Then he permitted one corner of his mouth to pucker disparagingly. ‘I don’t intend remaking myself to suit you. What you see is what you get. If you want to scream, young lady, go ahead.’
Jane sighed, running her fingers through her thick, silky hair. ‘I don’t know what to make of you,’ she said guardedly.
He narrowed his slaty eyes slightly. ‘Don’t you?’
‘You’re making me feel very uncomfortable.’
One dark brow flickered. ‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
She sighed, folding her hands tightly on the table. Any minute now he was going to start quizzing her about Garston’s and she wasn’t at all sure she would be able to handle it diplomatically. She decided to take the bull— tentatively—by the horns. ‘Look…um…Guy, I don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t understand why you’ve brought me out to lunch…perhaps if you could just get straight to the point we could save some of your precious time.’ She tried to look severely at him, but was fairly sure that it wasn’t working.
He certainly didn’t look the least bit intimidated. One eyebrow curved sardonically. ‘I’m paying court to you! I told you that.’
He’d said it again! She was sure her face must be blood-red, despite her colouring. And it wasn’t even as if it were the truth…
‘That’s a very strange thing to say,’ she muttered stiffly. ‘People don’t say things like that these days.’
‘It’s an explicit and accurate term. I like it.’
‘Yes…but it isn’t true.’
‘Why shouldn’t it be?’
‘Because you’re making no attempt to be nice to me for a start! If you really had asked me out because you…um…well, you know what I mean—’
‘Because I fancy you?’
‘Well, that isn’t exactly the expression I would have chosen, but—’
‘None the less, it, also, is explicit and accurate.’
‘Yes, but…well, so is ‘finding someone attractive”, for instance.’
Guy shrugged and pulled a face, the corners of his well-shaped mouth turning downwards. ‘There are certain politicians I find attractive. I like their style. But I certainly don’t fancy them. No, Jane Garston—saying that one finds someone attractive when, in truth, one fancies them, is no more than a euphemism. I’ll stick with the vocabulary I choose, if you don’t mind. That way there can be no mistakes.’
‘Well, OK then. But it still doesn’t alter the fact that you don’t fancy me, because you’re not…not…’
‘Not smarming all over you? Good gracious, Jane, you do have a lot to learn about me! And before we go any further, let me assure you that I find you quite ravishing.’
Jane scowled and ran her tongue nervously over her lips. Ironically the compliment itself left her absolutely stone-cold. Because the trouble was, Jane was exceptionally beautiful. And, unfortunately, she had been told as much by so very many people over the years— probably by way of compensation for all the other things they declined to mention about her appearance—that the words had lost any power to move her. It was simply a fact, like her shoe-size.
‘Don’t you believe me?’
She nodded. ‘I suppose so.’
‘Why didn’t you thank me for the compliment, then? You’re so well-brought-up that I can hardly believe it was because you hadn’t been taught that it was the correct way to respond.’
She sighed again. ‘But I thought you liked straight talking?’
‘I do,’ he acknowledged with a flicker of his eyelids. ‘So why don’t you like to be told that you’re beautiful?’
Jane hesitated. ‘I don’t mind being told that,’ she admitted. ‘It’s the fatuous things that people follow on with I can’t bear. “So exotic”,’ she mimicked. ‘ ‘Your complexion, my dear—pure café au lait“… Nobody’s ever managed to tell me what the right response to comments like that should be. I mean how would they like it if I said, ‘commonplace” or ‘milky tea” about their faces?’
Guy smiled. ‘You should try it and find out.’
Jane held back a laugh. ‘It would be unkind,’ she said honestly.
‘Wouldn’t they deserve it?’
‘No. They’re actually trying to be nice, after all. They’re just…well…inept. Insensitive. That’s all… It’s my parents’ set mostly…they’re older and sort of stuffy. They just don’t get it right.’
Guy didn’t respond to that. He just leaned back in his chair and surveyed her very directly, making her feel more uncomfortable than ever.
‘Can we change the subject?’ she asked weakly.
‘Be my guest.’ His features were, as ever, composed, his eyes cool and appraising.
