Jessica Steele - Marriage In Mind

At around ten-thirty Mrs Wakefield senior made noises about going to bed, and Astra said she must be off. ‘Can’t we persuade you to stay a little while longer?’ Thomson enquired charmingly.

But he accepted pleasantly when she said she’d had a lovely evening, but really felt she must go. She made her goodbyes, and both Thomson and Yancie came out to her car with her.

‘You’re all right, Astra? You’re not fretting about…’

‘Of course I’m all right,’ Astra laughed, and added, immediately on her cousin’s wavelength, ‘I’m having a wonderful rest while I decide what I’d like to do.’

‘I’m sure you won’t need my help,’ Thomson inserted, ‘but you’d be an asset to my company if you’re interested in career advancement with Addison Kirk,’ its chairman offered.

Yancie beamed, and Astra felt touched and, her cool and aloof image having no place in family, she kissed them both. She drove off, catching sight of them in her rear-view mirror, arms around each other, strolling back to the house. She drove to the party in the most contented frame of mind she had been in all week. It was not to last.

Astra found the house she was looking for without any trouble, and parked the Porsche in about the only place available. The house was large, the cars in the drive many. It was, she guessed, a big party. And well under way.

She rang the doorbell. A good-looking man opened the door. He was not her host, however, but someone merely passing when the bell had sounded.

He seemed much cheered to see her. ‘I was thinking of going home, but things are looking up,’ he leered. Spare me! Astra gave him a look that should have told him ‘Don’t let me stop you’ but he was not to be put off. ‘Leigh Jenkins,’ he introduced himself, his eyes making a meal of her trim shape in her black velvet trousers and black lace top.

‘Hello,’ she answered coolly, and walked past him to where, through wide open double doors, she could see the party was in full swing.

She stood just inside the entrance of the crowded room. But before she could do more than look to her left Greville was there. ‘I’ve been keeping an eye open for you,’ he beamed, and as always gave her a hug and a kiss.

Astra was still in his cousinly arms, in fact, when she had a strange sensation that someone was watching her. She looked to the right—and just couldn’t believe it! She was being watched! And her heart seemed to turn over. So much for thinking she would never see Baxendale again! There he was, tall, sardonic, those dark eyes inscrutable, looking unblinking at her.

She tilted her chin—and looked through him. He was close enough for her to see that he didn’t care very much for that. Good! She couldn’t have been more pleased, and pulled out of her cousin’s hug to smile up at him and ask, ‘How’s it going?’

He bent to whisper in her ear, ‘She’s here; I’ll introduce you.’

Over the next hour Greville introduced her to many people, though since he was being careful nothing should betray his most private of emotions at the end of that hour Astra had not the smallest notion as to which of the affable women he had introduced her to was the one.

Thankfully, he either did not know Sayre Baxendale or that man was not in the vicinity. But Greville did not get around to introducing Baxendale, anyhow. Though while she would have welcomed refusing to shake his hand had she had the chance she had no wish to embarrass her cousin. Greville and the family knew some of the details of the mistake she had made that had caused her to resign, but for reasons of confidentiality she had not mentioned any names.

Greville had no idea that she would rather spit in Sayre Baxendale’s eye than say ‘How d’you do’ nicely to him. Though that probably went for Baxendale, as well. He’d probably cut her dead regardless of embarrassing anyone, should Greville attempt any such introduction. She was definitely persona non grata.

That thought made her angry. Not that she wanted the scurvy knave to speak to her. But her mistake had been a genuine one, and once she had known of it she had swiftly taken steps to put it right. So why was she getting upset that Baxendale thought her more interested in her commission than in her client?

Ridiculous—she wasn’t upset, though she had to own that the party had started to pall. ‘Um, do you want me to stay to the end?’ she asked Greville.

‘Had enough?’

She felt mean. She was here to support Greville. What she wanted didn’t come into it. ‘Not at all,’ she smiled.

‘I’ll come too. We’ll just say goodbye to our hosts,’ he decided.

‘No, Greville!’ she protested. ‘We’ll stay and…’

‘We’ll go—and you’ve been a real pal.’

‘I’m dying to know which one?’ she stretched up to whisper in his ear.

He laughed delightedly. ‘You couldn’t tell? Didn’t see? Couldn’t guess?’

‘Not by word or look,’ she confirmed.

‘Whew! That’s a relief!’ Their heads were bent in close conversation. ‘I feel so—all melty inside whenever I look at her. I felt sure it would show.’

‘You must have learned to keep your expression deadpan in the boardroom.’ Astra might have added more, only just then she happened to glance across the room—and caught Sayre Baxendale’s dark-eyed, hostile gaze head-on.

Words died on her lips, but even as she adopted a cool pose and looked elsewhere she seemed powerless to be aware of anything but him. And then Greville was saying firmly, ‘Come on, sweetheart, let’s find our hosts.’

By the time they had thanked their hosts and said a few goodbyes they were leaving the room, and Astra was relegating to the bin any fanciful notion that Baxendale had a shred of power to make her aware of nothing but him.

‘I’ll see you to your car,’ Greville was just saying as they went to go through the double door, when some man Greville knew stopped him and seemed to want ‘just a moment’ of his time on a small matter of business.

A businesswoman herself, albeit just now an ex-businesswoman, Astra knew full well that a ‘moment’ could mean an age. She was quite capable of seeing herself to her car.

‘Be in touch,’ she said lightly, kissed her cousin’s cheek, and went out into the hall.

She didn’t make it to the outer door before she was pounced on by the man who had introduced himself as Leigh Jenkins. He was still only thinking of going home, then?

‘I didn’t get your name?’ He plonked himself straight in front of her, and looked as if he had no intention of moving until she supplied her name.

‘No, you didn’t,’ she answered, and went to go by round him.

He caught hold of her arm to stop her—she objected most strongly to being manhandled. She froze him with a look, and he had the grace to let go of her arm. ‘What’s a guy have to do to get a date with you?’ he asked peevishly.

Had he been other than the brash, pushy type, Astra might well have softened her refusal. But he was pushy, he was brash—and she hadn’t missed him ogling her several times that evening. Were it not for the fact that she and Greville had stayed comfortably close together, she had an idea he would have tried his luck earlier. So, ‘You don’t!’ she told him icily, and brushed past him to the outer door.

She didn’t immediately get to go through that door, however, because some other man had come out into the hall, and, by the look of things, had overheard every word of her conversation with Leigh Jenkins.

‘Now there’s a girl who lives up to her nickname,’ drawled a voice she was not a stranger to. And while she hesitated, her hand already down by the door handle, Sayre Baxendale strolled over to her, placing himself in between her and Leigh Jenkins.