She was right, and Lucy frowned slightly. The last time she had seen Neville he had been talking about a consortium he knew who might be interested in buying the Manor, but knowing Neville and his sharp practices Lucy doubted that any sale to Neville's friends would be very beneficial to Saul. She frowned harder, remembering how derogatory Neville had been about Saul the last time they met.
There had been an unpleasant degree of antipathy and contempt in his sneering comments about Saul's financial position and intelligence. She smiled rather grimly to herself. It might do Neville good to realise that Saul was not the hick country boy he seemed to think.
It didn't take her long to walk back from the vicarage. She had left the children in the care of Mrs Isaacs, and so she made her way up to the Manor without stopping at the Dower House.
When she got there there was no sign of Saul and Mrs Isaacs told her that he had had to go out on business.
'Had a phone call from America he did this morning,' she confided expectantly to Lucy, but Lucy refused to be drawn, collecting the children and thanking her for looking after them.
Some last-minute doubts about her book kept Lucy at her typewriter until late afternoon. Her study was at the back of the Dower House so she wasn't aware that Saul had returned until Oliver burst in announcing, 'Saul's back. He's in the kitchen talking to Tara and he wants to see you.'
Pushing back her machine she got up, automatically flexing stiff muscles as she followed Oliver into the kitchen.
Saul was perched on the edge of the kitchen table, his back towards her as he bent his head in apparent engrossment towards Tara who was busily confiding to him her hopes that fat little Harriet might come away from the local gymkhana with a much prized rosette. As she walked in she was just in time to hear Saul agreeing gravely with Tara's views.
His head was turned towards the little girl, the strong tanned column of his neck exposed, the dark hair curling into his nape. Lucy had to subdue an aching impulse to reach out and touch him, to place her lips to that warm brown skin and breathe in the vital male scent of him.
Almost as though her thoughts reached out to touch him he turned, his eyes darkening as he read the message in hers before she could conceal it. A tide of guilty colour ran up under her skin. She wasn't used to feeling such intense desire. Was Saul shocked by it? Amused?
A sense of uncertainty, of vulnerability, gripped her, leaving her feeling as embarrassed as a teenager held fast in the grips of an intense crush, and then Saul was smiling at her, his voice warm and vibrantly low, sending shivers of delight racing up and down her spine, as he said,
'I know you're away most of the day tomorrow, but I came to see if you'd have dinner with me in the evening. Tara tells me you've arranged for her and Oliver to stay at the vicarage.'
'Yes … I … Dinner would be lovely.'
He couldn't fail to be aware of her confusion, of the way he affected her, but there was no amusement or mockery in his eyes as he got off the table and came towards her, just a warmth that made her head suddenly feel extremely light and her legs oddly weak.
'What time do you leave in the morning?'
'Early,' she told him. 'I'm dropping the children off on my way.'
'Then I expect you'll want an early night tonight.' He smiled at her, warmly … intimately, she acknowledged, savouring that knowledge. If Tara and Oliver had not been there she thought he might have kissed her. Her heart started to thump unevenly, tiny frissons of excitement curling her nerve-endings.
* * *
'I like Saul, don't you?' Tara asked her later over supper. 'He's nice, isn't he?'
'Very nice,' Lucy agreed sedately while acknowledging to herself that 'nice' came nowhere near to describing Saul's personality.
As Saul had commented, she had intended to have an early night but although she went to bed, sleep eluded her, her mind not on the next day's interview, but on her dinner date with Saul.
Where would he take her? Somewhere quiet and secluded? A haunt of lovers? It seemed incredible that she, who had always been so cautious and withdrawn where men were concerned, should suddenly be so achingly eager for a man's desire. Even while part of her was faintly intimidated by the strength of her feelings for Saul, another part thrilled to the knowledge that she was woman enough to want him so intensely. Her lack of desire for her male escorts had never particularly worried her in the past-she had always been too busy to let it do so-but there was a tiny thrill of heady delight to be found in acknowledging how deeply Saul aroused her.
If she closed her eyes she could almost imagine the heat and pressure of his mouth on hers, his hands touching her flesh. The sensuous images that flashed across her closed eyes brought a slow ache to the pit of her stomach, activating a hitherto unsuspected vein of eroticism. Her tongue touched her suddenly dry lips, her nipples peaking urgently against the fine cotton of her nightdress.
Suddenly the night seemed far too warm, her body too keyed up for sleep. She wished it was tomorrow night and that she was with Saul …
Telling herself that such sexual urgency was undignified and foolish in a woman of twenty-five, she tried to control her disruptive thoughts and compose herself for sleep.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE heat in the centre of London struck her like a blow the moment she stepped out of the taxi. Her publishers had an office tucked away in a quiet and very exclusive mews, but the flowers in the smartly painted black and white tubs were rimmed with dust and looked tired.
She gave her name to the receptionist-a picture of glossy sophistication from her immaculately painted nails to her perfectly groomed hair. Once the sight of so much perfection would have automatically made her feel insecure, but now she could smile without envy at the other girl's city patina and even feel a little sorry for her because she was cooped up here in the heart of the hot city, and because she was not going home to have dinner with Saul.
She only had to wait ten minutes or so before going in to see her editor, and she passed the time glancing at the impressive-looking dust jackets displayed in the reception area. The publishers her uncle had referred her to handled fiction work in the main-they had several well-known names on their list; one of their writers was a well-known thriller writer, another a political correspondent turned faction author.
'Mrs Francis is ready to see you now.'
Dutifully Lucy followed the receptionist and was shown into a small office.
'Lucy, how are you my dear?'
Beverley Francis was only small, barely five foot two, her dark hair touched here and there with grey.
She and Lucy's uncle had been up at Oxford together, and she had the warm, but controlled, look of a woman secure in her position in life.
Shrewd brown eyes surveyed Lucy as she sat down.
'You look tired, and I'm not surprised. Your uncle was telling me the other day that things haven't been too easy for you since your father died.'
'Oh they haven't been too bad. There were one or two bumpy patches but we're over them now.'
'Umm … You've got your stepmother and the children living with you I believe?'
Lucy's sensitive ears caught the faintly critical note skilfully hidden within the words, and automatically defended her father's actions.
'Fanny isn't really emotionally capable of handling things alone at the moment … '
Looking at the finely-drawn features of the girl seated opposite her, Beverley Francis wondered a little at the thoughtlessness of a father who burdened a young woman with the welfare of his second wife and family. She had two stepchildren of her own-both married with families now-two girls whom she got on with very well indeed, but who by no stretch of her imagination could she see willingly taking on the role Lucy had been obliged to adopt.
'Look, I've booked our table for one o'clock,' she told Lucy, glancing at her watch. 'Shall we go straight there and discuss everything over lunch?'
When Lucy agreed, she got up, collecting her handbag and a small notebook.
The purpose of Lucy's visit wasn't mentioned again until they had been served with their main course, the conversation over their first course having been confined to Lucy's uncle and their days together at Oxford.
'We're really delighted with what you've done so far,' Beverley told Lucy without preamble, watching the tension ease out of her face. 'You do have a genuine natural flair for writing, Lucy. Of course there's a certain amount of smoothing out to be done, but nothing too drastic, and I can certainly tell you that we want to go ahead and publish. How much work have you done on the next book?'