Sara Craven - Fugitive Wife

‘Well, it can’t possibly be as dull as mine,’ she said rather ruefully. ‘And of course it interests me. I’d hardly …’ She paused.

‘You’d hardly be here with me now, if you weren’t—interested,’ he finished for her.

She hunched a shoulder. ‘If you don’t want to tell me—–’ she began, but he cut across her impatiently.

‘It isn’t that, Briony. I’ll tell you anything you want to know, but I must admit you puzzle me.’

‘Do I?’ She sent him a dazzling smile. ‘Well, that’s a good start.’

‘I wasn’t aware that we were starting anything!’ He paused to pay the waitress as she brought their coffee and the bill. When she had gone, he said quietly, ‘Now let’s have the truth. Just why are you here—and please don’t feed me any more nonsense about having heard rave reports of the food.’

She said blandly, ‘I saw you coming in here, and I didn’t want to have lunch alone. Satisfied?’

‘Not entirely. I could name at random at least half a dozen young executives that you met last night who would give a large proportion of their handsome salaries to take you somewhere fashionable to eat for a couple of hours. Why me?’

She shrugged. ‘Perhaps none of them forced themselves on my attention in quite the same way, Mr Adair.’

‘So you decided to employ the same tactics?’ That reflective, considering look was back.

‘Why not? Last night I got the impression you found me attractive. If I’m wrong, you can always claim this lunch back off your expenses.’

‘Attractive isn’t quite the appropriate word,’ he said slowly. ‘I find you both desirable and exasperating—not always in equal or even the same proportions.’

‘How very odd,’ Briony said sweetly. ‘I find you exectly the same. But you were going to tell me about your early life.’

‘Yes, I was, wasn’t I?’ he said pleasantly. ‘It’s perfectly simple. I’m thirty-four, unmarried, and my parents are both dead. I was educated at a grammar school, and from there I went on to Oxford where I read politics, philosophy and economics. I came into journalism as a graduate entrant, which isn’t a bad way to start. In my time, I’ve covered every type of story from funerals and flower shows to murder hunts and corruption. Is that what you wanted to know?’

‘You know it wasn’t,’ she said in a low voice, and for a moment there was silence between them. When she looked up at him again, she was smiling, and her eyes under the deep sweep of lashes were deliberately provocative. ‘Your past wasn’t very productive,’ she murmured. ‘Perhaps I’ll have better luck with your future.’ She reached out and took his hand, turning it palm upwards for her inspection. ‘Hmm.’ She bent over it, pretending absorption, one pink-tipped finger tracing the various lines on his hand as she spoke. ‘A strong headline, but then I’d expect that. A long lifeline, and quite steady too, except for your middle years which could hold some danger for you …’

‘Never more than at this moment, I suspect.’ His tone was dry. ‘Briony, what are you trying to do.’

‘Tell your fortune,’ she said with mock innocence. ‘Now your heartline is really fascinating. I would say you could get any woman you wanted, merely by asking.’

‘Now that is fascinating,’ he said gravely. ‘Your coffee’s getting cold.’

‘You don’t think I know what I’m talking about,’ she accused.

‘I think I know exactly what you’re talking about,’ he said. ‘And it has nothing to do with palmistry. Tell me something, Briony. When we leave here, what are your plans for the rest of the afternoon?’

Her heart suddenly seemed to miss a beat at the question. ‘I—I don’t have anything planned.’

‘No?’ His hand closed round hers, opening it palm upwards. ‘Now it’s my turn, and I’ll tell you what I see. I see the heartline dominating the head. I see a mixed-up girl who doesn’t know what she wants. I see a dangerous craving for excitement in the lifeline, but this evens out before too long into steadiness and security and a suitable marriage.’

Briony snatched her hand away. ‘But that isn’t what I want,’ she said unevenly. ‘And you know it. What—what are your plans for the rest of the afternoon?’ She died all kinds of small deaths while she waited for him to answer.

‘I think they could best be described as fluid,’ Logan said slowly at last. ‘But they certainly begin with more coffee—at my flat, I think. Shall we go and find a taxi?’

She had thought that he would kiss her in the taxi, but he didn’t, and she felt dashed by this. He hardly spoke either, and his face was suddenly remote as if his thoughts had travelled a long way from her, and she did not dare make any attempt to recall them. But by the time the taxi drew up in front of the small block of flats where Logan lived, she was feeling thoroughly nervous and on edge.

He didn’t put his arm around her either as they went up the stairs to the first floor, and she felt oddly chilled as he fitted the key into the lock and admitted her to a small cramped hall. There were a couple of letters lying just inside the door and he bent to retrieve them, slitting them open carelessly with his thumbnail and running his eye over the contents while she stood, waiting. He was being so casual, she thought, as though this happened all the time, as maybe it did with him, but not with her as he surely must realise.

She wasn’t just nervous any more either. She was definitely panicky, and suddenly and paralysingly shy at the thought of what she was doing. She had never dreamed she could behave in this way, but she’d thought that Logan would somehow make it easy for her. After all, it was last night’s kisses which had set off the chain reaction which had brought her to the flat today, she thought.

‘Do you live here alone?’ She tried to sound casual in her turn, but there was a tell-tale quiver in her voice, she realised with vexation.

‘I share with Tony Ericson, but he’s in Zambia at the moment,’ he returned laconically.

So although he might have a relationship with Karen Wellesley, they weren’t actually living together. Briony experienced a spasm of relief at the realisation. She followed Logan into the living room. It wasn’t large, and it was furnished in a spartan manner which suggested that its occupants spent little time there. The main items of furniture were a rather battered sofa drawn up in front of the fireplace and a large office desk in the window, supporting a litter of papers and two sturdy portable typewriters.

‘Yes, I work here as well as at the office.’ Logan deftly forestalled her next question. ‘The kitchen is through the door opposite.’ He pointed. ‘Perhaps you’d like to make that coffee I mentioned while I have a shower.’

She was glad to have something to do. Filling the kettle and setting it to boil, and finding mugs and the jar of coffee occupied her hands, but did nothing to ease the mounting uncertainty within her. And she had no one to blame but herself for the current situation, she told herself, her shaking hands spilling coffee granules on to the worktop as she attempted to spoon them into the mugs. It was entirely of her own making. She’d followed Logan and thrown herself at his head, and if she turned and ran now, she would only be making an even bigger fool of herself. Yet if she stayed…. Briony’s imagination refused to consider the implications of the next hour or two. She made the coffee and carried the mugs into the living room, but it was deserted. He was still in the shower, and now, if ever, was the time to beat an ignoble retreat. She set the mugs down on the corner of the desk and looked round for her bag. She’d put it down on the sofa as she’d come in, but it wasn’t there. Nor was it on the desk, or on the floor, or on any of the shelves of the fitment which covered one wall, and housed books and a complicated-looking stereo player. It had vanished.