' I don't see why she should be embarrassed,' Cindy Said. ' Anyone just looking- at you would know you're not the sort of person to put up with discomforts. Even in the Sahara you'd still change into a dinner jacket and manage to conjure up iced water!'
Paul burst out laughing and Lucy marvelled, as she always did, at how different he looked when he relaxed. It was as if he were no longer the same man but a younger one who had shed all his problems.
When dinner was over they went to the music room for coffee. But Paul, pleading he had work to do, took his cup to the library.
' Why bother to come home?' Cindy said as he was at the door. ' If you're going to disappear the moment dinner is over you might just as well have stayed in London.'
' I'm not going to disappear completely.'
He spoke in such a patient tone that Lucy guessed he was irritated at the way his sister was harping on his nightly return to Charters.
' But I do have some papers to study and I can't do it unless I'm alone.' He turned the knob and was over the threshold when be paused and looked back. ' If you're not too tired, Lucy, perhaps you would care to join me in the library in an hour?'
Lucy was so surprised by the invitation that she was speechless.
' Well?' he asked. ' May I expect you?'
' Yes,' she said huskily. ' Of course.' For the next hour she puzzled over his reason for wanting to see her. Was he going to ask her to leave Charters? Indeed, now that he was back in England there was no point in her remaining here. Somehow the thought of going away depressed her and wryly she acknowledged how easy it was to become accustomed to luxurious surroundings. There was no doubt money was a marvellous cushion against the harshness of life, and these past weeks made it difficult to remember that outside this great mansion there was an everyday world in which she queued for buses, fought for a seat on a train and pounded away at a typewriter seven hours a day.
As the hour passed she grew more nervous and she was trembling as she crossed the hall and knocked on the library door. Paul's voice bade her come in and she did so.
It was the first time she had seen the library at night, and she savoured the magnificence of the burgundy velvet curtains drawn over the long windows and the firelight glinting on tooled leather books and mahogany furniture. There was no central chandelier, but standard lamps shed pools of radiance on the comfortable chairs and a large oval table which Paul used as a desk.
He was standing in front of it and as she closed the door, he came forward.
' Don't look so frightened,' he said, reading her thoughts. ' I won't bite!'
The remark was so unexpected that she laughed and her nervousness vanished.
' I'm not frightened. Just puzzled.'
'Why?'
' Because I can't understand why you want to see me.'
' Look in your mirror, my dear, and you'll find the answer there I'
Warm colour seeped into her face. Was Paul Harlow paying her a compliment? It was so unexpected a thought that her nervousness returned and she took a step backwards. The door-handle dug into her back and its firmness somehow made her realize how ridiculous it was to behave like a blushing schoolgirl. After all, many men had paid her compliments. What matter if this time it was Paul Harlow? Tilting her head in an unconscious gesture of defiance, she crossed over to a chair by the fire and sat down.
Paul seated himself opposite and in silence took a cigar from a walnut and gold humidor and carefully clipped off the end. He lit it and the aroma of Havana drifted into the air. She breathed it in, obtaining an almost sensuous satisfaction from it.
' You're the only woman I know who really enjoys the smell of a cigar,' he remarked. 'I'm glad you do, because I'd hate to give them up.'
' I can't see you giving them up for anybody—particularly me.'
' You'd be surprised what I'd give up for you,' he said, and there was something in his tone which made her heart beat fast.
Aware that he was watching her, she wondered if he was deliberately trying to make her feel embarrassed. The knowledge that this might be the case did more to lessen her nervousness than anything else could have done, and with a return of her normal spirit she said:
' Why did you ask me to come in here? Is it something to do with Cindy or Murray, or do you want me to leave Charters?'
' What a lot of questions,' he said imperturbably, ' and all of them based on the wrong assumption.' He moved in the chair and the firelight played on his face, softening the aristocratic features. ' I asked you in here for a very simple reason. I wanted to be alone with you. Ever since we met I've hardly had the chance to talk to you by yourself, and even when we did, we only spoke about Cindy.'
' What else is there for us to talk about?'
' Come, come, Lucy.' His humour was evident and not to be ignored. ' You're a woman and I'm a man. I'm sure we can find plenty to talk about. Or would you have me believe you've led such a cloistered life that you don't know what I mean?'
' Of course I know what you mean. It's just that you're my employer and I———'
' I'm your host.' He emphasized the word.
' You're still my boss.'
' I doubt if you'd let any man be your boss. Your air of gentleness is deceptive, Lucy. I've learned that much about you since you've been here.'
She conceded the truth of his remark. ' I suppose it's because of my father. He brought me up to be independent and to believe it was possible for a man and a woman to meet on equal terms. That's something most men don't want—at least not the men I've met in the last year. The ones I knew when my father was alive were different. I suppose it's because they were mostly ancient professors who didn't see women as women anyway.'
' I suppose you've. gone out with many men in the past year?' Paul said abruptly.
' Now it's your assumption that's wrong,' she flashed back, and was gratified to see him smile. ' My father Spoiled me for the young men that are around today.'
' You talk as if you're set to become an old maid.'
' I think I was.'
'Why the past tense?' 'Because staying here has changed me.'
