and more uptight by the minute.
Which only went to make Romillie wonder if she should have left things well alone and let her mother come to a decision in her own time about whether or not she wanted to go out in male company.
At five to seven, with her parent growing more and more fidgety, Romillie was feeling very much that she had been wrong to collude with Naylor Cardell the way that she had. In fact, she was of a mind to go out and apologise to Lewis—and Naylor if she had to—and to tell them they would not be coming to dine with them after all.
Impossibly, however, when her mother had been pacing about for the last ten minutes, no sooner had Lewis arrived and said a quiet, ‘Hello, Eleanor,’ than her mother’s nerves about the evening seem to instantly fall away.
Looking completely relaxed with each other, they were already engaged in pleasantries when Naylor unfolded his long length from behind the steering wheel of the car and came to join them.
‘Romillie,’ he said.
‘Naylor,’ she replied.
And that would have been it as far as she was concerned—except that both her mother and Lewis seemed to be of the opinion that Naylor was her date, and insisted that she sit up front with him.
‘Had a good week?’ she enquired, after racking her brains for something to talk to him about as they drove along.
‘Can’t complain,’ he replied briefly. A minute ticked by, and then two. ‘You?’ he enquired.
Grief, this was like trying to harvest a field of wheat with a pair of blunt scissors! ‘Average,’ she managed, and began to be sure that the evening was going to be a complete disaster.
Strangely, it wasn’t. Not totally. Whoever had chosen the restaurant Naylor and Lewis took them to they had, Romillie saw, chosen well. There was plush carpeting, crisp linen, and room between the well-spaced tables for private conversation. If, that was, they could find anything to talk about.
But she had to give Naylor Cardell credit that, the idea of the four of them dining together being hers and not his, he did not leave it to her to keep the conversational ball rolling. As they started on their meal, he did away with desultory conversation and appeared to show an interest in her. She knew that it was purely for her mother’s benefit, but felt the oddest sensation inside when he looked across at her for long moments and seemed quite taken with her. She saw his glance flick over her just below shoulder-length long dark hair, stray over her unblemished complexion, before his striking blue eyes connected with her velvety brown ones.
‘Eleanor, I know, is a well-known artist of exceptional talent,’ he began engagingly. ‘Tell me, Romillie, have you inherited your mother’s gift?’
‘Er—I’ve tried, but I’m quite, quite hopeless,’ she stated honestly, endeavouring to hide the fact that his charm offensive had taken her unawares.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, darling.’ Her mother joined in the conversation, amazingly, after the way she had been prior to seeing Lewis that evening, now thoroughly relaxed.
‘I think you must be seeing my poor efforts through a mother’s indulgent eyes,’ Romillie laughed, and, feeling unexpectedly relaxed herself all at once, fell silent for a while as Lewis joined in and the discussion centred around art, including talk of the exhibition all four of them had attended.
They were on to the next course when there was a lull in the conversation and Naylor again seemed to remember that, in the interests of furthering the budding friendship of Lewis and Eleanor, he should be showing more of an interest in Eleanor’s daughter.
‘What sort of work do you do, Romillie?’ he asked. ‘You never said.’
‘I work in a dental practice,’ she replied, realising she was honour-bound to play along.
‘You’re a dental surgeon?’
‘Nothing so grand,’ she answered, finding a smile. ‘I’m just a receptionist.’
‘As long as you enjoy it,’ he responded, and asked, ‘Have you been there long?’
‘About a year,’ she replied, and realised he was playing his interested man-friend part well when he did not leave it there.
‘What did you do before that?’ he enquired pleasantly.
Nothing, actually. But for no known reason, while she was sure she was not the smallest bit bothered about his opinion of her, Romillie discovered that—when he must work very hard—she didn’t wish that he should add lazy to his belief that she was selfish.
‘I—er…’ she stumbled—and was astonished that when she had spent the last five years doing what she could to protect her mother, her mother, plainly knowing her well enough to read her discomfiture, suddenly took on the role of protecting her!
‘Romillie was about to start university in the hope of one day being a forensic scientist, but she gave up her university place to stay at home and—keep me company when I became unwell,’ Eleanor butted in.
‘Mum…’ Romillie murmured. ‘You don’t have to…’
But Eleanor, her protective instinct dormant for so long, had woken up with a vengeance, clearly not wanting her daughter’s ‘escort’ to think her offspring had spent years in total idleness. ‘I was—very—down, and would have been lost without Rom,’ she went on to explain.
Romillie had never heard her mother talk like this, and, aware that Naylor’s glance had switched from her mother and on to her, started to feel a little embarrassed. ‘Mum, please,’ she protested.
‘It’s true, darling,’ Eleanor said affectionately. ‘You’ve had to be strong for both of us.’
Thankfully Lewis entered the conversation just then, to gently enquire, ‘How are you progressing now, Eleanor?’
‘Getting there,’ she replied, favouring him with a warm smile. ‘With my daughter’s help, I’m getting there. Romillie has taken this job well below her capabilities because it’s near enough to home that she can return in her lunch hour—or be with me inside fifteen minutes if I start to get a little bit panicky.’
Romillie by that time was feeling dreadfully torn—as well as embarrassed. On the one hand it was so good to hear her mother—if a little hesitantly—opening up. But on the other, recalling how only last Wednesday her parent had wondered if she had been put off men, Romillie could not help but think was she now trying to show Naylor, lest Romillie show him her ‘negative’ side, that her daughter really did have a caring, positive side. Oh, grief!
But she did not believe for a moment that Naylor was aware of her embarrassment, or was endeavouring to take the attention off her when, quite pleasantly he glanced over to her mother and enquired, ‘And how about your own work, Eleanor?’
‘I hadn’t picked up my brushes in I don’t know how long, but I’ve recently done a few small pieces, nothing major,’ she responded, and Romillie drew a relieved breath to have the limelight taken off her. ‘But I do believe I’m getting the itch to get back to it again,’ her mother, to Romillie’s delight, stated.
‘You wouldn’t like to make a portrait of me your first assignment,
