didn’t need to think about it. ‘Since September the third,’ she said at once, and she was smiling suddenly, her eyes bright with memory, making him wonder exactly how she did feel about Sholto Cory. Maybe she liked him more than she realised?
‘We met on a river-boat,’ she said. ‘Going down the Thames to Greenwich on a rainy Saturday; it poured, all day. Everyone else was terribly cross; they were soaked to the skin and some of them had come dressed up in such pretty clothes. They huddled in the bar, drinking, and looking really fed-up. But Sholto was such fun, he made me laugh all the time. We got the giggles and that made everyone else get even crosser.’
It sounded very uncomfortable and far from fun. Ambrose gave her a dry look. ‘What on earth were you doing on a river-boat on a rainy day, anyway?’
‘Oh, didn’t I say? It was a birthday party for Sholto’s cousin Julia. I went to school with her, that’s why I was invited. It was the first time I’d met Sholto, though. He asked me to go riding with him the next morning; it was a Sunday and he wasn’t going to work. He said he would book us a couple of horses from a stable in Epping Forest, and he’d pick me up and drive us out there—it was only a half-hour drive from where I live. He said it was bound to be fine next morning, after all that rain, by the law of averages, and he was right. It was a glorious autumn morning, all the trees in the forest were turning yellow, and we had a wonderful ride. The leaves kept falling all around us, like golden confetti.’
‘It sounds very romantic,’ he said drily. In fact, it sounded as if she did like Sholto rather more than she realised. Sholto might have been a little too precipitate but perhaps she intended to marry him in the end? It wasn’t his business, he knew nothing about her—it didn’t matter to him whether or not she married Sholto Cory.
But his frown deepened, carving heavy lines in his brows, lines which had a permanent look, as if he frowned a good deal, thought the girl, watching him. Not because he was bad-tempered, she decided, her eye wandering over the rest of his strong, controlled face. There was a faintly sardonic humour about his eyes, a warmth to his mouth—no, he didn’t look bad-tempered. He must have a lot on his mind all the time, though.
She knew from Sholto how important he was, how much power he had; she had been curious about him for ages, and now she was impressed—who wouldn’t be?
‘And you’ve been seeing Sholto ever since?’
‘Well, we’re in the same crowd, we see each other at the same parties and so on…yes…’
‘But you weren’t expecting him to propose?’
‘It never entered my head. We barely——’ She broke off, a vivid red. ‘Well, I mean…I’m not…We aren’t… We never…’
He was filling in the blank spaces, his dark brows raised. ‘You aren’t in love with him?’
Just as obviously, they had never made love either; apart from the odd kiss, he suspected. That was what she couldn’t bring herself to say. She’s a virgin, he thought, looking into those blue eyes, startled. As rare as a unicorn these days. I don’t believe it.
‘How old are you?’
She gave him a stricken look, obviously understanding why he asked the question.
‘Twenty,’ she said half-defiantly. ‘Twenty-one in a few months. On the second of April, actually—I just missed April Fool’s Day.’ She laughed, but Ambrose didn’t.
He felt a strange stirring inside his chest, as if he had swallowed a bird that was trying to escape, wings fluttering against his ribs.
I must be sickening for something, he thought—maybe that headache is a symptom of something worse on the way? The last thing I need is to go down with the flu, especially of the virulent kind.
The silence that had fallen had made the girl look nervous. Noticing this, Ambrose said idly, ‘Has Sholto been your only boyfriend?’ and then wondered what on earth he was doing, asking this total stranger such a question. Serve him right if she slapped his face or walked off in a huff.
She gave him an even more startled look, very flushed, and opened her mouth to answer.
Ambrose quickly said, ‘Sorry, not my business, of course.’
‘Well, no, it isn’t,’ she said quietly. ‘And I shouldn’t have talked about Sholto behind his back, especially to you—he wouldn’t like it.’
‘No, of course, you’re quite right. I’m sorry,’ he said gravely.
Sholto must be worried stiff in case he had bitterly offended the very man he most wanted to impress. Ambrose Kerr felt a twinge of pity for him. This wasn’t Sholto’s night, was it? And he must have hoped it would be! He had probably planned that proposal, had wanted to do it here, so that he could announce it tonight, in front of the most important people at the bank!
He was probably hanging around outside, watching the door to this room, waiting on tenterhooks for her to come out so that he could pounce and find out what had been said about him in here.
‘Please…’
Ambrose looked down at the girl, who gave him a pleading look.
‘Yes?’
‘Please, could you forget you saw us? That it ever happened, I mean? You won’t let it influence you? Against Sholto, I mean…That would be so unfair.’
Still speaking gravely, he promised, ‘His career won’t suffer. Don’t worry.’
Looking at him uncertainly, she asked, ‘You promise?’
‘I promise,’ he said, and smiled at her suddenly, making her blink with surprise at the charm in that smile.
Charm wasn’t the first thing you thought about when you looked at Ambrose Kerr. He had an air of authority, calm self-assurance. He was a big man, broad-shouldered, tall, his body fit and powerful. His grey eyes made her shiver a little when they weren’t smiling. For all that charm, she didn’t think it would be wise to make him really angry. No wonder poor Sholto had looked witless when he recognised him.
Sholto was always talking about him—he admired him from a distance, because of course he didn’t know him, had never met him before tonight. Mind you, nobody seemed to know much about Ambrose Kerr, Sholto said.
He had come out of nowhere, shooting across the sky of the business world like a comet over the past decade. He had no family connections, no history he talked about, and people were far too nervous of him to go on asking questions he made it plain he didn’t want to answer.
He had an American background, but he didn’t have an American accent. He looked Mediterranean, if anything, with olive skin, close-shaven tonight along that tough jaw; his hair was dark too, smooth, a glossy blueblack in this light, brushed back from a widow’s peak, but with a silver streak at the temples.
She could see why he impressed Sholto so deeply. He impressed her. Her nerves rippled; no, it was more than that—he…She frowned, searching for the right word. Disturbed, she thought; that was it. He disturbed her. In fact, being with him was like standing on the very edge of a volcano. You were always aware of depths you couldn’t see but which you sensed were explosive and potentially deadly.
‘I
