The Perfect Hero (24 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Kay ushered him through to the living room.

‘You won’t believe what’s been going on here,’ she said. ‘We’ve been absolutely beside ourselves!’

‘
We’ve?
’ Adam questioned, wondering who else was at Wentworth House.

‘Come and meet Clare.’

‘Ah,’ Adam said, realising that his protestations of undying love were going to have to be put on hold for a little while longer.

‘Clare,’ Kay said, entering the living room, ‘this is Adam. Adam – meet Clare – Teresa’s nanny,’ Kay said.

‘I was nearly her ex-nanny,’ Clare said.

Kay sighed. ‘We’ve just been startled out of our wits – Teresa’s daughter went missing.’

‘Annabel?’ Adam said.

Kay nodded. ‘She just disappeared.’

‘But she’s okay now?’

‘Oh, yes. Turned out Oli had taken her out to Marlcombe Manor.’

‘Without telling anyone?’

‘It was a misunderstanding,’ Clare explained. ‘One never to be repeated again, I hope.’

‘I thought Teresa sounded stressed when I called her,’ Adam said.

‘She didn’t say anything to you, then?’ Kay asked.

‘No. But she never really talks about her private life. Her whole family could be kidnapped and held to ransom but Teresa would still want to get on with the day’s scenes.’

‘That sounds like Teresa,’ Clare said. ‘Listen, I’m going to get going to our bed and breakfast.’ She stood up. ‘I can’t thank you enough, Kay. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’

‘I’m afraid I wasn’t much help.’

‘I hope we’ll see each other again soon.’

‘You and Annabel must come and have dinner with us when the gang’s all here.’

‘I’d like that.’

Adam watched as Clare left the room and listened to them saying goodbye at the door. He was alone with Kay. Now was his chance.

She came back into the living room. ‘I expect you’ll be heading up to Marlcombe too?’ she said.

‘No, actually, I was wondering if you’d like to go out somewhere.’

‘You’re not working?’ Kay asked him.

‘Well, the mobile’s on so I’m officially available for work,’ he said with a little smile, ‘and I’ve already dealt with at least a dozen calls already today so I’m hoping things will quieten down now.’

‘But I’m afraid I’ve got to work here.’

‘Then I can’t tempt you to come fossil hunting with me?’

Kay smiled. ‘Oh, Adam, I have so much to do.’

‘Like what?’

She looked at him. ‘Now, you can’t keep helping me out with the chores.’

‘But I don’t mind. If it means I have the pleasure of your company, I don’t mind helping out with a few tasks first.’

‘But there’s a huge meal to prepare for tonight.’

‘Teresa said they’re going to eat out tonight,’ Adam said. ‘She didn’t tell you?’

‘No,’ Kay said. ‘Are you sure?’

He nodded. ‘Said there’d been so many delays that they weren’t going to be back until late.’

‘Oh.’

‘So that leaves you free, doesn’t it?’

‘I suppose,’ Kay said. ‘Although I really wanted to make a cake.’

‘A cake?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Something nourishing and luxurious. I’ve got to practise.’

‘And you’ll come with me if I help you with the cake?’

‘You don’t have to help me.’

‘But I want to,’ Adam said. ‘Come on. Lead me to the nearest apron.’

The two of them headed into the kitchen and Kay giggled as Adam reached for a floral apron which hung on the back of the kitchen door.

‘That actually suits you,’ she said with a grin.

‘I hope you’re joking,’ he said, washing his hands at the sink as Kay donned an apron of her own.

‘So what were you thinking of ?’ Adam said. ‘Nourishing
and
luxurious?’

‘Aha,’ Kay said and her eyes misted over, making Adam wonder what she was thinking of, and then it hit him. She was making this cake for Oli, wasn’t she? It was him she wanted to impress.

‘Okay,’ he continued, undeterred. ‘So what ingredients do you have?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Kay said, opening and closing cupboards. ‘Just a bit of flour and some eggs and sugar. Nothing really exciting.’

‘No cocoa powder?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘So chocolate’s out.’

‘I guess,’ Kay said, looking disappointed.

It was then that something caught Adam’s eye. On the worktop by the sink, two bright lemons sat side by side. ‘Can we use one of those?’ he asked.

‘Sure,’ Kay said. ‘What do you have in mind?’

‘Wait and see,’ Adam said.

