Sally Wentworth - A Typical Male (3 page)

Entranced that he had read her
mind, Tasha gave him the most wonderful smile. 'Yes, the one that leads to
paradise,' she said simply.

He was astonished that she'd
chosen that word, that she still believed that there could be such a place. He
saw that she was, at heart, still an innocent, still a believer in perfect
happiness, even though she'd hinted at a knowledge of
the darker side of life. This new perception of her—and that smile—caught at
his heart.

She saw the astonishment in his
face and looked away. As if she regretted having confided in him, Tasha suddenly
got to her feet and began to walk along at a brisk pace. Thinking that she was
upset, Brett quickly caught her up. But she smiled at him and said, 'I just
looked at Big Ben and saw the time. It's nearly six. I must find a cab.'

He wondered if that was just an
excuse; she'd seemed in no hurry before. But he said, 'We'll get one in
Trafalgar Square.'

Five minutes later they picked
one up, the driver on his way home after working all night. 'Where do you
live?' Brett asked her.

'In
Bloomsbury. Within spitting distance of the British
Museum.'

'Handy for
research.'

Tasha got in the cab and Brett
went to follow her, but she said, 'Look, you really don't have to—'

But he
said, 'Don't be silly,' and got in beside her.

In the taxi they talked about
Guy, Brett telling her some amusing anecdotes about him from the time they were
at university together. He spoke entertainingly but without doing Guy down,
which she liked; she got annoyed if people were cruel just to get a laugh at a
story. But Brett spoke quite naturally, there was nothing forced or over the
top. He didn't put on an act, and he seemed to get as much enjoyment out of
remembering the incidents as she did from hearing them. He was obviously fond
of Guy and didn't mind her seeing it, and she liked that too.

Tasha began to wonder about him,
about his background, if he was very experienced with women. Somehow she
thought he would be, he was so self- confident, so
assured in his manner towards her. She knew he was attracted to her, he'd made
that very obvious, but he wasn't pushing it too much. There had been that one
incident when he'd told her he felt he'd known her a long time; that disturbed
her—was playing it too fast. Because she wasn't yet at all sure that this was a
door she wanted to open.

Her eyes were fixed reflectively
on his face and she saw his eyebrow rise in amusement and realised he had
stopped speaking. 'Was it such a boring story?' he said ruefully.

Tasha
laughed. 'Sorry, I was thinking.'

'Dare I
ask what about?'

Smiling,
she shook her head.

'Was it
about me?'

The smile became mocking. 'Why
would I be thinking about you when there are a million other things I could be
thinking of?'

He
pretended to groan and put his hand over his heart. 'That put me in my place.
And there was I, hoping that I'd made an indelible impression on you.'

Tasha couldn't resist asking,
'Are you used to making an impression on women?'

Reaching over, Brett took hold
of her hand and began to play with her fingers. 'That, if I may so, Miss
Briant, is a very loaded question. Whatever I say I can't win. I'll either look
a wimp or an egotist.'

'So?'

'So—I'm not going to answer it.'

She laughed. 'Wasn't it you, I
seem to remember, who said you didn't believe in false modesty? So that must
mean that you're a wi—' She
broke off as Brett put a finger over her lips.

His brown eyes laughed down at
her. 'I can see I'm going to have trouble with you.'

She put her hand over his and
drew it away a little, said playfully, 'Who, sir? Me, sir?'

'Yes, you.'
He stroked the back of his fingers down her cheek as his gaze held hers, became
intent. He leaned forward as if to kiss her, but just then the taxi drew up and
the driver, eager to get home, shouted, 'We're here.'

Tasha laughed up at him,
enjoying the chagrin in his face. But when he reached for the door handle and
looked as if he was going to get out, she became instantly serious again and
stopped him, saying, 'You may as well keep the cab to take you home.'

He looked at her for a moment,
taking in the implications, but his face didn't change as he shook his head.
'I'll see you to your door.'

