Their Engagement is Announced. Carole Mortimer
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you can see, it’s very busy here this evening.’ Griffin stopped beside a table, holding back a chair for Dora to sit down. ‘I assured Fiona we wouldn’t in the least mind sharing a table rather than taking up two!’
Dora frowned at him. He had a damned cheek assuring Fiona of anything where she was concerned!
But there was no doubt that the restaurant was very busy; most of the people that had been in the bar drinking were now starting to drift in to sit at their tables.
‘And sharing the bill, too?’ Dora drawled as she finally sat down.
The room was illuminated by the fire and a dozen or so lit candles. Very romantic! And with a complete stranger, at that. She wouldn’t say he was a ‘perfect’ stranger, because she had the feeling Griffin Sinclair was far from being that!
‘That would be very ungentlemanly of me.’ Griffin sat down opposite her, pouring her a glass of white wine from the bottle he must already have ordered for their table. ‘And although my mother may feel that she failed with me in most things,’ he added hardly, ‘she did bring me up to be a gentleman.’
There was a slight edge to his voice as he spoke of his mother, as there had been earlier when he’d talked of being named after his great-uncle. Dora’s own mother had been dead for eight years, and she still missed her quiet calm, her air of serenity, her sense of fun.
‘In that case, I thank you for dinner.’ She accepted his invitation—albeit a fait accompli!—with a gracious smile.
Griffin sat back in his chair, watching her. ‘You look right in these surroundings, you know, Izzy,’ he finally murmured.
Dora had been aware of his prolonged gaze, and now the hot colour entered her cheeks. She had never been what could be considered a fashionable dresser, preferring to wear what was comfortable or smart, and, in the case of the cream blouse and black skirt, she considered them to be both.
Her hair was freshly washed after her travelling and her business appointment, and fell softly to her shoulders; her make-up was light—a peach lipgloss on her lips, just a brush of mascara to darken her lashes and enhance the grey of her eyes.
In fact, she had been quite satisfied with her appearance before she’d left her bedroom a few minutes ago, but she realised that she probably wasn’t sophisticated or beautiful enough for a man like Griffin Sinclair, that his taste would be for much more glamorous women than she could ever be.
‘I meant that as a compliment, Izzy.’ His husky voice interrupted her wandering thoughts. ‘I’ve fallen in love with the charm of this place.’ He looked about them comfortably. ‘I only meant to stay overnight initially, but instead I’ve been here almost a week now!’
‘Are you here on business, Griffin?’ She deliberately chose to ignore what he considered his compliment—and the fact that he continued to call her Izzy when no one else ever did. The whole of her visit to this hotel was taking on a dream-like quality; he might as well become another part of it. And, actually, it was quite exciting to be someone other than Dora for a few hours in her life!
Not that there was anything particularly wrong with her life. She kept house for her father, and helped him in his bookshop throughout the week. It was just that the very fact of being called Izzy made her feel as if she were somehow different, no longer the shy, cautious little Dora. Or maybe it was as Griffin said: the charm of this country inn just seemed to take over…
He laughed softly. ‘This is my business, Izzy. I write travel reviews,’ he explained at her questioning look.
‘For Sunday supplements, things like that?’ She had never actually thought about the fact that the people who wrote those things had to actually stay in the places they wrote about. But of course they did. And Griffin was obviously one of the people who did that. They had travel books at the shop, of course, but not ones that involved visiting individual hotels and giving a rating on them.
‘Things like that,’ Griffin echoed dryly, with a mocking inclination of his head.
‘How interesting.’ She took a sip of her wine, finding it light and dry. Just the way she liked it…
Griffin burst out laughing, uncaring of the female heads that turned his way as he did so. ‘Take my advice, Izzy, and never take up acting—you’re lousy at it!’
‘But surely it is interesting?’ She hurriedly tried to rectify what he had obviously taken as an insult. This place, or being called Izzy, must be having a strange effect on her; she wasn’t usually so outspoken! ‘I’ve always wanted to travel,’ she added wistfully, knowing that while she worked for her father she probably never would, other than on business trips like this one. And she only made those because her father now felt he was too old for making such long drives himself.
When she was younger Dora had imagined she would perhaps take a year out after finishing school and before taking up a course at university, but her mother’s death, and the need for her at home, meant that that had never happened. And now, with her father and herself both working in the shop, they had necessarily to take separate holidays. Most of Dora’s friends were now either married or had moved away from the area, and it didn’t feel right, nor would it be as much fun, for her to travel on her own. And so her holidays were usually spent at home.
Although travelling for a living, while it might be fun to start with, must surely become boring after a while…
‘It can be interesting.’ Griffin shrugged. ‘Although my family keep asking me when I’m going to get a ‘‘proper’’ job!’
From what Griffin had said about his family, his mother in particular, Dora had the feeling he was quite happy to continue as he was—if it managed to annoy his family at the same time as providing him with a living!
Dora couldn’t imagine living with such tension between herself and the only living member of the family she had left: namely her father. She preferred life to run smoothly and comfortably, not to be in constant conflict with those around her. Griffin gave every impression of not giving a damn about who he upset!
Her mouth twisted wryly. ‘I’m sure they must be proud of you.’ After all, he must be quite good at what he did, otherwise he wouldn’t still be in employment.
‘And I’m damned sure they’re no such thing!’ he returned unconcernedly.
Dora took another sip of her wine. In fact, she seemed to sip rather a lot of wine during the next couple of hours as they enjoyed their meal, and Griffin ordered another bottle halfway through their main course.
Dora wasn’t sure it was exactly prudent to drink any more wine, but she wasn’t driving, and she really was quite enjoying herself. Griffin was genuinely interesting as he told her some of the funnier stories of his travels, and she didn’t want to refuse the wine and so put a dampener on their evening. Even Derry, as he wandered about the place, didn’t seem quite as big and frightening as he had earlier. In fact, he seemed to have decided he quite liked her, coming to lie on the carpeted floor at her feet.
‘Five feet nothing, and yet you seem to have some sort of power over rogue males,’ Griffin murmured thoughtfully.
Dora gave him a sharp look, searching for some sort of hidden meaning in his comment—or one that wasn’t so hidden! There was no doubting that Griffin was male, a fact that her racing pulse had been telling her all evening, and as for rogue—he was the most unorthodox man she had ever met! He had made no effort to dress for dinner, and was still wearing his denims. He’d swapped his black tee shirt for a green one, which seemed to darken the colour of his eyes, adding to their enigmatic depth. Those eyes combined with that over-long blond hair made him very much a ‘rogue male’ himself. But perhaps that wasn’t what he had meant…?
‘It was exactly what I meant, Izzy.’ He sat forward, his expression suddenly intense as he reached out and clasped one of her hands in his own. ‘Where the hell did you come from?’ he muttered grimly.
She swallowed hard. He was playing with her; he had to