How did he manage to keep himself in check like that? Didn’t he ever give anything away? She stared at him, transfixed, for a moment, and then struggled to gather her wits. Change the subject? Oh, yes. Of course. What he really wanted to talk about was the family firm, of course…Still, at least the ball was in her court. She could change it to something completely neutral. She took a deep breath and smiled. ‘Do you live in the West Midlands?’
‘No. I have several homes. Mostly I live in London when I’m in Britain.’
‘Then you’re just a visitor to the Black Country?’
‘Not exactly…’
She’d ignore that one. He wanted her to ask what he was doing here, and that could only lead to one subject… ‘You must take the opportunity to visit Stratford-upon-Avon, while you’re in these parts. Oh, and Warwick and Dudley Castles and Coventry Cathedral…’
‘Why? Except for Dudley, they’re not particularly close.’
‘Oh, they’re not far. And they’re all very impressive…’
‘Are they, now…?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not exactly characteristic of the Black Country, though? It’s the industrial landscape of the area which fascinates me…’
‘Really?’ she replied haughtily, feeling a little panicky as she sensed where the conversation was leading. ‘I can’t think why…anyway, Stratford and Warwick and so on… They’re much older…more true to what the area was before…um…’
‘Before the Industrial Revolution,’ he completed for her. Then added ironically, ‘Did you know that there’s been coal-mining in these parts since the thirteenth century?’
‘Oh…no…I hadn’t realised that.’ Then she found herself grinning impulsively. ‘If that’s true then Mum’s family must have been even more stupid than we’d been giving them credit for. They used to be big landowners generations ago, you see. But in the last century they sold off land to the men who made a fortune from the iron and coal and clay and lime—and everything else that’s in the ground here. We’d always figured that they must have been ignorant of its potential to have lost money here so spectacularly, at a time when everyone one else was busy making it. In the end they even sold the ancient family house, and had the one we live in built instead.’ She laughed. ‘That in itself shows an uncommon lack of judgement.’
‘So you don’t like your home?’
Jane sighed. That wasn’t what she had meant. As it happened, she loved the old place—even if it was rather short on windows and dreadfully ugly. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ she said bleakly. ‘Honestly, I…um…It’s just not a very beautiful house. That’s all.’
‘The one they sold was better, was it?’
‘It’s all a matter of taste,’ she said uncomfortably, then, seeing another way to change the conversation, added, ‘What would your dream house be like, Guy?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t dream much these days. I have the money to turn dreams into decisions.’
‘OK, but before…when you did dream…?’
Again he shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t know. We’re talking about a very long time ago…schoolboy stuff. Secret passages and big farmhouse kitchens with home-baked bread. That sort of thing.’
‘Uh-huh…’
He was scrutinising her very keenly now. His inky
eyes casting back and forth over her face.
There was a silence. Her stomach lurched a little. This was terrible. She really must change the subject again… ‘London,’ she said brightly. ‘I love London.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t spend much time there. I’m abroad quite a lot these days.’
‘Oh…’ She looked at him, puzzled. Right from the first moment she had noticed something indefinable about the way he spoke…Unusually, his voice betrayed nothing at all of his origins. Perhaps, she found herself speculating, he spoke English so perfectly because it wasn’t his first language…? And his skin was quite olivey, even though his hair was no more than a very dark brown…? ‘Are you British?’ she asked suspiciously.
He looked at her and then parted his lips in a very small smile. ‘Indeed I am. As are you.’
Once again she felt as if his voice had flashed across the space between them to score her skin. ‘That’s not the assumption that most people make,’ she replied archly.
He let his smile widen. ‘Then you clearly mix with people who are not only inept and insensitive but ignorant, too. However obvious it may be that you have ancestral connections with some other part of the globe, you are now, and have been for most of your life I presume, the legal child of your parents. As both of them have long and prominent British pedigrees, then so do you.’
