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The shares would be useful to him, but important? Well, fairly. That important? Very unlikely—unless there was something she had missed.
Later, she had come to the conclusion that she must have missed something.
Jude's brain was clever, quick, and, astute in City matters as she liked to think she was, she knew that his grasp of financial affairs left her as far behind as a snail trailing in the wake of a comet.
Granted, he had decided that the time had come to start a family, but he could have had his pick of women only too eager to have his ring on their wedding fingers. So those shares had to be far more important than she had imagined.
Looking at him across her aunt's beautifully arranged lunch-table, Cleo's heart performed a series of totally disconcerting acrobatics. Fear, she supposed, sipping Dom Perignon to steady herself, fear of the consequences of the chain of events which had led to this day, this moment of sitting opposite a brand new husband— a man whose mind she had grown to know well, to respect and admire, but whose body was a stranger, a stranger she was going to force herself to learn to know.
Oh, dear heaven! She dabbed at her mouth with her white linen napkin, not allowing for one moment that the flip and flop of her heart might have anything whatsoever to do with the sheer masculine charisma of the man whose lithely muscled body was covered with such easy and understated elegance by the fine, dark grey fabric of a formal suit, impeccably white shirt and pearl- grey tie.
Dragging her eyes away from him, she slid a sideways smile to Simmons who, impassive as ever, replaced the plate a housemaid had moved with an oval platter bearing a thick, succulent steak of sea-trout. And while the performance was repeated around the table she caught Jude's eyes, swallowed her breath at the cool directness in those azure depths and turned quickly away, fastening her attention on Grace, who was unusually , animated, chatting between Luke, Fiona and John. And Cleo wondered if what her uncle had said regarding her aunt's disapproval of the way the break between them and Mescal Slade had come about had any bearing on her coldness towards herself.
People were complicated creatures, present actions and attitudes often stemming from the effects of the past- even if they didn't realise it themselves. It made them incapable of acting differently. Cleo could no more blame her aunt for her cool rigidity towards the daughter of the man who had, in her opinion, enticed her husband away from the more socially acceptable world of merchant banking than she could blame a hedgehog for having prickles.
'I think we ought to attempt a little light conversation, don't you?' Jude's cool, soft voice splintered her solitary thoughts as he laid a hand over hers, imprisoning her fingers as she absently played with the stem of her wineglass. The sensation of skin on skin, of the tensile strength of those long, square-ended fingers, made her catch her breath. Her teeth sank into her lower lip and Jude said, 'Don't scream, you're safe for another two weeks, my dear,' then commanded, a trace of acid in his voice, 'Smile for me. Or is that too much to ask?'
And because she sensed the others were watching, their conversation broken while they turned their attention to the newly weds, who surely should be looking ecstatic, Cleo pinned a brilliant smile on her face, then felt like crying because she could see by the sudden bleakness in his eyes that he knew just how false it was.
? ? ?
'There's a gentleman to see you, madam.' Meg stood in the doorway of the study where Cleo had just finished a phone call to an estate agent about the marketing of her home in Bow. She frowned, wishing Meg wouldn't insist on that formal, ageing mode of address. 'Call me Cleo, or Mrs Mescal, if you can't manage that,' she had instructed when she had arrived here as Jude's bride two days ago. But Meg, friendly and co-operative as she was, wasn't having that. Meg was of the old school, and that was that!
'Oh—put him in the drawing-room.' Cleo closed her notepad and pushed her fingers through her hair, asking belatedly, 'Who is it?'
'A Mr Robert Fenton, madam. He said it was urgent.' Meg sniffed, her expression showing that in her opinion nothing could be urgent enough to keep the new mistress of the house from what she should be doing—getting ready for her honeymoon! 'Shall I tell him you're too busy? Ask him to leave a message? There's all the packing still to be done for tomorrow.'
'No, I'll see him.' Cleo turned, able now to smile briefly at the housekeeper.
At the mention of that hated name she had gone icy cold, averting her head and pretending to search through a drawer in the desk for something. Now, her scrabbling fingers were stilled, her features composed, or reasonably so, she hoped. She had to see the creature some time, she knew that, but had hoped that their next contact would be by letter or telephone.
But she could be thankful for small mercies because at least Jude was out, enmeshed in paperwork back at the office, she told herself as she walked through the hall as steadily as she could on disgracefully trembly legs. She could thank heaven, too, that Jude had insisted she use the day or two before they left for that Greek island to get better acquainted with her new home and begin the disposal of her old one. Had he not, then that snake Fenton might have tracked her down to the office, and that would have taken some explaining away.
Suddenly, though, and with a depth that shook her, she longed for the reassuring presence of the man she had married; longed for his strength, for the gentleness that had been the hallmark of the sensitive way he had handled their ambiguous relationship ever since they had arrived here after the wedding lunch at Slade House.
Jude, I need you! The words took wing in her mind, echoing, and she bit her lips in exasperation for the maudlin, weakly character those silent words conjured up.
She needed him here, at this precise moment, like she needed a sledgehammer to drop on her head from a great height! What he would have to say if he discovered she was being blackmailed, and why, would make a Colossus quake! And she wasn't weak, not weak at all!
Squaring her shoulders, she opened the drawing-room door and walked quickly through and Robert Fenton drawled, 'May I offer my congratulations on your marriage, Mrs Mescal?'
Cleo ignored that, although she felt her face, her whole body, go hot. The mere sight of him made her blood boil.
'Don't come here again, under any circumstances,' she told him, her eyes letting him know how much he disgusted her. To think she had once found him charming company! To think--But no, her brain shifted gear, moving swiftly, decisively; she must not think of the past. It was done with, over. Or almost. This creep meant less than nothing to her now. She loathed and despised him, and the act of handing over a sum of money would rid herself of the poison that was Robert Fenton finally and for ever.
'I won't—if I don't have to.' His eyes were nasty, his mouth curved in a sneer.
He had helped himself to a large measure of Jude's brandy, she noted savagely. And to see him here, lounging on Jude's sofa and drinking his brandy, turned her stomach. But she had her rage under control, because to rant
and rail at him might give her temporary relief but it would accomplish nothing useful.
So she said tonelessly, 'There was no need for you to come here today. A telephone call would have done.'
'Would it, now?* He mocked her careful dignity. Swirling the contents of his glass, he leaned back, his smile deadly. 'I'd like to see you try to feed twenty-five thousand smackers down a telephone line.'
'I haven't got it yet.' Cleo's hands balled into tight fists. But she trod warily, guessing how nasty he would become if he weren't reassured that the money he demanded would be forthcoming. 'I have been married for two days.
Things can't move that quickly. As soon as I can, I'll let you have it. I don't want this sordid business hanging over my head any longer than necessary.'
