'Yes.' Quite abruptly she cut him off, allowed her attention to roam over the room, coming to rest with some longing on the group where Kyle was entertaining a gaggle of secretaries, Anna among them, with one of his much honed stories. 'Yes.' At last she was able to raise a smile, cool, falsely detached, and with it a carefully judged frown. 'It was at Oxford, wasn't it?' Her heart was thumping at her own hypocrisy. "That we met, I mean?'
From his instantly changed expression she saw that she had caught him on the raw, was perversely filled with regret as she encountered the narrow dark look, the tightened lips, and when he didn't answer she looked about her in an agony of discomfort, though even with her head averted she could feel the cold stare.
'You must forgive me.' Even when he was icily angry, as she had no doubt that he was, there was still this cadence in his voice, and also... She couldn't say what, except that it struck at her most precious and private memories, nudging at secrets which she had determined to keep hidden.
'Forgive?' Her raised eyebrow was mocking, though something in his expression close to disdain made her quail. 'You?' Nervously she looked down into her glass, then flicked back her long lashes, determined to continue her challenge.
'Forgive me, I was staring.' There again, a reminiscence which brought a flutter down her backbone, a surge to her nerve-endings, that voice with all its hints of intimacies shared. 'You remind me so strongly of someone I used to know... rather well.'
All her control was slipping now, her cheeks were aflame, and in a way she was glad he had been insensitive enough to remind her of all the times they had-----
Her fingernails cut into the palm of her left hand; it took a superhuman effort to summon a smile and she inclined her head faintly, for all the world like a duchess dismissing a footman, but in the second before she turned away she knew a glow of triumph.
None the less, for the rest of what turned out to be an interminable evening, it was impossible to avoid him. Perhaps, she tried to justify things, it was merely that he was so tall. Whenever she raised her head, there he was. And always he was making the evening for the bevy of women clustered round him, and it was an inexplicably melancholy fact that each one might easily have been a top model in a glossy magazine. There they all were, signalling interest so madly that if he had ever had any doubts about himself-an unlikely enough possibility-they would have been instantly dispelled and his own high opinion of Patrick Cavour reinforced.
She sipped at her drink rather desperately, longing to be detached but finding it impossible. Of. course he was, and always had been, something to look at. At six feet two or three, he was easily the tallest man in the room, and by a margin of light-years the most striking. He had olive skin and dark, almost black eyes, but for that curious little ring of iridescence round the iris, slightly tilted at the outer corners as if, somewhere way back in his ancestry, a bit of the Oriental had slipped in. Well, not that exactly, as she had found out that weekend she had spent with his family in County Wicklow, but there was some romantic nonsense about an ancestor having come ashore when the Armada was scattered.
He had quite the most attractive smile. Stomach-churning. Afraid of that powerful urge deep in her inside, she watched him laugh at something Ines da Silva had said, saw how the dark throat rose from the white collar, noted the appreciative way he was approving her flamboyant looks, and...
Leigh slid the tip of her tongue over dry lips, tried to pretend that the surging beat of her heart had something to do with the heat in the room. Certainly it had nothing to do with jealousy.
But it was undeniable that things took on a still more difficult aspect when she found herself sitting in the passenger seat of his car, being driven back to her flat. Coming downstairs with Anna, she had found Kyle in a flap because their official car had been delayed, and the chances of a taxi were non-existent. That was when someone who lived near had offered a lift to him and Anna.
'Don't worry about me, Kyle,' Leigh had said. 'I'll pick up the first available cab-there's bound to be one along sooner or later.'
'We're not going to abandon you here on your own, Leigh; I'm sure I can make some arrangement ...' And a moment later she had heard him asking Patrick Cavour if he would be kind enough to see her back to her flat, oblivious, or so it had seemed, to her protesting asides and her simmering resentment.
'Thank you.' When they drew up at the block of flats where she lived he opened the door, patient as she dealt with layers of skirt and petticoats, though she would have seen that his eyes were sardonic if she had chosen to observe them in the pale light of street-lamps. 'I'm perfectly all right now.'
'Nevertheless, I should prefer to see you safely inside.'
Her heels tapped angrily, and even the stir and rustle of silk should have been giving him a message as she swept towards the lift, her mind frantic with one question. Must she ask...? At her door they paused, he intent as ever as he watched her slide the key into the lock, and she decided that she must. 'If you would like some coffee...?' Instantly she was shamed by the grudging tone, which he was bound to pick up.
'What?' Mocking disdain. 'Do you mean there's a cafe on the corner?' It was so apt, so disingenuous that she flushed guiltily, tried to make amends.
'What I was going to say was that it would take only a few minutes, if you-----'
'Is that what you were going to say?' The gleam of white teeth was a mark of lofty disbelief, but at the same time the spark of anger was unmistakable. 'Only-----' he pushed back his cuff '-time is getting on, and I hope you won't be too disappointed if I refuse. You see, I'm catching a flight for New York in about two hours, and have just enough time to go back to my hotel and change. But-----' his faint bow was blatantly derisive '-I want you to know how much I appreciate your offer.' His arm came out, the hand resting on the wall above her head, and he loomed over her in that predatory way men had so that she knew he was going to kiss her.
So what? It happened all the time and meant exactly nothing. She had long ago learned to switch off; she and romance were so mutually estranged that it was easy, and just because he was the one who had taught her all she knew on the subject, it didn't mean she would succumb. In fact she almost welcomed the opportunity to let him know how little she felt, how totally outside his power she-----
'Goodnight, Miss Gregory.' He straightened up suddenly-so suddenly that for a moment she wondered, quite seriously, if he had been reading her mind, so unexpectedly that she felt a moment's resentment that he should take such an unfair advantage.
'Wh-what?'
'Goodnight. I must be going, so don't try to detain me...' There he was again, trying to have the last word...
She smiled brilliantly-what else was there for her to do? And she was relieved, after all. 'Goodnight, and thank you.' She had no intention of showing how taken aback she was and yet... perversely she was swept with a sense of regret. After all, he had once been her life... nearly every woman she knew would have given her eye-teeth for just such an opportunity.
Who could blame them? Standing where she was now, it could only reinforce her earlier opinion that he was the very attractive man he had always been-the scatter of silver at the temples merely added to his appeal. She had the notion that he would go grey very quickly, like his father, she remembered. Silver hair combined with such dark, forceful looks would be quite devast----
About to leave, he turned back suddenly, making her start nervously. 'Oh, and Leigh.' She had an idea that the Christian name was a mistake; he had meant to be more formal. 'I take back what I said. That girl I spoke of earlier-I see now the resemblance was an illusion. You're really nothing at all like her.'
His intention to wound was clear-and hadn't she herself handed him the weapon? Staring up into a face that was so cool and detached, she refused to allow him to know exactly how much it hurt.
'Goodnight.' Casually he turned away from her.
She saw him disappear into the lift as she went into her flat, slipping the bolt into position by sheer instinct, reaching the bedroom before the first sob burst from her chest; then, careless of her beautiful dress, she threw herself across the room and face down on to the bed, allowing the tears to stream down her cheeks on to the pillow.
At last they were spent. Exhausted, she turned, went to the bathroom to bathe her burning cheeks, hopelessly got out of her finery and into her nightdress, in the soothing dark with nothing but her own thoughts to disturb her. Because- she had to face facts-for years she had been living in her fool's paradise telling herself she was over it all, congratulating herself on her resilience, but one brief meeting and all that was swept aside.