A Deal To Mend Their Marriage. Michelle Douglas
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snuffbox! Would you like to search the entire room?’
Yes! Though of course she wouldn’t.
Her gaze landed on a tiny framed photograph of her father that had spilled from Barbara’s bag. An ache opened up in her chest. How could he have treated Barbara so badly? She understood Barbara’s anger and disappointment, her hurt and disillusionment, but she would never do anything to intentionally hurt her—of that Caro was certain. She just needed to give the other woman a chance to calm down, cool off...think rationally.
‘Did you not sleep at all last night, Barbara?’
Barbara’s bottom lip wobbled, but she waved to the chaise lounge. ‘I didn’t want to sleep in the bed that I shared with...’
Caro seized her hands. ‘He loved you, you know.’
‘I don’t believe you. Not after yesterday.’
‘I mean to split the estate with you—fifty-fifty.’
‘It’s not what he wanted.’
‘He was an idiot.’
‘You shouldn’t speak about him that way.’ Barbara retrieved her hands. ‘If you’re finished here...?’
‘Will you promise to have dinner with me tonight?’
‘If I say yes, will you leave me in peace until then?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Yes.’
Caro and Paul returned to the study to search the room, in case the snuffbox had fallen during Barbara’s midnight raid on the safe, but they didn’t find anything—not even the partner to that diamond earring.
‘You didn’t take it by any chance, did you, Paul?’
‘No, Miss Caroline.’
‘I’m sorry. I thought I’d just check, seeing as...’
‘No offence taken, Miss Caroline.’ He pursed his lips. ‘She has it, you know. I’m not convinced that the second Mrs Fielding is a nice lady. I once saw her throw your mother’s portrait into a closet, you know.’
Caro huffed out a sigh. ‘Well... I, for one, like her.’
‘What are you going to do?’
She needed time. Pulling her phone from her purse, she rang her assistant.
‘Melanie, a family emergency has just come up. Could you please ring Mr Soames and reschedule his viewing for later in the week?’
The later the better! She didn’t add that out loud, though. She didn’t want to alert anyone to the fact that something was wrong—that she’d managed to lose a treasure.
Her assistant rang back a few minutes later. ‘Mr Soames is flying out to Japan tomorrow. He’ll be back Thursday next week. He had asked if you’d be so good as to meet with him the following Friday morning at ten o’clock.’
‘No problem at all. Pop it in my diary.’
Friday was ten days away. She had ten days to put this mess to rights.
She seized her purse and made for the door. Paul still trailed after her. ‘What do you mean to do, Miss Caroline?’
She wanted to beg him not to be so formal. ‘I need to duck back to my flat and collect a few things, drop in at work to pick up my work diary and apply for a few days’ leave. Then I’ll be back. I’ll be staying for a few days.’
‘Very good, Miss Caroline.’
She turned in the entrance hall to face him, but before she’d swung all the way around her gaze snagged on a photograph on one of the hall tables. A photograph of her and Jack.
For a moment the breath jammed in her throat. She pointed. ‘Why?’ she croaked.
Paul clasped his hands behind his back. ‘This house belongs to you now, Miss Caroline. It seemed only right that you should have your things around you.’
Her heart cramped so tightly she had to fight for breath. ‘Yes, perhaps... But...not that photo, Paul.’
‘I always liked Mr Jack.’
‘So did I.’
But Jack had wanted to own her—just as her father had wanted to own her. And, just like her father, Jack had turned cold and distant when she’d refused to submit to his will. And then he’d left.
Five years later a small voice inside her still taunted her with the sure knowledge that she’d have been happier with Jack on his terms than she was now on her own terms, as her own woman. She waved a hand in front of her face. That was a ridiculous fairytale—a fantasy with no basis in reality. She and Jack were always going to end in tears. She could see that now.
Very gently, Paul reached out and placed the photograph facedown on the table. ‘I’m sure there must be a nice photograph of you and your mother somewhere.’
She snapped back to the present, trying to push the past firmly behind her. ‘See if you can find a photo of me and Barbara.’
Paul rolled his eyes in a most un-butler-like fashion and Caro laughed and patted his arm.
‘The things I ask of you...’
He smiled down at her. ‘Nothing’s too much trouble where you’re concerned, Miss Caro.’
She glanced up the grand staircase towards the first-floor rooms.
‘I’ll keep an eye on Mrs Fielding,’ he added. ‘I’ll try to dissuade her if she wants to go out. If she insists, I’ll send one of the maids with her.’ He glanced at the grandfather clock. ‘They’re due to come in and start cleaning any time now.’
‘Thank you.’ She didn’t want Barbara doing anything foolish—like trying to sell that snuffbox if she did have it. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’
* * *
Despite the loss of the snuffbox and all the morning’s kerfuffle, it was Jack’s face that rose in her mind and memories of the past that invaded Caro, chasing her other concerns aside, as she trudged across Westminster Bridge.
The sight of that photograph had pulled her up short. They’d been so happy.
For a while.
A very brief while.
So when she first saw his face in the midst of the crowd moving towards her on the bridge, Caro dismissed it as a flight of fancy, a figment of her imagination. Until she realised that blinking hadn’t made the image fade. It had only made the features of that face clearer—a face that was burned onto her soul.
She stopped dead. Jack was in London?
The crowd surged around her, but she couldn’t move. All she could do was stare.
Jack! Jack! Jack!
His name pounded at her as waves of first cold and then heat washed over her. The ache to run to him nearly undid her. And then his gaze landed on her and he stopped dead too.
She couldn’t see the extraordinary cobalt blue of his eyes at this distance, but she recognised the way they narrowed, noted the way his nostrils flared. She’d always wondered what would happen if they should accidentally meet on the street. Walking past each other without so much as an acknowledgment obviously wasn’t an option, and she was fiercely glad about that.
Hauling in a breath, she tilted her head to the left a fraction and started towards the railing of the bridge. She leaned against it, staring down at the brown water swirling in swift currents below. He came to stand beside her, but she kept her gaze on the water.
‘Hello, Jack.’
‘Caro.’
She couldn’t look at him. Not yet. She stared at the Houses of Parliament