Regency Betrayal. Julia Justiss

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СКАЧАТЬ she and Andrew had departed.

      ‘ ’Night,’ Penny echoed. ‘You look lovely, Mummy.’

      ‘Thank you, darling.’ There was a catch in her voice. It was so long since she had received a compliment, a compliment of any sort, that tears came unbidden to her eyes.

      Damn! She had been all ready to go, and now she would have to recheck her make-up. If she were late Andrew wouldn't be pleased. This company dinner meant a lot to him. He would be downstairs charming Peg at the moment, despite the other woman's seventeen years’ seniority. Andrew couldn't be in the same room as a woman and not try and win her over. It had been this same easy charm that had attracted Jessica to him in the first place, the same charm that all his other women found so fascinating, the same charm that had destroyed them.

      She went back to her bedroom, the room she had slept in alone since Penny had been three months old. Andrew's room was next door, but more often than not it was unoccupied during the night hours; his stumblings into the house during the early hours of the morning were a regular thing, although with this latest affair he usually only just managed to get in before Penny got up to go to school.

      Jessica studied her reflection in the mirror. Mm, not bad. Andrew had insisted on giving her money for a new dress, and the royal blue crushed velvet of the gown made her eyes appear an even deeper blue, her hair almost silver. She looked cool and confident, and she only hoped she could act that way. Andrew had worked for Sinclairs for two years now, in the Sales Department, but this year was the first time he had invited her to attend one of their annual summer dances. The previous year she had stayed at home to look after an ailing Penny, and Andrew had gone on his own. She doubted he had left the same way. Andrew attracted women like bees around honey, his dark good looks and teasing blue eyes being attractive to most women, his air of recklessness adding to his challenge.

      He stood up as soon as she entered the lounge, and she could view dispassionately the way the navy blue suit emphasised the breadth of his shoulders, his tapered waist and muscled thighs. His dark hair was worn over-long, deliberately so, and his features were so perfect he was almost beautiful.

      ‘We'd better be going,’ he said tersely, moving his car keys impatiently from one hand to the other, looking older than his twenty-seven years.

      ‘You look wonderful, Jessica.’ Peg filled Andrew's omission, ‘Really lovely, doesn't she, Andrew?’ Her voice hardened over the last.

      Jessica bit her lip. Peg wasn't fooled by Andrew's winning ways in the least. She had been their next-door neighbour for two years now, and she knew exactly what Andrew was like. In fact, Peg was always advising her to leave him, if only to teach him a lesson. Peg seemed convinced that this was the jolt Andrew needed to stop his affairs. There was no possibility of her ever leaving Andrew, not with what he knew about her.

      Andrew gave her a cursory glance, more of a glower really. ‘Yes,’ he snapped. ‘Now are you ready?’

      ‘I just have to get my jacket——’

      ‘I'll get it.’ He strode off impatiently, scowling heavily.

      Peg raised her eyebrows; she was an attractive brunette with twelve years of happy marriage behind her, and was obviously slightly bewildered by Jessica's own marriage. ‘Big night?’ she teased.

      ‘Andrew's just tense,’ Jessica excused his rudeness. ‘Getting on at Sinclairs means a lot to him. The Sales Manager is retiring at the end of the year, and Andrew would like his job.’

      ‘Isn't he a little young for that?’

      She shrugged. ‘I suppose he could be, I don't really know.’ Andrew rarely discussed his work with her, in fact she felt sure he had only mentioned the Sales Manager's job to her because he wanted to be sure she made a good impression tonight. ‘He seems to think he can do it.’

      ‘Then he probably can,’ her friend laughed. ‘That young man can do anything he sets his mind to.’

      Not quite anything, but she wasn't going to tell Peg that. The explanation would be too embarrassing to herself. ‘If Penny should come down——’

      ‘She will, you know she will,’ Peg chuckled.

      ‘Yes,’ Jessica smiled. ‘Well, I shouldn't worry about it too much. It's Friday, so she doesn't have school tomorrow.’

      ‘Whatever you say,’ the other woman accepted. ‘I'll be glad to have her company.’

      ‘Here,’ Andrew came back, handing Jessica's jacket to her. ‘Let's go,’ and he walked out to the car.

      ‘See you later,’ she told Peg breathlessly as she struggled into her jacket, hastily following Andrew.

      He was already seated behind the wheel, having no intention of opening the car door for her. Jessica saw something glittering on the floor as she got in, and bent to pick it up. It was a woman's compact, and it looked expensive.

      ‘Lisa's?’ She held it up.

      Andrew turned to her with a start, his attention momentarily diverted from his driving. ‘What did you say?’

      She drew in a steadying breath, knowing it would do no good for her to lose her temper. ‘I wondered if this were Lisa's.’

      His face darkened. ‘How the hell did you find out about her?’

      ‘Guess,’ she said bitterly.

      ‘Penny!’

      ‘Yes. Andrew, I won't have her involved in your affairs. If you want to——’

      ‘You won't have her involved?’ he repeated scornfully. ‘Who asked for your opinion?’

      ‘Can't you see that she'll very soon start to make the connection——’

      ‘So what if she does?’

      She paled. ‘Andrew, you can't——’

      ‘Who says I can't?’ he scowled. ‘Who's going to stop me? You?’

      Jessica flinched at the contempt in his voice. ‘I won't have her involved,’ she repeated firmly. ‘You won't take her out with one of your women again.’

      An angry flush coloured his cheeks, a pulse beating erratically in his cheek. ‘And what are you going to do if I do? Deny me the pleasure of your bed?’ he mocked bitterly.

      Jessica paled even more. She should be used to his insults by now, and yet she could still be hurt by them. And he knew it, deriving great pleasure from denting the shell she had bult up about her emotions.

      ‘But then it never was a pleasure, for either of us, was it?’ he added scathingly.

      ‘Andrew——’

      ‘Beautiful—and frigid,’ he continued sneeringly.

      ‘I'm not——’

      ‘When a woman hasn't slept with her husband, or had the inclination to, for over five years then there has to be something wrong with her. And don't try and put the blame on me again,’ he snapped. ‘None of the other women I've slept СКАЧАТЬ