Reluctant Wife(56)

He followed her gaze, and when she looked back at him he had one eyebrow raised and a wicked smile playing on his lips. ‘Roz…’



‘Don’t,’ she begged, and convulsively buried her head in his chest ‘Don’t tease me!’



Adam withdrew his hands and put his arms around her and she could feel him laughing. ‘It’s not funny,’ she said tensely, and thought she must be blushing from head to toe, so hot did she feel, and not only because of her incredible thoughts but because he had understood immediately.



‘Perhaps not,’ he said after a moment, ‘but wildly imaginative … and innovative,’ he added barely audibly.



Roz groaned. ‘Oh … it was you! I might … I might never be able to come in here again, let alone, give a dinner party … oh!’



But when he stopped laughing this time, and resisting her efforts to free herself, he said, ‘That would be a pity after all your hard work. And I shall very much enjoy coming in here again, and entertaining in here, because we’ll be able to share a very private joke, won’t we, my lovely, unexpectedly naughty but fascinating Roz?’



She caught her breath and forced herself to look, up at him at last.



‘Roz, don’t look like that. I’m sorry,’ he said with returning gravity.



Her lips quivered, then suddenly she was giggling helplessly, but there was a tap on the door then and she froze and thanked God she had her back to it, while Adam pressed her closer to him as Jeanette said,



‘Dinner is served, Mr Milroy … oh! Sorry! I didn’t mean … ‘



‘That’s all right, Jeanette,’ Adam said calmly over Roz’s head. ‘We’ll be there in a minute.’



‘Well, there’s no hurry. I’m sure Milly could … I mean… ‘



‘Don’t bother, Jeanette,’ said Adam seriously, but Roz could feel, the effort it cost him, while Jeanette apparently took the hint, because Roz heard her, walk away.‘



‘I told you!’ she whispered. ‘Now I haven’t only to face this room again, but them.’ She was laughing, though, and as he released her and carefully did up her buttons they laughed quietly together, although he did have the grace to look rather rueful.



‘There—all proper and prudent again,’ he murmured, and kissed her lips. ‘And I’ll help you face them.’ He took her hand.



But later that evening he was preoccupied again, and although he came to her bed, there was something restrained about his lovemaking, as if he had been dwelling on something that had doused their earlier encounter.





Roz was pondering it all the next morning as she unpacked her new treasures which had arrived in an early delivery.



She decided to set the table with the new linen and dinner service, just to see how it looked, and they were all three, she and Milly and Jeanette, admiring it when Lucia arrived.



‘Well, well,’ observed Lucia as Milly, who had gone to answer the door, ushered her into the dining-room, ‘Mother said you and she had gone on a shopping spree, Roz.’ She looked around critically. ‘Quite nice,’ she murmured.



Milly, who was standing behind her, raised her eyes heavenwards fleetingly but said, ‘I was just going to make Mrs Milroy some coffee, Mrs Whatney. Would you care for some?’



‘Thank you, Milly,’ said Lucia.



‘We’ll have it in the den, please, Milly,’ Roz requested. ‘Come through, Lucia. This is a … surprise.’



Lucia smiled a faint, cool smile, and Roz was reminded of the last time she had seen her sister-in-law on the fateful morning Nicky had tried to run away, and she recalled the venomous green glances she had been on the receiving end of and the sudden conviction she had



had that Lucia had bitterly resented her intervention on Richard and Nicky’s behalf. It occurred to her that Lucia might also resent her shopping spree with Flavia—or at least, what it represented—a closer relationship with Flavia.



But for about half an hour they drank their coffee and sampled the cook’s special melt-in-the-mouth shortbread and chatted quite amiably about nothing in particular.



Then Lucia asked abruptly, ‘How’s Adam?’



‘Fine. He’s in Sydney but due home tomorrow. Why … I mean, why do you ask?’



Lucia shrugged. ‘Oh, I just wondered. I must say you cope with it all very well, Roz. But then I did realise quite some time ago that yours was a … rather different marriage.’



Roz blinked. ‘What do you mean?’



‘Don’t get me wrong!’ Lucia waved an elegantly manicured hand. ‘I’m all in favour of businesslike marriages. Although I did expect Adam to be … well, more discreet about it. But you seem to be able to handle that, so …’ She stopped and glanced at Roz’s dazed, uncomprehending face. ‘Do you mean you didn’t know that he took his mistress to Japan with him? My dear, I happened. to have a close friend who was on the same flight, and they were not only together on the flight but together at the hotel in Tokyo! And she—this friend of mine—later happened to see him buying this gorgeous, fabulously expensive kimono for her the night after,’ she paused, then. went on significantly, ‘she’d seen him coming out of her bedroom. ‘Their… er … affair was rather well publicised some years ago, but of course Adam would never have married her.’