Sophisticated Seduction

‘If you want me to believe that, you’d better stop those speculative looks I keep catching from you,’ he advised her coolly. ‘Not that they’d get you anywhere. I’m not interested in initiating innocents. So what are you really hoping for with all this?’

‘If anything, that once you’ve got a good meal inside you you’ll become human enough to respect the promise I made Virginia,’ she said flatly, following it with a shrug. ‘If not, I’m sorry—but I’m still sorry; you’ll just have to wait until she phones with an explanation.’

‘If she phones.’ Nicholas spoke equally flatly and was then silent, scrutinising her mercilessly for some time before apparently deciding to abandon the topic, if only for now. ‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-one.’ Bridget concentrated on the delicately flavoured pink-tinted chicken on her plate.

The fact that his surprise was entirely genuine was hardly flattering.

‘I was imagining you as about eighteen, and probably still living at home with your parents.’

‘Then perhaps you’ll realise at last that you’re wrong about a lot of other things as well,’ she snapped.

‘All the same, I hardly think the twenty-one counts for much,’ he remarked slightingly. ‘If anything, it increases the likelihood that you are in fact hoping either to satisfy your curiosity, or at least to make some sort of gesture that will proclaim you irrevocably an adult woman.’

‘I can promise you I don’t feel the least curiosity about you, and I don’t know why you think being thirty-four makes you so superior. It just makes you cynical and decadent and—and used!’ she concluded inarticulately.

‘Do you mean used up?’ he quipped. ‘Not yet, darling. Not by a long way.’

‘Obviously not,’ she allowed tartly, ‘judging by Wanda and your army of female fans who’ve been arriving at the door all week, hoping they’d find you, when they realised someone was living in the house. You’d better gladden their hearts by letting them know you’re in town, hadn’t you? There was an air hostess, and someone from the Embassy, and a girl from AIR.’

Laughter lurked in his eyes. ‘Are you very shocked?’

‘Why should I be? They didn’t say so, but they all struck me as being single—not like Troy Varney,’ she added impulsively, picturing the rock star’s wife who managed to be one of the most glamorous women in England despite a downbeat style that somehow mixed raggle-taggle with Goth.

It banished the amusement and she saw his features tauten slightly.

‘Ah, so that did shock you,’ Nicholas surmised silkily. ‘Are you expecting me to defend myself, Bridget?’

‘Hardly!’ she snapped.

‘At least you possess that much intelligence.’ Somehow the insolent comment carried a warning edge, cautioning her against trespassing further, but then his mood changed as something else occurred to him. ‘Tell me one thing. I think you can do it without breaking your promise. This man Virginia is supposedly in love with. Is he married?’

‘Separated years ago,’ she answered him, hoping it wasn’t something Virginia would count as a betrayal, but sensing real concern behind the question.

Now she thought she detected a flicker of relief in the grey eyes, and she supposed the way he managed and directed his family’s lives could be ascribed to protectiveness, even if he did take it too far, to the point of interference. Of course, given his own past relationship with Troy Varney, he couldn’t have any moral objections to Virginia’s becoming involved with a married man, so presumably he simply wanted her to be spared the sort of pain that was integral to relationships in which one partner wasn’t free.

During the remainder of the meal, Nicholas questioned her about the materials she would be buying for Ginny’s. Bridget had a feeling that he was testing her, but she responded equably, talking about the heavy silks in brilliant contrasting colours that Virginia wanted from the south, white voile with chikan embroidery from Uttar Pradesh, Benares or Varanasi brocades, lovely off-white shot with gold from Bengal, Chanderi cottons with their tiny floral motifs in gold, expensive and beautiful Jamdani muslins, an inch of which it might take eight men a day to weave, summer material from the Deccan, the variations in texture rather than patterns favoured by the Maheshwari, and the intricate designs woven by a secret process handed down from generation to generation that characterised the Baluchar fabrics.

‘Show-off,’ Nicholas murmured when she paused, and Bridget laughed.

‘Just trying to ease your suspicious mind,’ she corrected him limpidly.

‘So you know a bit, but I still don’t trust you, Bridget, and I mean to keep an eye on you, at least until I have Virginia’s assurance that you haven’t somehow manoeuvred her into giving you this assignment,’ he warned her casually.

‘Because my word on that isn’t good enough for you?’ she challenged scathingly.

