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What had he done with Caroline? Left her skulking behind a pillar out of sight?
'Is Baba with you?' asked Robert, glancing around the dim room.
'No, I'm with a party of clients who are doing the town before going off to catch their plane.' Luke looked from Robert to Judith. 'I came over to ask you to dance.' He extended his hand and she looked at it as if it was a snake.
'Sorry, I've just sat down and my feet are tired.'
She saw his brows jerk together, his mouth compress, then his hand fastened around her wrist and in one pull yan
ked her to her feet. 'I want to talk to you,' he said as he gripped her wrist. 'Excuse us, Robert, she'll be back with you in a minute.'
Judith couldn't make a public scene; it wasn't her style. She had no option but to follow him on to the small, crowded floor. He put an arm round her and went on holding her other hand as they began to dance. Judith averted her head, her body rigid in his arm.
'All right, you saw me with Caroline, but you needn't go rushing off to worry Baba with the story, because it wasn't how it looked,' he said in clipped, brusque accents.
'Don't tell me, tell Baba.'
'I want to leave Baba out of it altogether…'
'I'm sure you do.' She made no effort to hide her icy contempt and she felt his fingers tighten around her hand until they hurt. Luke Doulton was getting angry, too, but that didn't bother Judith one inch.
'I didn't bring Caroline here tonight,' he went on, she came with somebody else, an old client from Amsterdam. Caroline always sees him when he's in London, so I shouldn't have been surprised when she appeared with him, but there wasn't much I could do about it once she was actually here.'
Judith laughed shortly. 'So to make it clear to her how unwelcome she was, you danced with her cheek to cheek!'
'Look, I don't have to explain myself to you,' he muttered thickly, and even in that dim light she could see the dark colour creeping up his face.
'Who asked you to?'
'What gives you the right to look at me as though I'd broken every one of the ten commandments?' he grated.
'If you don't like the way I look at you the solution is in your hands. Tear my contract up. I wouldn't want to work for you now anyway. Will you take me back to my table? I'm not enjoying myself, and I don't suppose you are.'
'Enjoying myself? You've got to be kidding! I just want your promise that you won't unload all this on to Baba. I've told you the truth. Caroline and my Dutch client have gone now…'
'How convenient!'
'My God, who the hell do you think you are?' He drew away and glared down at her; in the shadowy room she saw his grey eyes like hard points of silver light. He was tense and tight-lipped and staring at her as though disbelieving his senses; she got the feeling he had expected he would be able to talk her into believing his version of what had been going on, he hadn't expected her to refuse to listen to him. No doubt Luke Doulton was always listened to and believed, at least to his face. He looked like a man in a new situation; one he did not like at all.
'I'm an old friend of Baba's; that's who I am. You only got engaged to her last week. Tonight you're here with someone else—and don't tell me you and Caroline Rendell were talking business out there on the floor, because I'm not stupid.'
'That's just what you are! You saw me dancing with someone and you're making a Federal case out of it, but you're wrong, you're jumping to conclusions—and anyway, it's all none of your goddamned business. If you go to Baba with this story you'll be doing it because you want to make trouble and for no other reason. You won't be doing Baba any favours. It may give you a kick to interfere, but don't pretend to be so damned righteous about it, because if you do tell her you'll only make her miserable and all over nothing.'
The music ended, Judith broke away from him and walked back to her table and Robert, her mind in confusion. Should she tell Baba? Or was he right? Should she just mind her own business and keep her mouth shut?
Robert looked at her curiously as she sat down. 'What was all that about? It looked from here as though you were having the row to end all rows. I half expected the two of you to come to blows any minute.'
'We were arguing over a matter of principle,' Judith explained. 'Robert, I'm tired—would you mind if we left now?'
He glanced at his watch. 'Nearly one—the time has flown! Sure, I'll get us a taxi.'
Across the room Judith saw Luke Doulton leaving; there were a group of other men with him, that much of his story was obviously true. His companions looked like businessmen who have been having a night out at the end of a business trip, and this was just the sort of place you take people like that to see. It was respectable and safe but gave the illusion of being glamorous and a place to have fun. Judith saw Luke clearly for a moment as he paused in the doorway, the brighter lights in the entrance showing her his hard, angry face. Then he had gone, and she waited for Robert to return with news of their taxi. Whether she told Baba about what had happened or not, she probably didn't have a job to go to on Monday, and she felt very depressed.
CHAPTER FOUR
SHE didn't sleep that night; it infuriated her to lie awake hour after hour, brooding over Luke Doulton and his despicable behaviour. It was the first time a man had ever made her lose any sleep—Judith had never been much of a romantic, even in her teens; her common sense would not permit her to turn insomniac over another human being, and her thoughts now were light years from romance; more murderous than amorous. She kept seeing them out there on that dance floor, their moving bodies half shadow, but Caroline Rendell’s strangling arms around Luke's neck and his arms round her waist. He must really think she was stupid if he expected her to believe that cock-and-bull story about a client bringing Caroline along there; she should have laughed in his face when he came out with it—well, she had, in a sense; she had snorted disbelievingly and let him know she didn't believe a single word, but somehow that didn't make her feel any happier. It didn't seem adequate for the rage possessing her; she should have done something more positive, but what? Dim visions of boiling oil and thumbscrews drifted through her tired mind; people in the Middle Ages had had such creative imaginations. They didn't just snort with disbelief when people lied to them; bring out the thumbscrews, they said.
She wanted that job. The more she thought about having to turn it down the more furious she became—it was a chance in a million, not merely from the financial point of view, although the salary was pretty fantastic, but because she would move from comparative obscurity into a key position in one of the big multinational companies. Working so closely with Luke Doulton she would have far more opportunity to learn and at the same time to influence than she would ever have with Schewitz and Quayle; it was, in fact, the sort of job she might have looked forward to in five or ten years if she had gone on climbing the career ladder in New York. Even then, she would have been lucky to get it, because such places rarely went to women; they were the plum jobs and men usually got them.
