The Vengance Affair

by Carole Mortimer

  'I know,' Jaz sighed. 'But as you can see—;' at last she did turn and look at the still-chatting Beau and Camilla now '—he's way out of my league!'

  'Don't be silly, Jaz,' Madelaine patted her hand in rebuke. 'A man like Beau soon tires of vacuously beau­tiful women like darling Camilla—fond as I am of her.'

  Vacuous or not, Camilla's idea of a 'little black dress'—a short, strapless affair that clung in all the right places—made Jaz feel as conservatively dressed as a nun!

  'Never mind,' Madelaine dismissed briskly. 'There's plenty of time yet.'

  'Plenty of time for wh—?'

  'Come and say hello to the Booths,' Madelaine cut in briskly on Jaz's query, already pulling her in the direction of the vicar and his pretty young wife as they stood chatting with another couple near the fireplace.

  Jaz was only too pleased to stop and chat to the Booths as Madelaine rushed off to greet another arriving guest, the couple they had been talking to having wan­dered off to join another group after the initial intro­ductions.

  She had always liked the Booths, Robert tall and dis­tinguished-looking, and aged in his mid-forties, Betty small and blonde, and only a year or so older than Jaz herself.

  On first acquaintance the couple seemed an oddly matched pair, but over the last year or so since the Booths moved to Aberton Jaz had come to realize that Betty, although appearing fluffy and disorganized, was in fact the one that kept the vicarage and Robert's many parish duties running so smoothly.

  'Isn't this wonderful?' Betty beamed now, looking very pretty in a pale blue dress. 'Sundays are always such a busy day for us; it was so nice of Madelaine to telephone this afternoon and invite us here to dinner after evening service.'

  Jaz, having had a grandfather who was a vicar, was well aware of the many demands made of them, and could well appreciate that Betty welcomed this change in routine. Robert was a little harder to fathom, tending to hold himself slightly aloof on such occasions, although he was obviously quite happy to indulge his pretty wife in this unexpected treat.

  'I feel the same way,' Jaz smiled sympathetically. 'The garden centre is always busy at the weekends, too.'

  'I'm glad to hear it,' Beau drawled as he joined them. 'I brought you over a glass of champagne,' he said in answer to Jaz's questioning look, holding out the bub­bling glass of wine.

  She blinked her surprise at his being here at all, not having expected to see too much more of him this eve­ning. What on earth had he done with the beautiful Camilla?

  His mouth twisted derisively as he followed her searching gaze. 'Camilla has rejoined her fiancé,' he explained mockingly.

  Poor fiancé, was Jaz's first thought; she wouldn't have been too happy herself at having anyone she was engaged to greeting another woman in that effusive way!

  'Talking of which...' Beau continued softly '...it wasn't very polite of you to just desert your dinner part­ner in that abrupt way.'

  'My dinner partner!' Jaz's eyes had widened indig­nantly.

  Beau turned to the other couple. 'I'm afraid I'm not one of those modern men who arrives with a woman and then only meets up with her again when it's time to leave,' he confided conversationally.

  'Quite right,' Robert nodded approvingly.

  'I can't say I would be too happy with that.' Betty linked her arm through Robert's in an affectionate ges­ture.

  Neither would Jaz have been—if that had truly been the case. Which it wasn't!

  'Well, excuse me—'

  'You're excused,' Beau cut in smoothly on Jaz's in­dignant outrage. 'Try the champagne; it's delicious.' He held the glass out to her once again, grey eyes laughing at her obvious desire to tell him exactly what she thought of him, while at the same time being slightly hamstrung by the Booths' presence.

  She took the proffered glass of champagne, taking a restorative gulp—anything to stop her from completely embarrassing herself by giving in to the impulse she had to slap that taunting grin off Beau's arrogantly handsome face.

  'I do so love these formal dinners.' Betty was the one to lightly fill in the silence that seemed to have de­scended. 'Although I don't envy Madelaine's cook hav­ing to feed so many of us!' she added ruefully.

  There were at least a dozen people in the room, most of them friends of Madelaine's from London, with only the Booths and Jaz living locally—the major, she noted, was conspicuous by his absence—but she didn't doubt that Madelaine's housekeeper would cope, as she al­ways did on these occasions, quite comfortably.

