He returned moments later with a latte for her and some mineral water for himself which he drank straight from the bottle.
‘So…’ he leaned forward, his hands loosely linked between his legs ‘…why don’t you ditch the pleasantries, Georgie and cut to the chase?’
‘Ah.’
Pierre sighed impatiently. The emails could happily wait for a couple of hours, allowing him to savour the rare opportunity of watching her squirm, but Jennifer, his carefully arranged date, could not. He decided to speed things along a bit and help her out of her obvious misery.
‘You haven’t travelled all the way from Devon to give me a hard time about my choice of lifestyle. And you’ve told me that my mother is fine—’
‘Ish.’
‘Fine…fine-ish. At any rate if there was anything wrong I would know about it by now. Which just leaves us with one possible reason why you might have undertaken a four-hour trip to spring a visit…’
‘It does?’
‘Money.’ Pierre sat back, sipped some of his water and continued to watch her. ‘Makes the world go round,’ he said lazily, ‘or not, in some cases. So how have you managed to get into debt, Georgie?’ He played over a few scenarios in his head. ‘I thought a teacher’s salary in Devon could go a pretty long way. Not much there to spend the pennies on, after all…’
Georgie momentarily found herself distracted and bristled at his criticism. ‘No clubs like this, at any rate, Pierre. But I wouldn’t say you spent money in a place like this. More wasted it! Anyway, I haven’t come here to—’
He held up one imperious hand. ‘…argue with me. Yes, yes, yes. I understand that, although I notice that you just can’t seem to help yourself. It’s that bossy boots disposition of yours, Georgie. If you don’t watch it, you’ll end up organising the local Women’s Institute…and don’t burst a blood vessel just because I happen to be telling you the truth. I mean, you can’t even keep that tongue of yours under check when you’ve come here to ask a favour from me! Because you have, haven’t you? Come to ask me a favour…’
Technically speaking, Georgie supposed that that was trueish and, while she briefly pondered how he had managed to shove her into the role of beggar when she wasn’t, she caught him smiling smugly at her and shaking his head.
Unfortunately, while she wanted to jump in and vigorously set him straight, actually telling him why she had madly hopped on a train to London was beginning to present itself to her in all its dubious glory. She would just have to let him ramble on for a bit while she tried to rationalise what she wanted to say and work out how she had managed to forget just how objectionable the man was.#p#分页标题#e##p#分页标题#e#
‘Okay. Spit it out. Where has your money gone?’ Pierre raised his eyebrows in a question. Close up she could see that those blue eyes which she had always imagined to be as cold as the winter sea, could also darken when he was amused, as he now evidently was at her expense. ‘House extension for a few more animals?’ He appeared to be giving the conundrum a great deal of thought. ‘Luxurious chicken coop because they deserve the best? No? Well, I can’t imagine you having expensive taste in clothes and jewellery…’ He looked her up and down and Georgie scowled back at him in return. That was one thing he had always been very good at. Making her feel gauche and unappealing when it came to her choice of clothing. She had never had conventional taste when it came to what she wore, and over the years she had come to recognise that expression in those blue, blue eyes when he looked at her as a sort of vague, unspecified contempt.
But then the man lacked imagination. She only had to think of the women he had brought back to his parents; house over the years. Humourless intellectuals who had been fine rabbiting on about world affairs, economics and the British legal system but at a loss discussing anything else.
‘It’s not practical wearing designer suits to teach kids,’ Georgie felt compelled to defend herself.
‘Did I imply that it was?’
‘You didn’t have to.’
‘So it’s not the clothes because, as you pointed out, you don’t see the point of wearing anything expensive or feminine—’
‘I never said that!’
‘If you’re not in long gypsy style-skirts, you’re wearing jeans, Georgie. I think there’s a distinct possibility that you emerged from the womb clad in various layers of flowered fabric. So we’ve established that it’s not excessive retail therapy. Hmm.’ He watched her splutter with a feeling of satisfaction. Hard to occupy the moral high ground when your secret vices had caught you out!