Jane couldn’t help the quick rush of delight which greeted his remark. He had quite spontaneously said exactly what she had always felt. So many people assumed that because she looked so undeniably foreign that her personality, too, must bear traces of her origins. Yet she had only ever known one country—one family. She was her parents’ child in every way that mattered. She gave a little sigh of relief, and relaxed a little. ‘You don’t have to keep your eyes very wide open to realise that I’m adopted,’ she admitted ruefully.
‘It is rather obvious,’ he agreed, and this time his voice seemed reassuring and approving.
They seemed to have hit safe territory, at last. Suddenly he seemed so much more agreeable. Jane wrinkled her nose and laughed. ‘Some people have very odd ideas about me,’ she admitted confidingly. ‘I once went to lunch with a family who served me rice and everyone else potatoes.’
Now it was his turn to laugh. It was the richest, deepest laugh she had ever heard, and, just as it had in the car, it filled her with an overwhelming sense of his humanity. All at once he seemed touchable, real, and yet still utterly unfathomable. The insight frightened her. She looked down at her hands.
‘Which part of the globe do your original parents come from?’ he asked bluntly.
Jane shook her head. ‘I don’t know for certain. Though I do know that I was born in Rio de Janeiro, so I think it’s safe to presume they must be Brazilians. Though I’ve been told I don’t look very Brazilian. I met an Argentinian once who said, ‘Anywhere in the entire South American continent…but not Brazil!” So I suppose you can take your pick.’
He leaned back in his chair and surveyed her. ‘Have you never been back there to see for yourself?’
She shook her head.
He shrugged. ‘I think I see what your friend was getting at. But Rio is about as cosmopolitan and diverse a city as one can imagine, and Brazil itself is a huge country, teeming with people from all over the place. You look like a bit of a mixture to me.’
‘That’s what she said,’ agreed Jane.
‘It makes sense,’ he said speculatively. ‘Those eyes of yours are almost entirely Inca—except perhaps that they’re so large. But that oval face…the fine bone-structure…and your narrow nose…there could be Latin blood, too, perhaps? Certainly a combination of some sort—and there’s undoubtedly plenty of mixed blood in Brazil. Your mouth is entirely Indian, though…’
Jane smiled very broadly, her full, tilted upper lip stretching wide to reveal her even white teeth. She was delighted by his directness. People pussy-footed around so much…it didn’t take much to guess that she had been adopted from another country, but very few people had the nerve to enquire more deeply, which annoyed her because she was very proud of her unknown Brazilian ancestry. After all, if she hadn’t been born in Rio at carnival time, just when the city was seething with tourists, she would never have ended up as Jane Garston, the beloved child of such wonderful parents. Just thinking about it made her eyes sting a little. She blinked furiously, annoyed with herself for being so hopelessly sentimental…‘I’m certainly very proud to be British now,’ she said softly.
Guy nodded. ‘How old were you when you became a Garston?’
‘Ten months, officially, but really I was my parents’ child from within an hour or so of my birth. They were in Rio for the carnival and they found me wrapped in rags, and abandoned on the steps of a small community of nuns who were often presented with unwanted children. Except that my parents didn’t know that there was anything special about the doorstep where they found me. They thought it was just an ordinary house. They rang the doorbell, but of course, it being the middle of a religious festival, all the nuns were at Mass and no one answered.’
‘So they just picked you up and took you home?’
‘It wasn’t quite that easy! First they took me back to their hotel-room and rang the police and summoned a doctor. But the police took ages coming, because of the carnival again, you see, and by the time they did arrive we’d had time to get to know each other and they’d fallen in love. It took ten months for the adoption to be arranged, but Mum stayed in Rio the whole time so that she could see me every day. I’d had to be placed in an orphanage in the circumstances, and it was quite a tricky matter getting the adoption arranged. But luckily it all came right in the end.’
‘And you’re an only child?’
‘Yes. Mum and Dad had already applied to adopt in this country because they couldn’t have children of their own. The trip to Rio was to be a sort of farewell to their childless life. When you think of all the millions of people in the city who could have found me, it was almost miraculous that it should have been them.’
Guy leaned back in his seat and surveyed her steadily. ‘That’s quite a history.’
