. Was Joe another ‘friend’?
‘So what if I don’t? He talks to us like we’re idiots,’ the boy said defensively. So the Joe she’d been talking to on the phone was her son. Good. One less to worry about—and he didn’t like the boyfriend. Even better. An ally.
Then the kitchen door opened abruptly and the woman came back in, the soggy towel in her hand, damp strands of untamed hair clinging to her face and trailing down her shoulders. ‘Peter can’t make it,’ she announced to nobody in particular. ‘Damn.’
‘Problems?’ Matt said, wondering if there was a God after all and if He was about to put such a spectacular opportunity in his lap.
‘Yes—my escort for tonight. I really, really don’t want to go, but I have to, and I can’t think of anything more awful than going on my own. Oh, well, I shall just have to—oh, no!’
Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘I’ve had a glass of wine—I can’t drive. Oh, darn it. Taxi—I’ll have to call a taxi,’ she muttered, thumbing through a tattered phone book.
‘I’ll take you,’ he said without giving himself time to think.
Her head flew up, her eyes widening incredulously.
‘You? Why on earth should you do a thing like that?’
He shrugged, wondering what feeble excuse he could come up with that she’d believe, and came up with probably the feeblest.
‘Because I muddled up the phones?’ he offered. That wouldn’t work. She’d taken the wrong phone, not him, and any second now she was going to remember that. He tried again. ‘Anyway, didn’t you say it was a charity do?’
‘Yes—for the hospice, but what of it?’
He shrugged again, trying to look nonchalant when he wanted to punch the air. Yes, there was a God. ‘I keep meaning to do something charitable. Here’s my chance. I could escort you, so you won’t have to go on your own, and you won’t have to drive. Simple.’ He smiled encouragingly.
She hesitated, for such a long time that he began to lose hope, but then she started to weaken. ‘I couldn’t possibly let you—’
‘Of course you could. I had an invitation to it anyway. Just say yes.’
She wavered, so he pressed her again. ‘What time do you need to be there, where is it and what’s the dress code?’
She answered mechanically. He could almost hear the cogs in her brain whirring. ‘Seven thirty for eight, the Golf Club behind the hospice, black tie.’
‘Fine. I’ll pick you up at seven.’
‘But you’ll be bored to death—’
‘Rubbish. I might even bid for the odd thing—you couldn’t deny the charity the chance to make money out of me, could you?’
‘Well…’
He grinned, watching her crumble, and knew he’d done it. Brilliant. ‘Do I need to eat first?’ he asked, without giving her any further room to wriggle out of it.
She shook her head, looking a trifle shell-shocked. ‘No. There’s a meal—I’ve already bought the tickets, so you’ll get a free three-course dinner out of it.’
His grin widened. ‘Excellent. It’s sounding better by the minute. Now, if I could just have my phone—?’
Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, gosh, sorry, I’d forgotten again.’
She went into the hall, her back to him, and rummaged in that amazing bag of hers, giving him an unobstructed view of a curvy and very feminine bottom in faded towelling as she bent over.
‘Here it is,’ she said, straightening up and turning round, and he dragged in a lungful of air and tried not to look down the gaping