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Which, come to think of it, wasn’t like him at all. At seventy-five he might no longer have the physical stamina with which he had built his business empire, but he had lost none of his mental acuity.
Mrs Cooper sniffed. ‘Well, you’d better go and find out, then. He’s been up and down like a jack-in-a-box looking for you to show up. It can’t be doing that heart of his any good to be getting into such a state…’ And with that guilt-provoking observation she turned back towards the kitchen from whence she’d come, but entrenched work habits proved too strong to ignore and she paused to add: ‘I suppose you could do with a cup of tea?’
Good manners suggested Emily politely tell her not to bother, but she had the feeling that, in her current mood, the doughty old housekeeper would take the refusal of her grudging offer as a personal insult.
‘Thanks, that would be lovely,’ she said, summoning a cheerful smile that brightened her faintly up-tilted eyes and infused her honey-coloured skin with delicate warmth. ‘I had breakfast on the run this morning and didn’t have time for a drink. My mouth feels as dry as dust—I think I must have swallowed a ton of ash when I was sifting through things at the house.’
‘You do look a bit as though you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards,’ she was duly informed.
Ah, was that the cause of her somewhat grumpy reception? Emily wondered, conscious that she probably looked more like a scruffy teenager than the mature twenty-six-year-old she was, in her baggy tee shirt and skin-tight jeans. Usually she dressed with care whenever she came to visit, choosing ladylike blouses and skirts out of respect for Peter’s age and own dapper dress sense, and to try to present the image of a confident professional. But since she was here to work rather than to socialise she had needed something practical and hardwearing, although with much of her wardrobe having literally gone up in smoke her choices had been sorely limited. Her jeans, for instance, had been bought back in the days when her hips were somewhat less generous…
‘Emily—there you are!’
Peter Nash was hurrying down the hall towards them, his slight limp barely detectable in his eager stride, his alert brown eyes and thick shock of white hair a vibrant contrast to his wisp-thin body. ‘Was that you arriving just now in that dreadful old banger?’
His gaze flickered over her but he looked amused rather than offended. Unlike Mrs Cooper, he had visited Emily in her studio and knew that the job of restoring beauty was frequently messy. He would expect her to dress sensibly for an ordinary workday. In contrast his pale trousers were neatly creased and his discreet bow tie colour-coordinated with his shirt and navy blazer.
‘Yes, it was,’ she confessed with an apologetic grin. ‘It belongs to the friend who’s putting me up. The fire investigator rang to say he’d let me get some things out of the house this morning and Julie lent me her car to collect them. She needs it back by this afternoon, though, so it won’t be lowering the tone of your neighbourhood for long!’
Peter chuckled. He claimed to be as tough as old boots, but he had a kind heart, as Emily had discovered after the death of her grandfather at the beginning of the year and her desperate struggle to make a success of her inheritance.
James Quest had had a solid-gold reputation as a skilled restorer of museum-quality ceramics but the fact that Emily had trained and worked side by side with him since she was little more than a child, and had built up her own impressive portfolio of achievements, had not been enough to convince some of their important clients that she was a talented craftswoman in her own right, perfectly competent to handle their future commissions.
‘I did offer to have Jeff pick you up and drive you wherever you wanted to go,’ he pointed out.
‘I know, but I didn’t think it would make the right impression on the insurance assessor if I swanned up in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce, she said wryly. ‘Not when I’ve put in a hardship claim!’
‘It wouldn’t hurt him to know you have some influential friends,’ said Peter, a martial glint in his eye.
‘I’m sure it won’t come to that,’ said Emily hastily, aware of Mrs Cooper’s bridling attention, and not wanting to be held responsible for setting him off on one of his crusades. ‘It’s early days, yet…’
But not too early for her to secretly worry about how she was going to manage if the insurance company ultimately decided against making a full payout. She had felt sick this morning when the assessor had told her it could take weeks to process her claim, given the complications that had arisen over the way the policy renewal had been handled.
It was hard to believe that it was only four nights ago that she had woken to the insistent screech of the smoke alarm in the downstairs studio, and stumbled out of bed to find a thick haze of choking smoke creeping up the stairs. Her chest tightened at the smothering memory. The house her grandparents had lived in all their married life—and the only real home that Emily had ever known—had been a rambling old place built of native hardwood timber. The lower floor and adjoining garage had been billowing flame by the time the fire-engines arrived but their quick work had managed to save the scorched upper storey at the cost of extensive fire and water damage. It remained to be seen whether the house could be repaired, or whether the structural damage had been so great that it would have to be demolished.
‘What did he have to report about the cause of the fire?’
Emily sighed and ran slender fingers through her disordered brown curls, sifting a fine mist of powdered ash onto the shoulders of her teal-blue tee shirt. ‘Only that it started in the studio, but they’re waiting on tests to find out whether it was chemical or whether something else set the chemicals off. Part of the trouble is that the fire service is still rushed off its feet in the aftermath of Guy Fawkes night—apparently November is a big month for unexplained fires.’
‘So they’re thinking it could have been deliberate?’ said Peter, his tufted brows beetling, his weathered face sharp with concern.
‘I don’t know…the assessor was asking me all kinds of questions about the way I stored my adhesives and solvents, and disposed of cleaning materials—how tidy I ke
pt things. Grandpa James was always very careful about that sort of thing. He insisted on my putting things away properly and cleaning up every night. I would never have been so careless as to leave potentially dangerous combinations of chemicals or flammable spills lying about!’ she emphasised fiercely.
‘Of course not—so you needn’t worry they’re going to find anything to blame you with on that score,’ said Peter bracingly.
‘As long as they don’t start my customers thinking I work on their precious treasures in an unsafe environment.’ Emily sighed. ‘I can’t afford for the business to start haemorrhaging clients again. I’d just started to break even for the first time since Grandpa died—’
‘All the more reason for you to be able to show them you’ve been able to continue to work. Come and see if you approve of what I’ve done!’ He put an age-spotted hand under Emily’s elbow and urged her back the way he had come, casting his housekeeper a conspiratorial look. ‘Isn’t it about time for a cup of tea, Coop? And how about some of your fabulous date scones—’
Her prune face puffed out a little at his outrageous flattery. ‘I was just about to put the kettle on for Miss Quest. But it’ll have to be low-fat muffins. You know what the doctor said.’
‘Blueberry?’ he asked hopefully.
She nodded. ‘With bran.’
He pulled a face. ‘It’s come to a pretty pass when a man has to put up with grass in his feed.’
