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The camera clearly loved his boldly drawn, Mediterranean features as he lounged confidently behind a kitchen work bench, his white chef’s jacket loose at the collar, his curls neatly coiffed for once. Her heart contracted and her body suffused with heat before the cogs in her viciously assaulted brain ground to a snail’s pace. She couldn’t begin to interpret what her eyes were seeing.
She raised her eyes from the photograph to Jasper as increasingly bizarre questions chased her sanity. What on earth was Charlie doing dressed up in a starched chef’s jacket on the back of a cookery book? Why was there a pile of them, pristine and glossy, on the table in the library at the Manor? And where was he?
‘Why is a photograph of Charlie on the back of this book?’ she blurted, unable to stop herself, cringing with embarrassment at how trite her question sounded and how squeaky her voice was.
‘Well, he’s known to his millions of fans as Charles Campbell-Wright, isn’t he?’ Jasper laughed. Then, noticing Rosie had exhibited no sign of recognition at the mention of this name, Jasper scooted forward in his chair, watching her closely as he continued to speak as if to a very young child. ‘Charles Campbell-Wright? The celebrity chef, TV presenter and cookery book writer? No?’
Rosie shook her head.
The horror was slow to dawn, but dawn it did. Her jaw slackened, and then gawped. So he wasn’t the Manor’s part-time waiter and some-time kitchen assistant he had led her to believe after all? Shame spread across her chest as she recalled her attitude towards Charlie over the last few months, even to the extent of dissing his choice of profession and his complete lack of ambition to press on in the world. She saw that Jasper was still staring at her, his pale-blue eyes crinkled in bafflement by her lack of knowledge of Charlie’s identity.
‘So, Charlie wrote this book?’
‘And several others, but this is hot off the press. I need him to sign a batch for a fayre I’m attending in Germany tomorrow.’
Then her mind spun to a snippet from earlier in her conversation with Jasper.
‘Did you say Charlie was called to the kitchenby his mother?’
‘Still don’t know who your Charlie is, do you?’
‘Well, you just told me…’
‘As in the son of Lucinda and Ralph Campbell-Wright?’
‘Their son?’
Charlie lived here? This was his home?
A fresh wave of horror swept through her heart, and she struggled to draw oxygen into her lungs as the door to the library was flung open and Charlie strode confidently into the room.
‘Sorry about that, but I see you’ve started to get acquainted without me. Rosie, you look wonderful, as always.’ Charlie leaned over to peck her on the cheek, the citrusy tang of his cologne floating to her nostrils. He spun the remaining chair round and sat astride it. ‘So, what do you think, Rosie? Don’t you think Jasper is the best publisher for your aunt’s journal?’
‘Erm, yes, yes of course.’
If she hadn’t been so immobilised by shock, she would have swooned. This wasn’t the Charlie, prince of the black jeans-and-tee-shirt-brigade, she knew. For their meeting with his publisher, he wore perfectly pressed black dress pants and a crisp pink shirt that she saw from the embroidered logo was Ralph Lauren. Since when did Charlie go in for designer-chic? But boy, did he suit the new attire – straight from the pages of a glossy magazine.
Jasper’s eyes bounced from Charlie to Rosie and back to Charlie. Even the most elephant-skinned onlooker could have felt the ripples of electricity flowing between them, but Jasper’s face was suffused with anxiety – clearly he didn’t want to be there when the fuse was lit.
‘So, it’s a deal then?’ he asked swiftly, anxious to conclude the meeting.
‘Sure,’ croaked Rosie, her throat dry and ragged as she clung onto her emotions with her fingernails. ‘And thank you, Jasper.’
Jasper shoved his chair back and withdrew a sheaf of paper from his leather briefcase. ‘I’ll leave this for you to read at your leisure, Rosie. It’s been wonderful to meet you. And Charles, dear boy, perhaps you should bring our newest colleague up to speed with… well, thereality of the situation?’
Charlie’s eyes widened as his gaze fell on the cookery book on the table, and then transferred slowly to Rosie’s pale, frozen expression.
‘Bye!’ Jasper almost sprinted for the door.
‘You lied to me.’
‘I didn’t lie as such, I just…’
‘You told me you were a part-time chef here, not that your parents owned the place!’
‘Iama part-time chef here, Rosie.’
‘But you are a Campbell-Wright. One day all this will be yours! Oh, my God, that’s why the meeting was here,in your library, not as a favour to a loyal employee.’ Nausea threatened and Rosie pushed a balled-up fist into her abdomen. She needed to hear the truth before she crumbled under the onslaught of pain that had spliced into her heart as the full realisation of Charlie’s deception dawned. ‘I’m an idiot! A complete fool. Was that yoursisterwho showed me into the library just now? I thought she looked familiar.’
