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And later, Uncle John had told her, Tm glad. Glad. You couldn't have made a better choice. I have great faith in young Mescal's judgement—I only wish your father and I had had as much in his uncle's.' He had taken her hand, holding it in an unprecedented display of affection, 'But when your father and I were young we thought we knew it all, so we took the bit between our feet, pulled out of Mescal Slade and founded Slade Securities. We took risks, we had to, and it paid off. Though Grace always thought secondary banking to be socially inferior, I'm afraid. But we made up for that in superior living in every degree—Grace saw to that.' He had sighed then, as if he regretted the breakaway still. 4Yes, it's good to know the two families will be alliedagain, that "Slade" .won't just be a redundant name on a letter heading.'
So everyone was pleased, Cleo thought; even Jude had behaved like a devoted bridegroom-to-be when they'd accepted a dinner invitation at Slade House. Not that she'd seen much of him during the past three weeks. She'd spent most of her time booking him on flights to Zurich, Bonn, New York, arranging his hotel accommodation, fixing meetings with foreign bankers and clients.
'I rather think we should have gone first.' Jude placed a hand on the small of her back, only lightly, but it made her shudder. Today just did not feel like her wedding day. She stared unseeingly at the grey facades of the buildings on the opposite side of the street as if she didn't know where she was, what she was doing. She couldn't bring herself to look at him and Jude enquired softly, feeling that betraying shudder, 'Cold, darling?'
'Yes. Yes, I am, a little.' Cleo grasped at the excuse gratefully. It wouldn't do his ego much good to know that his bride of ten minutes had shuddered like a startled mare because he had touched her! And the weather had changed, feeling more like November than May, and there was little warmth in the cream silk suit she was wearing, little warmth in her heart, but he wasn't to know that.
'Shall we go, then?' The arm he put round her shoulder as he hurried her over the pavement to where the Rolls, minus Thornwood today, was parked was protective, but Cleo felt her whole body go stiff, rejecting even that small intimacy.
But the tug of the wind on her small hat, cream straw decked with apricot roses, came to her rescue, gave her yet another useful excuse in the automatic way both hands fled up, securing the nonsensical headgear, because that instinctive movement effectively knocked his arm away.
He looked down at her as she struggled to secure her hat, tipping it further down over her eyes in the process, and his eyes were light with laughter.
'That scrap of silliness suits you. Makes you look ultra- feminine and in need of protection. It's a side of you that's never on display in the office. I like it!'
There was warm appreciation in the way he smiled and Cleo scrambled into the car as he held the passenger door open for her.
She felt a fraud, and she said over her shoulder, trying not to sound stiff,
'You'd think I'd flipped if I turned up for work wearing this!'
She heard his deep chuckle as he walked round the car, and she gritted her teeth. She was as she was, there was nothing more. The coolly sophisticated woman he knew as his PA was all there was to her. She had no frivolous, ultra-feminine side. Would he be disappointed when he realised that?
He slid in beside her and the engine purred aristocratically to life at the start of the journey to Slade House where Grace had arranged a small celebration lunch party for them. Uncle John hadn't been well enough to attend the ceremony, but she'd see him at the house. She wondered, her face white and set, what his reaction would be if he knew exactly why she had married Jude Mescal. But he would never know; that had been the whole point of the exercise.
'You're very quiet, Cleo.' Calm, azure eyes left the road for a split second, probing hers. 'Second thoughts?'
'No, not at all,' Cleo lied. During the past three weeks she'd been having second through to tenth thoughts, but they'd all led to the same inevitable conclusion. She was doing the only thing she could, given cold circumstance.
She would be in a far worse position had Jude refused to marry her, or if she'd got really cold feet and had called the whole thing off. She would just have to make the best of the situation, and she had far too much respect for Jude to allow him to know that his stipulation about a full marriage had her running scared.
'Good,' he said softly, his strong profile relaxed as he returned his full attention to the road. Ther
e was even a smile in his voice, and Cleo marvelled that he should appear so much in control, so easy in his mind. He, for one, could have no doubts about their future.
'I've some news for you,* he told her. 'Interested?'
'Of course. Tell me.' Cleo jerked herself out of the dangerous and all too often recurring mood of introspection, and Jude grinned.
'I've managed to fix us a honeymoon on a Greek island. Only a week, I'm afraid, that's all the time I can spare right now. But we'll have time to relax together.' He braked for traffic lights, his hands light on the wheel, and turned to her, his eyes enigmatic, 'It might help you to adjust.'
'It sounds delightful.' She carefully kept her tone neutral, not letting him know she had recognised the specific words she'd used when making her own stipulation. 'But a long way to go for just one week.'
'I suppose so,' he concurred absently. If he was disappointed by her lack of enthusiasm he wasn't showing it. 'But when a colleague offered me the use of his villa, the thought of all that sun, sea and solitude was too tempting to turn down. I'd been thinking along the lines of asking Fiona if we could borrow her cottage in Sussex, but I think we'd enjoy the island better.
Besides,' his eyes slanted a totally unreadable message, 'we could both use a break in the sun. We'll leave in three days' time—
give you some breathing space to settle into your new home.'
He was arranging everything with no recourse to her. Was his private persona to be as dominant as his public one? She didn't know whether she liked that idea. But the tiny frown between her eyes was eased away as rapid calculations informed her that they would be back in London before her fortnight's period of grace was up. And then, as if he knew every nuance of her thoughts, every twist and turn of her brain, he added drily, 'To the world at large it will appear as a brief and romantic honeymoon. You can regard it simply as a lazy week in the sun.'
'You've picked yourself a great guy, and I should know! And I just know you're going to be happy.' Fiona was the first to greet them when they reached Slade House. 'Welcome to the family, poppet!'
Cleo was roundly kissed on both cheeks, and her hat slid further down over her nose. Laughing, she took it off and tossed it on a nearby chair, instinctively liking Jude's sister.
After retirement his parents had settled in New Zealand, so Jude had told her, leaving Fiona as his only effective family. Cleo hadn't missed the pride in his voice as he'd talked of his sister. She was lovely to look at, strong-minded, and at thirty years of age she was still unmarried because she preferred the uncomplicated single state, putting all her energies into her nationwide string of boutiques.
'The Mescals don't take lightly to the state of matrimony,' Jude had commented after giving Fiona's potted biography, and that had left Cleo wondering why the Slade Securities shares had been important enough tomake him finally plunge into the married state—something he had carefully avoided before.
