Actually, he looked absolutely shattered; perhaps trying to sort out the situation between his eldest sister and her husband had taken its toll!
But Mattie was in no mood to feel in the least sorry for him. ‘Hardly in the mood for love, hmm?’ she teased, blue eyes glowing mischievously.
But not too mischievously, she hoped; she didn’t want Jack to realize this early in the day that she was completely aware of the game he had been playing with her. No…she certainly didn’t want him to realize that yet…
‘Would you like me to order you some lunch while you take a shower and freshen up?’ she offered, knowing by his quizzical expression that, after the way they had parted last night, he was totally confused by her friendly behaviour. Which was exactly what Mattie wanted him to be. It would serve him right if he were to think, after the intimacy of the evening they had spent together yesterday, that she was taking this whole thing seriously.
Which was how, during the hours when she’d waited for him to return from the airport, she had decided to play it. Given what she now knew, it would probably frighten the life out of Jack if he believed she was really falling for him.
‘I got your message, by the way,’ she informed him casually, having been handed a letter by Reception when she’d returned to the hotel after her walk early this morning. It hadn’t been a very long message: ‘Gone to the airport. Don’t do anything until I get back. Jack.’
Don’t do anything until he got back…! What did he think she was, an obedient pet as blindly devoted to him as Harry was? Because if that was what he thought—
‘So I see,’ Jack drawled at the obvious fact she was still here. ‘You—’
‘Would you like some lunch?’ Mattie pointedly picked up the telephone receiver. ‘I ordered a club sandwich earlier; it was delicious,’ she elaborated encouragingly.
‘A club sandwich will be fine,’ Jack accepted, still looking confused by her obvious friendliness.
After the way they had parted the evening before, after the conclusions Jack must believe Mattie to have come to concerning Tina’s arrival—in view of his deception to Mattie about who Tina actually was!—perhaps that wasn’t so surprising.
But Mattie had barely started yet!
‘By the way, I met your mother earlier,’ she told him lightly, sitting down in one of the armchairs, telephone to her ear as she put through her call to Room Service, holding back a smile as she saw the start of surprise on Jack’s face that he was unable to hide successfully. Surprise that was quickly followed by a guarded wariness.
‘My mother?’ he repeated. ‘But—’
‘Room Service?’ she answered the person who had just answered her call. ‘One club sandwich, please,’ she requested politely, putting her hand over the receiver to speak to Jack. ‘Would you like something to drink with that?’ she prompted brightly.
‘A pot of strong coffee, I think,’ he answered, still looking warily at Mattie.
She ordered the coffee, giving the room number, before ringing off and standing up to glance at her wristwatch. ‘I have to go now, I’m afraid,’ she told him regretfully. ‘I’ve booked the full works at the beauty salon downstairs this afternoon,’ she informed him helpfully. ‘I want to look my best for this evening.’
Jack looked more puzzled than ever. ‘Mattie—’
‘If I were you, Jack—’ Mattie picked up her shoulder bag in preparation of leaving ‘—I would take a nap after you’ve eaten lunch; you’re looking rather haggard.’
‘Whereas you look bright and cheerful,’ he muttered disgruntledly, obviously less than amused by her blunt observation.
‘Why shouldn’t I?’ Mattie mused brightly and cheerfully—deliberately ignoring the way his face had darkened ominously. ‘We’re in Paris, I’m spending the afternoon being pampered at a beauty salon, we’re going out to dinner at the Eiffel Tower this evening; what could be more perfect?’
He gave a heavy frown. ‘But last night—’
‘I’m sure you’ve managed to deal with last night,’ she cut in dismissively. ‘And, after all, it is me your family is expecting to meet this evening, isn’t it?’ she reminded him. ‘Now I really do have to go, Jack.’ She gave another glance at her wrist-watch before hurrying over to the door. ‘Your mother is delightful, by the way,’ she added truthfully before letting herself out of the suite.
Ha!
