James on the other hand cleaned his plate.
He was a very complex man, she reflected, eyeing him briefly as she drank her coffee. Despite his assertion to her that he meant to gain possession of the Hall, he had not betrayed that intention today by so much as a word or gesture. What really went on inside that hard masculine skull, she wondered, watching him. He glanced up and smiled mockingly. ‘Normally when a woman looks at a man like that she’s wondering what he’s like in bed,’ he drawled tormentingly.
‘Well, I’m not!’ Anger made the colour leave her face, her eyes glittering furiously into his.
‘Pity! I would have enjoyed showing you.’
His blatant masculine arrogance took her breath away. It stunned her to realise that he meant it too; that despite the fact that he didn’t particularly like her, and he certainly knew how much she loathed him, he could still talk about making love to her and see it as a viable proposition. But, then, men did not have to be emotionally involved to enjoy sex…quite the contrary, she thought grimly, draining her coffee-cup and standing up.
‘I’ll walk back to the old Hall,’ she told him coolly, picking up her large shoulder-bag.
For a moment she thought he meant to protest, but apart from a warning gleam in his eyes he seemed indifferent to her decision.
It didn’t take her long, and the June day was warm enough to make the walk a pleasant one. She got to the end of the drive at the same time as a small estate car turned into it. The driver stopped and she walked over to him.
‘Peter Clifford,’ he introduced himself. ‘You wouldn’t by any chance be my prospective client?’
When Jenna agreed that she was, he offered her a lift up to the house.
‘It’s a real architectural hotch-potch,’ he commented to Jenna when they got out of the car. ‘What exactly do you have in mind for it?’
Briefly she told him.
‘The restoration work might prove difficult, especially if you’re after authentic reproduction, but let’s go in and see what it’s like inside.’
His comment depressed Jenna slightly. She had been hoping that he might be able to give her introductions to firms of the same standard as those she used in London. She had no doubt that they did exist, but finding them would take time; in the meantime she would have to use those she knew in London, which would mean extra expense.
They had just reached the Tudor part of the building when she heard James’s car drive up. She heard him walking over the bare floorboards as he came in search of them, and she also saw the speculation in the architect’s eyes when James finally appeared.
Almost immediately, instead of addressing his comments to Jenna he addressed them to James. His automatic assumption that James was the one he would be working for infuriated her, but she refused to allow her anger to appear.
‘Of course, when it comes to the décor, no doubt you’ll have your own ideas,’ he commented, turning to Jenna at last, his expression slightly condescending. ‘Women have their own views on these things,’ he added to James.
‘They do indeed, don’t they, darling?’ The endearment and the casual arm James placed round her shoulders stunned Jenna into complete silence. When the architect’s back was turned she glared at him, and tried to pull away, but his arm simply tightened round her. While she tried to struggle, the architect kept talking to James. It was plain that he thought them a couple and Jenna gritted her teeth, thinking of the biting remarks she would be making to him when she told him the truth.
And James. For what possible reason could he be reinforcing the architect’s error? Sheer devilment, she suspected, giving up trying to move away from him, and instead, simply turning her head away and refusing to acknowledge his presence in any way.
It took the better part of the afternoon to go through the house, at the end of which Jenna’s temper had reached exploding point.
As she watched the architect drive away she turned to James and demanded bitterly, ‘Just what the hell do you think you were doing? Giving him the idea that——’
‘That we were lovers?’ His eyebrows rose and he shrugged. ‘It was obvious that he thought it anyway, it would only have embarrassed him to discover the truth.’
‘So you decided to embarrass me instead, is that it?’ Jenna seethed. ‘As a mere woman my embarrassment doesn’t matter?’
James blinked and said laconically, ‘As the unmarried mother of a teenage child, I find it hard to understand why the thought of having a lover should embarrass you.’
Goaded beyond her endurance but unable to retaliate Jenna snapped her teeth shut, gritting them together.
‘You have some sketches to show me,’ she reminded him curtly.
‘Yes, but I don’t have them with me. Some of them are very fragile, and I didn’t want to risk getting them damaged. I’ll show them to you when we get back.’
Grimly, Jenna said nothing. She had no desire to go back to James’s apartment with him, but it seemed she had little choice. She only hoped that his precious sketches, once she got to see them, would prove to be worth the trouble.
They stopped once on the way back for a brief snack and a cup of tea, but James seemed disinclined to make idle conversation for which she was grateful. It was gone ten when they reached the outskirts of London and in the dimness of the car Jenna studied him covertly. The resemblance to the portrait on the stairs was less obvious now; it was only when one looked at him full face that he could have passed for the double of his ancestor.
Heredity was a funny thing…One of the reasons she had been so reluctant to tell Lucy about her father was her fear that Lucy might grow up always looking for the Deveril strain in herself. If anything, however, Jenna felt that Lucy shared her own temperament rather than that of either of her parents, although her features we