' Don't tell me that living in a village has widened your horizon?'
' Not living in the village,' she replied, and waved her arm around her, ' but living here. Charters is a world of its own and it has altered me.'
' You mean you're looking for a millionaire?' Qnce more Paul's voice was dry and precise, the tone the same one he had used when they had first met. But now she knew him well enough to realize that the very colourlessness of his voice hid a depth of emotion that dismayed him.
'Poor Paul,' she thought involuntarily, 'always afraid that some girl is anxious to trap him.'
'Millionaires don't interest me,' she said firmly. ' What I meant was that after being surrounded by so many beautiful things I won't be content to work in an office. I want to explore the world, I want to see more paintings and furniture, more———— ' she caught her breath on a wave of excitement. 'There's so much I don't know. So much to see.'
' How do you intend to do it?'
' I might try for a job as a governess abroad or perhaps a stewardess on a ship.'
' That's hard work. You're not suited to it.'
' I'm as strong as a horse,' she protested. ' Don't judge me on my looks.'
' I can't judge you on anything else,' he said. ' That's why I asked you to come in here tonight. I want to talk to you—to know you better.'
' But why? I'm so ordinary.'
He flicked some cigar ash into the fire. 'Perhaps that's the reason—that you're ordinary with me.'
' I don't understand you.'
'Don't you?' he sighed. 'It's simple really. Most of the women I know treat me as though I were something rare, but you treat me as though I were an ordinary man, not Paul Harlow the tycoon!'
She laughed. ' If I thought of you as a tycoon I'd be petrified of you. Even as it is, I'd be scared to disobey
Unexpectedly he was angry.
' I don't want you to come in here because you're1 scared of me. I'd like to think you're here because you want to be.'
' I don't know if I do,' she said truthfully. ' I've already been here half an hour and all we've done is— is She hesitated, unwilling to finish the sentence.
' Flirt?' he finished for her.
She reddened. 'I was going to say quarrel. You're not the type to.flirt.'
' How right ,you are I' His voice was precise again. ' Flirting is for boys, and I'm a man.'
She did not answer and instead stared down into the flames of the log fire. 'She remembered Cindy's remarks about her brother's, many love affairs and wondered, not for the first time, what sort of women he liked. Certainly it would not be someone as unsophisticated and gauche as herself. The fact that he had asked to see her tonight had probably been an impulsive gesture that he was even now regretting.
She raised her head and looked at him, surprised to see his eyes fixed on her. In the firelight they appeared a darker grey and, because of their depth of colour, seemed gentler and more compassionate. Again she noticed the shadows beneath them and the milky blue-ness of the lids which gave him such an unexpectedly vulnerable look.
' You're tired,' she said quickly. ' You don't relax enough.'
' I find it difficult to relax. The only way I can do so is to force myself to think of something else.'
' You work at play just as hard as you work!'
He laughed. ' I like your humour, Lucy. It would have been amusing to have had you with me on my trip to Japan. You'd have found plenty to comment upon there!'
Unexpectedly he began to tell her about his Japanese trip, and though at first she was lost among the welter of figures and strange business terms, as he continued to talk she was able to follow him more and understand the complexities of the transaction he was trying to work out.
It was nearly midnight before he stopped talking, and he only did so then because he happened to glance at his watch and see the time for himself.
'Good heavens! I'd no idea it was so late.' He stifled a yawn. " You should have stopped me earlier.'
' I didn't want to. I was enjoying myself too much.'
' Were you really?'
She nodded. ' I never realized until now that business could be so interesting. You make it sound like an adventure story.'
' Not only adventure. It can sometimes be a thriller too!'
' With a happy ending?'
He laughed. ' Not always.'
' I can't imagine anything "you're engaged in not being successful.'
' There's a difference between successful and being happy.' The smile left his face, making it once more the face of a stranger. ' I'm only successful in business. My private life is a different story.'
A story that was not for her hearing, she thought, and knew better than to ask any more questions. She stood and smoothed down her skirt, intensely aware of his eyes travelling from the swell of her breast down the curve of her hip.
' I'm glad you asked me to come and talk to you tonight,' she said huskily.
' I hope you'll talk to me again tomorrow night?'
' Will you be coming down again so soon?'
' Of course. As my sister so succinctly put it, I like my home comforts!'
The first evening which Lucy spent with Paul in the library set the pattern for the many that were to follow. Gradually she lost her embarrassment with him and as she did so was able to take a more active participation in the conversation, not always listening to his story in silence, but frequently interposing questions or asking him to explain some intricate happening or financial deal which he invariably assumed she understood.
' I keep forgetting you're not au fait with my work,' he said one evening some three weeks after she had first started having coffee with him in the library. ' You're so easy to talk to, Lucy, I feel I've known you all. my life.'
' If you only knew how ignorant you often make me feel,' she replied.
' Ignorant? Why, you're, the most intelligent woman I've met.'
She made a face and he looked at her. 'What's wrong? Don't you like the compliment?'
' Is it a compliment? I thought most men didn't really like clever, women.'
' Are you speaking from your great knowledge of the opposite sex?.' he teased.