They got out of the taxi and
Brett paid it off, then turned towards her, not quite
knowing what to expect. Even that feeling was almost a stranger to him; he
wasn't used to being unsure of himself, and definitely not to being rejected.
When the cab drove away they stood and looked at each other, Brett being
careful not to be the first to speak. Then he saw her begin to smile and he was
filled with hope.

'Do you
have a heart condition?'

Startled,
he said, 'Good heavens, no!'

'You don't suffer from asthma or
anything like that?'

'Just how old do you think I am?'
he said indignantly.

'OK. But
don't say you haven't been warned.'

They were standing outside an
imposing terrace of six-storey Victorian houses, with large bay windows and
solid front doors with ornate fanlights over them, in a prosperous-looking
street. But, instead of using the front door, Tasha went down some steps to the
basement area where she unlocked a door that gave onto a long corridor, evidently
what had once been the servants' entrance to the house. She led him down the
corridor to a narrow back stair and gave him an impish grin as she began to run
up them.

She lived on the very top floor,
in the attics, and even Brett, who considered himself to be pretty fit and had
taken the stairs two at a time, was feeling winded when they reached it. But
Tasha wasn't even out of breath.

'How long have you lived here?'
he demanded as he leaned against the wall while she unlocked her door.

She grinned. 'Two years. An
Olympic athlete would envy the muscles in my legs,' she told him.

'No
wonder you dance so well.'

The door
opened straight into a huge sitting-room that ran the width of the house. The
windows were uncurtained, letting the morning
sunlight flood the room, so that Brett's first impression was of light and
warmth. He became aware of bright colours, of a red shawl draped across a
settee, of a Mexican rug in greens and blues on the bleached and polished wood
of the floor. There were a great many pictures on three of the white-painted
walls, modern pictures of clear- cut shapes and colours. The fourth wall was
hidden behind primitive but practical bookshelves made of wooden planks
supported by tiers of red bricks. There were a great many books, some with the
lurid-coloured jackets of novels, others with the more staid covers of
reference books.

There wasn't much furniture, he
noticed, just the settee, a table in front of the window with a couple of old
dining-chairs, and another series of bricks and planks across one corner to
hold a television set and a music system. It was a clean, uncluttered place,
but full of warmth and colour. Like the character of its owner? Brett wondered,
and was more intrigued than ever.

Tasha began to say, 'If you'd
like a coffee or something—' but Brett caught her arm as she went to move away
and pulled her towards him.

'What's
the "or something"?'

'Tea?'
she suggested.

He smiled, put his arms round her
and held her eyes as he drew her close. Unexpectedly, he found that his heart
was beating too fast and he was full of the intoxicating excitement of
anticipation—emotions he hadn't experienced for a very long time. His lips were
dry and his hands unsteady; he felt like a teenager on his first date and just
as nervous. Her eyes were open and there was an almost wary look in their blue
depths. Softly, reassuringly, he said her name, 'Tasha,' on a long, unsteady
breath. Then he reached up to gently touch her face before he bent his head and
found her lips.

She had been kissed many times
before by many men, both passionately and gently, and didn't expect this to be
much different. Perhaps he might be a little more experienced, but Tasha went
into that kiss with her eyes wide open in every meaning of the phrase. His hand
went round the back of her head to hold her closer and slowly her eyes closed
as his lips moved against hers. It was almost as if she could feel his heart in
his lips, slightly trembling, searching, wanting to reach her soul and awaken
it from the safety of slumber. His lips were warm, vital, infinitely caressing.
They weren't gentle and not yet passionate, but teasing and
evocative.

A sudden longing filled her, a
yearning that she had dreamed about but never known. She relaxed a little and
felt a tremor run through him, whether of triumph or libido, she didn't know.
Because her own body was starting to awaken, to let desire take hold. Her lips
moved under his and she began to kiss him in return.

