A Winter Proposal / His Diamond Bride. Lucy Gordon

‘Now you sound just like Roscoe.’

      ‘Well, I am like Roscoe.’ Briefly, she enclosed his face between her hands. ‘He’s not the only one who can give orders, and my orders to you are to cheer up because I’m going to make things all right.’

      She dropped her hands but gave him a comforting sisterly smile.

      ‘D’you know, I really believe you can,’ he mused. ‘I think you could take on even Roscoe and win.’

      ‘Well, somewhere in this world there has to be someone who can crush him beneath her heels.’

      ‘His fiancée couldn’t.’

      ‘His fiancée?’ Pippa echoed, startled. Since learning that Roscoe lived alone, she had somehow never connected him with romantic entanglements.

      ‘It was a few years back. Her name was Verity and she was terribly “suitable”. She worked in the firm, and Roscoe used to say that she knew as much about finance as he did.’

      ‘I dare say she’d need to,’ Pippa said, nodding.

      ‘Right. It makes you wonder what they talked about when they were alone. The latest exchange rate? What the Dow-Jones index was doing?’

      ‘What did she look like?’

      ‘Pretty enough, but I think it was chiefly her mental qualities he admired.’

      ‘Charlie, a man doesn’t ask a woman to marry him because of her mental qualities.’

      ‘Roscoe isn’t like other men. Beauty passes him by.’

      ‘Then why did you warn me against going up to his room yesterday?’

      ‘I was only joking. I knew he had no interest in you that way. Don’t you remember? He said so himself.’

      ‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘He did, didn’t he?’

      After that, she relapsed into thought.

      Another bottle of wine was served and Charlie drank deeply, making Pippa glad he wasn’t driving.

      ‘Was he very much in love with her?’ she asked.

      ‘I don’t know. Like I said, he doesn’t talk about his feelings. He wanted her in his way. The rest of us look at a beautiful woman and think Wow! Roscoe thinks, Will she do me credit? I don’t think he’s ever thought Wow! in his life.’

      Oh, yes, he has, she thought, gazing silently into her glass.

      Noticing nothing, Charlie continued, ‘She could be relied on to know what was important—money, propriety, making the world bow down before you. And she’d give him intelligent children who would eventually go into the business. What more could he want?’

      ‘Surely you’re being unfair?’

      ‘Well, losing her didn’t seem to break his heart. He didn’t even tell us at the time. One day I mentioned that we hadn’t seen her for a while and then he said they’d broken up weeks ago. Any normal man would drown his sorrows in the pub with his mates, but not him. He just fired her and she ceased to exist.’

      ‘He actually fired her?’ Pippa was startled.

      ‘Well, he said she’d left the firm, but I reckon he made her understand that she’d better leave.’

      She felt as though someone had struck her over the heart, which was surely absurd? From the start, she’d sensed that Roscoe was a harsh, controlling man, indifferent to the feelings of others as long as his rule was unchallenged. So why should she care if her worst opinion was confirmed?

      Because she’d also thought she saw another side to him—warmer, more human. And because Charlie himself had spoken of that softer side. But the moment had passed. Charlie had switched back from the sympathetic brother to the rebellious kid, and in doing so he’d changed the light on Roscoe who was now, once more, the tyrant.

      She knew a glimmer of sadness, but suppressed it. Much better to be realistic.

      It was time for the cabaret. Dancers skipped across the stage, a crooner crooned, a comedian strutted his stuff. She thought him fairly amusing but Charlie was more critical.

      ‘His performance was a mess,’ he said as the space was cleared for dancing. ‘Listen.’

      To her surprise, he rattled through the last joke, word perfect and superbly timed. Then he went back and repeated an earlier part of the act, also exactly right, as far as she could judge.

      ‘I’m impressed,’ she said. ‘I’ve never come across such a memory.’

      He shrugged. ‘It convinced Roscoe that I was bright enough to be a stockbroker, so you might say it ruined my life.’

      He made a comical face. She smiled back, meaning to console rather than beguile him. But the next moment her face lit up and she cried out in pleasure, ‘Lee Renton, you devious so-and-so! How lovely to see you.’

      A large man in his forties was bearing down on them, hands extended. He was attractive, and would have been even more so if he could manage to lose some weight.

      ‘“Devious so-and-so!”’ he mocked. ‘Is that any way to address your favourite client?’

      ‘That’s not what I say to my favourite client. To him, I say, “Sir, how generous of you to double the bill!”’

      Lee roared with laughter before saying, ‘Actually, I’ll gladly pay twice the bill after what you did for me.’ He seemed to notice Charlie for the first time. ‘I’m Lee Renton. Any friend of Pippa’s is a friend of mine.’ He pumped Charlie’s hand and sat down without waiting to be invited.

      ‘I did a court appearance for Lee the other day,’ Pippa told Charlie. ‘It went fairly well.’

      ‘Don’t act modest,’ Lee protested. ‘You’re the tops and you know it.’

      ‘Meaning that I saved you some money?’

      ‘What else?’ he asked innocently.

      ‘What are you doing here?’

      ‘My firm provided the entertainment here tonight, and I’ll probably buy the place. I’ll call you about that.’ He blew her a kiss. ‘You look ravishing, queen of my heart.’

      ‘Oh, stop your nonsense!’

      ‘Do you say that as a woman or as the lawyer who recently handled my divorce?’

      ‘I say it as the lawyer who’ll probably draw up your next pre-nuptial agreement.’

      He bellowed with laughter. A passing waiter caught Charlie’s attention and he turned, giving Renton a chance to lower his voice and say, ‘Quite a performer, your companion—I overheard him retelling those jokes and he was a sight better than the original comedian. Does he do it professionally?’

      ‘No, he’s a stockbroker.’

      ‘You’re having a laugh.’

      ‘Really. He’s actually a client and we were discussing his case.’

      ‘Yeah, right. This is just the perfect place for it. All right, I’m going. I have work to do. Stockbroker, eh?’ He thumped Charlie on the shoulder and departed.

      Charlie frowned, turning back from the waiter. ‘Lee Renton? I’ve heard that name somewhere.’

      ‘He’s very big in entertainment. He buys things, he promotes, he owns a television studio.’

      ‘That Lee Renton? Wow! I wish I’d known.’

      He looked around, managing to spot Lee in the distance, deep in conversation with a man whom he overwhelmed by flinging an arm around his shoulders and sweeping him off until they both vanished in the crowd.

      The waiter brought more wine and he drank