There then followed a flurry of activity as sieves, spoons and bowls were brought together in the pursuit of deliciousness. Kay measured and Adam mixed, the two of them working in harmony.

‘I’ve never made a lemon sponge before,’ Kay said.

‘Well, this is a very special lemon cake,’ Adam said. ‘Nana Craig used to make it for me. It was a cure-all cake and I’d be able to tell she’d made one as soon as I opened the front door. The whole house would smell lemony.’

Kay smiled and Adam watched as she poured the gooey yellow mixture into the loaf tin and put it in the oven.

‘So the lemon juice and sugar are in here?’ Adam said.

‘Aye aye, Captain!’ Kay said.

It was Adam’s turn to smile. He might sound like a captain but he very much doubted that Kay viewed him in the same way as she did Captain Wentworth.

‘Good,’ he said, removing his apron.

‘You’ll make someone a very good wife one day,’ Kay said.

Adam looked at her disapprovingly. ‘Very funny.’

‘Oh, I didn’t mean to make fun of you,’ Kay said quickly. ‘I’m just so impressed. All the men I’ve been out with couldn’t even open a can of beans let alone make a cake.’

‘That’s what happens when you’re brought up by your grandmother,’ Adam said. ‘You can make cakes, sew buttons and tell your delphiniums from your hollyhocks. Only don’t go spreading such things around. I do have a reputation to keep up.’

‘You mean you wouldn’t want Gemma finding out about such things?’

Adam sighed inwardly. She was still fixating on him and Gemma, wasn’t she? If only he had the courage to tell her how he felt but he could see the moment wasn’t right – not with Kay thinking about another man. ‘It’s just, I might be taken advantage of,’ he said, ‘by women who want to use my culinary skills to impress others.’

Kay looked at him. ‘You know who this cake’s for, don’t you?’ she said.

‘I have a hunch,’ he said and he watched as Kay’s face flushed pink.

‘I don’t suppose I’m very good at keeping secrets, am I?’ She untied her apron and hung it up on the back of the kitchen door.

Adam wondered if she was going to say any more but she didn’t and he didn’t press her because he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what she might say.

‘So,’ he said, ‘are you up for some fossil hunting?’

Kay smiled. ‘Really?’

‘You bet,’ Adam said. ‘You’ve got to see Charmouth.’

‘Okay. I’ll just go and get ready,’ Kay said. ‘Will you keep an eye on the cake?’

‘Aye aye, Captain.’ He watched as she left the room and listened as her light feet padded up the stairs. He raked his hand through his hair. God! What was he going to do?

Tell her
, a little voice said to him – the voice that had hurried him to Lyme.

‘But she’s not interested in me. It’s Oli she’s besotted with,’ he told himself.

And you don’t stand a chance of her being interested in you if you won’t even put yourself in the picture.

That’s true,
he thought. If he just brooded and remained silent, that would get him nowhere. He had to take action and let her know.

He paced around the kitchen for twenty minutes, thinking about how things might turn out and then panicking that everything would go wrong – just as it had in the past.

‘Don’t think about that,’ he told himself. ‘Just because it happened once, it doesn’t mean that it will happen again.’

‘No, it just
feels
as if it will,’ he whispered. Why was that? How could one knock affect a person so much? Nana Craig was always telling him to put it behind him which was ironic as she’d never been able to put her husband’s infamous misdemeanours with an actress behind her. ‘You’re not living your life properly,’ she’d told him on numerous occasions. ‘You can’t let that one incident shadow the rest of your life.’

And it made sense to him, it really did but, nevertheless, he’d lived in horror of it happening again.

‘Okay,’ a voice said, bringing him back to the present. He looked up and saw Kay standing in the doorway. Her hair was loose and had been brushed, and she was wearing a pretty floral Alice band. ‘I’m not sure what to wear for fossil hunting,’ she said, smoothing down her sky blue dress which dazzled Adam’s eyes.

‘Something sturdy on the feet,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ Kay said. ‘Not sandals?’

‘It’s not that kind of beach, I’m afraid.’

Kay wrinkled her nose and, at first, he thought it was because she was changing her mind about the whole idea of the beach trip but then he realised it was the cake she could smell. He watched as she grabbed the oven gloves and opened the door, a wonderful waft of lemony heat escaping.

‘Wow!’ Kay said as she pulled out the cake tin and examined it. She tested it with a skewer and pronounced it cooked.

