Carole Mortimer - Their Engagement is Announced

‘I have no intention of selling this shop,’ Dora burst out indignantly. ‘I—have plans of my own. Changes in mind,’ she added guardedly.

It still sounded more than a little disrespectful to talk of making changes in the shop which had been her father’s work for the last ten years of his life when he had only been dead for ten days.

Her father had been—difficult; she acknowledged that. Since her mother had died, ten years ago, when Dora was sixteen and studying for her A levels, it had been just the two of them. And, once her A levels had been completed and attained, Dora had spent her time taking care of their home and helping her father in the shop, putting her own plans for going to university on hold.

Until her father no longer needed her, she had told herself at the time, not realising that that time would never come. Her father’s health hadn’t been particularly good after the death of Dora’s mother; his heart-attack ten days ago had been devastating, but not exactly unexpected.

So now, at twenty-six, Dora was at last free to pursue her own aborted plans. But after all this time she felt it was too late. She had the house, and this shop, and had every intention of making something of her life. Despite Griffin Sinclair’s derision!

He really was the most incredible man. It seemed he abided by none of the conventions that most other people lived by. His remarks concerning her father’s death, for example, had been disgraceful.

Oh, Dora accepted there had been no love lost between the two men, her father considering the younger man to be a Bohemian reprobate while Griffin had believed her father to be—what had he called him earlier?—ruthless, conniving and manipulative.

Dora didn’t completely agree with either of those opinions, but she had been left in no doubt that the two men disliked each other intensely.

And as for Griffin’s reference to ‘Izzy’…! That wasn’t just something they had agreed never to talk about; it was something she preferred not to even think about, either!

‘What sort of ‘‘plans’’?’ Griffin was watching her with narrowed eyes. ‘Don’t tell me you’re actually going to drag this place into the twentieth century?’

He could mock all he liked, but her plans were her business, and she wasn’t about to discuss them with him. Griffin was the last person she would tell her plans to!

‘I know this is difficult for you to believe, Griffin,’ she told him tauntingly, ‘but not everyone wants to travel the world, calling no place home, living out of a suitcase—by the way, what could possibly be important enough to have brought you home this time?’ she added pointedly.

His mouth had tightened grimly at her deliberate barbs. And, in truth, she wasn’t being exactly fair. The last she had heard of Griffin he’d had an apartment in London he called ‘home’, and when he ‘lived out of a suitcase’ it was usually in first-class hotels. And as for ‘travelling the world’, that was Griffin’s job; the travel books he wrote after making those trips were highly successful, being amusing as well as informative.

Not that there was a copy of any of those books in this shop. Her father had considered Griffin’s writing to be too light and frivolous to be taken seriously, let alone take up any space on his shelves! Once Dora had picked up a copy of one of his books at a hotel she’d stayed in on a business trip for her father. She’d found that Griffin’s personality came through in every word; concise, humorous, derisive, but with warmth and charm also apparent if he had particularly liked the place he was writing about.

‘Family crisis,’ he abruptly answered her mocking question. ‘Which brings me to— Aha,’ he murmured softly as the bell pealed over the door as it was opened once again. ‘I’ll browse through the books and try to look like another customer,’ he told Dora conspiratorially. ‘That way it will look as if you have a rush on!’

Dora had trouble keeping her face straight as that was exactly what he proceeded to do. The woman who’d entered the shop, probably aged somewhere in her sixties, glanced across at Griffin as he began to amass a pile of books in his arms. Books, Dora was sure, that he chose from the shelves at random, and was convinced of the fact when she saw him put a copy of a book about the Titanic on the pile.

The elderly lady’s own attention seemed to be only half on the row of books she was perusing too, her glances in Griffin’s direction becoming more and more frequent as the minutes ticked by. Griffin pointedly ignored her glances, his attention seeming enrapt now on a shelf of books on prehistoric animals!

It was almost Dora’s undoing when he glanced across at her sideways, waited until the other woman wasn’t looking at him, and gave Dora a knowing wink!

She gave him a reproving frown. Dreadful man! His irreverence—in any situation—was unbelievable!

‘I say, miss.’ the elderly lady had now sidled up to her, talking to her in a whisper. ‘That young man over there.’ She nodded in Griffin’s direction.

‘Young man’? At age thirty-four, Griffin hardly fitted that description! But with a definite lack of any other young men in the vicinity…

‘Yes?’ Dora prompted attentively.

‘He looks very like Griffin Sinclair,’ she told Dora avidly. ‘You know, the man who does those travel programmes on the television,’ she prompted at Dora’s blank look. ‘Do you suppose it could be him?’ she added excitedly, looking quite youthfully flushed at the idea it just might be Griffin Sinclair.

As Dora knew only too well, it definitely was him. But it was the first she had heard of him being involved in a television programme. Not that that was exactly surprising; they didn’t possess a television at home for her to have seen him on. Her father had never liked that form of entertainment, and preferred to listen to the radio if he bothered with anything at all. Or rather—he had…

‘Why don’t you go and ask him?’ Dora suggested lightly, looking across at Griffin with new eyes.