‘I don’t know you,’ he pointed out.

‘Whereas you know your family are always honest?’ she prompted bitterly, with a thought for the way Loris had misled her, not with outright lies, admittedly, but through his silence about the other woman in his life. ‘Sita says you don’t like puddings, so there isn’t one. Shall I make coffee?’

‘I’ll do it, as you helped cook.’

He started to, but she swiftly began to suspect that he was doing it to avoid having to offer to help clear the table as it became obvious that he was not at home in a kitchen.

‘You’re in the way,’ she told him softly after a few minutes.

A slow smile transformed his face as he stood still, regarding her curiously.

‘That’s a very old-fashioned attitude, but then I suppose you’re too young yet to have been domestically exploited by my sex… And this makes you look even younger! Why are you blushing?’

He had reached round behind her to tug gently at her long, shining plait, the action catching her unawares. Suddenly incapable of moving, Bridget stood staring at him. She could feel his long, lean fingers against the back of her neck, and she was pierced by a sharp needle of sensation, oddly pleasurable and yet utterly disconcerting at the same time, dismaying and embarrassing her.

‘I’m… Nothing! It’s you! I’m just not used to—to living with anyone else,’ she prevaricated, aware of how gauche it sounded and blushing even more deeply.

Nicholas took his hand away, a speculative gleam in his eyes as Bridget retreated a step.

‘This isn’t exactly living together. Believe me, you’d find it a revelation if we were.’

‘I meant I’m not used to sharing a house with a stranger,’ she corrected herself, just before resentment got the better of her. ‘You take delight in trying to embarrass me, don’t you?’

‘Judging by this emotional reaction, I gather you find the whole situation embarrassing—or improper, Bridget?’ he taunted, his eyes seeming to study her hairline, observing the silky dark hair shadowing her temples, fine as a baby’s, the growth too new and short to be pulled back with the rest of her hair. ‘Relax—as I’ve said, I’m not interested in young, untouched girls, however lovely they promise to be, so you’re not in any need of a chaperon.’

It incensed her, goading her to rash retaliation. ‘Are you sure you don’t need one, though, Nicholas?’

Somehow she didn’t just see his slashing smile. She felt it too, cutting into some tender centre of sensitive emotion deep within her.

‘Oh, I think I can cope should you decide to leap on me in some frenzy of girlish lust,’ he claimed sardonically, and paused deliberately. ‘Nevertheless, I’m seriously advising you not to get any ideas of that sort where I’m concerned, sweetheart, because you wouldn’t enjoy my method of dealing with either infatuation or curiosity.’

‘You—’ Bridget was too enraged to find words. ‘Arrogant—I wouldn’t!’

‘What was that?’ He pretended not to understand, slanting her another brilliantly mocking smile. ‘You’re somewhat incoherent. Calm down, you baby. As I’m in the way, I’ll remove myself.’

But Bridget couldn’t calm down. She had never met anyone so utterly and deliberately provocative, and her fury was exacerbated by her confusion over the sensation that had assailed her when she had felt his fingers against the back of her neck so briefly.

When the coffee was ready, she took a tray through to the living-room, the faint fragrance of sandalwood that permeated the room for once failing to soothe her. Nicholas was scanning the front page of a newspaper and she would have liked to slam the tray down on to the low table beside him, but she had too much respect for the intricate inlay of delicate slivers of pastel semiprecious stones that adorned its upper surface.

‘Aren’t you having any?’ he asked, noticing the single cup and saucer.

‘Not with you,’ she snapped, and his face hardened visibly. ‘And I’ve only brought this here for you because I was the one who told you you were in the way!’

‘How very fair-minded of you! Off to your lonely bed to spend the night crying over your lost love or whatever he is again?’ he prompted unkindly.

‘No!’ Bridget denied it fiercely.

‘Here’s some free philosophy for you. I’ve often thought it might be of comfort to those of you who play this game of love.’ His tone had grown thoughtful. ‘I believe it evens out eventually, like bad line-calls in tennis. Next time around, it’ll be someone agonising over you, and even if the guy you’re crying over at present isn’t suffering over you he will be some day, over someone else.’

He wouldn’t say that if he knew it was his cousin Loris who had been responsible for her tears, Bridget reflected with wan humour. He would know Loris too well to believe in such an eventuality. Stirling men were all alike.