Free The Crystal Cage by Merryn Allingham

your office. I would ask you to do nothing further with the plans.’
    Alessia’s lovely face flushed pink and her hands began a compulsive smoothing of her voluminous skirts. Lucas felt her agitation as his own. He would like to have struck down the stiff black satin opposite, beads and all.
    Instead, he turned to the matriarch and said smoothly, ‘Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs Renville. I hold myself in readiness for your son’s instructions. No doubt Mrs Alessia Renville will wish to speak with him also.’
    The older woman glared. She would not easily relinquish her authority, he knew, but he was confident that Edward Renville would listen to what his wife had to say. And Alessia had liked his plans. All except the bench. If he could have told her it was a love seat, she would have delighted in it, he was sure. But there had been no chance with her mother-in-law standing censor.
    The maid ushered him out of the house and he started a slow walk back to Great Russell Street. The interview had given him much to ponder. His brief glimpse of the Renville household suggested only too clearly that the older woman wielded considerable power at Prospect Place. Remembering Alessia’s brave attempt to champion his ideas against such formidable opposition, his heart reached out to her. If they were to work on these plans together and without interference, he would have to find a way of seeing her alone.
    * * *
    The chance came sooner than he thought. The week that followed his visit to Prospect Place was immensely busy with a rush of work deluging the practice and keeping every one of the assistants fully occupied. Each day brought requests from de Vere that they undertake new consultations, research new materials, refashion existing plans. And from the neighbouring office came a welter of yellow sheets heralding queries from the draughtsmen on submissions that were unclear or that needed further work before they could begin final drawings. But even as task followed task in quick succession, Lucas refused to lose sight of the Renville design. His mind continually replayed his conversation with Alessia. He was exhilarated that she had welcomed his plans. She had loved the notion of classical pillars, loved the swathes of luxurious silk, loved the sense of magical space. It would be a true bower, he decided, with Alessia at its centre. She would not be dressed in the stiff brocades and satins of Victorian England but in the soft gauzes of a hotter clime, gauzes that clung to her figure, curving and tangling to her form. This tantalising vision kept him company through dreary days and into the night. It was well that his work at de Vere’s, despite its bustle, hardly stretched him. At home his precious portfolio began to suffer. Every evening after a meagre supper, he would set himself to work and every evening he would find himself, pencil in hand, the paper blank, but shimmering before him the image of a beautiful face. Minutes later, even hours later, he would wake and realise that he had not drawn a single line.
    He tried scolding himself severely. Had he not sworn to concentrate entirely on his work, to put aside romantic dalliance? Did he not remember to his cost the perils of allowing himself to wander down that path? He had only to recall Marguerite. She had known what she was doing; she was a seasoned player and Lucas had provided a pleasurable interlude. As companion to an exacting and difficult
contessa
, Marguerite had welcomed her liaison with Lucas, a break from the tedium of provincial Lombardy. But it had only ever been an interlude for her. She was betrothed to a Frenchman, someone, Lucas learned, quite senior in the diplomatic service, and she was merely waiting out the months until marriage freed her from the dowager’s demands. Marguerite had been well versed in dalliance, but he had been a novice and had tumbled into uncritical love with her. When it became clear that he was only the means to an end, his