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  Rosie's theory was that something similar to her own experience with Nick had happened to Clare, but with more disastrous consequences. Although the existence of a lovable, talented girl like Angie could scarcely be counted a disaster.

  The two of them occupied the attic floor which had been made into a self-contained flat. On the first floor were Rosie's and Sasha's bedrooms, their shared bathroom and Sasha's darkroom. The ground floor had been opened up into a large living-room; and in the basement was the kitchen, a cloakroom and a small cosy room with a TV in it.

  In spite of Sasha's admonition not to lose sleep over Nick, Rosie found it impossible not to think about him while, before turning out the light, she ran a video of the chat show which had been screened while she was still at the office.

  If anyone else who was frequently seen on TV had written a book, she would have jumped at the chance of masterminding the promotion. But Nick...all her instincts recoiled from being forced into a situation of considerable intimacy with him.

  Had the book been less important, she could have planned the tour but delegated the job of nannying the author round the country to one of her assistants. As things were, Anna would expect her to undertake that job herself. Which meant hours sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with him on shuttles, or alone in first-class compartments, or even closeted in the back of a chauffeur-driven car, depending on how extensive and lavish a tour was required. By comparison with the various hitches she had sorted out during the day, the prospect of meeting Nick again seemed like a major earthquake compared with a few minor tremors.

  'What a rotten great spanner in the works... just when everything was going so well,' she muttered aloud.

  For, as Sasha said, there was no way to duck the situation without jeopardising relations with Anna and Bury & Poole.

  After the video, she switched over to a live telecast, wanting to put off the moment which would remind her how often, because of Nick, she had cried herself to sleep. Tonight, when she switched off the light and snuggled under the duvet, she tried very hard to follow Sasha's suggestion and think of exotic locations for their next holiday. But a mental run-through of the world's most glamorous resorts, some of which they had already visited on shared vacations, was repeatedly disturbed by the vision in her mind's eye of a lean, square-jawed face already, at twenty-five, showing incipient laughter-lines.

  'Mirrors in a room, water in a landscape, eyes in a face—those are what give character.'

  Rosie couldn't recall the source of the quotation except that it was American, but she could remember clearly the colour of Nick's eyes. Dark blue, like lapis lazuli. Her parents had a vase made of lapis lazuli ware, the name given to a special type of Wedgwood pottery, deep blue veined with gold.

  There had been no gold flecks in Nick's vivid irises, only glints of amusement and, nearly always, the suspicion of a smile lurking at the corner of his well-cut, humorous mouth. How many times, surreptitiously, had she gazed at his mouth, too young and naive to recognise that it was the mouth of a sensualist with a lusty appetite for women?

  He had neither smoked nor drunk too much beer, the common vices among journalists. In an office where most of the men had nicotine-stained index fingers and beer bellies, Nick had been the exception, his long fingers as immaculately scrubbed as a surgeon's and his midriff as flat as an athlete's.

  Was he still like that? She wondered. Or had the tough, footloose life of an on-the-spot reporter, no sooner back from one trouble spot than despatched to another, turned him into a hard liquor drinker with a mesh of thread-fine red veins beginning to form round irises which might no longer be as vividly blue as her memory of them?

  She found herself torn between a deep reluctance to see the Nick she had known showing the first signs of going to seed, and a hope that he was no longer the charmer he had been. For it hadn't been only her own heart he had won. In different ways, every woman connected with the paper had succumbed to him, from the chairman of the board's hugebosomed, formidable wife to the switchboard girls and the cleaners. With one exception, he had been equally popular with his male colleagues. The only one who hadn't liked him had been a subeditor with whose wife Nick had had an affair. But Rosie hadn't heard about that until after Nick had left the paper. It had been the final twist of the knife in her heart to discover her idol had been capable of cuckolding someone he worked with. It wasn't surprising his book contained graphic sex scenes. No doubt they were based on his own extensive experience.