Brett breathed her name again on
a soft groan, and moved his lips to her throat, trailing kisses along its
length, but then came back to her lips again, avid for the response he wanted.
Her hand went to his neck and she could feel his pulse beating there, wild and
erratic. He rained tantalising little kisses on her lips and she opened her
mouth, letting him into its secret warmth. Tasha felt her senses begin to
whirl, stood on the edge of the vortex knowing that if she let herself drown in
the growing demands of her own body, in her need of him, then she would be
taking an irreversible step, would be opening a door through which she couldn't
see. With a low moan, she stepped back from the edge, drew away and held him at
arm's length.

'I think you'd better stop,' she
said, on an unsteady but firm note.

Disappointment engulfed him and he
was sharply tempted to just ignore her and pull her back into his arms. To force her to want him as much as he wanted her. To overcome her resistance with more kisses until she changed her
mind, until she cried out for him to take her. But one look at her face
drove all chauvinism from his mind. There was a shocked look in her face, as if
she had been taken entirely by surprise. But that the surprise had been
pleasant he could see by the warmth in her startled eyes. So maybe there was
hope yet, if he didn't rush things, if he played it cool. But he still said,
'Are you sure?' on a hopeful note.

Tasha laughed at him. 'Yes, I'm
quite sure.' She moved away from him. 'I'm going to change.' She went to a door
in the wall away from the window. 'If you want a coffee before you go, the kitchen's through here.'

'Are you
going to bed?'

'Good heavens, no.' She gave him a surprised look. 'I'm going to get ready for
work.'

'Work! On a Sunday morning?'

'That's when the people I have to
interview for my television programme are usually at
home.'

She left him and Brett wandered
after her. He was in an inner corridor, the first door leading into the
kitchen. It was very small and compact, made out of what once must have been a
large linen cupboard, he guessed. He switched on the kettle and, curious, went
on down the corridor. Behind one door he could hear the sound of a shower
running and guessed that was the bathroom. There were two other doors. One
opened into a bedroom at the back of the house. Here one wall was entirely taken
up by built-in wardrobes painted in a soft green. There was a bed that could
have been either a large single or a small double and which, the way he was
feeling at the moment, looked an infinitely good place to be—so long as Tasha
was there with him. There was also a dressing table, more bookshelves, and a
large ottoman at the foot of the bed. Again the place was very clean and tidy
and the colours, although not making as bold a statement as in the
sitting-room, were warm and inviting.

When he opened the door of the
last room, also at the back of the house, Brett smiled. He'd read somewhere
that you had to see where a person worked to really know them, and this was
evidently where Tasha worked. There was a huge desk under the window and it was
piled with papers, folders and a great many books, jostling for space with a
computer and all the bits that went with it, a fax and a telephone. There were
filing cabinets with the drawers open and a great many more books and papers on
the floor, as if tossed there because she was too impatient to get on with what
she was working on to put them away. On one wall there were a couple of cork noticeboards, both covered in pieces of papers, lists,
letters and reminders. It was the work-room of a very busy person, and he began
to understand now why she'd said she envied him the cottage in Cornwall.

Idly
Brett picked up a couple of the folders from the desk
and glanced at their titles. One was, he saw with interest, an idea for a programme on the follow- up of young men who'd had
testicular cancer, how they had coped and how it had affected their lives. He
could imagine that making a very popular programme.
Another was on Car Boot sales and then- growing popularity. 'Will they
eventually kill off the church jumble sale?' Tasha had written on it.

Brett gave a small smile and put down the folder.
There was another one on the desk, partly open. He caught the words 'Sexual
Exploitation' at the top of a sheet of paper and, his interest caught, he
pulled it out. There was a long list of names, all women, under the words, 'To
be interviewed'. The names meant nothing but the few scribbled words alongside
each of them suddenly meant a great deal. 'Sec. to MD, Sampson Holdings', he
read. And, 'Researcher to Lord Moggach, HOL', followed
by, 'PA to Principal, Univ. of Westshire'. Brett's
eyes widened incredulously as he read down the list. My God, this was dynamite!
Here were listed the names of some of the most important men in the business
establishment— and in politics, he realised as he recognised that HOL meant House of Lords and, further down
the page, HOC was House of Commons.