Charlotte Lamb - Pagan Encounter

by Charlotte Lamb

  She moved to slap him and he caught her wrist. Their eyes held in silence.

  'That's about the third time you've tried to hit me,' he said softly. 'If you weren't already very bruised I'd slap you hard, Leigh. Now, take warning. Control that temper of yours.'

  'I haven't got a temper,' she said, jerking on her wrist to free herself.

  He raised an eyebrow. 'Are you kidding?'

  'I didn't have one until I met you,' she said sulkily.

  He gave her a suddenly charming, coaxing smile. 'That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me, darling.'

  Leigh's heart missed a beat. She felt hot colour run up her face as she realised the hidden implications of her admission that he affected her so deeply.

  To cover herself, she snapped, 'Don't call me darling!'

  His eyes caressed her. 'Don't you like it, Leigh?'

  Her heart was beating so fast it sounded like a drum in her own ears. She swallowed, moving away. 'Thank you for finding me a fiat, Mr. Hume, but I still can't come out to lunch with you.' She gave a faint laugh. 'I'd feel rather too conspicuous. People would be bound to stare at these marks.'

  'Yes,' he said consideringly, 'I'd forgotten that.' He stood, watching her. 'It's a lovely day, Leigh, the perfect day for a picnic. Why don't I go and find some picnic food and come back and drive you somewhere peaceful?'

  'No,' she said raggedly. 'I told you. I won't go out with you.'

  'Not when I've driven all this way?" he asked plaintively.

  'No!'

  'Then we'll stay here,' he said in a satisfied tone.

  She looked at him, infuriated. 'You're doing nothing of the sort. Mr. Hume, will you please go?'

  'Matt,' he said, moving into the kitchen. 'If you like, I'll make the coffee.'

  She followed him into the room, her shoulders tense, I to find him already moving about in easy familiarity, finding the coffee and the percolator, setting out cups. She watched him, almost speechless at her inability to move him from his intended course.

  'Is this how you're going to keep our agreement?' she asked his lean back as he worked.

  'I might have known I couldn't trust you for a moment.'

  'Leigh,' he said, in sudden soberness, turning to face her, 'I promised you I wouldn't attempt to seduce you, and I never break my word. I never intended to accept our relationship as a purely business one. We're going to spend a great deal of time together in the future, and if you imagine that two people thrown together for hour after hour, day after day, can remain purely business acquaintances, you're wildly wrong. You've got to start to think of me as a colleague. Stop calling me Mr. Hume. Stop treating me as if I were a leper. We can be friends, can't we?'

  She met the straight, frank look of the grey eyes and was thrown into confusion. Put like that, she was behaving very stupidly.

  'Miss Harrison didn't call you Matt,' she said lamely.

  He laughed, his eyes dancing. 'Of course she didn't --not in front of you. Barbara is discreet, a perfect secretary. When we're alone she uses christian names. So do I. But in front of anyone else she reverts to my surname. It can give a wrong impression if we seem to be too familiar. Gossip spreads very fast in a big organisation-- you should know that. The fact that Barbara and I are just friends would never be an exciting titbit of gossip, but if people could imagine we were more they'd build it up into a great romance.'

  He grimaced. 'You've no idea how people love to embroider. It would be useless to tell them that Barbara adores her future husband and regards me as just her boss. They would rather believe a more racy version.'

  Leigh sat down on a kitchen stool, her long-slender legs crossed, and watched as he deftly made the coffee and found cream in the refrigerator. 'I liked Barbara,' she said quietly. She believed him when he said that there was nothing between himself and his secretary. Barbara's eyes were too clear, too warm, for him to be lying.

  He turned his dark head and grinned at her. 'She's a very nice girl,' he agreed.

  'Efficient, too. I shall miss her.'

  Her smile was teasing. 'Meaning you suspect Lm neither?'

  He gave her an amused look. 'Don't fish, Leigh. I'm sure you're very efficient.'

  A slight dimple dented her mouth. 'But not very nice?'

  He didn't answer, and she looked up to find his grey eyes narrowed in speculation on her. 'You find it as impossible as I do, don't you, Leigh?' he asked softly at her look.

