Jessica Steele - A Pretend Engagement

He carried his own used dishes over to the sink, but wasn’t yet done with his questions, apparently. ‘This man, the one you had coffee with—is he the married one who…?’

‘I never said my friend was a man.’

Leon Beaumont looked loftily down at her. ‘You’re saying your friend was female?’

She felt a fool again. She did not like the feeling. ‘Do you give all your—your staff this—um—third degree?’ she questioned hostilely.

He smiled. He actually smiled. It did wonders for the mostly severe expression she was more used to. She wasn’t sure that her heartbeats did not give a little flip—utter nonsense, of course—but it did make her see, as Johnny had told her, why women fell for him like ninepins. Not her, of course. Heaven forbid.

‘Not all of them,’ he drawled. ‘But you’re so delightful to wind up.’

The pig! He was baiting her for his own amusement! While she admitted that there was not very much going on around here in the way of entertainment, she did not take kindly to the fact that he was amusing himself by getting her to rise—that she was the star turn! How she hid the fact that she would like to crack the plate in her hands over his head, she did not know.

‘Thanks a bunch!’ she told him huffily. ‘I’ll let you know when dinner’s ready.’

‘Your friend knows you’re here at Aldwyn House?’ he stayed to enquire, ignoring her hint that she hoped not to see him again before dinner.

‘I expect so,’ she answered carefully.

‘You didn’t say what you were doing here?’ Leon Beaumont’s tone had hardened, as he reminded her how much he wanted his whereabouts kept secret.

For about two seconds she played with the idea of saying that she had. Then thoughts of Johnny were there again. Perishing brothers! ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I didn’t think you’d like me to tell him.’

‘Are you having coffee with him again?’ he wanted to know, taking in his stride the information that her friend had been male, as he had thought.

She shook her head. ‘Russell is returning to his home in Caernarvon soon,’ she replied.

‘Good!’ Leon Beaumont grunted, and, taking up the newspaper from the top of one of the units, where she had put it, he went casually out from the kitchen.

Varnie did not mistake that that ‘Good!’ was anything other than good because it meant there was someone less for her to blab to about his whereabouts. The man did not care a jot how many men she had coffee with, that much was certain. His privacy was all that concerned him. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

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