Second Chance with the Millionaire(6)

The soft peachy pink fabric with its pattern of muted greys and blues  emphasised her summer tan, at once making her hair seem fairer and her  eyes darker.

There was no time for her to bother with make-up and, quickly running a  brush through her shoulder-length hair, she slipped on a pair of  high-heeled sandals and hurried out of her room, almost colliding with  Oliver at the top of the stairs.

He was, she saw with a sinking heart, looking oppressively sulky, his  expression so like her father's that she wondered that she had never  realised the truth.

'What's wrong?'

He glowered at her. 'I don't want any lunch …  I don't want to have to talk to him …  I don't want him here, Lucy.'

'Maybe not, but he is here and he has every right to be here,' she said  as lightly as she could. 'Oliver, I do understand how you feel, but you  must try to realise how he feels as well. You don't want everyone to  think you resent the fact that he's inherited the Manor do you?'

He shook his head slowly 'I suppose not.'

'Good. Now come down and have your lunch. It's salmon. The colonel gave it to us.'

'Did he?' His face lit up. 'I wish I'd been there when he came. He might have told me some more about during the war.'

Lucy laughed, relieved to see his sulks banished.

'Well, there'll be plenty more opportunities to talk to him I'm sure.'  Deliberately she didn't let him go into the drawing-room alone,  propelling him slightly ahead of her as she opened the door.

Fanny was sitting in one of the armchairs facing the french windows and  to her astonishment Saul was standing close beside her, one arm casually  draped over Tara's shoulder as they all looked at something on her  knee.

'Oh there you are, Lucy dear … ' Fanny looked slightly flustered. 'I was  just showing Saul the photographs of our wedding. How pretty you look.  It isn't often we see you in a dress. That must be for your benefit,  Saul.' She smiled coyly up at him, blushing a little, while Lucy  mentally seethed. She knew her stepmother to be completely innocent of  any charge of guile, but nevertheless it was extremly galling that Saul  should think she had dressed especially for him.

'Well I could hrdly sit down to lunch in my work clothes,' was all she  said, but she was conscious of the mocking scrutiny in Saul's eyes as  she crossed the room with Oliver, and introduced him to the older man.

She was pleased to see that instead of talking down to him Saul shook  hands with the boy, gravely treating him very much as the man of the  house. Oliver visibly relaxed and Lucy gave a mental sigh of relief.  Oliver could be extremely intractable and sulky when he chose-the result  of too much laxity and spoiling, which she tried to counteract as best  she could, all too conscious that once Oliver went away to school he  would find that discipline was imposed upon him whether he liked it or  not. Here again she blamed her father for not taking a firmer hand and  not realising what a traumatic shock it could be for Oliver to go  straight from his mother's spoiling to the rigours of boarding school.

'Darling, I think we'd better go into the dining-room for lunch.' Fanny suggested. 'Will you bring it in?'

It was good to see Fanny rallying from her depression and taking an  interest in something once more and Lucy willingly complied, leaving the  others to make their way to the dining-room while she hurried to the  kitchen.                       
       
           



       

Everyone was seated when she went in with the asparagus.

The furniture in this room had been her mother's, and if the Sheraton  dining chairs were rather scratched and worn, they were still undeniably  elegant.

'Asparagus …  Very English,' Saul commented as Lucy served him. 'From here?'

'From the Dower House's garden, yes,' she agreed, making it plain to him  that the asparagus was not from the Manor. In point of fact the  vegetable garden attached to the Dower House was better stocked and  cared for-a legacy from one of their tenants who had been a keen  gardener.

She had the satisfaction of seeing the faint tide of colour creep up under his skin as he digested her remark.

'Lucy, really,' Fanny reproached her. 'There's no need for that. I'm  sure that Saul wouldn't have minded in the least had the asparagus come  from the Manor.'

The smile she directed towards him was one she had always used to good  effect on her husband, and, watching Saul respond to it, Lucy wondered a  little bleakly if she herself wouldn't be well advised to adopt a few  feminine wiles.

