The Baby Claim

‘No. Do you?’

She shook her head. ‘Secretly I detest the stuff.’

‘Your secret’s safe with me,’ he assured her.

Joss relaxed against the pillar, surprised to find she rather welcomed the man’s company after all. It was certainly preferable to her own. ‘Are you one of Hugh’s friends?’

‘No.’ He shrugged rangy shoulders. ‘I’m a friend of a friend. Who dragged me along.’

She looked him up and down, amused. ‘You’re a bit on the large side to be dragged anywhere. Why were you unwilling?’

‘I’m no party animal. But the friend disapproves of my social life. Or lack of it.’ He leaned comfortably on the other side of the pillar. ‘All work and no play is bad for me, he tells me. With monotonous frequency. So once in a while I give in and let him have his way. Don’t drink that if you’d rather not,’ he added.

‘I’ve been on mineral water so far. Maybe a dose of champagne will improve my mood.’ She drank the wine down like medicine.

Her companion nodded slowly. ‘I see.’

She tilted her head to look at him. ‘You see what, exactly?’

‘I’ve been watching you for some time. Noting your body language.’

She stared up at him in mock alarm. ‘What did it say?’

‘That something’s not right with your world.’

‘So you came charging to my aid with medicinal champagne.’ She shook her head in pretend admiration. ‘Do you often play Good Samaritan?’

‘No. Never.’

‘Then why now?’

He leaned closer. ‘Various reasons. But mainly because I’m—curious.’

‘About what, in particular?’

‘The mood behind the smiles.’

‘I’d hoped I was concealing that,’ Joss said gruffly, and turned away to stare across the park.

‘No one else noticed,’ he assured her.

‘I hope you’re right. The last thing Anna needs is a spectre at the feast.’

‘Anna’s a friend of yours?’

‘Oldest and closest. But too euphoric tonight to notice anything amiss.’

Her large companion moved until his dark sleeve brushed her arm, and to her astonishment Joss felt a flicker of reaction, as though he’d actually touched her.

‘Do you live with Anna?’ he asked.

‘No, I don’t,’ she said flatly, and shivered.

‘You’re cold,’ he said quickly. ‘Perhaps you should go in.’

‘Not yet. But you go, if you want.’

‘Do you want me to?’

‘Not if you’d prefer to stay,’ she said indifferently, but hoped he would. In the dim light all she could make out was the man’s impressive height, topped by a strong-featured face under thick dark hair. But what she could see she liked very much.

‘Take this.’ He shrugged out of his jacket and draped it round her shoulders, enveloping her in a warm aura of healthy male spiked with spice and citrus. ‘Otherwise you might get pneumonia in that dress,’ he said, his voice a tone deeper.

Joss gave a laugh rendered slightly breathless by the intimacy of the gesture. ‘You don’t approve of my dress?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘If you were mine I wouldn’t let you out in it.’

Joss gave him a sub-zero stare. ‘Really!’

‘I’m not famous for tact,’ he said, lips twitching. ‘You asked a question and I answered it.’

‘True,’ she acknowledged, and thawed a little. ‘The dress was very expensive, in honour of the occasion. I like it.’

‘So do I!’

The dress was an ankle-length tube of black crêpe de Chine, edged with lace at the hem and across the breasts, held up by fragile straps and side-slit to the knee. Joss looked down at herself, then shot an amused look at her companion. ‘But you don’t approve?’

‘No.’

‘And I was so sure I looked good in it,’ she said with mock regret.

‘Every man present thinks you look sensational,’ he assured her.

‘Except you.’

‘Especially me. But it’s a very ambiguous dress.’

Joss found she was enjoying herself. ‘A strange word to describe a frock.’

His deep-throated chuckle vibrated right through the fine bespoke suiting, sending a trickle of reaction down her bare spine.

‘It may be a party dress to you,’ he went on, ‘but to me it smacks of the bedroom.’

Her chin lifted. ‘I assure you it’s not a nightgown. I don’t sleep in this kind of thing.’