Lindsay Armstrong - A Question Of Marriage

‘Oh!’ She ground her teeth. ‘I’m off!’ She picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder.

‘Allow me to call a cab for you.’ He reached for the bedside phone and did just that. Then he said, although still looking amused, ‘Please don’t hold this against me but, just to be on the safe side, I’ll come down with you and see you into it.’

‘Be my guest,’ she spat at him, ‘but I’m not a burglar or a groupie!’

‘Yes, well—’ he sobered, and that tough, dangerous side of him was in evidence for a moment ‘—be that as it may, as you remarked to me, Miss Templeton, and while you may be neither, you do have slightly strange notions about breaking into people’s houses and apportioning the blame.’ He strolled to the door and opened it. ‘After you.’

And to Aurora’s extreme indignation, he escorted her downstairs and out onto the porch, and he handed her into the waiting taxi—he even paid for it. But his parting shot was the most humiliating.

‘I would have a little more faith in human nature, if I were you, Aurora. You may find life a little less dangerous—unless that’s how you get your kicks?’

She argued the matter out with herself during the short drive home in the cab. She paced up and down her living room for ten intense minutes and even consulted her goldfish on the matter, but nothing could alter the fact that there was no better time to retrieve her diaries than right now, while a noisy, crowded party was still in progress. And nothing could alter her determination not to be bested by Luke Kirwan. With the net result that half an hour later, dressed all in black, she was cautiously making her way down the easement once again.

The party was audible as she approached the house from the rear. As Luke Kirwan had predicted, it still had plenty of life left in it. But as she flitted through the garden like a soundless shadow, no one accosted her, no one was about. The only problem was, there was absolutely no sign of a green rubbish bag stuffed full of her diaries in the hydrangeas below her old bedroom window.

‘MISS HILLIER, my name is Aurora Templeton,’ she said down the phone the next morning, a Saturday. ‘I would like to speak to Professor Kirwan and, unless you’d like me to come and lie down on the front doorstep and go on a hunger strike, don’t you dare fob me off!’

‘That won’t be necessary, Miss Templeton,’ Miss Hillier replied smoothly. ‘Professor Kirwan thought you might like to lunch with him today. Would twelve-thirty be suitable?’

Aurora ground her teeth as she felt, this time, rather like the fly who’d walked into the spider web. Consequently, she said coolly, ‘One o’clock would suit me better.’

‘That’s fine,’ Miss Hillier murmured. ‘We’ll see you then.’

‘OK,’ she said as she marched out onto the terrace of her old home at five past one, ‘hand them over, Mr Kirwan. My diaries.’

Luke Kirwan didn’t rise from the cane chair he was lounging in. There was a table for two set for lunch on the terrace and the pool, just beyond, sparkled invitingly beneath a clear blue sky. There was absolutely no sign of a party having been held the night before.

And he summed Aurora up comprehensively, from her tied-back hair, her yellow blouse and white shorts down to her yellow canvas shoes before he said lazily, ‘Good afternoon, Aurora. Isn’t it a beautiful day? By the way, I was wondering about your legs, but they too are quite stunning.’ His gaze returned to them thoughtfully.

Aurora clenched her fists, then swallowed several times to calm herself and negate the effect of his gaze on her legs. ‘I didn’t come here to make chit-chat,’ she stated.

He lifted his eyes to hers and they were amused, but with a glint of irony as a tinge of pink coloured her cheeks at the same time. ‘Why don’t you sit down and have a glass of wine instead?’ he suggested. ‘It might be just what you need after a sleepless night.’ He raised his glass to her.

‘How did you know—?’ She bit her lip.

‘You look a little peaked,’ he drawled, and got to his feet at last to pull out a chair for her. In blue jeans and a grey T-shirt, he looked casual but big and very fit.

Aurora hesitated, then sank down into it. She also took the glass of wine he poured for her, although absently. ‘How did you know,’ she began again, ‘that I’d dropped them out of the window? I assume that is what happened?’

‘You assume correctly.’ He sat down. ‘I just thought,’ he mused, ‘that I should take some precautions. It was, after all, only your word I had to go on last night. So I stopped and asked myself what I would have done with anything I had come by—shall we say illegally?’

‘There was nothing illegal about it at all! At least by now you must know that.’

‘I certainly do.’ His gaze was so amused as it rested on her, she flinched visibly. ‘But at the time, with Neil having done a bunk—’

‘I told you why!’ she interrupted fiercely.

‘Yes,’ he murmured gently. ‘Once again I must point out I had no way of knowing if you were telling me the truth.’

Aurora suddenly took a large swallow of wine as some intuition told her that she was in for a battle of wits on a scale she’d never encountered before. ‘Now we’ve sorted it out, though—OK, I concede it was all my fault and offer my sincere apologies—could I have my diaries back, please?’

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.