The Cattle Baron's Virgin Wife. Lindsay Armstrong

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СКАЧАТЬ she convinced—because it’s what she wants to believe!—that you and I are—’ She paused.

      ‘Lovers?’ he suggested.

      ‘Oh, well—oh, well, on the way to it anyway—’ Sienna looked discomforted ‘—but—only in her happiness for me!—it’s quite possible she won’t be able to keep it a secret.’

      Finn sat up and reached for his coffee-cup, but before he took a sip he said, with obvious amusement, ‘What a tangled web we weave—and I guess you know the rest of it.’

      ‘Exactly,’ Sienna responded with some urgency. ‘And because it’s you, it could get out of hand. The press could get onto it. Come to that, even without my mother—why didn’t I think of this sooner?—just your being at the wedding with me could spark all sorts of speculation!’

      ‘How terrifying,’ he remarked, causing Sienna to blink at him again.

      ‘You mean you—wouldn’t mind?’ She stared at him, round-eyed.

      ‘I never take any notice of the press in those circumstances,’ he drawled. ‘Besides, isn’t that the object of the exercise—to have your family and friends of the opinion you aren’t on the shelf?’

      ‘But—after what happened to you—and it’s not that long ago…’ She stopped and steepled her fingertips, rapping them together lightly. ‘I really don’t feel I could do that to you.’

      He watched her tapping fingers for a moment. ‘Well, I appreciate that, Sienna,’ he said almost lazily, ‘but you don’t have to worry about me. I can take care of myself.’

      Sienna discovered herself to be counting beneath her breath, but she’d only got to three when she burst out frustratedly, ‘What do I have to do to get you not to come to this wedding?’

      ‘If you hadn’t brought it up in the first place, that might have helped. Besides, you’ve been a real inspiration to me, and it seems like one small way I could repay you.’

      She opened her mouth, but closed it because nothing—coherent at least—would come out.

      ‘Anyway,’ Finn McLeod continued reasonably, ‘do you want this family turmoil of yours to continue?’

      ‘No, of course not—’ She broke off abruptly.

      ‘Do you want him back?’

      ‘No! Definitely not!’

      ‘Then this is one way to get a reunion over and done with. It’s one way to allow your sister to ride off happily into the sunset.’

      ‘But it’s a farce all the same!’

      ‘You know, my dear…’ he paused and studied her thoughtfully ‘…sometimes sticking to the straight and narrow truth-wise may be all very well—but it can also be a kind of self-righteousness that’s self-defeating.’

      She gazed at him with her lips parted.

      He smiled faintly. ‘You don’t want him back, you don’t want to be at odds with your family, you particularly don’t want to feel like a wall-flower at this wedding so—’

      ‘Don’t go on,’ Sienna interrupted stiffly.

      He grimaced and rubbed his jaw.

      ‘I feel awful now,’ she continued. ‘Really awful. Proud, insufferably priggish—’

      He laughed aloud. ‘Sienna, it was your idea in the first place! I’m just telling you I think it was a good one and a fitting exchange for all you’ve done for me.’

      ‘I—see.’ She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

      ‘So it’s a deal? No more doubts?’

      ‘It’s a deal,’ she said slowly.

      In bed that night, Sienna found she was puzzled.

      She and Finn had finished their coffee companionably as they’d watched the cricket, an exciting one-day international match. In fact so companionable had it been, she’d stayed to the end of the match.

      But, as the overhead fan revolved above her bed, she found herself trying to sum Finn McLeod up in the light of recent events, only to decide he was still something of an enigma.

      Yes, his decision to come to the wedding was a gesture she had to appreciate. Yes, he was good company with a rather dry sense of humour that she appreciated. Yes, she’d certainly spent a lot of time with him over the last few months so they did have a rapport of a kind and she was able to read him in some ways.

      For example, although they didn’t happen often, she’d learnt to identify his bad days just by looking at him. Days when he was pale and moody, haunted almost—and who wouldn’t be after what he’d gone through? And she’d adjusted her responses accordingly to purely businesslike.

      But it was hard to shake the feeling that he was—how to describe it?—a cool customer, and despite the quid pro quo he’d agreed to as a way of repaying her for what she’d done for him, why did she still feel there was something going on she didn’t understand?

      She reached above her and turned the fan to a higher speed, and closed her eyes as the faster air wafted over her skin. She did have an air-conditioning unit but she hated sleeping with the windows closed and in the air-conditioning.

      What on earth could be going on, though? she wondered. And why did she have this feeling? Because she had genuinely thought, when she’d stopped to think about it, that a wedding would be the last thing he’d want to go to after his own wedding plans had been so tragically destroyed.

      Because, she mused, she had thought that to have his name linked to another woman, even falsely, should not appeal to him after those same tragic events.

      Yet he’d been totally relaxed about it all. Or did that mean Finn McLeod had shut himself off, put his emotions on ice, in other words, because it was the only way he could cope?

      Finn had no reservations about taking advantage of air-conditioning to get a good night’s sleep, but even in the cool, climate-controlled atmosphere of the master bedroom of Eastwood he was having trouble sleeping that night.

      Of course, there was something else he could take advantage of, a sleeping pill, but he had grave reservations about becoming dependent on them, so he didn’t.

      And things were improving. The pain in his leg was gradually diminishing, he was getting more and more mobile, the terrible tearing, crashing nightmares were less frequent.

      The twisted remains of his life were another matter, however.

      And there was this mysterious urge he’d succumbed to, to force his physiotherapist to come to Waterford with him.

      His lips twisted as he recalled Sienna’s desperate indecision after flinging down her own gauntlet in the heat of the moment. But, if anything, it reinforced his belief that she was a thoroughly nice person.

      She was also attractive in her own quiet way. She was certainly capable, intelligent and, as СКАЧАТЬ