she said, as her brain came tiptoeing timidly back into consciousness.
He stirred. His tumbled hair was soft against her sensitised breast. Bella shivered involuntarily.
‘Whaaa?’
She began to push at him. ‘We need to move. We’ve got clothes to find.’
At once he was alert. He sprang to his feet, only to trip over his own trousers and stagger, hobbled, to the boardroom table. He held on to it like a drunk in a Western saloon.
‘Jesus!’
Bella could not help herself. She started to laugh and couldn’t stop, lying on the carpet convulsed and helpless.
He looked down at her, sprawled and giggling. He ran a hand through his wild hair. A slow smile dawned.
‘You are disgracefully tempting—’
And then the worst imaginable thing happened. A door that neither of them had been aware of opened at the far end of the room.
He dropped like a stone to the carpet and rolled under the table. Bella hauled up her trousers and grabbed her jacket, trying to wriggle deeper into the shadows and join him. She found that she had picked up a carpet burn.
‘Ouch!’
She shut up at once. But was it too late? She could not see anyone for the piles of chairs and the big table. But that door was definitely still open. She held her breath, aware that Richard, too, was hardly breathing. His hand felt for her across the carpet and she realised that he was sitting with his knees up, his back against the table leg. He gathered her against him, comfortingly, and they braced themselves for discovery as Bella buttoned her steward’s jacket.
A hectoring voice said, ‘This looks terrible. If Sir Brian asks, you’ll just have to say that the paint is still wet. We’ll have to keep it locked. We can’t have Royalty coming in here.’
‘Too late,’ muttered Richard into Bella’s hair.
She started to shake again, with agonising, silent laughter.
The bossy person went out and closed the door decisively. Silence and shadows reigned again.
‘Oh – my – God,’ said Bella on a long, shaky breath.
Richard was stuffing his beautiful shirt back into his trousers. ‘Too right,’ he said with feeling.
She thumped back against the piled chairs with a great sigh of relief.
‘I thought we were for it.’
‘Yup. Me too.’
But he didn’t sound as worried at the thought as she would have expected. Instead, he sounded positively tranquil. Even pleased with himself.
‘What happened to that terminal good behaviour syndrome?’
He laughed. ‘I must be getting over it at last.’
He stood up, shaking out his jacket, and held his hand down to help her up. She took it and came lightly to her feet.
Trying for normality, she said, ‘That was unexpected.’ Her voice did not sound like her own.
‘Tell me about it.’
Richard’s hair was all over the place. Her fault, Bella realised. She tried to restore order to it, without much success.
He caught her hand and carried it to his lips, kissing the palm. ‘Why didn’t you tell me what you were going to do? Do you know what I felt when I saw you?’
‘Yup. I think that was pretty clear.’
‘You were damned lucky I kept my cool.’
She wriggled a little, appreciatively. ‘Not that cool.’
He shook his head, laughing. ‘Call it a slow burn, then.’ He shot his cuffs. ‘Have you any idea how far outside my comfort zone this is?’
Bella was indignant. ‘And whose fault is that?’
‘Mine. Mine.’
‘If you hadn’t jumped on me …’
‘Stop it,’ he said, not laughing now.
She widened her eyes, innocently.
‘And you can stop looking like that, too. I have three hours of speeches, compliments, and landscape art to get through. I need Zen, not—’
‘Not—?’
‘Not an inner eye full of you looking, well, like that.’
Bella raised an eyebrow.
‘OK. OK.’ He re-buttoned the offending mess jacket and straightened it over her hips. His hands lingered, as if they had a will of their own. But he said, ‘No!’ and put her away from him with resolution. ‘I have places to go, people to be bored by. This has gone far enough. I am leaving now.’
Just before he pressed the button to slide the door open, he turned and said as if it were desperately important, ‘I need to be with you tonight. Will Lottie be OK with that?’
‘I’ll sort it,’ said Bella, dazed.
‘Of course,’ said Lottie, when she called.
She didn’t ask any more and Bella didn’t volunteer any confidences. But they had known each other a long time.
‘I think I’ll stay over at Katy’s. We’re going to a movie and it will be easier.