he was six and he knows nothing else. I brought him down here for two weeks every summer and I tried my best to make him a normal little boy, but for the rest of his life … His grandfather worked sixteen-hour days—he did from the moment his son died—and he took care of Mathew by taking him with him to the bank. He taught Mathew to read the stock market almost as soon as he could read anything. Before he was ten he could balance ledgers. His grandfather—my brother—closed up emotionally. The only way Mathew could get any affection was by pleasing him, and the only way to please him was to be clever with figures. And there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing.’
‘Oh, Margot …’ What business was this of hers, Allie thought, but she couldn’t stop her.
‘You’re the same, I suspect,’ Margot said. ‘The circus is in your blood; you’ve been raised to it. I’ve watched you as a little girl, without a mother, but I always thought having the run of the circus would be much more fun than having the run of the bank.’
‘I’ve never … not been loved,’ Allie said.
‘You think I can’t see that? And I bet you’re capable of loving back. But Mathew … He’s brought three women to visit me over the years, three women he thought he was serious about, and every one of them was as cool and calculating as he is. Romance? He wouldn’t know the first thing about it. It’s like … when his family was killed he put on emotional armour and he’s never taken it off.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’ Allie asked, feeling weird. ‘It’s none of my business.’
‘It is your business,’ Margot said. ‘You’ve thrown him off balance, and what my Mathew needs is to be thrown off balance and kept off balance. Knock him off his feet, girl. If you want to save your circus …’
‘Margot …’ She’d been sitting on a stool near Margot. Now she rose and backed away. ‘No. I’m not even thinking … I wouldn’t …’
‘If I thought you would, I wouldn’t suggest it.’
‘And that makes no sense at all,’ she said and managed a chuckle. ‘Margot, no. I mean … would a Bond want a kid from the circus?’
‘He might need a kid from the circus. A woman from the circus.’
Margot was matchmaking, Allie thought, aghast. One moment she’d been dying. The next, she was trying to organise a romance for her nephew.
‘I think,’ she said a trifle unsteadily, ‘that I’ve won a very good deal by coming tonight. You’ve helped me keep the circus going for two weeks and that’s all I came for. I’d also really like it if you kept on living,’ she added for good measure. ‘But that’s all I’m interested in. You’re about to eat crumpets. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead.’
‘He needs a good woman,’ Margot said as she reached the door.
‘Maybe he does,’ Allie managed, and tugged the door open. ‘But I need a ringmaster and two weeks’ finance and nothing more, so you can stop your scheming this minute.’
The pub was closed. Sunday night in Fort Neptune, Matt thought morosely. Yee-ha.
He walked the beach instead.
The moon was rising over the water, the last tinge of sunset was still colouring the sky and the beauty of the little fort was breathtaking—yet he deliberately turned his mind to figures.
Figures were a refuge. Figures were where he was safe.
It had been that way for as long as he remembered.
When he was six years old his family had died. He had a vague memory of life with them, but only vague. He remembered the aftermath, though. The great Bond mausoleum. His grandfather being … stoic. His great-aunt Margot arriving and yelling, ‘Someone has to cuddle the child. I know you’re breaking your heart, but you’re burying yourself in your bank. You have a grandson. If you can’t look after him, let me have him.’
‘The boy stays with me.’
‘Then look after him. Take him to the bank with you. Teach him your world. Heaven knows, it’s not the perfect answer but it’s better than leaving him alone. Do it .’
Thinking back, it had been an extraordinary childhood, and it didn’t take brains to understand why he was now really only comfortable ensconced in his world of high finance.
Which was why this was so … bewildering. Walking on the beach in the moonlight, knowing tomorrow he’d be a ringmaster …
Figures. Business.
He needed guarantees, he thought, fighting to keep his mind businesslike. He needed an assurance that in two weeks the handover would be smooth and complete.
He’d draw up a contract. Make it official. That was the way to go.
It was a plan, and Mathew Bond was a man who worked according to plans.
Tonight he’d watch Margot eat crumpets, he’d help her to bed, and then he’d make Allie sign something watertight. He’d make sure it was clear this was a two-week deal. And then …
Okay, for two weeks he’d be ringmaster, and that was that. He hoped that it’d make a difference to Margot but if it didn’t there was only so much a man could do.
He’d do it, and then he’d get back to his world.
To banking.
To a world he understood.
AFTER LEAVING MARGOT, Allie headed back to the hospital. She reassured herself Henry was okay, she told her grandparents about the two weeks, she brought an exhausted and emotional Bella back to her caravan and settled her and told her the world wasn’t about to end, and finally she retreated to the sanctuary of her own little van, her own little world.
Her dogs greeted her with joy. Tinkerbelle and Fairy were her own true loves. The two Jack Russell terriers were packed with loyalty and intelligence and fun.
There’d never been a time when Allie hadn’t had dogs. These two were part of her act, the circus crowd went wild with their funny, clever tricks, and she adored them as much as they adored her.
She greeted them in turn. She made herself soup and toast and then she tried to watch something on the television.
It normally worked. Cuddling dogs. Mindless television.
There was no way it was settling her now. There was too much happening in her head. The loan. Grandpa. Margot.
Mathew.
And it was Mathew himself who was unsettling her most.
She had so many complications in her life right now, she did not need another one, she told herself. What was she doing? She did not need to think of Mathew Bond … like she was thinking of Mathew Bond.
‘It’s Margot,’ she told her dogs. ‘An old, dying woman playing matchmaker. She’s put all sorts of nonsensical ideas into my head, and I need to get rid of them right now.’
But the ideas wouldn’t go. Mathew was there, big and beautiful, front and centre.
‘Maybe it’s hormones,’ she said and she thought maybe it was. As a circus performer, hormones didn’t have much of a chance to do their stuff.
Hormones … Romance … It wasn’t for the likes of Allie. She moved from town to town, never settling and, as Henry and Bella had become older, Allie’s duties had become more and more onerous.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in a love life. It was that she simply couldn’t fit it in. She’d had all of three boyfriends in her life and none