  'Do excuse us, won't you?' Robert prompted politely as Madelaine beckoned from across the room, obviously wanting to introduce the other couple to the man she was talking to.

  'Go ahead.' Beau nodded, smiling.

  Jaz waited barely long enough for the other couple to leave before turning glaringly on Beau. 'What do you mean "dinner partner"?' she demanded.

  He raised dark brows. 'You arrived with me, didn't you?'

  'Yes. But—'

  'We are here to eat dinner, aren't we?' Beau prompted smoothly.

  She sighed. 'Yes. But—'

  'And I have no doubt that Madelaine—God bless her matchmaking heart!—will have seated us next to each other at the table?' he continued determinedly.

  Jaz grimaced. 'Probably.' God bless her matchmak­ing heart!

  He shrugged. 'Then what else do we have to do to be classed as dinner partners?'

  In all honesty, she wasn't absolutely sure—all she did know was that they were not here as a couple!

  'Beau, you know very well that you just gave me a lift here.' She at least tried to make some sense of the situation. 'That does not put you under any obligation to spend the rest of the evening, or indeed, part of it, with me.'

  He raised dark brows. 'Doesn't it?'

  'No!' She could barely contain her impatience now.

  'Hmm.' He pursed his lips thoughtfully. 'Well, as far as I'm concerned, it puts you under obligation to spend the rest of the evening, not part of it, with me.'

  Jaz looked at him frowningly, her searching gaze be­ing met with a look of bland innocence. Which was not an emotion she in the least connected to Beau!

  She gave him a derisive smile. 'Wouldn't that cramp your style a little?'

  'Probably a lot,' he conceded lightly. 'But as there's no one else here that I particularly want to spend time with, it looks as if you're stuck with me.'

  From the envious looks Jaz had been receiving from the other women in the room since Beau had joined her, she had a feeling she was the only woman here who didn't want to be 'stuck with him'. And her reasons for feeling that way were completely her own!

  Could she really be falling in love with this man? It would be an act of madness if she were. But then, when had she ever claimed she was a sane and reasonable person? Never, as far as she was aware. Well, falling in love with Beau proved it—she wasn't either of those things!

  'What?'

  She gave a guilty start as she realized Beau was look­ing at her with narrowed eyes, although from the abruptness of his query he didn't have any idea what she had been thinking about so intensely. Thank good­ness!

  'Nothing.' She gave a dismissive shake of her head, turning away from him deliberately to look at the other people gathered in the room. 'Do you usually go to a lot of dinner parties like this one?' The three locals apart, they were a glittering bunch of people, the women beautiful, the men all handsome, Jaz recognizing a cou­ple of the faces from television.

  Beau gave a noncommittal grimace. 'Not in the last couple of weeks or so, no.'

  Since he had moved to Aberton...

  'And not that many when I lived in London, either— if I could possibly avoid it,' he said hardly.

  'I find that hard to believe,' Jaz commented. After all, didn't part of what he did—what he had done?— involve meeting people at social gatherings of this sort?

  Beau gave a decisive shake of his head. 'I wouldn't be here tonight either if Madelaine hadn't told me you were coming,' he
added huskily.

  Jaz turned sharply to look at him, but, apart from the laughter still lurking in those silver-grey eyes, she could read nothing from his expression. 'And why should that have made a difference?' She tried to keep her own tone as noncommittal, but knew by the way her voice rose slightly in tenor that she hadn't succeeded.

  But why should her presence here have made a dif­ference to whether or not Beau accepted Madelaine's dinner invitation? Unless he was attracted to her, pos­sibly even falling in love with her too—

  Now she was being utterly ridiculous! Half a glass of champagne was obviously half a glass too much! Because there was no way a sophisticated man like Beau was falling in love with her. If he felt anything towards her at all then it was pity. And she could do without that, thank you...

  'Forget I even asked that,' she told him hastily as Madelaine announced that dinner was ready to be served, Jaz moving to put her champagne glass down on top of the fireplace; no more wine for her this eve­ning, not if it was going to make her have wild thoughts like her previous one!

