Return Match. PENNY JORDAN
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was good to see Fanny rallying from her depression and taking an interest in something once more and Lucy willingly complied, leaving the others to make their way to the dining-room while she hurried to the kitchen.
Everyone was seated when she went in with the asparagus.
The furniture in this room had been her mother’s, and if the Sheraton dining chairs were rather scratched and worn, they were still undeniably elegant.
‘Asparagus … Very English,’ Saul commented as Lucy served him. ‘From here?’
‘From the Dower House’s garden, yes,’ she agreed, making it plain to him that the asparagus was not from the Manor. In point of fact the vegetable garden attached to the Dower House was better stocked and cared for—a legacy from one of their tenants who had been a keen gardener.
She had the satisfaction of seeing the faint tide of colour creep up under his skin as he digested her remark.
‘Lucy, really,’ Fanny reproached her. ‘There’s no need for that. I’m sure that Saul wouldn’t have minded in the least had the asparagus come from the Manor.’
The smile she directed towards him was one she had always used to good effect on her husband, and, watching Saul respond to it, Lucy wondered a little bleakly if she herself wouldn’t be well advised to adopt a few feminine wiles.
Not once had Saul smiled at her like that. Not once had he smiled at her at all.
‘This is really delicious.’
He was looking at Fanny, who coloured modestly but said nothing.
Oliver, seated beside Lucy, frowned watching the by-play and then said sturdily, ‘Mum didn’t cook it—Lucy does all the cooking.’
She was aware of Saul looking at her, but refused to look back, concentrating on her food until she felt the concentration of his gaze slacken.
Fanny she saw was frowning slightly, not pleased by her son’s comment. ‘Poor Lucy has had to take charge of so much,’ she told Saul, giving her stepdaughter a little smile. ‘I’m afraid I’ve been so prostrate with misery that I haven’t been able to do a thing.’
For a moment Lucy had to stifle a wild desire to remind her stepmother that never once since the start of her marriage had she shown the slightest interest in running the Manor, but she stifled it at birth, telling herself that she was being unfair. Fanny was Fanny and that was that.
‘I’ll go and get the main course,’ she said calmly instead, quickly collecting the plates and heading for the door.
Saul reached it before her, his forearm touching her body as he leaned across her to open the door.
A frisson of sensation shivered through her, so unexpected as to be faintly shocking, and she drew back from him as though her skin burned.
‘Am I correct in thinking I recognise the Sheraton?’
No one else could overhear the remark because Saul had his back to the room and she was almost through the door.
‘Yes,’ she agreed curtly. ‘It belonged to my mother and she willed it to me.’
There! Let him make what he liked of that!
The remainder of the meal passed all too slowly for Lucy. She was aware of Saul and Fanny conversing, but made no attempt to take part in their conversation. Saul praised the salmon and its accompanying sauce, looking at her this time, but she made no response. His remark about the furniture still hurt. Hurt? She examined the word covertly. Why should she feel hurt? Anger would be far more appropriate.
‘Do you see much of Neville these days?’
The unexpected question caught her off guard and, remembering how she and Neville had treated him that summer, she coloured a little.
‘Oh Neville’s a regular visitor,’ Fanny answered for her, giving her a teasing smile. ‘Although she always denies it I suspect Lucy has a soft spot for him. Of course he’s a very popular young man, more so since he’s taken over his father’s position in the business. Did you know about his connection with Holker’s, the publishers? He was most helpful to Lucy with her book, wasn’t he darling?’
Lucy felt her spirits plummet. It was all too easy to guess at the conclusions Saul had arrived at from Fanny’s artless speech.
‘It was my uncle who recommended Bennett’s to me, not Neville,’ she reminded her stepmother. ‘We don’t see quite so much of Neville as we once did.’ she added, looking directly at Saul, ‘but he does come down occasionally.’
He ignored her last statement to comment, with what she was sure was faked admiration, ‘So you’re writing a book. I’m most impressed Lucy. What’s it about?’
As though he, too, had sensed the derision behind the surface pleasantry of the words, Oliver answered for her.
‘It’s all about the Martin family … And Lucy spends hours in the library reading all about them. It’s going to be really good when it’s finished.’
Fanny laughed indulgently. ‘Really, Oliver darling. He quite dotes on Lucy,’ she told Saul over the latter’s head. ‘Sometimes I feel quite jealous. But then of course the children have been spending so much time with her recently. And then of course, living here … in her house.’
There was a sudden silence while Lucy gazed incredulously at her stepmother. Did Fanny resent the fact that the Dower House had been left to her?
She frowned, shocked by the thought, swiftly banishing it. It was because Saul was here that she was having these unfair thoughts.
‘Tell me more about this book of yours.’
Saul’s question caught her off guard, a faint frown pleating her forehead as she looked at him.
‘There isn’t very much to tell really. I’ve finished the draft of the first book, and I’m due to go to London next week to discuss it with the publishers.’
‘Mmm. What is it exactly? A history of the Martin family?’
‘No … not really, although I have used family papers and diaries as a background. It’s a fiction work not a factual one, but by using the family documents I’ve been able to give it a strongly factual framework.’
He was looking at her in rather an odd way and rather belatedly Lucy realised that she had betrayed herself into her usual enthusiasm for her project. Instilling some of her earlier coldness into her voice she added, ‘Of course, if you would rather that I don’t use the library at the Manor from now on I shall understand.’
‘Magnanimous of you.’
His dry tone made her flush as she realised how easily the cool voice she had used as a defence could be misconstrued as being rather haughty and supercilious.
She remembered now, too, how she and Neville had mocked his American accent, so different from their own British accents. How silly she had been to think it would be easy to wipe out the slights of the past. It was plain to her now that Saul felt nothing but contempt for her, and would doubtless laugh in her face if she were to attempt to apologise.
All in all she was extremely glad when he stood up and said that he had to leave.
‘I have to go into Winchester to see the solicitors; apparently there’s still a few loose ends to tie up.’
His smile when he left was for Fanny, not her, and it amazed her to realise how much that hurt.
FOR the rest of the week Lucy took care to avoid going anywhere near the main house and was rewarded by seeing nothing of Saul.
Tara had seen him, though, and the little girl appeared to have developed a rather unlikely