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‘Oh, Luc, good! I’m glad you’re here!’ Felicity exclaimed as soon as Lucianna was within earshot. ‘My car is making the most peculiar noise; could you look at it for me?’
‘I can,’ Lucianna agreed, glancing immediately at the car’s relatively new number plate, ‘but isn’t it still under warranty?’
She remembered how impressed John had been when Felicity’s then boyfriend had bought her the car as a twenty-first-birthday present, commenting much to Lucianna’s chagrin, ‘But you can’t blame him for going overboard and trying to impress her. She is a real stunner…’
Stunner or not, she was certainly not mechanically minded, Lucianna decided ten minutes later, having run the engine of the Toyota and heard it making no noise other than a clean, healthy purr.
‘What sort of noise was it making exactly?’ she asked Felicity cautiously once she had checked out all the obvious potential faults.
‘I don’t really know…it was just…you know, a noise…’ Felicity told her unhelpfully. ‘Heavens, you are clever,’ she added. ‘I don’t know the remotest thing about car engines. Not that I would particularly want to,’ she added. ‘All that dirt and grease…It must ruin your nails and your hands. Ugh…
‘By the way,’ she added conversationally when Lucianna made no response, ‘who was that guy you were with when I saw you in town the other day? I rather thought I recognised him from somewhere but…’
‘Jake, you mean?’ Lucianna asked her as she closed the bonnet of the car. ‘He’s…’ On the point of launching into an explanation of Jake’s background and position in their local society, she suddenly changed her mind, alerted by some female sixth sense as to what was really behind Felicity’s seemingly innocent question—which was confirmed by the predatory, eager look in the other girl’s eyes. ‘Oh, he’s just a neighbour,’ she said dismissively instead.
‘A neighbour?’ The other girl’s eyes widened slightly and then narrowed as she gave Lucianna an assessing look before starting to smile and then laughing. ‘That’s typical of you, Luc,’ she commented, and then added for no
apparent reason, ‘I could never do a job like yours.’
‘So you’ve already mentioned,’ Lucianna agreed tersely.
‘I’d hate having to wear such unfeminine clothes,’ she continued, apparently oblivious to Lucianna’s increasing desire to bring her call to an end. ‘I like to wear soft, silky things next to my skin—silk underwear…Do you ever wear silk underwear, Luc?’
‘Not under my dungarees,’ Lucianna returned woodenly.
‘I don’t suppose you ever wear stockings either, do you, Lucianna?’ she queried, giving Lucianna a faintly malicious look. ‘John often teases me about wearing them.’
Lucianna looked away from her, determined not to let her see how hurtful she found her revelations—revelations which she was beginning to suspect were fully intended to be hurtful and to underline the differences between them. Well, anyone could buy a pair of stockings—and wear them. Lucianna’s heart suddenly seemed to start beating a little faster.
That was twice now within the same twenty-four hours that she had been told that her choice of underwear lacked man-appeal, and even the book she had been reading on flirtation had stressed that it was perfectly acceptable for a woman to indulge in a small amount of sensually teasing dressing.
She took a deep breath as she came to a sudden decision.
‘I can’t see that there’s anything wrong with your car,’ she told Felicity firmly. ‘But it might be as well if you took it back to the dealership and got them to check it over just in case.’
She looked at her watch. ‘I’m sorry but I’ve got to get the Traveller washed and polished before its owner comes back for it.’ And then, quite deliberately, she turned away from the other girl to show her that she expected her to leave.
If Felicity was so determined to make fun of her then Lucianna couldn’t stop her, but she certainly wasn’t going to help her, nor was she going to let her use her as a means of trying to get an introduction to Jake.
Did she really think that she, Lucianna, was so stupid, so lacking in female awareness, that she wouldn’t realise just what she was really after underneath all that patently untrue concern about her car? If Felicity had been a little bit more open and honest with her, if she hadn’t taken such delight in underlining the fact that John found her attractive, then she might have felt more inclined to help, Lucianna decided. And she might even have felt enough female fellow-feeling for her to warn her that Jake was no stranger to female admiration, even though he might have said to her this afternoon that it had been a long time since his last relationship.
Determinedly keeping her face averted, Lucianna didn’t turn round until she heard the Toyota’s engine die away as the other girl drove back the way she had come.
If she was so interested in Jake then let her find another way of bringing herself to his attention. The two of them would be well suited, Lucianna decided angrily.
‘What’s wrong with you? You haven’t spoken a word all through supper,’ David said in concern.
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Lucianna told her brother quickly.
In point of fact the reason why she had not contributed very much to the suppertime conversation was that she was still reflecting on the events of the day. As she looked towards the window, she was mentally contrasting the visual difference between her own dungaree-clad body and the sultry, deliberately sensual swing of Felicity’s hips in the short skirt she had been wearing, the way she had run her fingertips down along her thigh as she’d moved. She recalled the other girl’s comment about how John teased her about her stockings.
There had been stockings in the window of that underwear shop Jake had directed her attention to this afternoon—stockings attached to the most frivolously feminine garter, with a tiny pair of briefs to match.
‘I’m going over to Ryedales tomorrow. They’re taking delivery of a new state-of-the-art harvester and bailer. Want to come with me?’
Lucianna looked at her brother then shook her head.
‘I can’t,’ she told him. ‘I’ve…I’ve got some shopping to do.’
