happier with the cash than with a cheque, she supposed she should not complain. It was just that thirteen weeks of half the rent in cash was such an awful lot of money to be carrying around.
He had been up and about before her that morning—and she was an early riser. Surprisingly, with the stranger sleeping in the next room, she had slept much better than she had envisaged. She had gone to bed wary and wondering if she should prop a chair under the door handle. Then she recalled the glowing reference Claudia Sturgess had given him, her ‘I’ve known him for years’, her ‘He’s one of the nicest men I know’, her comment that she would trust him with her life—and Taye, as it were, bit the bullet, and decided that to place a chair under her bedroom door handle was no way to start out.
By Friday she had started to relax at having a male flat-share. Given that he was rather taciturn of manner, he was quiet and clean. And, apart from the fact that his eyesight appeared a shade faulty when it came to clearing up a few toast crumbs from the work surfaces, Taye felt she had not done too badly to take her one and only applicant. Another point in his favour—he was seldom ever there. He arose early, went out early, and came home late. He was, she decided, one very busy painter.
She frequently worked late herself, but, having accepted a dinner invitation with Julian Coombs that evening, Taye hurried home from her office to shower and change. She found her flat-share had beaten her to it.
For once, having let himself in with the spare keys Paula had left behind, he was home early. Taye could hear the shower running as she went in and walked by the bathroom. It was not a problem; he did not spend anywhere near the length of time in there that Paula had.
Taye went into her bedroom and, Julian having mentioned the smart establishment where they would be dining, extracted a smart dress from her wardrobe. Up until the age of fourteen she had been used to the best of clothes. Habits formed up until the time her father had left home were ingrained deeper than she had known, and she had discovered that she would rather wait until she could afford something with a touch of quality than buy two of something inferior. That was not to say that if a cheaper item looked good, she might not buy it.
She glanced at her watch just as she heard the bathroom door open. Oh, good! Taye left her room in time to see a robe-clad Magnus Ashthorpe leaving the bathroom.
She almost disappeared back into her room but, Get used to it, she instructed herself, he lives here. ‘Finished in there?’ she asked brightly.
‘It’s all yours,’ he answered, and went to his room, leaving her to it.
A quick shower, a light application of make-up and Taye was seated before her dressing table mirror wondering whether to wear her straight white-blonde hair up or down. Down, she decided. It was Friday night; she had worked hard all week. Time to party.
Well, she qualified, Julian being more earnest than frolicsome, time to unwind. Dressed in a straight dress of heavy silk with fragile shoulder straps, Taye left her room.
To her surprise she found Magnus taking his ease in the sitting room, reading his evening paper. A small ‘Oh!’ escaped her before she could stop it. He must have heard it because, unspeaking, he lowered his paper, and she somehow felt obliged to explain, ‘I didn’t expect you to still be here.’
‘Here is where I live,’ he reminded her coolly, and while she felt a touch embarrassed, and a touch annoyed at one and the same time, she saw his glance skim over her silky shoulders, bare apart from the thin straps of her dress, down over her slender but curving in the right places form, then dropping to what Paula had called her ‘glorious legs’. Clearly, though, he was not impressed by what he saw, because his expression seemed to tighten when bluntly he challenged, ‘You have a date?’
Any embarrassment she had felt disappeared as her annoyance surged. As if it had anything to do with him if she had a date or not!
But this was no way to go on. She was stuck with him until the end of September at least. With difficulty she swallowed down her ire, her glance flicking over his fresh shirt and lounge suit. ‘You don’t actually appear dressed for staying in,’ she replied. She smiled. He stared at her upturned mouth, his gaze lingering for a second before suddenly his grey eyes moved up to her lovely blue eyes. His eyes hardened; he did not smile.
With no idea what to make of him she went into the kitchen to wait until Julian called. She knew quite a few men whom she thought she could regard as friends. They were an eclectic mix at Julian Coombs Comestibles and she got on well with all of them. But this man, this Magnus Ashthorpe, was something else again! He might be totally trustworthy, and Claudia Sturgess might think he would make a first-class tenant but, Taye owned, changing her mind about not having done too badly to have him as a fellow tenant, right now she was finding him extremely hard work.
Thankfully Julian arrived ten minutes before the appointed time, so she did not have to hang about in the kitchen over-long. She went to the intercom to check that it was Julian ringing the bell, and while releasing the outer door catch she turned to her flat-share and civilly informed him that she did not think she would be late.
Like he cared! He looked unblinking back at her. And suddenly she was remembering their conversation about privacy. ‘Er—will you be bringing anyone back?’ she enquired nicely—like she cared!
For a moment she thought he was going to let her whistle for an answer. But then, dryly, he replied, ‘We’ll go to hers.’
Her lips twitched. What was it about this man? He had not intended to amuse her with his ‘go to hers’ but, when she did not particularly like him half of the time, he seemed to have the oddest ability to make her want to laugh.
Julian tapping lightly on the door did away with any further speculation. She went and let him in and, as a courtesy—one of them should make an effort to make this flat-share work—she took Julian into the sitting room and introduced him to Magnus.
It pleased her to discover that there was nothing wrong with Magnus’s manners when there was a third person present. He shook hands with Julian and in the few minutes before she and Julian went out to Julian’s car exchanged politenesses and showed that he was not lacking when it came to social graces.
‘I imagined your new flat-mate to be somewhere in his early twenties,’ Julian opined as they drove along. ‘He—Magnus—he’s quite sophisticated, isn’t he? You know, he’s got that sort of confident air about him.’
‘I suppose he has. I’ve not really thought about it.’
‘You’re getting along all right?’ Julian asked.
Taye wasn’t truly sure that they were ‘getting along all right’, but diplomatically replied, ‘I don’t see very much of him. I think he has a date tonight, so I may not see him again before morning.’ And probably not then if he stays out all night up to no good at ‘hers’.
‘Her’ was probably Pen—Penelope, Penny—Taye mused, and then forgot about the pair of them, or tried to, as she gave herself over to enjoying her evening. Julian was three years older than her. He was pleasant and charming, good, undemanding company, and she liked him very much. He was easy to get along with and seemed to agree with everything she said.
So much so that, when she caught herself thinking that she would not mind too much hearing if he had an opposing view, she began to wonder for one panicky moment if she had inherited some of her mother’s traits and would turn into some cantankerous woman who liked to argue purely for the sake of it.
Taye felt better when she thought of the
