India Grey - Wicked Secrets

He hated deception—too much of his childhood had been spent not knowing what to believe or who to trust—and as an actress, he supposed, Sophie Greenham was quite literally a professional in the art.

But unluckily for her he was a professional too, and there was more than one way of making safe an incendiary device. Sometimes you had to approach the problem laterally. If she wouldn’t admit that her feelings for Jasper were a sham, he’d just have to prove it another way.

SOPHIE felt as if she’d only just fallen asleep when a knock at the door jolted her awake again. Jasper appeared, grinning sheepishly and carrying a plate of toast in one hand and two mugs of coffee in the other, some of which slopped onto the carpet as he elbowed the door shut again.

‘What time is it?’ she moaned, dropping back onto the pillows.

Jasper put the mugs down on the bedside table and perched on the bed beside her. ‘Nearly ten. Kit said he’d bumped into you in the middle of the night trying to find your room, so I thought I’d better not wake you. You’ve slept for Britain.’

Sophie didn’t have the heart to tell him she’d been awake most of the night, partly because she’d been frozen, partly because she’d been so hyped up with indignation and fury and the after-effects of what felt like an explosion in the sexual-chemistry lab that sleep had been a very long time coming.

He picked up a mug and looked at her through the wreaths of steam that were curling through the frigid air. ‘Sorry for leaving you to wander like that. Just as well you bumped into Kit.’

Sophie grunted crossly. ‘Do you think so? I thought he was the ghost of the nymphomaniac countess. No such luck.’

Jasper winced. ‘He didn’t give you a hard time, did he?’

‘He thought it was extremely odd that we weren’t sharing a room.’ Sophie reached for a coffee, more to warm her hands on than anything. ‘I’m not exactly convincing him in my role as your girlfriend, you know. The thing is, he overheard me talking to Jean-Claude on the train and now he thinks I’m a two-timing trollop.’

‘Oops.’ Jasper took another sip of coffee while he digested this information. ‘OK, well, that is a bit unfortunate, but don’t worry—we still have time to turn it around at the party tonight. You’ll be every man’s idea of the perfect girlfriend.’

Sophie raised an eyebrow. ‘In public? In front of your parents? From my experience of what men consider the perfect girlfriend, that wouldn’t be wise.’

‘Wicked girl,’ Jasper scolded. ‘I meant demure, devoted, hanging on my every word—that sort of thing. What did you bring to wear?’

‘My Chinese silk dress.’

With a firm shake of his head Jasper put down his mug. ‘Absolutely not . Far too sexy. No, what we need is something a little more … understated. A little more modest .’

Sophie narrowed her eyes. ‘You mean frumpy, don’t you? Do you have something in mind?’

Getting up, Jasper went over to the window and drew back the curtains with a theatrical flourish. ‘Not something, some where . Get up, Cinderella, and let’s hit the shops of Hawksworth.’

Jasper drove Ralph’s four-by-four along roads that had been turned into ice rinks. It was a deceptively beautiful day. The sun shone in a sky of bright, hard blue and made the fields and hedgerows glitter as if each twig and blade of grass was encrusted with Swarovski crystals. He had pinched a navy-blue quilted jacket of Tatiana’s to lend to Sophie, instead of the military-style overcoat of which Kit had been so scathing. Squinting at her barefaced reflection in the drop-down mirror on the sun visor, she remarked that all that was missing was a silk headscarf and her new posh-girl image would be complete. Jasper leaned over and pulled one out of the glove compartment. She tied it under her chin and they roared with laughter.

They parked in the market square in the centre of a town that looked as if it hadn’t altered much in the last seventy years. Crunching over gritted cobblestones, Jasper led her past greengrocers, butchers and shops selling gate hinges and sheep dip, to an ornately fronted department store. Mannequins wearing bad blonde wigs modelled twinsets and patterned shirtwaister dresses in the windows.

‘Braithwaite’s—the fashion centre of the North since 1908’ read the painted sign above the door. Sophie wondered if it was meant to be ironic.

‘After you, madam,’ said Jasper with a completely straight face, holding the door open for her. ‘Evening wear. First floor.’

Sophie stifled a giggle. ‘I love vintage clothing, as you know, but—’

‘No buts,’ said Jasper airily, striding past racks of raincoats towards a sweeping staircase in the centre of the store. ‘Just think of it as dressing for a part. Tonight, Ms Greenham, you are not going to be your gorgeous, individual but—let’s face it—slightly eccentric self. You are going to be perfect Fitzroy-fiancée material. And that means Dull.’

At the top of the creaking staircase Sophie caught sight of herself in a full-length mirror. In jeans and Tatiana’s jacket, the silk scarf still knotted around her neck a lurid splash of colour against her un-made-up face, dull was exactly the word. Still, if dull was what was required to slip beneath Kit Fitzroy’s radar that had to be a good thing.

Didn’t it?

She hesitated for a second, staring into her own wide eyes, thinking of last night and the shower of shooting stars that had exploded inside her when he’d touched her wrist; the static that had seemed to make the air between them vibrate as they’d stood in the dark corridor. The blankness of his expression, but the way it managed to convey more vividly than a thousand well-chosen words his utter contempt …

‘What do you think?’

Yes. Dull was good. The duller the better.

‘Hello- o ?’

Pasting on a smile, she turned to Jasper, who had picked out the most hideous concoction of ruffles and ruches in the kind of royal blue frequently used for school uniforms. Sophie waved her hand dismissively.

‘Strictly Come Drag Queen. I thought we were going for dull—that’s attention-grabbing for all the wrong reasons. No—we have to find something really boring …’ She began rifling through rails of pastel polyester. ‘We have to find the closest thing The Fashion Capital of the North has to a shroud … Here. How about this?’

Triumphantly she pulled out something in stiff black fabric—long, straight and completely unadorned. The neck was cut straight across in a way that she could imagine would make her breasts look like a sort of solid, matronly shelf, and the price tag was testament to the garment’s extreme lack of appeal. It had been marked down three times already and was now almost being given away.

‘Looks good to me.’ Jasper flipped the hanger around, scrutinising the dress with narrowed eyes. ‘Would madam like to try it on?’

‘Nope. It’s my size, it’s horrible and it’s far too cold to get undressed. Let’s just buy it and go to the pub. As your fiancée I think I deserve an enormous and extremely calorific lunch.’

Jasper grinned and kissed her swiftly on the cheek. ‘You’re on.’

The Bull in Hawksworth was the quintessential English pub: the walls were yellow with pre-smoking-ban nicotine, a scarred dartboard hung on the wall beside an age-spotted etching of Alnburgh Castle and horse brasses were nailed to the blackened beams. Sophie slid behind a table in the corner by the fire while Jasper went to the bar. He came back with a pint of lager and a glass of red wine, and a newspaper folded under his arm.

‘Food won’t be a minute,’ he said, taking a sip of lager, which left a froth of white on his upper lip. ‘Would you mind if I gave Sergio a quick call? I brought you this to read.’ He threw down the newspaper and gave her an apologetic look as he took out his phone. ‘It’s just it’s almost impossible to get a bloody signal at Alnburgh, and I’m always terrified of being overheard anyway.’