Not once had Saul smiled at her like that. Not once had he smiled at her at all.

'This is really delicious.'

He was looking at Fanny, who coloured modestly but said nothing.

Oliver, seated beside Lucy, frowned watching the by-play and then said sturdily, 'Mum didn't cook it-Lucy does all the cooking.'

She was aware of Saul looking at her, but refused to look back,  concentrating on her food until she felt the concentration of his gaze  slacken.

Fanny she saw was frowning slightly, not pleased by her son's comment.  'Poor Lucy has had to take charge of so much,' she told Saul, giving her  stepdaughter a little smile. 'I'm afraid I've been so prostrate with  misery that I haven't been able to do a thing.'

For a moment Lucy had to stifle a wild desire to remind her stepmother  that never once since the start of her marriage had she shown the  slightest interest in running the Manor, but she stifled it at birth,  telling herself that she was being unfair. Fanny was Fanny and that was  that.

'I'll go and get the main course,' she said calmly instead, quickly collecting the plates and heading for the door.

Saul reached it before her, his forearm touching her body as he leaned across her to open the door.

A frisson of sensation shivered through her, so unexpected as to be  faintly shocking, and she drew back from him as though her skin burned.

'Am I correct in thinking I recognise the Sheraton?'

No one else could overhear the remark because Saul had his back to the room and she was almost through the door.

'Yes,' she agreed curtly. 'It belonged to my mother and she willed it to me.'

There! Let him make what he liked of that!

The remainder of the meal passed all too slowly for Lucy. She was aware  of Saul and Fanny conversing, but made no attempt to take part in their  conversation. Saul praised the salmon and its accompanying sauce,  looking at her this time, but she made no response. His remark about the  furniture still hurt. Hurt? She examined the word covertly. Why should  she feel hurt? Anger would be far more appropriate.

'Do you see much of Neville these days?'

The unexpected question caught her off guard and, remembering how she  and Neville had treated him that summer, she coloured a little.

'Oh Neville's a regular visitor,' Fanny answered for her, giving her a  teasing smile. 'Although she always denies it I suspect Lucy has a soft  spot for him. Of course he's a very popular young man, more so since  he's taken over his father's position in the business. Did you know  about his connection with Holker's, the publishers? He was most helpful  to Lucy with her book, wasn't he darling?'

Lucy felt her spirits plummet. It was all too easy to guess at the conclusions Saul had arrived at from Fanny's artless speech.

'It was my uncle who recommended Bennett's to me, not Neville,' she  reminded her stepmother. 'We don't see quite so much of Neville as we  once did.' she added, looking directly at Saul, 'but he does come down  occasionally.'                       
       
           



       

He ignored her last statement to comment, with what she was sure was  faked admiration, 'So you're writing a book. I'm most impressed Lucy.  What's it about?'

As though he, too, had sensed the derision behind the surface pleasantry of the words, Oliver answered for her.

'It's all about the Martin family …  And Lucy spends hours in the library  reading all about them. It's going to be really good when it's  finished.'

Fanny laughed indulgently. 'Really, Oliver darling. He quite dotes on  Lucy,' she told Saul over the latter's head. 'Sometimes I feel quite  jealous. But then of course the children have been spending so much time  with her recently. And then of course, living here …  in her house.'

There was a sudden silence while Lucy gazed incredulously at her  stepmother. Did Fanny resent the fact that the Dower House had been left  to her?

She frowned, shocked by the thought, swiftly banishing it. It was  because Saul was here that she was having these unfair thoughts.

'Tell me more about this book of yours.'

Saul's question caught her off guard, a faint frown pleating her forehead as she looked at him.

'There isn't very much to tell really. I've finished the draft of the  first book, and I'm due to go to London next week to discuss it with the  publishers.'

'Mmm. What is it exactly? A history of the Martin family?'

'No …  not really, although I have used family papers and diaries as a  background. It's a fiction work not a factual one, but by using the  family documents I've been able to give it a strongly factual  framework.'