He's My Husband! - Lindsay Armstrong [34]
‘How did it go with Richard this morning?’
She shot him an old-fashioned look.
‘Just humour me, Nicola,’ he murmured.
‘Fine! I’ve got a commission to make some clams and some apple sea cucumbers and they’re going to build them into a fountain.’
‘What about the practical side of things? Deadlines, contracts and so on?’
She gripped her hands in her lap, then forced herself to relax. ‘I’ve six months. The centre doesn’t open for another nine. I’m to be paid an exorbitant fee.’ She shrugged. ‘Well, it may be the going rate for all I know, there’s going to be a little plaque with my name on it, and I have a contract to sign.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’ll go over it for you.’
‘One of the advantages of having a lawyer in the family,’ she said dryly, as his secretary, a fearsome bottle blonde and normally a formidable lady, knocked and opened the door, bearing a tray.
But she paused on the threshold and looked surprised as she saw Nicola. ‘Oh! Mrs Harcourt! I didn’t see you arrive, I’m sorry.’ She looked around the room, as if to make sure there was no one else lurking about. ‘I’d already gone to make the coffee.’ She came into the room and put the tray on the desk.
Nicola studied the two cups and lifted a briefly sardonic gaze to her husband. But she said warmly to his secretary, ‘How are you, Margaret? I haven’t seen you for ages.’
‘Really well, thank you, and you do look lovely today, Mrs Harcourt. Uh...’ she pointed to a little silver dish ‘...I brought some of my home-made macaroons in for Mr Harcourt this morning. Hope you enjoy them.’
Nicola maintained a straight face as she thanked Margaret, but once the door closed on her she turned to Brett and said humorously, ‘You do get them in—at all ages and in all shapes. I suppose it is a bit of a problem.’
He didn’t respond as she stood up to pour the coffee.
‘Do you have any solutions?’ she asked with some irony as she sat down again.
He picked up the silver pen and doodled on a yellow legal pad for a moment, then raised his gaze to hers. ‘It could all be a storm in a teacup, Nicola.’
She blinked. ‘That your children now think we are man and wife—in every sense of the words—and that they were worried about me leaving? You surprise me, Brett.’
He lifted his shoulders. ‘Let’s not get too emotional, Nicola. They are only five and six. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, assuming we carry on as before, they settle down and we do so too.’
She gazed at him, all set to refute this, but common sense asserted itself. ‘They may,’ she said slowly at last, ‘but surely it’s only prolonging things? They’re still going to wonder as they get older, and—’
‘They’re also going to become less dependent on you as they get older, and better able to understand things.’
‘But...’ She frowned with an effort to think straight again. ‘Where does that leave me?’
He got up and came round to sit on the corner of the desk. ‘You have a few options,’ he said quietly. ‘Staying with us until you’re twenty-three is probably the most sensible of them.’
Her eyes widened. ‘I couldn’t.’
‘Why not?’ he asked conversationally.
‘I...’ She stared at him helplessly.
‘So far as your rising career as a potter goes, you couldn’t be better set up than you are now, and if it is a career you’re hankering for—’ he smiled briefly ‘—now you’ve got it, you might find all the angst, inadequacy and uncertainty you’ve been experiencing is gone.’
If she could have found the words to refute this without giving herself away she would have done so, but there was worse to come, she discovered.
‘Another option,’ he went on, ‘is to do with what happened two nights ago.’
She swallowed. ‘I don’t...’ She cleared her throat. ‘I don’t think we should place much importance on what happened two nights ago.’
‘No?’ There was a gleam of pure mockery in his eyes for a moment, then he went on gravely, ‘Why is that?’
‘I told you...what happened.’
‘You told me a lot of things, gave me a lot of possible motivations, but I can’t help wondering whether it wasn’t quite simple,