  'To do what?' she asked in bewilderment.

  'Keep things impersonal between us,' he said mockingly.

  Her colour rose and she looked down. Why on earth had she slid into flirting with him like that? she asked herself angrily. She could hardly blame him this time. She knew she was the one who had opened the perfectly direct conversation into a distinctly personal exchange.

  They sat down and drank their coffee in a peculiarly conscious silence. Leigh was wondering how on earth she was going to force him to leave, when he said softly, 'What shall we have for lunch?'

  'You can't stay.' she said flatly. 'No, Matt.'

  He grinned at her. 'I'll cook it. Omelette?'

  'No,' she said desperately.

  His eyes teased her. 'You look quite petrified, Leigh. All I offered was an omelette.'

  For a moment her inclination to be with him warred with her knowledge of the dangers of being alone in this house with him. She stared at the table, her finger tracing an endless circle.

  'Cheese?' he suggested. 'I noticed all the ingredients when I was making the coffee.'

  'Is there anything you can't do?' she asked him in despair. 'You're totally maddening, do you know that?'

  'I've been told before,' he agreed. 'Is cheese all right with you?'

  She looked at him, her face torn between warring instincts. 'I suppose if I asked you to go right now you'd take no notice?'

  His mouth twitched. 'Precisely,' he said mockingly. 'So don't waste your time, Leigh.'

  'If I were a man I'd throw you out bodily,' she snapped furiously, 'If you were a man I wouldn't need to be asked twice,' he said in amused reply.

  'What on earth am I supposed to tell my parents when they come back?' she demanded. 'How do I explain your presence?'

  He grinned. 'I've come to explain certain details of the job to you, Leigh. In fact, before lunch, that's exactly what I will do.' He pulled out a piece of paper from his jacket, spreading it out on the table between them. 'I've made a list of necessary items you must know about. When you start work I won't be there for the first three days--I'm going to New York. But there are some aspects of the job I want to emphasise personally. Barbara will no doubt fill you in on them, but I want to be sure you understand the delicacy of the position myself.'

  She nodded. 'I see.'

  He began to talk, his face serious, and she saw a new side of him, a crisp, hard, clear-headed mind emerging behind the casual facade of his charm.

  'I've no doubt you're aware of the problems facing Fleet Street with regard to the New Technology ... basically, we're in the process of changing from an old- established craft industry dominated by the print unions because of the enormous strength of their necessary skills to a new, wide open situation brought about by the invention of computerised printing. At the moment this is largely in the land of wishful thinking because, obviously, the unions are dragging their feet over it, and the last thing we want is a prolonged strike. The situation is delicately balanced at the moment. You have to know the background, Leigh, and understand the problems in detail.'

  He began to explain the process of computerised technology to her, his mind quick and clear, and she listened with a great interest, realising more clearly than ever how clever and shrewd a man Matt was beneath his sophisticated exterior.

  'It's not so much a matter of progress or increased efficiency and profit,' he sighed.

  'It's at the moment a natter of management relations. Before we can install the new machinery we have to convince the unions it's necessary. Printing is incr
edibly costly.

  Our costs go up year by year and our profits aren't keeping in line with them. Sooner or later we'll reach breaking point. We can't afford to run the papers without making a profit, and if we close down, all those jobs go for good. So en both sides some sort of arrangement will become essential. In the meantime we're all walking a tightrope..' He looked at her soberly. 'As my secretary, you have to be aware of the need for extreme caution and care when dealing with the unions.'

  'I understand,' she nodded.

  Matt's eyes searched hers. He gave her a brief, approving smile. 'Yes, I'm sure you can manage,' he said.

  Leigh glanced at the kitchen clock, amazed to realise that they had been talking about the new technology for an hour. 'Good heavens, look at the time!' she gasped.

  He grinned. 'Hungry?'

  "Starving,' she said.

  He got up. 'You grate the cheese, I'll beat up the eggs.

  Shall we have salad with the omelette? I saw some in the fridge.'

  'I'll make some dressing when I've grated the cheese,' she offered.

