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‘Uncle Luke!’ Lucy raced towards him and the look of bitter hatred Genista had seen in his eyes was banished instantly.
Lucy chattered ceaselessly to him all the way back to the house, pausing only to draw breath.
‘We went riding this morning,’ she confided. ‘I think Mr Lawson really fancied Genista. He couldn’t stop looking at her, could he?’
She turned to Genista for corroboration. Although the path was broad enough for three, she had fallen back, unable to bear such close proximity to Luke.
‘I’ve already told you,’ Genista replied lightly, ‘I suspect he flirts a little with all his lady customers. I wasn’t sure what to do about dinner,’ she told Luke. ‘I’ve prepared a salad and I thought we’d have steak with it…’
‘Have whatever you like,’ Luke told her curtly. ‘I’m dining out.’
Lucy pulled a face, but he wouldn’t be swayed. He went upstairs when they entered the house, and Genista dawdled in the kitchen, not wanting to go into the bedroom while he was still there.
Lucy wanted to watch a particular television programme and she had gone up to her bedroom to do so when Genista heard the kitchen door open. Luke was dressed elegantly in soft suede cream pants and a dark blue silk shirt, a leather jacket in his hand. His clothes, although expensive, were not the sort Genista would have expected him to wear for a business meeting, and jealousy tore at her with red-hot claws as she envisaged the sort of surroundings for which such casual clothes might be worn—a nightclub perhaps; a fashionable restaurant, but with whom? Her mouth tightened. So much for Luke’s instructions that Lucy was not to be allowed to suspect how things were between them! A hundred angry words clamoured for utterance, but all she could say was, ‘Is this how you expect to convince Lucy that we’re in love? By going out and leaving us alone?’
‘She’d be far more disillusioned if I stayed,’ Luke said harshly. ‘Because the way I feel at the moment, I’m liable to throttle you. And don’t bother to wait up for me.’
The phone rang as the Maserati roared down the drive, and Genista answered it. A woman with a smokily seductive voice asked for Luke and when Genista said that he had gone out, she laughed softly.
‘Good. I thought he might be late, but he’s remembered that I hate to be kept waiting.’
Genista could barely touch the steak. Images of Luke dining in some candlelit restaurant with the owner of the huskily wanton voice tormented her. She would not be a naïve virgin! She would know everything there was to know about pleasing a man, it had all been there in her voice.’
After dinner they would dance, perhaps, Luke holding her close enough to his body for her to feel every sinuous movement, and then later….
‘Genista! Are you all right?’
Lucy’s concerned voice brought her abruptly back to the dining table, and the mutilated roll lying in pieces on her plate.
‘I’m fine.’ Only she wasn’t. Her legs felt dreadfully weak, and silly tears weren’t far away.
‘Well, I think it’s really mean of Uncle Luke to work tonight.’
‘I expect it was something unavoidable,’ Genista said lightly, trying not to let her voice tremble. She pushed away her strawberries and cream untouched. ‘If you don’t mind, Lucy, I think I’ll have an early night. I’m feeling dreadfully tired for some reason. It must be all that fresh air.’
‘Mm, I’m feeling quite sleepy myself. I want to write to Mother, so I’ll have an early night as well. Shall I do the washing up for you?’
There was a luxurious dishwasher in the kitchen, but nevertheless they did the washing up between them, Genista finding comfort in the mechanically routine task. Lucy chatted about her school as they worked, and Genista learned that despite the younger girl’s averred dislike of school, in reality she had a keen interest in literature and the arts.
‘Have you ever thought of becoming a librarian?’ Genista suggested, when Lucy was bemoaning the lack of opportunities for people with an arts degree. ‘And it needn’t be merely library work, although that in itself is a very good career. Television and radio stations often need researchers; if your qualifications are good enough you could get a super job.’
It was something which Lucy had obviously not thought of previously, and by the time they had exhausted the subject it was later than Genista had realised.
She tried to soak away some of her tension in a hot bath, secure in the knowledge that Luke was hardly likely to leave his companion at ten-thirty to come rushing back to his unwanted wife!
She scented the water generously with her favourite bath oil and lay back, trying to force her tense muscles to relax.
Afterwards she wrapped herself in a huge fluffy peach towel and started to dry her hair.
The bedroom she shared with Luke was obviously the master bedroom.
In addition to the bedroom itself, there was a bathroom, luxuriously equipped and tiled with toning sanitary ware in shades of coffee and brown. The bath was huge, and set into the floor—more than adequate for two people, Genista had reflected, before she realised the direction her unwary thoughts were taking.
Off the bedroom was a dressing room lined with fitted wardrobes, all mirror-fronted. Luke had indicated that she was to make use of them, and she had hung her few clothes in one small corner. She would need to make a trip to London to collect the rest of her things. Luke had barely given her time on their brief call on the way back from Cumbria. She also wanted to collect her car.
Her hair lay over her shoulders in a cascade of russet silk. The bedroom was decorated in shades of toning peach and coffee; neither too masculine nor fluffily feminine. Genista loved the pure cotton sheets and beautiful handmade bedspread. The sheets felt blissfully cool as she slid beneath them. She heard the grandfather clock in the hall strike eleven as she closed her eyes.
Genista opened her eyes. The bedroom was all in darkness, and at first she couldn’t place the sound that had woken her. Outside she heard an owl and shivered, shrinking back against the pillows as a shadow detached itself from the wall.
