Jenny was back within seconds, gently sponging the blood off Helen’s face. ‘He was a bit rough with you,’ she murmured thoughtfully.
Helen winced as she touched a tender spot. ‘Rough!’ she repeated disgustedly. ‘He was like an animal!’
‘Oh, surely not. He—’
‘He was like an animal,’ she insisted. ‘I suppose he thinks that because he’s who he is I should have felt honoured by his attention to me. He had the nerve to think I was attracted to him.’
‘And you weren’t?’
Helen touched the soreness of her mouth. ‘Doesn’t this tell you the answer to that?’ she grimaced.
Jenny shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’ She walked over to pick up the telephone and began dialling.
‘Who are you ringing?’ Helen asked curiously.
‘The man.’ She was obviously listening to the dialling sound.
‘The man?’
Jenny grinned. ‘Leon Masters.’
‘Whatever for?’ Helen demanded.
‘He wanted me to let him know you’d got home safely and that you were okay.’
Helen stood up to leave the room. ‘If he felt that strongly about it he should have come and found out for himself. But of course that would have been too much trouble, and—’
‘He wanted to come,’ Jenny cut in softly. ‘He drove me home and asked to come in, but in the circumstances I thought it might be better if he didn’t.’
‘Thank goodness for that! I never want to see him again. And I should stop ringing if I were you, he’ll never hear the telephone above the din that was going on there.’
‘But he—Ah, Leon,’ Jenny pursed her mouth pointedly at Helen. ‘Yes, yes, I know you’ve been waiting for my call. Yes. No. Yes. I—’
‘I’m going to bed,’ Helen told her crossly. ‘Don’t wake me up when you come in.’
Jenny held the receiver away from her ear, her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘He wants to talk to you,’ she whispered.
‘Tell him we have nothing to talk about,’ and Helen walked out of the room.
Seconds later Jenny followed her into the bedroom. ‘He says it’s important.’
‘We have nothing to say to each other,’ Helen said firmly. ‘Tell him I’m not interested.’
‘I can’t tell him that!’ Jenny exclaimed, scandalised.
Helen shrugged. ‘Okay, tell him what you please, but I want nothing more to do with him. And, Jenny,’ she stopped her cousin in the process of leaving, ‘please don’t tell him anything about my private life.’
Jenny sighed. ‘I can hardly do that—even I don’t know all of it.’
‘Well, don’t tell him what you do know.’
‘As if I would!’
‘You may not mean to. I was with him long enough to know he could charm anything out of you if he really set his mind to it.’
‘Anything?’ Jenny teased.
‘Anything,’ Helen returned lightly. As usual Jenny’s bubbly good humour was having a calming effect on her.