' I don't need a great deal of knowledge to know that. Most men prefer dumb blondes who can make them relax.'
' I'm not most men,' he said.
'Aren't you? I was under the impression you regarded women as something for your amusement. A toy to buy and play with when it suited you.' The moment she had spoken she was appalled and, scarlet with confusion, stared down at her hands. ' I'm sorry. I—I had no right to say that.'
' Why not?' His voice was calm and glancing at him from beneath her lashes, she was relieved to see he did not look angry, merely serious. ' If I have taken my friendship with women lightly, it was because it was the only way I could avoid getting hurt.'
" I can't imagine you ever allowing a woman to hurt you.'
' How little you know me.'
All at once she remembered Barry telling her that Paul had been deeply in love some years ago. She longed to ask him about it, but though she knew him well, she did not know him well enough.
' I loved a woman once, very deeply,' Paul was speaking again, answering the question without realizing it. 'And when she left me I vowed I'd never let myself be so vulnerable again.'
'What happened?' Lucy asked softly. 'Did she many someone else?'
‘ Yes. I had just started my company and I had more enthusiasm than money. Sandra didn't share my belief in myself and '—he shrugged—' a richer man came on the scene.'
'I bet she's sorry now.'
'She is.'
From his tone Lucy guessed his reply was not merely a figure of speech, and knew a sharp pang of jealousy.
' You spoke as if you'd seen her recently,' she said.
' I have. She was divorced a year ago and she came to tell me.'
' What did it feel like—seeing her again?'
He hesitated before replying as though anxious to give a truthful answer. ' I felt nothing,' he said at last. ' It was as though I were meeting a stranger.'
' Have you seen her again?'
' I saw her a great deal for three months. But for the last six I haven't seen her at all.'
She was so surprised that she could not think of anything to say, and Paul watched her with amusement.
' Why the surprise, Lucy? Did you expect me not to take advantage of what was offered to me?'
' Don't 1' she burst out. ' I can't bear it when you're cynical.'
My dear young woman, I'm not cynical at all. I merely recognize that all the women I meet throw themselves at me because of what I can give them. And I don't mean love, I mean mink and diamonds.'
' Maybe these———— ' She paused. ' Maybe these women know you can't give them anything else!'
' Ough!' he exclaimed. ' That's the nastiest thing you've said to me.'
' I'm sorry, but you deserved it.'
' Meaning that I only meet the type I deserve?'
' Yes.'
' Then where do you fit into the picture?'
'What do you mean?'
' Well, I've met you. Do you want mink and diamonds too?'
Tears filled her eyes and she was so hurt she couldn't speak.
' I'm sorry,' Paul said swiftly. ' I'd no right to say that. Will you forgive me?'
She nodded, but still did not trust herself to look at him.
' Well,' he reiterated, 'will you forgive me?'
'Yes.' She found her voice and with it her pride. 'But one day. I hope you'll meet someone who'll make you eat your words.'
' Hasn't it dawned on you that I already have?'
Afraid to believe what his words implied, she refused even to consider them. ' I'm tired, Paul. Would you mind very much if I left you now?'
' I'd certainly mind if you left me, but I don'
t mind at all if you want to go to bed I'
Across the room they stared at one another and Lucy's eyes were the first to turn away.
'Goodnight, Paul.'
' Goodnight, my dear. I'll see you at the same time tomorrow.'
Although Lucy had given tiredness as her excuse for leaving the library, once alone in her room she knew sleep was impossible. Her conversation with Paul haunted her and she walked aimlessly from the bed to the window and back again to the bed.
What had Paul meant by his last remark? Was it possible that he was seriously interested in her as a woman or was he merely amusing himself with her because of propinquity? Yet even as this thought came to mind she refuted it. Paul Harlow was not so short of amusement that he would waste his time on a woman unless she interested him. She sighed.' What did the word 'interest' imply? Only time would give the answer, and time was a dangerous factor in her life, for with every passing day, with every meeting with Paul she was heading towards a situation so full of danger that it could ruin her life. Common, sense told her she should leave Charters as soon as possible, but emotion—an emotion she refused to analyse—prevented her from doing so. ' I. won't think about the future,' she vowed, ' I'll live each day as it comes.'
But although Lucy promised herself not to think about her relationship with Paul, Murray obviously had no such inhibitions, for one afternoon when he and Lucy were alone, he remarked on it.
' You seem to be seeing a lot of the great man. What does he find to talk about when you're closeted alone together?'
' What do you talk about when you're alone with Cindy?' she said tartly.
' We don't talk,' he grinned. ' We make love.'
'All the time? How monotonous for you both!'
'What's monotonous?' Cindy asked from the doorway.
' Living in the country all the year,' Lucy said quickly.
Cindy stared at her in surprise. ' But I thought you liked it here.'
' I do. But I wouldn't like it for too long without a break. I miss, concerts and the opera.'
' There's always the hi-fi.'
' It isn't the same, my little Philistine,' Murray interrupted. ' The best record player in the world can only reproduce sound. It can't reproduce atmosphere. Am I right, Lucy?'
Rachel Lindsay - Love and Lucy Granger Page 9