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Almost as though her thoughts reached out to touch him he turned, his eyes darkening as he read the message in hers before she could conceal it. A tide of guilty colour ran up under her skin. She wasn’t used to feeling such intense desire. Was Saul shocked by it? Amused?
A sense of uncertainty, of vulnerability, gripped her, leaving her feeling as embarrassed as a teenager held fast in the grips of an intense crush, and then Saul was smiling at her, his voice warm and vibrantly low, sending shivers of delight racing up and down her spine, as he said,
‘I know you’re away most of the day tomorrow, but I came to see if you’d have dinner with me in the evening. Tara tells me you’ve arranged for her and Oliver to stay at the vicarage.’
‘Yes… I… Dinner would be lovely.’
He couldn’t fail to be aware of her confusion, of the way he affected her, but there was no amusement or mockery in his eyes as he got off the table and came towards her, just a warmth that made her head suddenly feel extremely light and her legs oddly weak.
‘What time do you leave in the morning?’
‘Early,’ she told him. ‘I’m dropping the children off on my way.’
‘Then I expect you’ll want an early night tonight.’ He smiled at her, warmly… intimately, she acknowledged, savouring that knowledge. If Tara and Oliver had not been there she thought he might have kissed her. Her heart started to thump unevenly, tiny frissons of excitement curling her nerve-endings.
* * *
‘I like Saul, don’t you?’ Tara asked her later over supper. ‘He’s nice, isn’t he?’
‘Very nice,’ Lucy agreed sedately while acknowledging to herself that ‘nice’ came nowhere near to describing Saul’s personality.
As Saul had commented, she had intended to have an early night but although she went to bed, sleep eluded her, her mind not on the next day’s interview, but on her dinner date with Saul.
Where would he take her? Somewhere quiet and secluded? A haunt of lovers? It seemed incredible that she, who had always been so cautious and withdrawn where men were concerned, should suddenly be so achingly eager for a man’s desire. Even while part of her was faintly intimidated by the strength of her feelings for Saul, another part thrilled to the knowledge that she was woman enough to want him so intensely. Her lack of desire for her male escorts had never particularly worried her in the past—she had always been too busy to let it do so—but there was a tiny thrill of heady delight to be found in acknowledging how deeply Saul aroused her.
If she closed her eyes she could almost imagine the heat and pressure of his mouth on hers, his hands touching her flesh. The sensuous images that flashed across her closed eyes brought a slow ache to the pit of her stomach, activating a hitherto unsuspected vein of eroticism. Her tongue touched her suddenly dry lips, her nipples peaking urgently against the fine cotton of her nightdress.
Suddenly the night seemed far too warm, her body too keyed up for sleep. She wished it was tomorrow night and that she was with Saul…
Telling herself that such sexual urgency was undignified and foolish in a woman of twenty-five, she tried to control her disruptive thoughts and compose herself for sleep.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE heat in the centre of London struck her like a blow the moment she stepped out of the taxi. Her publishers had an office tucked away in a quiet and very exclusive mews, but the flowers in the smartly painted black and white tubs were rimmed with dust and looked tired.
She gave her name to the receptionist—a picture of glossy sophistication from her immaculately painted nails to her perfectly groomed hair. Once the sight of so much perfection would have automatically made her feel insecure, but now she could smile without envy at the other girl’s city patina and even feel a little sorry for her because she was cooped up here in the heart of the hot city, and because she was not going home to have dinner with Saul.
She only had to wait ten minutes or so before going in to see her editor, and she passed the time glancing at the impressive-looking dust jackets displayed in the reception area. The publishers her uncle had referred her to handled fiction work in the main—they had several well-known names on their list; one of their writers was a well-known thriller writer, another a political correspondent turned faction author.
‘Mrs Francis is ready to see you now.’
Dutifully Lucy followed the receptionist and was shown into a small office.
‘Lucy, how are you my dear?’
Beverley Francis was only small, barely five foot two, her dark hair touched here and there with grey.
She and Lucy’s uncle had been up at Oxford together, and she had the warm, but controlled, look of a woman secure in her position in life.