Now who was disconcerted? she thought triumphantly as she went down in the lift. Let them just see how Jack liked being left completely in the dark about what was actually going on. Mattie doubted he was going to like it any better than she had!
Having deliberately booked herself into the hotel’s beauty salon this afternoon, as a way of avoiding answering any of the questions she knew Jack must be dying to ask her, she was determined to enjoy the experience of just sitting back and relaxing as the stylist trimmed and styled her hair, then a face-pack, before a light make-up was applied, and her nails manicured and lacquered. It was rather soothing to just let her mind drift, to feel completely pampered in this way.
Don’t get too used to it, she instructed herself as she sat and had her nails painted. It was back to work and normality on Tuesday morning.
A normality that in no way included Jack Beauchamp, she acknowledged heavily, some of her earlier satisfaction fading at this reality. Because, despite everything, Mattie knew she was in love with the man.
He was infuriating, puzzling, enigmatic. But she loved him anyway. Quite what she was going to do about—
Her thoughts came to an abrupt halt as she unwittingly heard part of the conversation from the next booth.
‘Mum and Dad are absolutely thrilled about Tina’s pregnancy,’ the woman spoke confidingly.
‘So is Tina,’ another woman replied excitedly. ‘She just expected Jim to do and say a little more, after she had told him the good news, than announce that he guessed the skiing holiday was off for this Christmas! But that’s just Jim’s sense of humour, and Tina will realize that once she’s calmed down.’
‘Pregnancy makes you very emotional,’ the other woman sympathized. ‘Remember how sensitive we both were?’
Mattie shifted slightly sideways, twitching aside the curtain that separated her from the next booth. The two beautiful women who sat there were so alike that it didn’t take two guesses for her to realize they had to be the Beauchamp twins, Sally and Cally.
Not only did they look alike, they bore a striking resemblance to their older brother Jack, both dark-haired and dark-eyed.
‘I wonder what this girlfriend of Jack’s is like?’ mused the twin sitting on the left. ‘I think we’re all more excited about meeting her this evening than we are Sandy’s engagement or Tina’s pregnancy!’
Mattie quickly let the curtain drop back into place, her cheeks colouring a heated red at this enforced eaves-dropping. But the manicurist hadn’t quite finished painting the nails on her second hand, meaning she couldn’t just get up and leave!
‘Mum says she’s absolutely charming,’ the other twin confided. ‘Certainly nothing at all like the gold-digger we were all expecting Jack to end up with.’
Gold-digger?
‘Jack can be such a softie,’ his sister opined.
A softie? Jack? That didn’t sound like the Jack that Mattie had come to know. And love!
‘Mum insists she’s nothing like that,’ the other woman insisted lightly. ‘But I’m sure whoever Jack decided to marry, that Mum would think she was charming. We all would. As long as it was Jack’s choice.’
Mattie had heard enough!
Not that she could exactly blame Jack’s twin sisters for their gossipy speculation concerning the female Jack had brought with him this weekend; they were bound to feel a certain amount of curiosity. She just hadn’t liked the idea that they might imagine she was with Jack because of his money. It certainly put a completely different slant on how she was to behave this evening in front of Jack’s family.
‘Thank you,’ she to
ld the manicurist stiltedly, snatching her barely finished hand away to stand up. ‘If I could just pay my bill…?’
No doubt these treatments were going to cost her an arm and a leg, but after the remarks she had just overheard there was no way Mattie was going to put it on Jack’s hotel bill. Even if she had to live on bread and water for the next month!
The Beauchamp twins, enjoying their own manicure, glanced at Mattie as she moved stiffly across the salon after paying her bill. But as they could have no idea she was ‘the girlfriend’ they had so recently referred to, it was only a cursory glance.
Mattie wished she had followed her first instinct this morning and left Paris before she’d had to meet any more of the Beauchamp family!
They were certainly an attractive lot. In fact, Mattie felt like the equivalent of the ugly duckling amongst such beautiful swans.
