She chose a fitted silk sheath that ended a couple of inches above her knees and left her lightly tanned arms bare. The colour matched her eyes and the fabric clung to every curve. Soon now she’d start to bulge, and have to wear tents, and after the birth she’d probably turn matronly—so if she wanted to look on the cool side of sexy while she still could, who was there to stop her? Certainly not her pig of a husband.
To counteract the sexy length of leg on view, the way the silk of her dress lovingly caressed the curve of breast, tummy and thigh, she pulled her hair back from her face in a elegant upswept style and touched her wrists with old-fashioned lavender water.
Cool and sexy, both. And if the enigma annoyed the man she wished she’d been sensible enough not to fall in love with, tough.
‘My goodness—you do look lovely!’ Catherine said as Elena joined her on the patio, where Jed was putting a selection of salads down on the table.
‘Thank you.’ Elena managed a smile as she sank into the padded seat next to her mother-in-law. She knew Jed had turned from what he’d been doing to look at her, but refused to meet his eyes. She’d been on the receiving end of too many contemptuous looks coming from him to go looking for more.
‘Believe it or not, I used to have a shape! Then the boys arrived, and that was that!’ Catherine’s eyes twinkled at her, and Elena thought, My God, one day she’s going to have to know she’s going to be a grandmother. Sam’s child.
She pressed the tips of her fingers to her temples. How would the older woman take the news? It seemed that every time she took a breath another problem popped up. The decision she and poor dead Sam had taken was creating unbelievable ripples—
‘I nodded off for a few minutes, I’m afraid, what with the sun and the wine and the worry of flying on my own for the very first time,’ Catherine was confessing, unaware of Elena’s boiling thoughts. ‘Or I would have changed for supper. Should I trot along and tidy up now?’
‘No.’ She didn’t want to be left alone with Jed. She still felt too raw to cope with any more of his hurtful comments. He’d disappeared back into the kitchen, but he could be back at any moment. The negative had come out too quickly, too harshly. Making a conscious effort, Elena smiled. ‘You’re fine as you are, really. I’d much prefer you to stay and chat!’
And chat she did, and was still at it when Jed finally appeared with a dish of pasta dressed with olive oil and garlic. ‘We seem to be running low on provisions,’ he commented mildly, not making it sound like a criticism for his mother’s benefit. ‘So we’ll make do with pasta and salads, OK?’
It would have to be. Elena hadn’t bothered to shop, hadn’t felt like eating during the last nightmare week, and his lumping them together, making them a ‘we’ made her disproportionally annoyed.
‘Scandalous, isn’t it, Catherine?’ Her smile was as cool as the way she was wearing her hair, as cool as her cologne. ‘We couldn’t bring ourselves to venture out into the real world, even for food.’
She did look at Jed then, saw that her taunt had rubbed salt into an open wound, watched his mouth tighten, his jaw clench, saw raw pain in his eyes and told herself she didn’t care. He could dish out hurt but he couldn’t take it. At least he could take it, she amended as she watched him hand dishes to Catherine, but he sure as hell didn’t like it.
‘Well, now,’ his mother commented comfortably, blissfully unaware of undertones. ‘That discussion I told you I needed.’ She dabbed olive oil from her mouth with a soft paper napkin. ‘As you know, Elena, your mother helped me organise your wedding reception, and I persuaded her to stay with me at Netherhaye while you were working back here before the wedding and Jed was tying up loose ends, as he called it, all over the place. And, to cut a long story short, we grew very friendly in a very short space of time. Now...’ She glanced at her son. ‘I don’t know whether I’m jumping the gun, but I rather hope you two will make Netherhaye your home, bring up your children there as your father and I did. It’s been in the family such a very long time.’
Elena caught the warning glint of steel in Jed’s smoky eyes and bit down hard on her lower lip, dragging it back between her teeth, holding back a cry of denial as Catherine went on, ‘I certainly don’t want to rattle around there on my own, and, despite intruding on you here for a few days, I’m of the opinion that newly weds don’t want to find a parent lurking around every corner, cramping their style. So, either way, I’ll be moving to somewhere very much smaller.’