  CHAPTER T W O

  ANNA was already sitting in one of the comfortable armchairs in the bar of the Groucho Club when, the following Tuesday, Rosie arrived to have lunch with her. The club, in the heart of Soho, had been established in 1985 as a meeting place for publishers, literary agents and others connected with the book world. Beyond the bar was a small dining-room with, upstairs, another restaurant and a room for private functions. Rosie was a member of the club, as well as of another West End club, and frequented both regularly. She would have been looking forward to hearing Anna's plans for the new star on Bury & Poole's list if he had been anyone but Nick.

  'That was a great party you and Sasha gave on Saturday,' said Anna, as Rosie joined her, after exchanging brief greetings or waves with the other people there whom she knew.

  'I'm glad you and John enjoyed it.' As the publicity director beckoned a waiter, Rosie said, I'll have the same as you, please.' Anna was drinking mineral water with a twist of lemon in it. Unlike most male publishers who still conformed to the traditions laid down in the days when publishing had been 'an occupation for gentlemen' and lunch-meetings were occasions for rich meals accompanied by fine wines, the majority of women in publishing—and nowadays there were many in important positions—were inclined to be more abstemious. Salads and seafood, with spring water, black coffee and possibly one glass of white wine was the usual fare when women talked business over the lunch table. Rosie, who had been trained to notice details and was no less observant now that she had given up journalism, had often noticed that, when the pudding trolley was wheeled to a table occupied by women, usually they waved it away or chose the fresh fruit salad. The rich chocolate gateaux and tortes oozing cream were nowadays a male indulgence.

  'Are you free the weekend after next?' Anna asked.

  Rosie opened the expensive, neatly organised bag which had long since replaced the cheap, cluttered bags of her youth and took out her engagement diary.

  'Saturday or Sunday?' she asked, assuming that she was about to receive an invitation to one of Anna's private parties.

  'From late Friday afternoon to mid-afternoon the following Monday.'

  Rosie gave her a quizzical look. 'What is this? A Roman orgy?'

  'A weekend in Spain. Can you make it?'

  'Yes, I can, as it happens. At least I've nothing important on that weekend. But what's it in aid of?'

  Rosie knew Bury & Poole had held several sales conferences abroad, taking over a hotel in places like Majorca and Crete to entertain their sales force and tell them about the books they were going to have to sell in the following six months. But their last sales conference had taken place a few weeks ago, so this must be something else.

  'Nick Winchester has a house in Spain, He's there at the moment, writing his next hook. He doesn't want to upset his working routine by coming to London, so he's suggested that we go to him. Carolyn's spending a week there, or as long as it takes to go through the manuscript of the first book with him. You and I will be there for two days. That should be ample time to go over the marketing strategy and promotion with him. What's more, it should be fun. He lives in some style, I gather. Also the sun will be shining. Which will make a nice change from this weather.'

  She leaned over the side of her chair and brought into view a large Jiffy bag. 'This is a copy of the typescript of Crusade. You'll want to read it before we meet him. Don't start it in bed if you want to be bright and bushy-tailed the next day. Depending on how fast you read, it'll keep you awake till th
e small hours or even all night. My light was on until four. Usually, in airport fiction, the love interest is pretty perfunctory and the women are cardboard cut-outs. But this guy knows about women. If he makes love the way he writes it, I envy his girlfriends.'

  As she handed over the heavy envelope, a book columnist for a women's magazine came over to speak to her, sparing Rosie the necessity of making a comment while her feelings were still in confusion.

  She had expected to have several months in which to brace herself for the re-encounter with Nick and was taken aback by the prospect of having not only to meet him, but to stay in his house as his guest in less than a fortnight's time.