And Jack, no matter what his reasons were with regard to the sister of his future brother-in-law, had been utterly stupid to bring her here to meet them all!
They were all obviously expecting to hear wedding bells, assumed her presence here at all was some sort of declaration of intent on Jack’s part.
Why hadn’t Jack thought of that?
She shook her head impatiently, walking out of the hotel again instead of going back up to the suite she and Jack shared, torn now between a desire to pay Jack back for his deception in getting her to come to Paris with him in the first place, and a wish not to let him down in front of his obviously concerned, and loving, family.
As she sat on the grass near the Eiffel Tower Mattie knew that the latter easily won…
She wasn’t naturally a vindictive person, and, from the little she had seen of them, the rest of Jack’s family were as nice, and concerned for him, as his mother had been this morning.
So what did she do now?
Mattie had absolutely no idea!
She had left Jack to a mood of confusion earlier, had intended to continue to confuse him by her unexpected friendliness after the strain under which they had parted the evening before. But the reality of his family now made that an impossibility.
What a mess!
Of someone else’s making for a change—namely, Jack’s! But, the woman Sharon apart, Mattie cared about Jack too much to let him down in front of his family this evening. Even if it galled her to have to continue to play the role of loving girlfriend!
* * *
‘You look absolutely beautiful,’ Jack told her with admiration as she joined him in the sitting-room shortly after seven o’clock that evening.
Mattie was wearing the second new evening dress she had bought for this weekend: a short-sleeved knee-length cream lace affair that brought out the honey tints in her newly washed and styled blonde hair.
‘Thank you,’ she accepted soberly.
This was the first time she had seen Jack since her return to the hotel, Jack seeming to have taken her advice and gone back to bed this afternoon. At least, the silence of the hotel suite had seemed to imply as much.
He certainly no longer looked haggard, at any rate!
In fact, once again wearing the black dinner suit and a white shirt, he looked altogether too lethally attractive for Mattie’s peace of mind.
‘Mattie, before we go I think I ought to—’
‘Your mother rang through to the suite earlier,’ Mattie effectively cut through on what Jack intended saying, avoiding looking at him as best she could; he was just altogether too much for her peace of mind. ‘As you were asleep at the time, I took the call,’ she explained as he raised surprised brows; although she had no idea what his parents must think of the two of them sharing a suite in this way! ‘Apparently, we’re all meeting in the bar downstairs at seven-fifteen for a drink before strolling over to the restaurant.’
Jack’s frown deepened. ‘We are?’
‘We are,’ Mattie confirmed briskly, moving pointedly towards the door. ‘As it’s almost that now, I suggest we go down…’ She surveyed him with narrowed eyes as Jack looked less than eager to comply.
He gave a wince. ‘Mattie, I was hoping for a chance to talk to you when we returned to the hotel last night—’
‘But we were rudely interrupted,’ she interjected.
‘Yes,’ he acknowledged grimly. ‘There’s something I really should tell you before we go downstairs to meet the family—’
‘Tell me on the way,’ she suggested, moving out into the carpeted corridor. Besides, she already knew what he really should tell her!
A little late in the day for confession time, she would have thought. Besides, she really didn’t intend giving him the chance to confess anything; she might be under an obligation to Betty and the rest of the Beauchamp family to be on her best behaviour, but as far as Jack was concerned she felt no such compunction.
She wanted the satisfaction of seeing the shocked surprise on his face when she met his sisters and showed no surprise at their identity at all. She felt, after the way Jack had made her feel so guilty over her mix-up with the flowers, that she was owed that, at least.
Jack joined her out in the corridor, taking a firm grasp of her elbow as he prevented her from walking too fast. ‘You see, Mattie,’ he began with audible reluctance. ‘I haven’t—’
‘Jack! Mattie! Wait for us!’
Mattie almost burst out laughing at the impatient frustration on Jack’s face as they both recognized his mother’s voice behind them. Poor Jack, he wasn’t going to get the chance to make his confession, after all. She could almost feel sorry for him. As sorry as he’d made her over the mix-up with the flowers!
