The Independent Bride. Sophie Weston
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come on some new television game show he was starting. And he and Sandy Franks kept arguing about someone they’d seen in the crowd. The Tiger Cub, they called her.
Uninterested, Steven barely heard them. He wanted a goddess, not a tiger cub. He scanned the surge of people. Surely that fiery mane could not disappear so easily?
Martin Tammery took on an acquisitive expression. ‘Do you think she’ll be here for long? Could I get her on to In My Experience?’
Sandy Franks pursed his lips. ‘You’d have to move fast. She never stays anywhere long.’
‘Yeah. But if she’s here on some secret deal the London office will deny all knowledge. How do I get hold of her?’
Sandy’s eyes gleamed. ‘Ask me along to the recording and I might just help you out. I have contacts.’
‘There you are, Steven. That’s the class of company you’d be in if you come on the new programme,’ Martin said to him. ‘What about if I do a deal with you, too? If I get Pepper Calhoun on the programme, you stop wriggling.’
‘I have no idea who Pepper Calhoun is,’ said Steven, not taking his eyes off the crowd.
They both started to give him a potted biography. He paid no attention. There was a gleam of red on the other side of the luggage carousel. He started after it.
In vain, of course. By the time he got there the crowd had parted and closed up again too many times. She was lost, his golden Venus with her shy smile and her infectious laugh. And that mouth that brought him out in a cold sweat just to think about.
He should have asked for her number right then, when he’d had the chance, and to hell with political correctness. He should have given her his card. At least then he would have known.
The other two came panting up after him.
‘So what about it, Steven?’ said Martin. ‘Do the pilot show? For the honour of the old college?’
Steven sighed deeply. But, as the newly appointed Master, he had obligations to old alumni.
Here was the real world kicking in again, he thought wearily. Goodbye, dream of a goddess. Hello, duty.
‘Send me a proposal,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll have to check the diary. But in principle I’ll do anything I can.’
Martin Tammery was exuberant in his thanks. ‘Great. I’ll count on that.’
He could, too, Steven thought, as he trailed his suitcase out into the main concourse and agreed to share a cab back into central London with the other two. Steven never let people down.
Story of my life, he thought with a touch of bitterness. Steven Konig, the ultimate sustainable resource. Always there for Queen Margaret’s College. For Kplant. Chairing a conference here, delivering a lecture there. Never rebelling. And never, ever giving in to impulse.
Which is exactly why I’m travelling in to London with two men who want more lectures and interviews and wise words, he thought with irony. Whereas what I want is my golden goddess here alone with me.
What would have happened if I had given her my card? Would she have given me her number? Agreed to meet? Maybe even been here now?
He went hot at the thought.
And where would we have gone from there?
Just the question filled him with wild longing. It was so acute that he winced. His companions, deep in conversation about employment law, did not notice.
Just as well, thought Steven, crushing the picture that his reflections had brought to leaping life. He was still influential Steven Konig with all those responsibilities. He still had no spare capacity to run a private life as well.
But he wished he had. He could not remember ever wishing anything so much. If only…
The other two broke off their conversation.
‘What was that, Steven?’ said Martin Tammery blankly.
Steven’s smile was full of self-mockery. ‘I just said Captain Blood had all the fun.’
Pepper found that life as a non-rich person was surprisingly easy. In lots of ways, it was even fun. And the best thing of all was not having to think how her grandmother would react to everything she wanted to do.
She had never stayed anywhere but five-star hotels before, all pre-booked by efficient Carmen. So it was an adventure to find herself a modest hotel to stay in.
It was a relief that she came through that all right. She even managed to negotiate with the concierge when he said that she had to wait until midday to take possession.
‘I’ve had a bad time. I need to sleep for a week,’ she said, yawning hugely. She brought out her remaining credit card. ‘I’ll pay for last night, too, if you want. Just lead me somewhere I can lie down.’
Either the yawn worked or the concierge was someone else with an unexpected streak of human kindness. Within ten minutes she was stretched out on a hard bed, her eyelids closing.
‘First problem solved,’ she said to herself drowsily. ‘So shucks to Mary Ellen Calhoun.’
She did not wake until the evening. And even then she just got up and had a slightly dazed walk through dark streets before falling back into bed.
The next morning she felt entirely different. Not hopeful, exactly. More interested. The pirate on the plane had said she could do anything she put her mind to. So—was he right?
After a good night’s sleep she was ready to find out. She had even half formulated a plan. She went out and got herself a mobile phone and began putting it into practice.
Problem solving seemed to be her forte. By the end of the day an old contact had agreed to look at her business plan for Out of the Attic. Another had offered to make some introductions. She’d found a temporary job to get her through the next few weeks. It was only word processing, but at least it meant that she did not have to dig into her small store of capital—or spend hours on her own thinking about the vicious little darts that her grandmother had thrown.
She’d also made a decision that surprised her. She had the name of a lawyer who had acted for her mother’s family years ago. She went back through the files on her laptop and there it was, a reply to a letter he had sent her on her twenty-fifth birthday.
‘Tell them you want nothing to do with them,’ Mary Ellen had said.
And Pepper had. So she’d been shamefaced in approaching him today. But that piratical endorsement had got her through the first hesitation. She’d called the lawyer.
He had been cool, but he had not refused to see her.
‘This is a surprise,’ he said when she came in. ‘Mrs Calhoun always insisted that you did not want to see anyone from the Dare family.’
‘That was then.’
He looked sceptical.
‘I’ve been disinherited,’ she told him baldly.
‘Ah.’ He pursed his lips. ‘So what exactly do you want from the Dare family?’
Pepper flushed. ‘Not money, if that’s what you think,’ she said indignantly. Being thought a sponger was a new experience she could have done without. ‘I can look after myself. But—I just thought—if anyone in my mother’s family wanted to see me, I’m going to be in London for a while. We might get a cup of coffee some day. That’s all.’
‘I see.’ The lawyer pondered.
She said with difficulty, ‘I don’t remember my mother, you see. Since—I mean, recently I’ve been thinking about that. And I think I’d like to meet my aunt. This feud thing has gone on too long. I don’t even know what it was about.’
For the first time the lawyer smiled. ‘I’ll ask,’ he promised.
He