  It was dark when the flight from London reached Alicante, giving Rosie, who had a window seat, a glittering glimpse of the large Spanish port by night as the aircraft swung out over the sea to make its approach to the airport, a little to the south of the city. Rosie had been to Spain before, but only to Marbella on the Costa del Sol which had been too over-developed and touristy for her taste. She was curious to see what this part of Spain, the Costa Blanca, was like. From what she had heard about Benidorm, its principal resort, it sounded as if it might be much the same if not worse than the Costa del Sol. Yet it must have something to recommend it if Nick, a man who had travelled all over the world and presumably could live where he pleased, had chosen to live here.

  Nick. The thought that very soon she would be shaking hands with him made her insides churn with nervousness. Would he remember her? She doubted it.

  She and Anna had brought only weekend cases small enough to be stowed in the cabin. But Carolyn Campden had brought two large suitcases. Even for travelling she was wearing a smart suit and high heels. Rosie had the impression that Carolyn had more than an editorial interest in Nick.

  The aeroplane landed on time and arrival formalities were brief. Had they not had to wait for Carolyn's luggage to be unloaded, they could have been in a taxi within minutes of stepping on to Spanish soil in a temperature noticeably warmer than the chilly evening in London. As Anna spoke quite good Spanish, she took charge, telling the taxi driver where they wanted to go and instructing him to take the autopista, Nick having told her this would reduce the last lap of their journey to about half an hour.

  None of them had eaten the meal provided by the airline. Their host kept Spanish hours and dinner at El Monasterio—once a village monastery—was never served before nine-thirty. Nick had not put himself to the trouble of coming to meet them, but he was expecting them to dine with him.

  Up to this point Rosie and Carolyn had not had a great deal of conversation. The fiction director had spent the flight working on a manuscript only half as thick as the bulky MS of Crusade. But now, while Anna sat in front chatting to the driver, Carolyn turned to Rosie and asked, 'What do you think of Nick's book?'

  'I'm not much of a judge because I don't read many thrillers. In fact hardly any. I thought it was very good.'

  'I should try to sound more enthusiastic when he asks your opinion of it,' the other woman advised her. 'Authors are sensitive about their work. Their books are like children to them. Also Nick's contract gives him a good deal more say in its handling than is normal. If he feels you're not totally behind it, he could ask for you to be replaced.'

  Rosie knew she ought to reply that she was fizzing with enthusiasm for the project, but it would have been a lie and, although a flair for hyperbole was an essential qualification for her job, she had never been comfortable with blatant untruths or gross exaggerations. Avoiding an answer, she said, 'But you haven't met him yet, have you? You can't be sure what he's like.'

  'I haven't actually met him, no. But we've had long talks on the phone. He started his second book while the first one was being read by the publishers on his short list. He doesn't want to leave Spain until he's completed the first draft. He's a very disciplined man. He starts work at seven sharp, breaks at nine for breakfast and a swim in his pool, and then carries on till lunch at three o'clock. He won't change that routine for us. We shall have to adapt to his regime.'

  'It sounds as if he's already rather big-headed. If the book does put him among the top names of that genre, he could become intolerable,' said Rosie.

  In the glow from the headlamps of a car they had just overtaken, Carolyn gave her a sharp look. 'He knows his own worth. There's nothing wrong with that. Even if the book had less merit, it would sell because his face is well-known on TV. That, combined with the fact that it's one of the most gripping novels I've read in the last ten years, makes it a sure-fire winner. I'm delighted to have the chance to edit a major new talent.'

  'Well, as you have the reputation of being one of the best editors in the business, I think he should feel lucky too,' Rosie said diplomatically. 'How did you start your career?'

  Like most people, Carolyn was not unwilling to talk about herself and Rosie listened attentively, partly because she had always been interested in other people's lives and partly as a distraction from the imminent ordeal of meeting Nick.

  The taxi was travelling fast and soon the driver was pointing out the clustered high-rise hotels and apartments of Benidorm some distance away on the seaward side of the motorway. But the little village of Font Vella, which Anna said must take its name from an old fountain or spring, lay somewhere in the dark mountainous hinterland behind the bright lights of the coast.