  'Fine,' he said, reaching into a cupboard for a large bowl. Leigh watched for a second or two, amused by his deft efficiency as he began to break eggs, then set to work herself.

  They ate in the kitchen. She was surprised and impressed by the golden, beautifully creamy omelette he had made, and congratulated him on it.

  'I have a limited repertoire,' he said casually, 'but what I do I do well.'

  She laughed. 'Modesty isn't your strong point, is it?'

  He flickered an amused look at her. 'Is it yours, Leigh?'

  Her eyes widened. 'I'd never considered it. Maybe not. Phil says I'm spoilt. Too much admiration, too much consideration from my parents ... I've had life too easy so far.'

  Matt's eyes moved over her unreadably. 'What were you like at school, Leigh?'

  'Much as I am today,' she said. 'I grew up early. My parents treated me as an adult long before I'd got out of adolescence, so I matured early.'

  He looked down at his long, capable hands. 'What about boys? Many boy-friends before Phil came along?'

  She laughed. 'Dozens, but none of them mattered.'

  His head came up and he stared at her, eyes narrowed. 'And he did?'

  She flushed slightly. 'He was more serious than the others,' she said defiantly. 'He went on seeing me.'

  'You mean you shook the others off without a problem,' he translated thoughtfully. 'You learnt how to give a brush-off early in life, I suspect, Leigh. With your looks you would have had to.'

  She shrugged, embarrassed. 'Shall we wash up?'

  'Don't change the subject,' he said calmly. 'Leigh, was there never anyone?'

  Her skin grew hot and her eyes flickered nervously. 'T don't want to discuss my private life,' she said. 'I would rather get on with the washing up.'

  As she got up his hand clamped down on to her wrist, holding her. 'What was he like?' he asked softly.

  Her blue eyes widened. She looked at him, taken aback. After a moment she asked shakily, 'Who?'

  'The one who hurt you so that you'd never let another man get close enough to do it again,' he said.

  Leigh caught her breath. She looked at him with bitterness. 'You're so damned shrewd. Matt, aren't you? Give you a problem and you worry at it until you've worked it out.'

  'It wasn't difficult,' he said drily. 'You just might have been a cold woman, but that possibility soon went out of the window.'

  Her eyes burned at him furiously. 'Shut up!'

  He ignored her rage. 'So there had to be another reason for the glacial manner, the determination to be in control of the situation between yourself and any man who came near you. From that point it was simple. The answer was obvious. At some time in your life a man had hurt you, and you'd wrapped yourself in ice to prevent it happening again.'

  'Well, if that's settled to your satisfaction, maybe you'd like to be on your way back to London,' Leigh said sharply.

  'We were going to do the washing up,' Matt said in bland tones. He got up and began to clear the table.

  Leigh fumed, eyeing him with a deep desire to smash one of the plates over his dark head.

  'Are you going to help me or are you just going to stand there smoking like Mount Vesuvius, Leigh?' he asked mockingly.

  She snatched up a tea towel and went to join him at the sink. They worked in silence for a while, then Matt said conversationally, 'So what sort of chap was he?'

  'Shut up,' Leigh said tightly.

  'Good-looking,' Matt mused. 'Older than you, I guess. A flirt.'

  Leigh's temper shot sky high. Bitterly, she said, 'He was like you ... a good-looking, deceitful, conceited swine, and married to boot.'

  He lifted an eyebrow, his face sharp. 'Did you know he was married?'

  'Not when I met him,' she said tightly. 'When I found out it was finished.'

  'Ah,' he said on a low sound of satisfaction. 'So that's it.'

  'Yes,' she said, her voice shaking with anger, 'that's it.'

  Matt dried his hands, having finished washing up, and leaned on the table, watching as she put the china away.

  'How long ago was it?' he asked.

  She turned on him. 'I don't want to talk about it.'

  He caught her by her elbows and shook her slightly. 'You know I'm going to find out.

  Leigh. Tell me now and get it over with. How long ago?'

  'I was seventeen,' she said, her voice full of remembered bitter feeling. 'I was infatuated with him and if I hadn't found out about his wife I would have slept with him ... there, is that enough, Matt? Or do you want to hear every single detail?'