  Beau reached out and put a lightly restraining hand on her arm. 'What if I don't want to forget it?' he prompted huskily.

  Jaz couldn't quite meet his gaze, looking somewhere across his left shoulder. 'Just accept that I do and leave it at that, hmm,' she said waspishly.

  He seemed to give the idea some thought before giv­ing a slow shake of his head. 'No, I don't think that I will. In fact, we're definitely going to get back to this later,' he promised softly.

  Much, much later, if Jaz had anything to do with it. And she did.

  Didn't she...?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  'You can stop gnashing your teeth now, Jaz,' Beau chuckled softly in the darkness beside her as he drove the two of them away from Madelaine's house later that evening.

  No, she couldn't. If she stopped gnashing her teeth she would start talking. And if she started talking, there was no telling what she might say!

  It hadn't been the worst evening she had ever spent in her life—that award had to go to a date she had had when she was eighteen!—but it had certainly been far from the most enjoyable, either.

  Beau had been correct in his assumption that Madelaine would seat the two of them next to each other, unfortunately Madelaine had also inadvertently seated Camilla on Beau's other side. And Camilla wasn't a woman who liked to share male attention with anyone—least of all with someone she considered noth­ing more than a country bumpkin. As she obviously did Jaz!

  'Are you sure Gerald is her fiancé?' she snapped, not having seen much evidence of it the last couple of hours, as Camilla completely ignored the other man and concentrated her considerable charms on Beau.

  'Well, he is, and he isn't. Camilla is more of a smokescreen really,' Beau answered slowly. 'If you know what I mean?'

  'No, I—' She broke off, staring at Beau in the semi-darkness. 'Are you telling me that Gerald is—that he's—'

  'Yep,' Beau confirmed her suspicions. 'Unfortunately his father—who happens to be head of Burnet Television—doesn't know, and wouldn't approve if he did. Which is why Gerald decided he needed a fiancée for a while just to allay any suspicions his father may get concerning his marriageless state. A female fiancée, of course,' he added dryly.

  'Of course,' Jaz acknowledged just as dryly.

  She would never have guessed of Gerald's lack of interest in the opposite sex; he was extremely good-looking, and she had found him thoroughly charming, on the single occasion the two of them had chance to talk.

  'But don't be misled into thinking Gerald is using Camilla,' Beau continued. 'This arrangement is just as convenient for her, I can assure you.' He shrugged dis­missively.

  Jaz's eyes widened incredulously. 'You aren't telling me that Camilla's gay too?'

  'No, I'm not telling you that.' Beau gave a firm shake of his head as he began to chuckle again. 'As well as his father, Gerald has a number of important family con­nections in the world of television and films, and Camilla is an ambitious young lady. So she's helping him out by temporarily being his fiancée, and—'

  'In return he's going to "help her out" with her career,' Jaz finished scornfully. 'It's all a little—false, isn't it?' She shook her head disgustedly. 'Not that I'm in the least interested in where his—interests lay,' she defended hastily. And she really wasn't. A person's sex­ual preferences were their own affair as far as she was concerned. 'It just seems rather contrived and a bit...exploitative,' she finished lamely.

  She had spent the better part of the evening being jealous of a woman who was engaged to a man simply in the interest of furthering her career! Could it be that Camilla saw Beau as another man to be exploited?

  'Clever girl,' Beau drawled ruefully after giving her a sideways glance. 'Yes, Camilla is an ambitious young lady all right. It's a pity she was wasting her time where I'm concerned,' he added hardly.

  Jaz gave him a searching look. Did he mean Camilla was wasting her time because he just wasn't interested in her in that way? Or did he mean something else...?

  His mouth thinned. 'As you've already guessed, I'm no longer involved in that world,' he bit out harshly.

  As she had already guessed indeed. But she still wasn't sure whether it was by choice or necessity. Although from the few conversations they had had on the subject, she would say it was the latter...

  'Anyway—' Beau straightened in the driving seat '—Madelaine has had words with me this evening con­cerning putting "ideas into your head".' He raised his dark brows questioningly.

