LITMIR.BIZ

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his child? He dreaded the thought of someone finding out about them. And yet he knew it would leak out some time soon … he was far too famous for it not to … He let this disturbing thought go, unable, suddenly, to cope with it.

      Unexpectedly, his thoughts veered to Tessa Longden and her predicament about Adele. He fully understood how she felt, the agony of mind she was going through. After all, he had a three-year-old of his own, and he could well imagine how beside himself he would be in the same circumstances.

      India drove along the motorway at a steady pace; she was soon leaving Harrogate behind and heading towards the village of Pennistone Royal. The sky had changed, the thunderclouds had drifted out to the North Sea and it was a lovely pale blue again. She was relieved. There would be nothing worse than tramping over sodden fields and meadows looking for a lost child.

      Was she lost on the estate? No. Mark Longden had taken her out of spite. As a bargaining chip, as Dusty had suggested. Dusty. He was such a difficult man in so many ways, and so full of contradictions. He was loaded with baggage, most of it about his background and their class differences, all of which she found silly. He wouldn’t listen to her. But no matter, she had fallen in love with him the night she had first met him, and nothing was going to change that. He was the only man she wanted, the only man for her, and she was determined to get him. Permanently. Long term. Marriage. That was her goal. It wasn’t going to be easy, she was fully aware of all the problems.

      Dusty was extremely independent, loathed being pinned down. Nor did he like to make commitments. That was obviously why he had never married or had a long-term relationship. ‘Love ’em and leave ’em, that’s always been my motto,’ he had said to her when they first met several months ago, as if warning her. And then he had begun to laugh uproariously, seemingly highly amused by his own attitude.

      He laughed a lot and she liked that. She couldn’t bear glum people who sounded like the voices of doom with their dire predictions of impending disasters and gloomy outlook. He was usually in top form, cheerful, optimistic, raring to go, and ready to take a chance on life, except when it came to wedded bliss, of course. That was verboten even as a subject, not open for discussion at all.

      Dusty liked being one of the boyos, as he called his male friends, who were numerous and varied … actors, writers, politicians, journalists, ‘And,’ as he often said, ‘nobodies who I absolutely adore.’ He fancied himself as Jack the Lad – Jack the Bad Lad. He enjoyed carousing and creating a stir, constantly referred to himself as a rabble-rouser. However, she had come to understand in the three months she had known him that much of this was a bit of an act. In point of fact, he drank very little, hardly anything at all, mostly nursed a Stolichnaya over ice all night, simply made a big noise about his consumption of booze. She was well aware that the men in the Harte family drank much more than Dusty. But then he needed a very steady hand the next morning in order to do his work. His style of painting was Classical Realism, and notable art critics around the world had hailed him right from the beginning of his career as the new Pietro Annigoni, proclaiming that he had inherited the mantle of the famous Italian painter who had died in 1988. They called Dusty a genius, and with the same awe and reverence they had called Annigoni a genius. Dusty’s paintings were classical in style, very much in the manner of the great artists of the Renaissance, with precise attention to detail in the subject matter and background, whether these were interiors or exteriors. His portraits of the famous, and his paintings of landscapes and seascapes, were so detailed, his use of colour so breathtakingly beautiful, people simply stood and gazed at them mesmerized, unable to tear their eyes away.

      Anybody who painted as precisely as he did could hardly afford to booze it up; she had said that to him once and he had grinned and winked at her. She felt the same way about his so-called rabble-rousing; even this was merely a form of jovial boisterousness, with much laughter, loud voices, arm-punching, back-slapping. Much ado about nothing, something which was totally innocuous but which the press played up. As he hoped they would. He loved his reputation as a wild hard-drinking hell-raiser, and did much to foster this characterization of himself. Especially in the papers.

      When she had first understood his reputation was something of a myth she had burst out laughing. She had been walking through Harte’s with Linnet when the truth dawned on her, and she had been unable to suppress her hilarity. Her cousin had stared at her and shaken her head, and said pithily, ‘People who burst into gales of laughter for no apparent reason get taken away in straitjackets. Especially when they’re in the middle of a renowned and very posh emporium making a hullabaloo. Drawing attention to themselves.’

      ‘I’m sorry, Linnet,’ she had spluttered, ‘but I can’t help it. I’ve suddenly realized my boyfriend is a bit of a phoney.’

      This comment had instantly gained Linnet’s undivided attention, and she had cried, ‘Oh get rid of him. Immediately. We don’t need anybody who’s not true blue around here. Anyway, he’d get clobbered by the lads.’

      ‘What lads?’

      ‘Julian, Gideon, Toby, and even young Desmond. They’d gang up on him.’

      ‘That’s true.’

      ‘By the way, when you say boyfriend are you referring to the VFP?’

      ‘VFP? What’s that?’

      ‘Very Famous Person. You told me you were seeing someone very famous but you never confided who he is.’

      ‘Russell Rhodes.’

      ‘Dusty Rhodes? The painter?’ Linnet’s eyes had widened.

      She had simply nodded in response but was pleased by Linnet’s surprised reaction.

      ‘He looks rather dishy, India.’

      ‘He is, but complex.’

      ‘Aren’t they all,’ Linnet had responded, grinning at her.

      She had laughed and answered, ‘But at least he’s never been married, so there’s no ex, or children to contend with. In fact he’d been unattached for quite a while before he met me.’

      ‘You know, Dad loves his work, in fact we all do. He’s always wanted Dusty Rhodes to paint Paula, but Mummy says she’s too busy to sit all those hours for an artist. I wish she would, though, and so does Daddy.’

      ‘I agree. Dusty’s the perfect person to paint your mother. He could do a wonderful medieval portrait of her.’

      Linnet had then asked her a lot of questions about Dusty as they had continued their walk through the store; she had answered some but had remained silent about others. She had discovered she didn’t want to reveal too much about him or their relationship, at least not just yet. The real problem with Dusty was his attitude to her family. Without ever meeting any of them he had made a sudden snap decision and categorized them as aristos. ‘Too posh. Snobs. Hoity-toity, idle rich folks,’ was the way he described them. None of this was true, and she had tried to explain this, explain about her great-grandmother’s impoverished beginnings, but he had swept her words away and changed the subject in his usual imperious manner.

      At first she had thought he suffered from an inferiority complex about his own bleak and desolate background, growing up as a poor boy in the back streets of Leeds. Certainly he was always making reference to this. But she had quickly come to accept that he didn’t have an inferiority complex at all – far from it, in fact. He was one of the most self-confident and self-possessed people she had ever met, in command of everything, exuding charm and displaying the most perfect manners when he wanted to.

      Yet, nevertheless, Dusty believed her father would look down on him, wouldn’t approve of him, would condemn their relationship out of hand. And so far she hadn’t been able to convince him otherwise. But she would keep trying. And she knew her father and mother would like him, quite aside from the fact that they both admired his paintings, without even knowing she was involved with Dusty.

      I have to give him time, she told herself, and slowed down as she came to the village. Within minutes she was leaving the small main street behind and heading for the road which would

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