  He put a hand to her face, his fingers curving over her hot, flushed cheek, their tips caressing. 'Seventeen,' he said flatly. 'You poor kid. It was a brutal beginning, Leigh, but you've got to let it fade into the past for your own sake.'

  'I've never thought of him again,' she said savagely.

  His eyes looked down into her wide, angry blue ones. 'You've thought of nothing else for years, have you, Leigh?' he asked softly. 'Oh, I'm not saying you're still in *love with him, but he hurt your pride and your self- respect deeply, and you're still trying to build a permanent wall around yourself so that it can never happen again.'

  'So clever, Matt,' she said in angry mockery.

  'By turning yourself into a frozen statue, you're letting him go on hurting you, Leigh,'

  he said seriously. 'If you could have shrugged off what happened he would have faded completely by now, but you've built your whole life from what he did to you, so the effect of the bastard has lasted ever since.'

  It was true, Leigh thought in sudden realisation. She looked at him curiously, realising that he was the first person she had ever told about what happened. It irritated her that he should have winkled the admission out of her. He was too shrewd, too experienced, too quick.

  'I think you'd better go,' she said huskily, suddenly aware of the erotic movements of his hands as they shaped and caressed her face between their palms.

  He was looking at her lazily, his grey eyes unreadable. 'Yes,' he said, surprising her, 'I must go in a minute. I have a dinner date tonight."

  'With Cathy Lord?' she asked, a jealous qualm shooting through her.

  His eyes narrowed. A smile curved his mouth. 'With Cathy,' he agreed blandly.

  'Pretty, isn't she?'

  'Very,' Leigh agreed, moving backward to free herself.

  His hands were immovable, holding her head warmly. 'Let me go, Matt,' she said huskily.

  His eyes were on her mouth. She felt a quiver run over it and tried to hold it stiffly.

  Suddenly Matt smiled at her, his charm powerful. 'Every human being has two citadels, Leigh one in the body, the other in the heart. If you're honest, you know that in our private war it would be simple for me to conquer one of your citadels. It's without defence, isn't it, Leigh? My weapons are too powerful for you.'

  She stared at him without answering, suddenly tense.


  'We're going to be working closely together from next week,' he went on conversationally. 'I don't want you worrying permanently in case I suddenly attack that undefended citadel of yours, Leigh. I give you my word of honour I've no intention of taking it by surprise.'

  She was breathing erratically, her eyes fixed on his face.

  He grinned. 'I must go. I'll see you next weekend. I'll come down on the Saturday and drive you to Sam's house. Expect me at around eleven, and be ready. My plane for New York leaves on Sunday at an absurdly early hour, so I want to get an early night on Saturday.'

  He walked down the hall and Leigh watched as he went out of the front door. He gave her a last, brief look from the grey eyes, then he was gone.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE following Saturday Leigh was packed and ready to leave when Matt came to the front door at exactly ten- thirty. She had already said goodbye to her parents, who had left for their shop, and was feeling extremely nervous as she opened the door to him.

  There were going to be enormous changes in her life after today. From living in a familiar street, a town she knew well, among friends and relations, she would be living in a great city which was comparatively unknown to her, and working in an exciting, vast new industry, learning every day and stretched to her full capacity to cope with her work.

  Matt's cold grey eyes had a smile at the back of them as he took her cases from her hands. 'Ready, Leigh?' he asked softly, and a great deal of unspoken curiosity lay behind the phrase.

  She lifted her chin. 'Yes, thank you.'

  He grinned. 'No need to gird on your armour. The battle hasn't begun yet!'

  In the car she looked at him sideways, obliquely observing him through her long lashes. He drove as expertly as he did everything else, a hard assurance in the way he wove in and out of the traffic, alert to coming problems and already taking action to avoid trouble before it arrived. The hard, clear profile was instinct with power. Intelligence, experience, confidence marked him as a man to be viewed with respect and, if you were a woman, slight apprehension.

  'Did you see your ex-fiance before he left the country?' he asked suddenly, shooting into a clear patch of road with a rapid acceleration which left slower cars behind.