Charing Cross Mansions, London
December 1962
Isabella
It was Christmas Eve morning, the fingers of a cold wintry dawn only just reaching through the curtains. They were both awake early and lying in bed with her head resting on Max’s chest, Isabella let out a long and very contented sigh.
‘I’m so glad our paths crossed that night at Rules,’ she said, dreamily.
‘Me too,’ he murmured. ‘And I’m glad you’re feeling so much better.’
‘I am, thanks to you and your sexy bedside manner.’ She giggled. ‘I shall have to call you Dr Max, from now on.’
His hand on her head, he stroked her hair. He had such gentle hands. ‘You can call me anything you want.’
When Max had deemed her well enough, he had explained what he had meant by wanting to discussweightier matterswith her. His words had both thrilled and scared her. She had never dated anyone too seriously before; her preference was always to keep things as brief and as superficial as possible. The thought of being with someone on a permanent basis who might interfere with her acting career, or put a stop to it, chilled her to the marrow.
When Max had declared his feelings for her, that he didn’t want an inconsequential fling with her, Isabella could not have been more surprised. But perhaps she shouldn’t have been; he had, after all, been so good to her when she’d been ill. Initially, while taking care of her, he had been the perfect gentleman and slept on the sofa at night, rather than leave her on her own. When she was over the worst, he slept in her bed with her. Fortunately her flatmate hadn’t bothered to return once the smog had cleared, claiming that since it was nearly Christmas, she would stay in the country with her parents and return in the new year.
What would Isabella and Max do then with a flatmate playing gooseberry? Would Max invite her to stay at his place?
Of greater concern to Isabella was her extended absence from the theatre, but the doctor who Max had insisted make a house call to see her had said she was in no fit state to work, let alone perform nightly on stage.
‘You may well regard yourself as a trooper, Miss Hartley,’ he’d told her, ‘but you’ll be of no use to anybody if you go down with pneumonia as a result of not following my instructions. Complete bed rest and plenty of fluids.’
After an awkward telephone conversation with the director of the play, it was agreed the understudy would continue standing in for Isabella until the new year.
Yesterday morning she had gone out for the first time in weeks to do her Christmas shopping. She had returned home exhausted, her body limp and clammy, her chest rattling like a battered tin with a couple of coins in it.
Her ear pressed to Max’s chest, Isabella listened to his heart thudding inside his ribcage. She lay like that for some time, thanking providence that they had met. Compared to her previous lovers, he was by far the most experienced and expert. He took his time, teasing her with his fingers and his mouth, keeping her deliciously on the brink before finally bringing her to climax. He seemed to care much more about her pleasure than his own, which heaven knew made a refreshing change.
In the quiet still of her own company while Max was at work, she was plagued by a small but insistent voice: Was he too good to be true? What was he doing when he wasn’t with her? Who was he with? He rarely spoke of where he worked, or with whom he worked, just that he was a civil servant and worked in an office where nothing of any significance was done. But then come sixforty-five, as regular as clockwork, he would appear with food to cook for her, and the doubts would vanish like steam on the bathroom mirror.Be happy for the moment, she would tell herself. And she was happy. Oh, she was blissfully happy! She was also, very much to her astonishment, most definitely in love.
‘What are you thinking?’ Max asked, his hand now stroking the nape of her neck.
‘How happy I am.’
‘What would make you happier?’
She raised her head and looked into his eyes. ‘Right now, I don’t think that’s possible.’
He smiled. ‘There must be something. Something I can do, or something I could give you?’
‘What about you? Could I give you something that would make you happier?’
He breathed in deeply so that his chest rose beneath her. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I want to spend Christmas Day with you.’
She was both pleased and disappointed. ‘But I’m going up to Suffolk this afternoon. It’s all arranged.’
‘I know that. But I don’t like the thought of you travelling alone on the train in this cold weather. You might have a relapse. Or far worse, the train might get stuck in a snowdrift and some heroic young man might come to your rescue and carry you off on his steed.’
She tapped his chin with a finger. ‘And what makes you think I’d allow a complete stranger to carry me off on his steed?’
‘You agreed to have dinner with a complete stranger the night we met.’
‘Hmmm ... so I did. What could I have been thinking?’
‘And besides, you know perfectly well what I mean.’ He moved his head down and clamped his teeth lightly around her finger.