  At last, after leaving the motorway and twisting and turning up a road with a bumpy surface, they saw the name of the village on a sign on the verge and soon after passed a small shop, still open for business, and a bar where several old men could be seen watching TV. The streets in the centre of the village were so narrow and winding that it was only just possible for the taxi to negotiate them. Children playing by the light of the street-lamps attached to the upper storeys of the houses drew back against the white-washed walls or stepped into doorways to let them pass.

  The driver braked to ask one of them the way. Following the boy's directions, he turned a tight corner into a street like a canyon where people on opposite balconies would almost be able to shake hands, and presently emerged into an unexpectedly spacious plaza with a church on one side and what was evidently the monastery at right angles to it. At first sight El Monasterio was not an attractive building. Only a few small barred windows broke the gaunt stone facade, none of them lighted. The massive iron-studded door, near which the driver pulled up, looked as if it had been designed to keep people out rather than encourage them to enter. Indeed the place looked deserted.

  As the three women swung their legs out of the taxi and the driver hurried to open the boot and lift out their baggage, Rosie felt a brief spasm of amusement. The possibility that, far from living in style, Nick's life as a loving reporter might have taught him to dispense with all but the most basic necessities appealed to her quirky sense of humour.

  Would Carolyn's admiration for him divide the discovery that, having brought a trousseau of smart clothes, she was expected to hang them on nails in the wall of a cell offering little more comfort than its original occupants had enjoyed?

  I'll pay the driver. You ring the bell, Rosie,' said Anna.

  Rosie gave an experimental tug on a metal pull and, hearing no sound from within, lugged more vigorously. Whereupon a loud banging could be heard for above the door was an open transom filled only with a wrought-iron grille, presumably to give light and air to the hall inside. Presently the sound of masculine footsteps on stone flags could be heard. She held her breath, expecting at any moment to see the face of the man she had once loved. sfe sfe sfe

  When the wicket cut in the large door opened, it wasn't Nick who stepped out but a young Spaniard.

  'Good evening, ladies,' he said, in English. 'I regret that Senor Veenchester is not here to welcome you himself. He has been called away but should return shortly. But please come inside and Encarna will show you to your rooms.'

  At this point Encarna appeared, a dumpy little woman in a pinafore with a friendly smile who gree
ted them in Spanish.

  The interior of the building seemed at first to match the outside. A lofty hall with several closed doors on one side and a stone staircase rising on the other was furnished with a hard bench and heavy oak table and lit by a single dim bulb. There was a marked drop in temperature as if they had entered a crypt or a dungeon.

  'Not quite what I expected,' Anna murmured to Rosie, as they mounted the stairs, led by the young man carrying Carolyn's two cases and Encarna carrying theirs. Rosie gave what was intended to be a philosophical shrug. For her, any physical discomforts which might be in store for them were of little importance compared with her mental unease. She wasn't sure whether to be glad or sorry the confrontation with Nick had been delayed. It seemed very cavalier of him not to be here. What could be more important than being on hand to welcome three quests from London?

  The landing at the top of the staircase was as bleak and poorly lit as the hall below. But when the Spaniard opened a door and ushered l hem through it, they found themselves in the warmer air of a four-sided cloister surrounding a large courtyard, with another cloister beneath it. And when Encarna opened three doors along the cloister and showed first Carolyn, then Anna and finally Rosie where they were lo sleep, their spirits rose. For the rooms allotted to them were neither cramped nor uncomfortable.

  Looking around her room and the adjoining bathroom after Encarna had shown her where the light switches were, Rosie wondered about the woman who had helped Nick to furnish the monastery. She couldn't believe he alone was responsible for a bedroom fit for the pages of House & Garden or one of the other interior decoration glossies. However this wasn't the moment to study the decor in detail. She began to unpack the capsule wardrobe she hoped would see her through the weekend.