SILK WICKEDNESS 5

‘Is that a yes?’

‘I’m afraid not. I have every sympathy for you,’ she went on quickly, ‘but I just couldn’t play the bossy, big- sisterish, have-you-done-your-history-type figure. It would go right against the grain.’

‘That’s only one aspect. Even if she were as earnest and studious as her headmistress would wish, she’d be fed up on her own all day. I’m not entirely unfeeling.’

She was not convinced. ‘She’d hate me on principle.’

‘She would at first, but she’ll have a sneaking respect for anyone with the nerve to strip off in a top-notch eatery.’

‘I did not strip off ’ Much to her annoyance, she coloured faintly at the mere ghastly memory. She might as well have stripped right off, the way they’d all reacted. The silk teddy had felt like a G-string.

‘You know what I mean.’ He leaned back, scanning her face so minutely she felt he could see right into her head. ‘By your own admission, you loathed it. Can you really face doing that again? Can you face being groped and squeezed and slobbered over by beery yobs at stag nights?’

His graphic description made her wince, as the devious man had obviously intended. ‘I don’t suppose it’ll kill me. It’ll be something to tell my grandchildren.’

‘On the other hand,’ he went on, just as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘you could be soaking up the sun by the pool in a hotel that’s generally considered one of the most luxurious

in the Middle East. The weather’s very pleasant at this time of year. Mid-eighties, probably. The hotel’s on a little bay and there are all manner of water sports, as well as the usual tennis and gym and all the rest. And it’s a fascinating country. Mountains and oases full of date palms, old forts and camel races and friendly people who never tell you to have a nice day.’

She stared at him helplessly. ‘This is blackmail!’

‘Rubbish. I’m just filling you in, so you can make an informed decision.’

For the first time she wavered. It sounded too good to be true.

And probably was.

‘Put it on hold till we’ve finished eating,’ he advised. ‘And let’s change the subject.’

But Claudia could not finish her food. What with Portly’s mouse and indecision squirming like a bucket of earthworms in her stomach, she’d gone off it. ‘Fair enough. You start.’

He nodded towards her plate. ‘What’s wrong with that chicken?’

‘Nothing. I’ve just gone off it.’

‘Then get something else.’

‘I’m not really hungry any more.’

‘Then stop playing with it.’

She gaped at him. He had said it as if she were a six- year-old making islands with her mashed potatoes and gravy. ‘Next you’ll be telling me to eat up or I won’t get any pudding!’

Rather to her surprise, his mouth lifted in half a wry smile. ‘Sorry. Force of habit.’

‘Like the female company director who found herself cutting up some poor chap’s food at a business lunch?’

‘More or less.’ He added an almost proper smile, revealing lovely white teeth that would never make any dentist rich.

Please don't smile like that . It was difficult enough to look at his offer in a cool and detached manner without him employing such unfair tactics.

Maybe that's why he's doing it. You can bet your sweet life he knows the effect he's having. He's trying to get round you. Get you eating out of his Category Four hand.

His next words bashed that theory right on the head. ‘Just who were you expecting to come through that door a while back? You looked like a cornered ginger rabbit.’

Ginger? How dared he? Copper-gold was the term she’d have used, if asked.

For a moment she was tempted to invent a psychopathic weightlifter who’d already been done three times for GBH. Any second he might burst in with an ‘0*7 What d'you think you're doing with my bird 3 you toffee-nosed git?'

But somehow she didn’t think he’d buy it. ‘If you must know, I was expecting some sort of tit-for-tat for the kissogram.’

One dark eyebrow lifted sardonically. ‘Like what?’

‘Like some disgusting Tarzan, asking me to peel his banana.’

For an instant she could have sworn she saw the unmistakable twitch of a man struggling not to laugh.

He fought it manfully, however. ‘For crying out loud, do you really think I’d go to all this trouble for such puerile idiocy?’

‘You might. After telling me how horribly embarrassed your aunt was, I thought you might be taking revenge on her behalf. Besides . . .’ If he was too much on his dignity to laugh, she might have some fun winding him up. ‘Men

can be very puerile when they’re made to look ridiculous in public. You weren’t at all a happy bunny the other night.’

He fixed her with a very level gaze. ‘The only person who looked ridiculous was you.’

‘If you say so, Mr Hamilton.’ She added a sweet smile intended to madden him.

It didn’t seem to work. With an air of noble male patience stretched to its limit, he put his knife and fork down. ‘If you thought I was planning a tit-for-tat, why did you come?’

‘Tit-for-tats hadn’t even occurred to me till I was actually here. Tarzans hadn’t so much as crossed my mind. Let alone bananas.’ She paused just long enough for dramatic effect. ‘If you really want to know, I thought you might be a drug baron.’

To her chagrin, he seemed not in the least put out. ‘I thought you might. That’s why I said it was nothing illegal.’

She raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Oh, please. In the immortal words of whoever it was, “You would say that, wouldn’t you?” ’

His only reply was a pair of shrewdish, drily amused eyes across the table.

‘My friend Kate,’ she went on, ‘thought you might be a family values sleaze-bag politician with a love-child tucked in the closet.’

‘Well, thank you,’ he said drily. ‘If she based her verdict on your information, you must have painted me in a very flattering colours.’

She could hardly say, Actually, I gave Kate a rather false impression, because if I’d told her the truth she’d

have realized I find you rather fanciable and given me no peace.

‘I hardly “painted” you at all,’ she shrugged. ‘Kate’s just got an over-vivid imagination. Not to mention too much television and the more lurid kind of Sunday paper.’ Sorry , Kate, blaming it all on you.

