Encounters by Barbara Erskine Read Free Book Online Page A

has painted. Mind you,’ he looked her up and down pointedly. ‘Not many of them go to the lengths you did for a disguise.’
    She blushed again. ‘I’m afraid I’m rather a mess at the moment. I was cooking.’
    He nodded. ‘Cabbage. I had guessed.’
    She smiled ruefully. ‘I’m afraid I live on it.’
    ‘Why don’t you go and continue while I poke around here for a bit and investigate your,’ he paused and winked, ‘your potential.’
    She fled.
    It took only a few minutes to throw the vegetables into a pan and scrub her hands and then she ran upstairs to comb her hair and change her skirt. When she came down he had piled several canvases on the table.
    ‘I’ll take these next,’ he said without preamble. ‘Sale or return of course, and I’ll buy this one myself …’
    Again it was flowers, she noticed amazed.
    ‘… if it’s not exorbitantly priced. Now,’ he looked at her again. ‘Could that concoction you were making wait do you think? If you were to transform yourself, not into that hard hitting woman Miss Rowmill, but perhaps into a slightly tidier version of yourself I could take you out to dinner to celebrate your sales.’
    She looked at him amazed. She had got the firm impression he despised her and her kind, and she certainly disliked him. So why ask her out? And anyway he was insufferably rude. A slightly tidier version of herself indeed. She curbed the desire to stick out her tongue at him. Instead she lowered her eyes meekly to the floor. ‘That would be nice,’ she said. ‘Much better than cabbage.’
    She had a Laura Ashley dress upstairs and pretty Venetian sandals. Her hair beneath its gay scarf was at least clean. Oh yes, Mr Chambers. She could be tidier when she tried.
    She debated over lipstick for several minutes in her bedroom and then decided against it. Miss Rowmill might wear lipstick, but she did not. She clipped on the silver bangle her parents had given her for her eighteenth birthday and gazed at herself in the stained old mirror. The image, she had to admit, was rather attractive.
    Mr Chambers evidently thought so too, for he stopped being rude, told her his name was Derek and ushered her out to his car with exaggerated care. He even helped her with the seat belt.
    ‘I have a ten per cent interest in you, my dear Miss Millrow,’ was his only comment when she protested.
    They drove back into town and he took her to the most delightful French restaurant she had ever been to. He almost talked her into having something called
Dolmas Maigre,
but the suppressed glee in his expression led her to guess it might have something to do with cabbage and to his chagrin she checked with the waiter before she ordered. Once that hurdle was over the evening continued fairly well. She found herself telling him about art school and John’s offer of the cottage and her parents’ anger when she had ‘dropped out’, as they of course put it. To her surprise he threw his head back and laughed.
    ‘Dropped out, a prim little miss like you? Nonsense. Besides, they ought to be proud of you. You have a great deal of talent. And not only for painting. If you ever get bored with that, you could go on the stage.’
    She looked at him to see if he was taking the micky, but his expression was all innocence. He quickly topped up her wine glass. ‘Yes, Miss Millrow, you have a great deal of talent.’
    To her annoyance she found herself blushing although she was quite sure he was teasing. His fingers had strayed towards her own on the blue table-cloth and as they so very casually, almost by accident, made contact, she snatched her hand away. She was not going to be that easy to placate. She took a gulp of wine.
    When they parted that evening, however, it was on the understanding that they would meet again the following Saturday and that, if she could face the bus ride into town, she would go to see him at the gallery even before then.
    ‘Now,’ he said, looking up at her mischievously from the