Jane shrugged awkwardly. ‘Yes,’ she said in a small, brittle voice. In fact, she had an almost mystical belief in the rightness of what had happened. It was an impossible thing to explain to anyone except her parents, who shared her sense of wonder and awe. It certainly wasn’t the sort of thing she could try to explain to a man like Guy. She looked flounderingly at him for a moment, wondering what to say next. Luckily the food arrived at that point and put paid to conversation for a while.
While Jane ate she tried her hardest to keep her eyes on the plate. But it wasn’t easy. She found herself snatching quick glances at him all the time, and every time she did her stomach clenched and the food turned papery in her mouth. She found him unbelievably attractive—and not in the way she might find a politician attractive, either—if she ever managed to work up any interest in politics, that was…Put bluntly, she fancied him like mad. Jane began to feel distinctly annoyed with herself.
She felt even more annoyed with herself when Guy pushed his plate to one side and asked, ‘Do you work for your father, Jane?’
Mug, she admonished inwardly. Talking about her origins had simply been a ploy to put her at her ease. ‘No,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘So what do you do?’
‘I do clerical work for a charity. When they need me, that is. It’s a bit spasmodic.’
‘Why don’t you have a proper job?’
Jane winced. It would seem a bit sanctimonious to tell the truth—which was that she didn’t need the money, and she felt she could do some good by being available to help out when the charity needed her. Especially as the charity concerned itself with finding homes for abandoned children. In a funny sort of way it helped her feel she was giving back some of her own incredible good luck. ‘I’m not a career type,’ she said brightly— which was, afte
r all, also perfectly true.
‘You’ve presumably had a good education, though?’
‘Good enough,’ she conceded cagily.
‘But you didn’t get the qualifications to work in your father’s firm…’ he said evenly.
‘I could work there now if I wanted to. I’ve told you already—I work on and off for a charity. It’s my own choice.’
‘So what do you do with yourself the rest of the time?’
‘I see friends. And I help my mother with the garden and the house, and with other charity work. She’s always busy.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Look, Guy,’ she muttered defensively. ‘I’m only twenty-one. I haven’t exactly had time yet to do millions of interesting and exciting things with my life.’
‘So what are all these interesting and exciting things you have planned?’
Jane sighed. In all honesty, she didn’t know. She had always been too contented with life just as it was to hanker after more. She had certainly never been possessed by any raging ambitions—a fact which occasioned her the odd pang of guilt. So many young women these days seemed to be single-minded go-getters. She couldn’t help feeling a bit inadequate now and then. But really, no matter how much soul-searching she did, she couldn’t find a shred of that hunger in herself. She wanted, really…oh, she just wanted to be like her mother—kind and thoughtful, doing what little good it came her way to do, hurting no one and always finding something to amuse her within the narrow parameters of her life. ‘I don’t know,’ she said helplessly. ‘I just want to enjoy life to the full. That’s all.’
‘So you’re not planning to take over Garston’s when your father retires?’
Jane shook her head angrily. It was so obvious where all these innocent lines of questioning were leading. Why was she bothering to answer him at all? ‘No,’ she snapped decisively. ‘I don’t know anything about engineering— or business come to that.’
‘You could learn.’
‘Oh, no, I couldn’t!’ she exclaimed, horrified. She had often been taken to the works as a child, but the place had appalled her. The big lathes and milling machines had petrified her for a start. She had hated it. Perhaps it also had something to do with the fact that her father had always made her wear goggles? They had smelt of rubber and sat heavily on the small bones of her face, making her feel as if she would suffocate. ‘We don’t want you to risk getting a bit of swarf in your eyes,’ he used to say kindly, indicating the curling shreds of metal which flew from the huge machines. She used to have nightmares about swarf…Something about a monster with curly metal hair wearing goggles…She shuddered at the recollection even now, and felt her face tugging into a small grimace. ‘Horrible place,’ she muttered under her breath. Her father used to have to carry her, pale and trembling, back to the car, teasing her gently and promising ice-creams.
Forsaking All Reason Page 3