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She slid the elegant length of her silk-clad legs to the pavement and walked with all her customary grace up the steps towards the panelled front door which Meg already held open in welcome.
CHAPTER THREE
JUDE turned as Meg ushered Cleo into the drawing-room. He held a glass in his hand and had been apparently lost in contemplation of a misty seascape which hung above the Adam fireplace. Strange—the thought brushed Cleo's mind fleetingly—why the intent scrutiny when he must know the painting brush-stroke by brush-stroke? And he had once told her that he didn't much like it but hadn't the heart to throw it out since he had inherited it from his uncle, along with this house.
Her knees shook a little; he looked so improbably handsome in the formal elegance of his dinner-jacket, and now she was looking at him with different eyes. She was accustomed to reacting to him on a business level, regarding him as a much-liked, respected boss, and the way he looked just didn't come into it. But it was coming into it now, and it shouldn't because what she had suggested had, after all, been a business arrangement.
Giving herself a mental shake, she endured the appraising drift of his eyes.
His assessment of the way she looked was gentle, like a caress, and she returned his slight smile.
'How was Brussels?'
'Smooth. No problems. There's no danger now of an American takeover, you'll be pleased to know. But you didn't come here to talk about Brussels.'
His smile was tight and gave no impression of warmth and Cleo sank on to a chair and thought, my God! What have I let myself in for? Then she let her eyes laze around the room because it was peaceful, an anodyne for fraying nerve-ends, an harmonious mix of fine antiques, good fabrics, nothing showy. She had been here before on one or two occasions, enjoyed herself.
She didn't think she was going to find this evening enjoyable.
He had been pouring the white wine he knew she preferred and she took the glass from him, careful that their fingers should not touch. And one corner of his mouth quirked in a smile, as if he knew just how careful she had been.
Something caught in Cleo's throat; either he was enjoying this, creating a tension calculated to shred the staunchest nerves, or he was waiting for her to make the opening gambit. And she would have done, simply to get it over, behind her, but she didn't know what to say.
Suddenly, the enormity of what she had put in motion when she had proposed to him hit her again, right in the gut. He couldn't have seriously considered her crazy offer—so why was he spinning the agony out? She wished she could shrivel away, become invisible. She didn't know what was happening to her—one minute she was in control, quite calm, the next she was on the verge of hysterics. It wasn't in character for the woman she knew herself to be. And she could stand no more of it!
'Have you reached a decision?' she blurted, her voice thick. She put her glass down on the small round table at the side of her chair, her fingers clumsy, fumbling, and she looked up in time to catch his expression of surprise at her unpolished question and could have bitten her tongue out. Where was the poised image now? she groaned inwardly, resisting the impulse to wring her hands.
But the fleeting look of surprise was gone, his impressive features displaying little more than polite interest as he stood with his back to the crackling wood fire, his whisky glass held loosely in one hand. His eyes were veiled, thrown into shadow so that she couldn't read what was going on inside his head. She probably wouldn't have liked it if she could.
He nodded briefly, 'I have, but we'll talk about it over dinner.' And that told her nothing, nothing at all. If he was trying to test her nerve, her ability t6
keep cool in the face of mental pressure, he was doing an excellent job!
Lifting her glass again, she recalled how he'd often probed for her reactions to balance sheets, research reports. She had never failed herself on that score—but this probing, if such was his intention, was something else, something more closely allied to emotion than to hard, indisputable fact.
Trouble was, she was unused to handling emotion, and she hadn't, until now, equated it with that proposal of marriage.
So she searched for something to say, something light but not inane, and kept talking, with the occasional interjection from him, until Meg came in with a heated trolley and Cleo realised that the palms of her hands were hot, slippery with sweat, that her insides had turned to jelly with the sheer nerve-shredding effort of trying to look and sound in control of herself.
Meg and her trolley broke the tension, just a little, and Jude said, 'You don't mind if we eat in here?'
She rose fluidly, noting the oblong linen-covered table in the window alcove for the first time.
Long velvet curtains were drawn, closing out the blue April twilight, and candles were lit, creating an atmosphere of intimacy, drawing glittery lights from silver and crystal, casting a softening, warming glow over the cool features of the man opposite, making them enigmatic but not fearsomely so.
The food was delicious, Meg's unobtrusive service effortless. The wine was friendly, relaxing, as was Jude's attitude, his conversation. But Cleo didn't relax, not for a moment, and Meg's superbly cooked food tasted like nothing.
However, only when Meg had gone, leaving them with the silver coffee-pot, did she allow a little of all that pent-up anxiety to show through.
'I don't want coffee.' Her voice came out as a snap as his hand hovered over the bone handle of the Queen Anne pot. Then, Thanks,' she added, mumbling now. The man was inhuman. Didn't he know how this suspense was pulling her apart?
He hesitated, then poured a cup for himself, and Cleo thought, it's crunch time, and cursed for the fiery colour she felt creeping over her skin.
'Well--' They both started to speak at once and he dipped his head, waving her on, and Cleo wished she'd kept her mouth shut. The onus was on her again, and he knew how to turn the screw.
But enough was enough, she decided savagely, and producing the courage, the composure, from somewhere she remarked levelly, 'You said you'd reached a decision.' A lift of one silky eyebrow gave emphasis to her question. 'May I know what it is?'
'Of course you may.'
