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‘Thank you.’ Maya didn’t dare look at Blaise after this comment. However, Lottie’s interruption did give her some valuable time to restore common sense to the situation, and she seized the opportunity to effect some much needed distance between them, even knowing he would probably taunt her about it later.
‘Excuse me, but I need to go and sort out which books I’ll need for our research.’
‘For God’s sake, Maya, I—’
But she’d already left the room before Blaise had even finished the sentence.
Maya had absolutely done the right thing, disappearing for a while. Blaise had had no choice but to get down to some work. It wasn’t easy when his mind was taunted by too erotic images of her, but once he started to write the story totally absorbed him, drawing him into the drama that was unfolding on the cinema screen of his mind and making him forget everything—even her.
Yet that wasn’t completely true. In the play, the female lead of the piece had helplessly turned into Maya, and Blaise found to his surprise that he was becoming more and more emotionally involved in the character than with any other female part he had ever written. It was a strange process, what he did for a living. He believed he was far more capable of expressing emotion in his writing than he was in day-to-day life. Subconsciously he supposed he blamed his parents for that. God knew they’d expressed enough stormy emotion throughout their married life to make any child of theirs either abhor it or shun replicating it as far as possible.
Disturbingly uncomfortable echoes from the past gripped him for a few frozen moments…so much so that he swore he could hear his mother’s anguished cries coming back down the years to haunt him. Such an incident had not occurred for ages. He couldn’t help wondering why memories of his not so happy family should surface now. Determinedly, Blaise refocused on his work. After writing a particularly stirring scene between his female lead and her soldier suitor, he reached for the half-full cafetière and poured himself another cup of coffee. At least two hours had passed since Lottie had made it, and the dark bitter brew was barely warm, but he drank it all the same, mulling deeply over the words he had put onto the page in front of him.
The door to the connecting office opened and Maya reappeared.
‘I don’t want to disturb you, but I’ve been looking through some of the books on my shelf and making notes about what you might need—it’s just an educated guess, I’m afraid, since we haven’t discussed it in any length, but I thought I’d go upstairs to the library and see what I could find there.’
‘Maya?’
‘Yes?’
Blaise found himself hypnotised by her wide innocent gaze. ‘I’ve scribbled down a short list of some things that might be useful.’ Tearing out a page from his own book, he held it out to her. Glancing down at the contents, she couldn’t hide the unfeigned excitement in her eyes, causing him to muse silently that she was the first woman he’d been intimately involved with who had expressed a genuine interest in his work. A frisson of unashamed pride and pleasure rippled through him.
‘I’ll crack on, then.’
‘Take your time. We’ll catch up later and talk over what you’ve got. I’ll also need you to type out what I’ve done today.’
‘That won’t be a hardship. I’d love to see how the story’s progressing.’ Reaching the door that led into the hallway, Maya paused to venture a friendly smile. ‘I hope the writing is going well for you,’ she said encouragingly.
‘I’m not doing badly so far.’ He grinned back. ‘By the way, I didn’t congratulate you on conquering your fear around dogs and taking Sheba for a walk earlier.’
‘I loved being with her. And I think it’s just like you said it would be…somehow I got the sense that she’s looking after me and wants to protect me.’
Did she but know it, the expression on her face just then was like a lost little girl who’d just been found, and all Blaise’s suppressed longing for her of that morning came hurtling back to the fore again…
When Maya arrived upstairs, a cloak of silence descended like muffled snow all around her. As she walked down the long, stately corridor towards the library, a shiver chased down her spine. There were ghosts here…just like she’d sensed when they’d been walking by the wall outside… Only these weren’t ghosts of marching Roman soldiers—these were ghosts of family now gone.
She wondered why Blaise barely talked about his parents. After all, he had inherited the family home, and had already told her he’d lived here with them when he was young. Had something unpleasant happened between them? He’d already indicated that his father had had an explosive temper. Was that why he seemed so reticent about discussing his childhood?