  Jaz looked at him blankly for several seconds, a frown marking her brow as she suddenly wondered whether Madelaine, dear as she was, could possibly have totally embarrassed her by warning Beau not to play with her emotions. Please, no...

  'Yes, apparently you've discussed the idea of leaving the area with her,' Beau continued conversationally. 'After telling me to mind my own business for even mentioning it!'

  Jaz could feel the warm colour in her cheeks. 'You didn't just "mention" it—you taunted me with it!' she returned sharply. 'And, yes, I may have discussed it with Madelaine, but that's really none of your business either, is it?' she added rudely.

  He gave an unconcerned shrug. 'That really depends on whether or not I choose to make it my business, now doesn't it?'

  Jaz gave an indignant gasp. 'No, it does not!' She glared at him in the darkness. 'When you first—made the suggestion,' she tautly amended her initial accusa­tion, 'I thought it was totally ridiculous. But on thinking about it, I decided perhaps it may be worth considering.'

  'And?'

  'I'm still considering,' she snapped.

  'I'd get more joy from watching grass grow than try­ing to get a straight answer out of you!' he came back just as snappily.

  'Be my guest,' Jaz scorned. 'You'll find it grows very slowly this time of year!'

  'You know, Jaz,' he said slowly, a smile starting to curve those sculpted lips, 'being with you is never bor­ing.'

  'I'm glad I'm good for something—even if it is only alleviating your boredom!' she returned waspishly.

  Although secretly she was rather 'glad'; if Beau didn't find being with her boring, that was at least some­thing positive!

  'Invite me in for coffee.'

  Jaz turned to him frowningly, at the same time real­izing he had brought the Range Rover to a halt in her driveway, that he was now turned slightly in his seat as he waited for her reply.

  She moisted her lips, not sure that inviting him in— for coffee or anything else!—was a particularly good idea; every time she had done that so far Beau had ended up kissing her.

  Maybe it was a good idea, after all!

  She liked being kissed by Beau. Perhaps liked it a little too much?

  'Go on, Jaz, invite me in, live dangerously for once in your life,' Beau murmured huskily.

  Living dangerously was not an option in her life at the moment, it only seemed to lead to trouble. And with the arrival of those two anonymous lett
ers, she already had enough of that.

  She drew in a slow breath. 'Actually, I'm a little tired—'

  'Then I'll make the coffee.'

  'It's Monday tomorrow—'

  'I don't mind if you arrive a little late for work.'

  Her brow creased into a frown of frustration as he easily knocked down every barrier she put in his way. 'I don't particularly want a cup of coffee—'

  'Okay, let's forget the coffee, and just invite me in anyway.'

  That rather defeated the whole basis of her objec­tions!

  'Jaz.' Beau reached out to lightly cup her cheek in his hand, his thumb moving to lightly caress the soft pout of her lips. 'Invite me in,' he prompted evenly, his eyes glowing in the darkness.

  She swallowed again, feeling the rush of adrenalin through her body created just by having Beau touch her in this way. If he came into the cottage, where would it all stop? If it stopped at all!

  'I —'

  'I'm coming in,' he told her firmly, his hand falling back to his side, and he turned and got out of the vehicle before she could say another word.

  Because he had known that she was about to say a determined no to his coming inside! How could he help but know? She hadn't exactly been overwhelming in her enthusiasm so far!

  She joined him on the snow-covered driveway, delib­erately not looking at him as she searched through her handbag for her key, having left the small outside light on earlier so that she would be able to see what she was doing when she returned.

  'You look like a scared rabbit!' Beau's voice bit harshly into the surrounding darkness.

  She raised her head to glare at him, having at last located her door key. 'Maybe that's because I feel like a "scared rabbit"!' she snapped impatiently.

  He became very still, eyes narrowed to silver slits. 'Do I frighten you?'

  'Yes! No!' she amended irritably.

  His expression was grim. 'Make your mind up, Jaz; is it yes or no?' As if by instinct, rather than design, his hand moved to the scar on his face.

  She could repeat yes, and knew that he would leave then, knew by the way his fingers ran absently down that livid scar on this cheek that he would do so com­pletely misunderstanding the reason for her fear. But could she really do that? Could she wound him in that way, even to save herself? The answer to that was a resounding no!