Her Hand in Marriage. Jessica Steele

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СКАЧАТЬ here, Fairfax,’ he rapped. ‘It’s an initial dinner that’s in the offing, not a trip to see the vicar. And if you could forget to be thoroughly selfish for two minutes, and after all your mother does for you do something for her for a change, it might improve your disposition.’

      Romillie’s jaw did drop. That was so unfair! How dared he? She felt like hitting him. But she was used to dampening down her feelings, and so swallowed down the urge to hit him or to tell him just how wrong he had got it. No way was she going to tell him anything of how downcast her mother had been.

      So, she stared up at him. Then suddenly she smiled, the phoney smile she had up to then reserved for Jeff Davidson, and with no intention whatsoever of doing anything Naylor Cardell might suggest, ‘What would you like me to do?’ she invited sweetly.

      Whether he saw straight through her or not, Romillie had no idea, but Naylor Cardell seemed to be giving the matter every consideration before, after several moments, he suggested, ‘Why not urge Eleanor to take up his dinner invitation? To accept—’

      ‘She won’t.’ Romillie cut him off. Oh, my, he wasn’t used to being interrupted. That was plain as she weathered the exasperated look he sent her.

      ‘Lewis tells me there’s a chance if you go too,’ he grated.

      Oh, help us, this Naylor Cardell really did dislike her, didn’t he? She should worry! ‘My mother would never agree to that,’ Romillie told him forthrightly. But then, out of positively nowhere—though perhaps since he had been trying to back her into a corner where she, it seemed, was selfish and uncaring—Romillie thought it about time she challenged him for a change. ‘My mother wouldn’t agree to that,’ she reiterated, but added, bringing out her phoney smile again, and looking up at him all wide-eyed and innocent, ‘But she might agree if we went out in a foursome.’

      Naylor Cardell stared at her as if he just could not believe his hearing. As if his normal powers of rapid comprehension had just deserted him.

      ‘Foursome?’ he queried slowly. ‘We?’ he questioned, scandalised.

      Suddenly Romillie was having a lovely time. It was all right, wasn’t it, when he was doing the challenging, he urging she persuade her mother to accept Lewis’s invitation, but different again when that challenge was bounced back at him. ‘It’s time to put your money where your mouth is,’ she told him. And just had to release a light laugh that bubbled up and would not stay down when she added, ‘Be brave, Cardell—you’ve been elected.’

      He stared down into her wide brown eyes, looked down at her laughing lovely mouth, and appeared to be very much taken aback—even a little stunned. She was still smiling, not a phoney smile this time, but a genuine smile that came from the fact that in putting him on the spot for a change her good humour was restored. It was not, however, to last.

      Because suddenly her own previous phoney smile was being lobbed back at her, and she just did not believe it when, ‘Very well,’ Naylor Cardell conceded. And, while that wiped the smile from her face, ‘I’ll make up a foursome,’ he agreed, bestowing on her a superior kind of look that had soon put paid to her smile. And, in case she was in any doubt, ‘But if your mother still says no,’ he added, ‘it’s off.’

      The nerve of the man! Open-mouthed, she stared at him. ‘Don’t flatter yourself!’ she retorted heatedly, having no need of the reminder that he had no personal interest in her but, when he would not normally dream of going out with her, would if it would help out a friend and colleague who had been through very bad times. ‘You’re not married?’ she thought to question, committed, by the look of it, but already searching for a way out.

      The trouble was, he seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. It was all there in his silkily drawled, ‘You don’t get out of it that easily. I’m completely unattached—and like it that way.’

      Romillie breathed out heavily. ‘Good for you!’ she erupted, niggled, and was more annoyed when he took out his business card and handed it to her.

      ‘Call me,’ he said.

      She did not want his wretched card, but without another word took it from him. Fuming, she turned from him and went in search of her mother. ‘You don’t get out of it that easily’ he had said. She did not like the sound of that. Somehow, those words had sounded ominously like a threat!

      CHAPTER TWO

      ROMILLIE awoke early on Saturday morning, hardly able to believe the happenings of the previous evening. Naylor Cardell had thought her selfish and with little thought for anyone but herself. As if she cared what he thought! And he expected her to give him a call! He’d had that! She had no intention of ringing him ever!

      She had not seen him again after she had walked away, so presumably he had viewed all he wanted in the art gallery. When she and her mother had been ready to leave Lewis Selby had enquired if they would care to join him somewhere for a bite of supper. Romillie had waited for her mother to reply, but hadn’t been surprised when she declined the invitation.

      ‘I think we’ll be on our way.’

      ‘You’ve enjoyed the evening?’ Lewis had asked, escorting them to where they had parked the car.

      ‘Much more than I thought I would,’ Eleanor had replied, and had given him such a sweet smile.

      Romillie and her mother had discussed various paintings on the way home. But Romillie had been hard put to know how to reply when her mother got round to mentioning some of the people they had met, in particular one Naylor Cardell.

      ‘What did you think of him?’ she had asked.

      Arrogant, curt, bossy, wanted taking down a peg or five, sprang to mind. ‘I should imagine he’ll make a very good successor to Lewis,’ was what she did say, which in fairness—given that she knew little about the business—she thought he probably would.

      ‘You seemed to be getting on well with him,’ Eleanor commented. ‘I glanced over to you a couple of times and you seemed to be chatting well away there—he was making you smile and laugh a lot, I noticed.’

      Somehow, with her mother having had such a happy evening, it had not seemed fair to put a blight on it by confessing that, while her laugh had been genuine, her smiles—as well as his—had been bogus.

      It warmed her though, that while she had kept her eye on her mother from time to time, to check she was coping all right on her first outing in a long, long while, her mother, it seemed, had likewise been keeping a motherly and protective eye on her daughter.

      Over the next few days Romillie was able to observe that there was a growing dramatic change in her parent of late. She was generally much, much brighter than she had been. And on Wednesday when Romillie went in from work, she actually heard her singing as she pottered about the kitchen.

      The reason for that, Romillie began to see, was because Lewis Selby had called that afternoon. ‘Is that an extra cup and saucer I see?’ Romillie asked lightly of the two cups and saucers on the draining board.

      ‘Lewis popped in,’ her mother replied.

      Romillie had done nothing about phoning Naylor Cardell, but all at once she began to wonder if she should. She had an idea that Lewis Selby was in no hurry to complete closing up the house next door and putting it on the market. But his business there must surely finish soon.

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