He raised an expectant eyebrow. ‘Go on.’

‘Go on with what?’

‘With your imaginative friend’s conjecture. I’m all agog to hear what sleazy proposition the politician would have had in mind.’

He was turning the tables now, winding her up. ‘I couldn’t possibly say,’ she said, in mock-shocked tones. ‘I’ll have you know I was very carefully brung up.

His mouth twitched again. It was beginning to twitch so often she began to wonder whether she was mistaking it for a nervous tic. For a minute he ate in silence, watching her with microscopic attention whenever his eyes weren’t actually on his lunch. ‘So if you thought I was a) a drug baron, or b) something that crawled from under a Parliamentary rock, why did you come?’

She could hardly say, To tell the truth, I haven’t met a Category Four in ages. A girl has to grab what excitement she can, you know.

‘For a free lunch,’ she confessed. ‘I’d never been to Paolo’s.’

‘Who said anything about free?’ he said drily.

She knew he was only winding her up, but she still felt vaguely awkward. ‘It wasn’t just that.’

‘I think it was.’

He said it crisply enough, with no overt accusation, and maybe that was why her conscience was suddenly playing up. Added to that, the alcohol was working on her carefully constructed business-mode.

Suddenly he was far too close for comfort. Her antennae were going like mad, sending minute electric messages to every nerve-ending she possessed. Do you realize , they were screaming, that there’s about fourteen stone of dynamite within crackling distance?

She sat back, hoping her antennae would settle down. ‘I didn’t come with the express purpose of getting a free lunch and telling you to stuff whatever your deal was. I was curious, naturally enough. Only I didn’t think it’d be anything I could possibly accept. And to tell the truth . . .’ She sighed. ‘It’s my cousin. If I let him win, the little toad’ll crow for ever more. I just can’t give him that satisfaction. He never thought I’d accept that bet. When I said “You’re on,” I practically had to retrieve his jaw from the floor.’

‘Well, naturally. An ex-convent girl would be far too demure to contemplate it.’

There was no missing the sardonic glint in his eye. With a bored expression she said, ‘Can we get the cliched old jokes over with? Just for the record, I’ve heard about a million variations on “Phwoor, convent girls! Always the worst when they’re let out!” ’

Twitch or tic, it was at it again. ‘No such thought ever crossed my brain cells.’

Liar.

‘If you really want to know, we’d had a massive argument about kissograms at a family do last year. He was telling me he was going into kissograms as a sideline, and I

ranted on about it being degrading to women and all the rest of it. So when I asked him for money, he couldn’t resist it. Seeing me eat my principles, so to speak. And it suited him. His regular girl, who did the kissograms and played office dogsbody, had just taken off for India for a couple of months, and his back-up girl is . . .’ She winced. ‘“A bit rough ”, to use his own charming expression.’

She put her fork down. ‘It’s turned into a deadly battle of wills. He’s convinced I won’t be able to stand mass male piggery and drunken idiots yelling “Get your kit off’, and I’m equally determined to rub his nose in it as he writes that cheque. So there you go.’

His eyebrows lifted sardonically. ‘Are you sure it won’t bounce? That outfit he’s running didn’t strike me as a thriving concern. Will he have that kind of cash available?*

She had almost known he’d ask that. ‘I’d never have asked him in the first place if I hadn’t known he’d got it. He came into some money from some misguided old aunt. She’d have done better to leave it to the cats’ home,’ she added, with feeling.

He was regarding her intently, one elbow on the table, fingering his chin thoughtfully. ‘Why not just tell him you’ve had a better offer? That should irk him enough to give you some satisfaction.’

She’d already thought of that. ‘He would be irked, but then he’d be pleased about saving his cash. Whatever I do, the little toad’ll make it look as if he’s won.’

The earthworms of indecision had multiplied tenfold. She put her knife and fork together, a third of the food uneaten.

The waiter came to take it away. ‘It wasn’t nice, sign- orina ?’

Wasting food always made her feel horribly guilty. ‘It was lovely, only I’m afraid I haven’t got much of an appetite today.’

He wiped away the crumbs and cleared unnecessary cutlery. ‘Dessert, signorina ? We have a very delicious strawberry granita - very light, very good for the little appetites.’

A strawberry water ice would be lovely, and hardly any calories either, but she still felt bad after leaving so much chicken. She half thought of asking for a Portly bag, but the chef might be offended. ‘Next time, perhaps,’ she smiled.

Guy Hamilton declined also, and they ordered coffee only.

‘I get the impression,’ he said, as she sipped proper cappucino, ‘that you’re going to say, Thanks, but no thanks. And I can’t say I blame you.’

It was as if someone was hovering round the table with a box of matches, saying, ‘ Will you stop dithering and burn that boat?’

Not just yet, but keep them handy.

‘When do you leave?’

‘Friday.’

‘For how long?’

‘At least ten days. Maybe a fortnight.’

Oh y Lord , the agony of decisions. Apart from anything else, a glance out of the window at dismal November rain was affecting her judgement. Ten days to a fortnight of expenses-paid sun in a good cause! Could any teenage

rebel really put her off that? Her mind strayed briefly to last summer’s bikinis and half a bottle of Suntan Lotion in the bathroom cupboard. It might have gone off by next year.

‘I’d need to talk to her. Find out whether there’s any possible rapport between us.’

His eyes were very shrewd. ‘She’ll do her damnedest to put you off.’

‘I dare say, but I have to make my own judgement.*

He tossed a gold credit card on top of the bill. ‘No time like the present. Why don’t you come home with me now?’

‘Will she be in?’

‘She’d better be.’ His mouth gave a grim twist.

‘She’s grounded.’