She turned to smile at Betty, her eyes widening slightly as she took in the man who walked at Betty’s side; he was so like Jack, give or take another forty years, that this had to be Edward Beauchamp. Mattie felt she would have been able to recognize exactly who he was—Betty’s husband—anyway.
Tall, much taller than his wife, dark hair threaded through with grey, his face an older version of Jack’s good looks. They really were a very attractive family, Mattie decided.
‘Mattie, this is my husband Edward,’ Betty introduced warmly, looking extremely regal in a long black sequinned gown. ‘Edward, this is Jack’s friend, Mattie.’
Even the eyes were the same warm brown, Mattie discovered as she looked up into the aristocratically handsome face of Edward Beauchamp as the two of them shook hands.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you,’ Edward told her with sincerity.
‘Isn’t this nice?’ Betty proclaimed happily as she linked arms with Mattie with the friendliness that seemed to be such a part of her nature, the two women walking ahead of the men now as they made their way to the lift. ‘The girls are all absolutely furious that I’ve stolen a march on them and met you first,’ she confided conspiratorially, obviously immensely pleased with herself for having done so, too.
Mattie was glad that Jack wasn’t in hearing distance of that last remark. Just a few minutes fun, that was all she wanted. Just to see Jack squirm for a little bit, as he had made her squirm.
Was that being vindictive, after all? she wondered. No, she concluded; it was only for a few minutes, and after that, no matter how she might personally feel about practising such a deception on this charming family, she would do her best to help Jack get through what promised to be a very uncomfortable evening for him.
Even if it was of his own making!
CHAPTER NINE
‘COULD I just borrow Mattie for a few minutes?’ Jack asked as the four of them approached the hotel bar, the sound of people chattering audible over the soft playing of a piano.
Mattie turned to look at him, her arm still linked with Betty’s. Jack had the look of a man about to face the executioner!
She moved away from Betty to now link her arm with Jack’s, looking up at him unconcernedly. ‘I’m sure there will be plenty of time for us to talk later, Jack,’ she assured him brightly; she could easily feel the tension in his arm beneath her fingertips.
&nb
sp; He looked less than reassured. ‘But—’
‘The girls are going to be so disappointed if I tell them you’ve been delayed,’ his mother warned him with light reproval.
Almost as if Betty knew what Mattie was doing. Although Jack’s mother couldn’t possibly know. Could she…?
‘Come on, son.’ His father gave him a playful slap on the back. ‘You know what the Beauchamp women are like. Besides, it will be less—momentous, for Mattie, if the four of us go in together.’
Well, at least one member of this family appreciated how difficult Mattie was finding this meeting with them! Even if Edward couldn’t fully appreciate why!
‘Let’s go in, Jack,’ she encouraged. ‘It will be all right,’ she relented enough to reassure him as she saw how truly miserable he was looking.
But it was of his own making, she reasoned to herself as he reluctantly complied. Why hadn’t he just told her the truth in the first place? It would have been so much simpler.
The sisters were all there in the bar. Sandy laughing softly with a tall dark-haired man, the love shining out of her face proclaiming him as Thom, her new fiancé, Tina was talking with a slightly stocky man who was probably the insensitive Jim; Sally was with a tall blond-haired man, and Cally’s choice of husband was a tall red-haired man Mattie thought might be a Scot. There was also another older couple present, who were probably the new fiancé’s parents. However, there was no sign yet of their daughter, Sharon.
As the four of them approached all conversation ceased between the other members of the Beauchamp family as they turned to look, and Mattie could feel Jack’s tension deepen as he reached down to tightly clasp her hand in his.
He really was worried about this meeting!
What did he think she was going to do, for goodness’ sake? Even if she hadn’t been aware of exactly who Tina, Sandy, Cally, and Sally were, she believed she could be trusted not to make a scene in front of Jack’s family!
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