He would be good on television, Dora thought to herself. He had the looks and presence to carry off such a role. And if this elderly lady’s reaction to him was anything to go by, he obviously had quite a female following of the programme, at least!

‘Do you think I should?’ The woman gave another nervous but also coy look in Griffin’s direction.

Dora definitely thought that she should—if only so that she could witness his reaction to the obvious admiration this woman had for him.

‘I’m sure you should,’ she encouraged lightly.

‘You don’t think he would be offended by a perfect stranger going up and talking to him in that way?’ The woman looked quite concerned that he might be.

‘How could he possibly be offended when you are obviously an admirer of his television programmes?’ Dora was beginning to feel sorry for the woman now, and regretted her subterfuge in not owning up to being completely aware of Griffin’s identity—if not the television programmes the woman was talking about.

‘But if it isn’t him—’

‘I’m sure that it is.’ Dora put a reassuring hand on the other woman’s arm. ‘Besides,’ she added mischievously, ‘I doubt that any man could look that much like him and not actually be him!’ As she knew only too well herself, Griffin was a one-off, if only in his unorthodox ways.

The woman looked across at him with adoring eyes. ‘He is rather unique, isn’t he?’ she sighed wistfully.

‘Unique’ described Griffin completely—at least, Dora had never met anyone remotely like him, either in looks or outspoken manner.

‘Exactly,’ she agreed with the other woman emphatically.

‘I suppose you think I’m rather silly; I know that my husband does,’ the elderly woman acknowledged ruefully. ‘But the truth of the matter is, I absolutely adore novels that have swashbuckling pirates and rogues in, and Griffin Sinclair looks just like a modern-day version of one to me!’

Dora glanced across at him. The pile of books that he carried reached up to his cleanly shaven chin—she really wasn’t that desperate to make a sale! But with his long blond hair, that ruggedly handsome face, and with his complete disregard for outward appearances, she had to admit he did look a bit like a modern-day pirate…!

‘Come on.’ She put her hand lightly in the crook of the other woman’s arm. ‘We’ll go and face this particular pirate together.’ It was the least she could do after not being completely honest with this woman from the outset.

Dora was sure Griffin was well aware of the two women approaching him, but he continued to maintain his interest in the shelves in front of him.

‘Mr Sinclair?’ Dora tilted her head questioningly in front of him. ‘This lady is a fan of yours, and would like to say hello.’

Was it her imagination or did he raise mocking brows in her direction before placing his pile of books down on the table beside him and turning the warmth of his charm on to his fan?

No, Dora decided wryly as she walked away and left the two of them to their conversation—gushing on the woman’s part, huskily warm on Griffin’s—she hadn’t imagined that mockery at all. She didn’t doubt for a minute that Griffin knew damn well that until the woman had told her so a few minutes ago she had had no knowledge that Griffin did anything to merit having fans! He was well aware of the fact that the Baxter household did not possess a television, because of her father’s aversion to them—and she would hardly have been out and purchased one in the ten days since his death.

Although, she acknowledged with a frown, just the sight and sound of one might have been preferable to the silence that had fallen over the house in the last week. Not that her father had been a great conversationalist; he’d usually been busy either reading one of his beloved books or restoring one, a hobby that had become a profession over the last few years. But just knowing the house was empty, apart from herself, had made the silence seem all the more oppressive…

‘—so kind of you, Mr Sinclair.’

Dora was brought back to an awareness of her surroundings by the elderly woman’s gushing thanks.

‘I’ll treasure it always!’ she added breathlessly.

‘It’ was a book that Griffin had insisted on buying for the other woman, gallantly opening the door for her too, a couple of minutes later, so that she could leave.

‘Take that look off your face, Izzy Baxter,’ Griffin drawled as he strolled back to where she sat behind the till. ‘And don’t say, What look?’ He sat down on the edge of the desk. ‘I know you too well to be in the least fooled by the innocent calm of your grey eyes!’

A shutter instantly came down over those ‘calm grey eyes’. ‘The truth of the matter is, Griffin,’ she told him coolly, ‘you don’t know me at all!’

‘I beg to differ—Izzy.’ He raised one blond brow pointedly. ‘But enough of that,’ he dismissed lightly as she continued to look at him coldly. ‘I bet that’s the first time you’ve ever sold a biography of Dickens with a Griffin Sinclair autograph in the front of it!’

He hadn’t? He couldn’t have?

He had, she realised increduously as she saw the laughter in his eyes.

‘I doubt that has increased its value,’ she bit out waspishly.

‘Ouch!’ he murmured ruefully, his gaze lingering on her face. ‘But it’s good to see that, between the two of them, Charles and your father didn’t knock all the spirit and fun out of you.’ His expression was grim now, green eyes hard as the emeralds they resembled.