‘I have to say that is the cutest cake I’ve seen in a long time,’ Adam said.

‘Do you really like it?’

‘I think it looks gorgeous but there’s one thing more to do.’ He handed Kay the bowl with the lemon and sugar mix, giving it one last stir. He then lightly pricked over the cake with a fork and nodded to Kay.

‘I’m a bit nervous,’ she said and he watched as the sugary mixture was poured over the warm cake and then stood back to admire it. ‘Gosh.’

Adam smiled. ‘It looks great.’

She nodded. ‘I can’t thank you enough, Adam,’ she said, turning round and smiling at him.

He shrugged.

‘I mean, I would have ended up with a bowlful of gunk if I’d been left on my own.’

‘I’m sure you’d have done fine.’

‘No, really – the last cake I made was shrunken and shrivelled and burnt. It was a complete disaster. Even my neighbour’s dog didn’t want it.’

‘Well, I’m sure everyone will want a piece of this.’

Kay nodded. ‘They will, won’t they?’

Adam smiled. ‘Well, shall we get going then?’

Adam blanched slightly. She wasn’t going to offer him a piece, was she? Of course she wasn’t. His suspicions were confirmed. She’d made it for another man and he had helped her. What an idiot he was.

Chapter Thirty

Oli wasn’t paying any attention to Gemma and she was beginning to get annoyed.

‘You’d think I’d deliberately done something to make her miserable, wouldn’t you?’ he said, his face slightly less handsome than usual because of his furrowed brow and the thunderous expression in his eyes. ‘You’d think I never do anything right.’

‘Oli—’

‘I don’t know why I put up with it,’ he said. ‘Why do I keep on putting up with it?’

‘Because she’s a great director.’

‘Director!’ Oli said, the word exiting his mouth like a poison he was trying to rid himself of. ‘Dictator more like!’

Gemma had never seen him so worked up before. She hadn’t realised there was such tension between Oli and Teresa. She knew they’d worked together on several different projects over the years – you could tell from the way they interacted on set. Either they were screaming at each other or working to the very best of their ability because of a kind of shorthand they used. It was quite common between actors and directors and it was always fascinating to watch.

‘I think she was just worried about her daughter,’ Gemma said.

‘But I brought her here to see her mum! You’d think that she’d like a surprise,’ Oli said.

‘And I’m sure she did,’ Gemma said, ‘but you probably scared her witless. She didn’t know where Annabel was. Honestly, I’ve never seen her look so anxious.’

Oli sighed. ‘This is the last time I work with her – the very last.’

‘Oli—’

‘She treats me like a child and I’m not going to put up with it.’

Gemma watched as Oli stormed off across the lawn. ‘Oli?’ she called. But he’d vanished.

Adam and Kay were walking the length of Marine Parade towards the car park by the harbour. The sea was the colour of slate and the sandy beach was quiet and newly swept.

Adam’s eyes drifted to the Cobb and he smiled. ‘When I first saw that, as a little boy, I thought it was some sleeping dragon.’

‘Were you afraid of it?’

He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I kept wanting to visit it to see if it had woken up. Drove Nana crazy.’

‘You’re very close to Nana Craig, aren’t you?’

‘She’s my family. She’s like parents, siblings and best friend all rolled into one.’

‘That’s nice,’ Kay said.

‘What about you?’

‘What about me?’

‘Whom are you close to?’

Kay stopped walking for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

Adam looked surprised. ‘You don’t know?’

Kay sighed. ‘My mother died recently,’ she said, ‘and I lost a good friend too.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Is that what made you move here?’ She nodded. ‘I had to get away and I wanted a complete change. There were too many sad memories for me in Hertfordshire.’

‘What about your father?’ Adam asked.

Kay looked up at him. ‘He left when I was little.’

‘And never came back?’

‘Oh, he came back all right,’ Kay said. ‘But only to leave again.’ She shook her head. ‘I think he was one of the reasons I became obsessed with fictional heroes. They’re so much more reliable, aren’t they?’

For a moment, Kay thought about all the times she’d been hurt in love and couldn’t help remembering Ben Golden – the man who’d stolen and then broken her heart when she was twenty-one. They’d been dating for just over a year when he’d dropped the bombshell about being married.

No, she didn’t miss Hertfordshire.

‘But didn’t you worry about being lonely?’ Adam asked. ‘I mean, you don’t know anyone here.’