A New Dream, Maggie Ford [books to read romance txt] 📗

been going on about it cluttering up our room long enough but I didn’t want to say anything until I felt sure of my ground – with you,’ she added, instantly wishing she hadn’t as she saw his brow knit in a puzzled frown. ‘But we’re wasting time talking,’ she hurried on, ‘and I’ll have to be getting back soon. My mother worries…’

‘Right,’ he broke in and preceded her into the back room where a pile of what looked like discarded rubbish still lay – tangled ribbons and beads, tarnished costume jewellery, strings of fake pearls. He bent down and took up a handful. ‘We can get this lot sorted out first. You tell me which needs dumping and which you think we might be able to keep.’

Julia felt a sudden pang of guilt as she detected a pathetic ring to his words. She was invading his territory, acting as if it were her own. She hadn’t given a thought to it before, but she was virtually trying to change his life and she had no right to do so. Then she reminded herself that he had been the one to offer the deal.

‘Are you really ready to throw so much of it away?’ she asked almost timidly. ‘It was… it is… your livelihood.’

‘Some livelihood,’ he scoffed, calming her doubts. ‘I thought I was on the right track when I opened this place but it seems I missed the point.’

He paused, a jumble of trinkets lying idle in his cupped hands. His face held a wistful expression, half rueful, half amused.

‘Over the past two years I told myself so many times that I was being thoroughly silly trying to make a go of this place but I refused to be beaten. I kept hoping that the next six months would see me doing better but it wasn’t to be. And there I was, thinking I knew it all.’

He let the handful of trinkets drop back on to the pile, and then with the toe of his shoe began idly sifting through it.

‘I came out of the forces, spent two years at university, gained a degree in art but found there’s no call for it, no jobs. No jobs anywhere. My family were deeply disappointed, those two years all wasted as they saw it. My father’s an optician. I’m an only child and my parents had set their hearts on my following in his footsteps. When I didn’t, Father… well, I wouldn’t say he disowned me but he didn’t try to stop me when I said I was leaving home to sort out my own destiny. They never write, and nor do I. It hurts sometimes, but then I suppose I must have hurt them. Well…’

He sighed and ceased stirring the useless heap of merchandise with his foot. ‘It’s all water under the bridge. But I would like to have made a go of the business, if only to prove I could do it without them. But as I said, it wasn’t to be.’ He paused for a second, brightened and looked at Julia. ‘And then you came along.’

For a moment she continued gazing at him sympathetically, and then quickly recovered herself. ‘Yes, well, let’s call it a turning point, shall we?’ She leaned down and in turn ran her fingers through one of the piles of stuff to cover the embarrassment his story had provoked. ‘I think if we clean it up a bit much of this can be used as decoration. It might even sell.’

She stopped, realizing how patronizing she sounded, but Simon broke into a laugh. ‘I’m sure it will.’ He laughed again. ‘If you say so,’ he added easily.

‘I do.’ She laughed too, and the tension was gone. This was turning into a wonderful morning, the two of them working companionably side by side. Tomorrow, if all went well, her materials would be gracing his shop window.

Eleven

Victoria’s voice was shrill. ‘Julia, what are you thinking of? You hardly know this man.’

Standing on the narrow landing outside their flat, the furthest she’d ever ventured outside in the three months since they had lived there, she called frantically down the flight of stairs. On the floor below, her neighbours were peeping out to see what all the noise was about.

It was only the second time in those three months that their elderly neighbours had ever been seen. The couple spent their time closeted away in their tiny flat, though Julia had occasionally passed a middle-aged woman, perhaps a daughter, going in with shopping but they had never spoken. Now the pair stood gazing through the crack of the door, peering at the young couple who were attempting to manoeuvre several tied together bolts of material round the bend of the stairs.

‘Julia, think what you’re doing!’ Her mother’s voice was still calling down the narrow stairwell.

Last night Julia had finally told her family of her plans and her partnership with Simon Layzell. Her news had had the same effect as if she’d hit them all with a sledgehammer. Mother had instantly leaped to the conclusion that Julia was carrying on a clandestine romance with a disreputable young man whom she had been too ashamed to introduce.

Stephanie of course had had plenty to say about underhandedness and gross unfairness to Mummy. She could talk! Julia thought. She was forever doing just as she pleased without a second thought as to how her mother felt.

James had also shown his disapproval, glaring stony-faced at her. For all his youth he saw himself as the man of the house now, especially since he had recently been given a promotion by the bank. In fact, it had occurred to Julia that he was beginning to behave a little like his father. It was a shame, she thought sadly, for she loved her young brother and the looks he’d given her last night had hurt her much more than Stephanie’s contempt.

Virginia had tried to lighten the atmosphere by remarking cheerfully that at least they would