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Suddenly Luke's grey eyes actually focused on Judith; she felt a leap of attention inside him, he was looking at her, his eyes narrowing, and for a brief second she stared back, wondering why he was looking at her like that, then she looked away because, even at this distance, Luke Doulton was overpowering, she felt the room shrink so that she almost seemed to be standing next to him.
Not long afterwards he and Baba came over to join them, bringing a small group of people in their wake. Judith and Robert politely stepped back while Luke introduced his sisters and their husbands to Ruth and David. Everyone kept smiling, but the talk was stilted. Luke's sisters were younger than their brother. The eldest, Pauline, was in her early thirties but looked younger, her smooth hair a definite red, her skin a heavy white and her green eyes slanting under fine dark brows,
'Gracious, what a daring little dress,' she said to Baba. 'How do you manage to walk in it?' Judith suppressed a smile; it was her own question, but she had not cared to deliver it so bluntly.
'It's a fabulous dress,' the other sister said quickly before Baba could answer. 'Who made it for you?' Judith had already decided she preferred the younger sister; Angela was more like Luke in her colouring, her hair the same dark brown and her eyes wide and grey. She was pregnant, she had told Baba a moment ago, wasn't it sickening to have to wear tents for months on cad? Baba had asked: 'It's your second baby, isn't it?' and Angela had said ruefully: 'Third, darling, third.' Pauline, it seemed, had one son aged twelve who was away at boarding school, and she told Angela that one was enough. 'Three is ridiculous!' Angela made a wicked face at her, eyes defiant, and Judith laughed, which was a mistake because Luke glanced at her across the circle and decided to introduce her.
'An investments expert?' queried Pauline, brows rising. 'Really? I didn't know women did jobs like that. You must be horribly clever.' She made it sound like an accusation. Judith felt Luke watching her, waiting to see how she would reply.
'Oh, I am,' she said with bland indifference to Pauline's opinion, and Luke laughed softly. 'We're not all pinbrains, you know,' Judith added, and Pauline stared at her in apparent stupefaction while she worked that out. Well, at least, thought Judith, she was getting some fun out of the evening.
CHAPTER THREE
THE following Monday Judith had lunch with Luke Doulton at a small and very fashionable restaurant in Mayfair. She had come armoured, with a very shrewd idea of why he wanted to talk to her. After the occasion when Schewitz and Quayle put together the take-over bid for his company Luke had a grudge against the bank; Judith would be very surprised if his interest in her did not have something to do with a long-term hostility for her old firm. She was going to listen to him, mainly out of curiosity, but she had no intention of allowing him to use her in whatever conspiracy he was planning. Her years with the bank had left her with a good deal of private information about their dealings, their clients, their staff. If Luke Doulton was planning something connected with Schewitz and Quayle he would no doubt find her a very useful tool; but Judith's hackles rose at the thought of being used for any such purpose. She had a strong loyalty towards the New York house; she might be irritated with the managing director in London, but her annoyance did not extend to a backstairs intrigue with Luke Doulton.
He was sitting in the small, circular bar attached to the restaurant and rose as she appeared. She shook hands, noting the firm warm clasp. He had good hands; strong and long-fingered, the backs of them lightly dusted with dark hairs. Today he was wearing one of those formal grey lounge suits and a blue-striped shirt with a pale grey silk tie; he looked elegant and businesslike.
'What can I get you to drink?' he asked as she sat down and the waiter appeared with two menus.
Judith took one of the menus and thought briefly; better not to drink too much, she might need all her wits about her.
'I'll have a Lillet,' she said, and the waiter bowed and vanished to get her a glass of the lightly flavoured wine.
'I hope you weren't too bored at the party; I saw that you'd met a friend. How did you meet Robert Gordon? Through the bank? One of their clients, is he?'
'Yes,' said Judith, opening the menu. 'Gracious, how does one find one's way through a list this long? Is the food as good as it sounds?'
She felt his quick glance, the narrowed eyes with which he registered her evasion of his question, but he accepted the change of subject without comment and they read the menu while they sipped their drinks and talked very little. Judith had already seen Robert again; he had rung her on the Saturday morning after the party and asked her out to dinner. 'Not business,' he had said, and laughed. It had been a very enjoyable evening, they had mainly talked about the States, swapping stories about hotels they knew and cities they had either loved or hated. Robert travelled a great deal; he was an entertaining companion.
When she and Luke had ordered they finished their drinks and went through into the restaurant. Judith was aware of heads turning, eyes following them. Luke was well known and his engagement party had made the gossip columns the day afterwards; in print it had sounded far more glamorous and exciting than it had been in actual fact. Reading about it, Judith had wondered if she had gone to a different party. The gossip columnists had apparently seen a lot she missed.
She knew she wasn't going to be mistaken for one of his girl-friends; she was dressed today in a very businesslike russet wool dress. Nobody was going to have dark suspicions about Luke's interest in her, the last thing she wanted was to try to compete with girls like Baba or Caroline Rendell.
Over their first course Luke told her: 'I've just lost my personal assistant.' His tone was dispassionate and calm; if Judith hadn't witnessed the little scene at the party she would never have guessed that anything lay behind his sudden announcement.
So much for Caroline Rendell, she thought, her mouth indenting and her dark eyes lowered to hide their amusement. Before you throw stones you should make sure you don't live in a glasshouse. Luke hadn't lost any time in despatching Caroline; when he used a knife he did so with ruthless speed and efficiency, no doubt.
'Did I say something funny?' he asked, taking her by surprise.
She looked up, eyes startled, then recovered and said blandly: 'I'm sure you would never do that.'
He regarded her for a moment in silence. 'You have a very interesting mind,' he said, surprising her again.
'Thank you,' she said demurely.
'Do you want the job?' The question was a frontal assault; although she had guessed it might be coming she hadn't expected it so fast and with so little preliminaries or window-dressing.
Her eyes widened further, she quickly looked down. 'What exactly would it entail?'
'A salary twice whatever you've been getting,' he said drily.
When he offered temptation he certainly did it in style, Judith decided. Aloud she asked: 'Shall we discuss the job before we talk about money?'
'You've got all the qualifications I need; you have a brain or you wouldn't have been doing the work you have been doing. You're obviously capable of working on your own, which is what you might well be doing a good deal when I'm away from my desk. I'd want you based in London, I have to fly around the world most of the time and I'd
rely on you to keep me posted with what was happening over here while I was gone. The work would be far more varied than you have been doing; although you would be working with investments part of the time there's a great deal more to it than that. You'd be expected to make confidential reports on companies I'm interested in; I'd want those daily, wherever I was. To put it briefly, you'd be my eyes and ears in London and, to some extent, my brains as well.'
He hadn't so much as mentioned Schewitz and Quayle; she wondered whether to bring them up and see his reaction, but decided to wait a while and listen to whatever else he had to say. She went on with her strips of beef cooked in wine and cream while he talked and, somehow, managed to eat his filet mignon at the same time. Judith asked questions and got concise and clear answers, but the subject of her old firm never came up. Had she imagined his hostility to them? she wondered. Or was he being very oblique and cunning by hiding what he really wanted from her?
