He's My Husband! - Lindsay Armstrong [16]
He’d had a swim with the children, and his brown hair hung damp and sandy in his eyes. But Nicola could still see the narrowed, less than impressed expression in them.
‘Employed?’
She smiled coolly at him. ‘Don’t sound so surprised. Mr Holloway will explain.’
Richard Holloway did, enthusiastically.
‘Of course, he’ll have to see if I’m any good,’ Nicola added at the end of it.
‘Of course.’ Brett stood up, which immediately provoked a protest from Sasha, but he swung her up into his arms then sat her on his shoulders, causing her to assume a regal air. ‘Home, Miss Harcourt,’ he said, and glanced at Richard and Nicola. ‘If that’s all right with everyone?’
‘Fine with me,’ Richard responded, and picked up Chris to sit him on his shoulders. ‘We could even make a race of it’
They did, to the children’s delight, leaving Nicola to follow in their footsteps weighed down with buckets, spades, discarded clothing—and some annoyed thoughts on her mind. But she didn’t give expression to them until later that evening.
Sasha and Chris were in bed and asleep by seven o’clock, after a light supper, and Nicola spent the next hour tidying up. Sunday was one of Ellen’s days off. She ironed Sasha’s school clothes, polished her shoes and prepared as much of her lunch as she could beforehand. She rinsed all the sandy clothes and put them in the washing machine, as well as rinsing off the buckets and spades and storing them.
Brett had taken a phone call during supper, then retired to his study. Or so she’d thought. But when she strolled out onto the terrace with a cup of coffee, she found him relaxing on a lounger, staring into space. It was a starry night, and the heat of the day still lingered in the air—the breeze had died completely.
She paused, then said, ‘Thought you were working. Would you like a cup of coffee?’
He had his hands folded behind his head, and he turned slightly to run his hazel gaze over her. She’d changed into a cool, floral voile dress, sleeveless and strapless and gathered onto an elastic band above her bosom and around the waist. A gold locket nestled in, the hollow at the base of her throat.
‘No, thanks.’
Nicola moved to another lounger and sat down, placing her mug carefully on the deck. ‘Then would you care to explain why you were about as enthusiastic as a dead fish earlier?’
‘About this pottery thing?’
‘Yes,’ she said genially. ‘That thing. But I should warn you, Brett, I’m going to do it. If I’m good enough.’
‘I don’t imagine that’ll be a problem.’
She frowned. The underwater lights in the pool were on, and there was enough light spilling from the lounge behind them for her to see that after that first comprehensive glance he hadn’t looked at her again. ‘What’s that supposed to mean—that you don’t believe I’m much good? As a potter?’
‘On the contrary, I do believe you’re good. I’m just not sure if that’s the criteria.’
‘What criteria did you have in mind?’ she asked after a moment, with dangerous restraint.
‘Nicola,’ he said gently but lethally, ‘you’re no fool, my dear—or you shouldn’t be by now. Richard Holloway was not only struck by you—he could barely take his eyes off you—but his curiosity was no doubt pleasurably activated at discovering we are not man and wife in the true sense of the words.’
Nicola took hold of the sheer indignation that had bubbled up to say, with amusement, although that was far from what she was feeling, ‘Sprung—and by Sasha of all people. That’s rather ironic, isn’t it, Brett?’
‘Possibly.’
‘I take it you don’t see the funny side of it now?’
‘No, Nicola,’ he replied deliberately. ‘Nor did you at the time.’
‘You’re right.’ She chewed her lip. ‘It was a bit like being pole-axed. You know, you could have a problem there, Brett When she makes the connection that her father doesn’t sleep with her stepmother or her mother.’