Page 24 of A Class Act

‘Wow,’ I finally said. ‘Is this all yours?’

‘The Carringtons’, anyway.’ He smiled over his shoulder. ‘Been here for over a century. We have forty barristers.’

‘Forty?’ I gasped. ‘Forty offices?’

‘Twenty,’ he corrected, somewhat vaguely. ‘The more junior barristers share.’

‘I bet you don’t.’

Fabian smiled and gestured as we walked. ‘Julius’s office… my mother’s… Reception… You still here, Milly? You need to get off.’

‘I wanted to finish this for you, Mr Carrington,’ she said, looking me up and down, obviously intent on trying to work out who I was.

‘Oh, Mr Carrington,’ an acne-faced young man called nervously from around an open door to my right. ‘Could I have a word?’

‘Go home, Hugh,’ Fabian called. ‘It can wait until the morning.’

‘But…’

‘Really, go home.’

I followed Fabian up the flight of stairs where he unlocked a door on the left and we went in. The room was immaculately – obsessively – tidy and I took in the rows and rows of leather-bound legal tomes and the huge desk under the tiniest of windows. I glanced around, recalling the notoriety of Dr Crippen and the Kray twins as well as Ruth Ellis, the last woman in the UK to be hanged for murder and, of course, the Yorkshire Ripper. All had faced judgement at the Old Bailey. Maybe, I thought, their defence could have been planned in this very building?

I shivered at the thought, finding a modicum of normality in a pair of battered sofas at one end of the room, and the drinks cabinet strategically placed between them.

‘Help yourself to a drink,’ Fabian said, his eyes still on the papers in front of him. ‘And now we’re back, I’ll have one myself. There should be some mixers in the fridge – I could really do with a whiskey and ginger ale. And the lavatory is through that door if you need it,’ he added.

I poured us both drinks and, after handing one to Fabian, wandered the room, taking in the many photographs of past Carringtons, slowing down at one of a younger and presumably newly called to the bar Fabian.

‘I’ll try not to be too long.’ He smiled in my direction, before loosening his tie and unbuttoning his shirt collar with obvious relief.

Fabian was on home territory here, and for thirty minutes he appeared as though in a different world, moving from desk to computer to the large tomes and then to files on a shelf, intent on something or other before shifting back to his laptop.

Eventually he turned to me, draining his whiskey as he did so. ‘I thought you’d done bar work?’ He smiled. ‘There must have been at least a triple shot in that.’

‘Sorry.’ I pulled a face. ‘More used to pulling pints in pubs in Manchester than sorting spirits in a barrister’s bar.’ I sipped at my own drink, unable to tear my glance away from Fabian as he moved towards me, taking my glass and placing it on his desk. He was so close I could see the smattering of freckles on the bridge of his nose, was able to take in the sweep of his long eyelashes as he briefly closed his beautiful brown eyes, and then I closed my own as he kissed me again and the air between us appeared to still.

‘Ah, Robyn,’ was all he said as he began unbuttoning my shirt to reveal what was beneath, and my own hands went automatically to his white shirt, finishing the job of unbuttoning its front that Fabian had started when he’d loosened his tie.

‘Just a moment…’ He broke off as I stood back to admire his quite spectacular tanned and toned torso, before leaning in once more to pull the shirt from its mooring in the black leather belt. He moved to the door, turned the key and then, with a smile, pressed me gently back against the desk. I can never take in the tantalising scent of leather and furniture polish without remembering that first time Fabian made love to me, and it was like nothing I’d ever experienced before.

Afterwards, his arms wrapped tightly round me, he whispered, ‘Stay with me tonight, Robyn.’

‘I thought you liked your own company.’

‘I do, but tonight I need you to come back and stay with me. We can’t make love like that and then go our separate ways.’

‘I’ve no toothbrush.’

‘I’ve a stack.’

‘Well, then, what can I say?’

9

And so, for that glorious, heavenly summer, I was doing the best job in the world, the only one I’d ever wanted to do, while utterly suffused with love for this sublime man who appeared to want to be with me as much as I with him. I threw all caution to the wind, ignoring the fact that our backgrounds and heritage were so vastly different, that I’d already encountered what his family’s reaction might be to their son having a relationship with me. And that Fabian was unaware of my own family history, which I was unwilling to share with him at this early stage in our relationship. What was the point when Fabian might tire of me within a few months and move on? Would it have made any difference if I’d come clean from the start? I honestly don’t know.

How we managed a relationship when he was working from 6a.m. until late, while I was fully engrossed in being Arabella Plumpton-Jones inDance On, I’ll never know. Maybe it was because wewereboth so full on with our respective careers that, when we did meet up, often tired out and irritable or, more often, wired after consuming surfeits of caffeine to keep us going, the relaxing, the love making, the late-night strollsthrough the London streets and along the banks of the Thames were heady.

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