A Masterful Man. Lindsay Armstrong

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ I’ve been thoroughly vetted by the agency—they have very high standards and they’ve checked me out from top to bottom, so you can rest assured I won’t be pinching the silver or anything like that. I also have a degree from a technical college in catering—does that help you, Mr Warwick?’

      He lay back and looked at her meditatively. ‘So, you’ve decided to do the job,’ he said idly, at last.

      Davina shot him a cold little look. ‘No, I haven’t, not yet. I was merely trying to make the point that I’m trustworthy and respectable.’

      ‘It still seems to be an odd combination,’ he mused, unperturbed. ‘It also—’ he looked down at his glass and frowned ‘—indicates a preference for a gypsy sort of lifestyle—how come?’

      ‘Just the way I am, I guess,’ she said blandly.

      He raised an eyebrow. ‘And then there’s the jump from catering college to photography.’

      She said nothing but sipped her drink again.

      ‘And how come,’ he pursued, ‘if you’re so determinedly a “Mrs” you don’t wear a wedding-ring?’

      ‘I thought I told you, that’s my business—’

      ‘Well, not really.’ S. Warwick sat forward. ‘I mean, were you—moonlighting as a married woman, for example, for reasons best known to yourself,’ he said with soft satire and smiled a sort of tigerish little smile, ‘it could be my business too.’

      ‘I fail to see why.’

      ‘I’ll tell you—because if you were misrepresenting yourself in one thing, you could do so in others, despite being vetted from top to bottom.’

      Davina grimaced. ‘I still fail to see in what way it could affect this job. As a matter of fact, were I moonlighting in this respect, it would probably be to protect myself from—’

      ‘All those ubiquitous single men that abound in the land? Ah! Is that the case, then?’

      Davina stared at him with her nostrils flared. ‘Unfortunately, no,’ she said tautly and reached for her bag, then her purse from which she pulled a small gold object and slid it on to her left hand. ‘There,’ she said. ‘My legitimate wedding-ring, and if you’re right about one thing, Mr Warwick, the only misrepresentation involved is that I’m no longer married. But I believe I’m perfectly entitled to claim to be a Mrs, despite that small fact, and if you must know,’ she went on in a goaded sort of voice, ‘I do use the ring and the title when I’m on these kinds of jobs just in case I need the protection of them.’

      ‘But you don’t normally wear the ring.’

      ‘How do you know?’

      He shrugged. ‘I noticed that the tan on that hand was unbroken. Did you forget to put it on?’

      ‘Yes. Will you please drop the subject!’

      ‘Why?’ he said lazily. ‘Surely you can tell me if he’s dead or alive or has merely divorced you?’

      ‘All right, we’re divorced.’

      ‘Why?’

      Davina stared down at her wedding-ring, her expression frozen then she raised her remarkable violet eyes and was not to know how bitter and sombre they were as she said, ‘If you really want to know, he thought I was a frigid bitch—among other things.’ She sat forward and put her unfinished drink on the table. ‘I’ll go now. I would hate to impose on you any further, so if you could call me a taxi, I’d be grateful.’

      S. Warwick considered her for a moment before he said, ‘Unfortunately, Mrs Hastings, I am unable to do that.’

      ‘Why not? Look here.’ Davina’s voice rose a little shakily. ‘I—’

      ‘Only because there are no taxis on the island,’ he said.

      CHAPTER TWO

      ‘OH FOR heaven’s sake!’

      Davina rose and stared at him with acute frustration.

      He shrugged and looked amused. ‘It’s a very small island, Mrs Hastings. Barely seven miles long and two miles wide and most of it is uninhabited. The permanent population is roughly three hundred souls and there are six hundred bicycles—the much preferred form of transport for the, as I mentioned before, four hundred tourists the place can handle. I myself have four bicycles—’

      ‘Well if you’re about to lend me a bicycle I must decline,’ Davina said tartly. ‘You—’

      ‘You’ve never ridden a bike?’

      ‘Of course I have! I simply do not propose to do so now, in the dark, with my luggage.’

      ‘That wasn’t what I had in mind.’

      She stared at him, breathing noticeably. ‘Then why did you bring it up?’

      He grimaced. ‘I thought it might add some charm to the place. You obviously don’t know a lot about Lord Howe, Mrs Hastings.’

      ‘I don’t,’ she conceded ungraciously. ‘I was, in fact, a last-minute replacement for the competent, motherly person they’d found for you—she broke her ankle. So I didn’t have a lot of time to add to my rather vague knowledge of Lord Howe, but they did assure me it was extremely beautiful and a—’ she hesitated ‘—photographer’s paradise,’ she finished on a suddenly weary downbeat.

      S. Warwick smiled faintly but said nothing.

      Davina looked around, clenched her teeth then sat down again. ‘All right! Tell me more about the job—not that I’ve decided to do it,’ she warned, ‘but...’ She gestured and shook her head exasperatedly.

      He sat forward again. ‘My...female relatives are due to descend on me shortly. They generally spend a holiday on the island at least twice a year. They also generally avoid each other like the plague but are coming together this time, I believe, in a bid to put family relationships on a better footing. If you had any idea what a horrifying prospect that is, Mrs Hastings, I’m sure you would take pity on me.’

      Davina blinked. ‘I don’t understand—and I thought—forgive me,’ she said ironically, ‘but I got the distinct impression that one word from you and they behaved like perfect lambs.’

      ‘That’s not quite true, although they certainly do what I tell them to do—eventually. However, there’s one area where even I have trouble controlling them and that is who has sovereignty over the ordering of the household.’

      Davina, despite herself, found herself smiling a wry little smile. ‘I see.’ But she added, less amusedly, ‘So, you’re proposing to throw me into this lionesses’ den of dispute?’

      ‘Exactly,’ he said without a shadow of remorse, then shrugged. ‘Well, what I propose is to make it plain beyond any doubt that you’re running the house.’

      Davina thought for a moment. ‘Why do they dislike СКАЧАТЬ