‘I’d been invited to a party that I didn’t want to go to but it would have been difficult to get out of it without a valid excuse,’ she explained quietly.
‘And there was me thinking you had succumbed to my irresistible charm.’
It was cool and light, but somehow she got the impression he wasn’t as amused as his smile would have liked her to believe, and something he had said earlier in the day—‘many a true word is spoken in jest’—came back to her. The male ego again. She mentally nodded at the thought. The male sex in general really did seem to believe they had been put on the earth to receive due homage.
‘Anyway, party or no, the least I can do is to feed you before I take you back,’ he said smoothly, for all the world as though she was a little lost orphan he had found wandering about the streets of London. ‘Come on, we’ll stop off for a bite to eat on the way home. I know I’m starving.’
She stared at him uncertainly, searching for the right words to refuse his invitation without appearing rude. Dinner with Conrad Quentin? She wouldn’t be able to eat a thing, she told herself feverishly as she stopped dead in her tracks. ‘But…’
‘Yes?’ He glanced down at her again and his eyes were cool.
‘What about Miss de Menthe?’ she said quickly. ‘I thought you were seeing her tonight?’
‘Cancelled,’ he said cryptically.
‘And there’s Madge’s cat.’ Thank goodness for Madge’s cat.
‘So there is.’ His gaze was distinctly cold now, and when she still didn’t move he made a quiet sound of annoyance and took her arm in one firm hand, guiding her along the winding path between bowling-green-smooth stretches of grass and into the car park.
His flesh was warm through the thin cotton of her cardigan, and it wasn’t the swiftness with which he was urging her along that made her suddenly short of breath. He was so big, so male, so much of everything if the truth be known. And knowing what he was like, all the women he had had, made her feel gauche and inadequate and totally out of her depth. He smelt absolutely wonderful. The unwelcome intrusion of the thought did nothing to calm the wild flutters of panic that were turning her stomach upside down.
He opened the car door for her when they reached the Mercedes, and as he leant over her slightly it took every ounce of her will-power to slide into the confines of the car with a small polite nod of her head, as though she was totally oblivious to his male warmth.
And then, as he walked lazily round the bonnet of the car, she took herself severely in hand. Conrad Quentin was one of those men who had everything—wealth, success and an alarming amount of sex appeal—and she’d better get it clear in her head now that she wasn’t going to let him intimidate her, consciously or unconsciously. If she was going to continue standing in for Madge, that was. Which she rather thought she was, crazy though that made her. Anyway, she had given him her word at the office earlier, so that was that. She couldn’t back out now.
‘You’re frowning.’
She glanced up to see a pair of very piercing blue eyes surveying her through the open driver’s door, and then, as she flushed hotly, he slid into the seat and started the engine with a flick of his hand.
Sephy waited for him to follow up on his terse statement, but when they had gone a mile or two and he still hadn’t spoken she swallowed drily, and then said quietly, ‘Mr Quentin—’
‘Conrad,’ he interrupted pleasantly.
She tried to ignore the long lean legs stretched out under the steering wheel and the delicious faint odour of what must be wildly expensive aftershave, and took another surreptitious swallow before she managed, ‘Conrad, there really is no need to buy me dinner. I’m sure you must be terribly busy, and I’ve masses of things to do when I get home—’
‘Don’t you want to have dinner with me, Sephy?’ he interrupted again, the even tone fooling her not at all.
She hesitated just a second too long before she said, ‘It’s not that. Of course it’s not that I don’t want to.’
‘No?’ It was very dry. ‘Well, we won’t labour the point. I take it you have no objection in calling in Madge’s place on the way back and picking up the terrible Angus? It is en route, so it makes sense.’
She wanted to ask, Why the terrible Angus? but said instead, ‘Yes, of course. That’s fine,’ her voice tight and stiff.
‘And it might be easier to drop him off at my house before I take you home; he doesn’t like travelling and it’ll be less stressful,’ he continued smoothly. ‘We don’t want to distress him.’
Put like that, she could hardly do anything else but agree. She had no idea where he lived, but somehow she didn’t feel she could ask him either. She just hoped it wasn’t too far from Madge’s.
Madge’s house turned out to be a small and awe-inspiringly neat semi in Epping, with a paved front garden methodically interspersed with miniature shrubs. The interior of the building smelt of mothballs and furniture polish and was as spick and span as the front garden. It was exactly Madge—which made Angus all the more of a shock.
The cat was an enormous battle-scarred ginger tom, with a shredded right ear, a twisted tail that looked distinctly the worse for wear and a blemished nose that bore evidence of numerous fights. He was the very antithesis of what Sephy had expected.
He was waiting for them in Madge’s gleaming compact little kitchen when Conrad opened the door from the hall, which had been firmly closed, and it was clear he was confined to that room of the house during the working day from the massive cat flap in the back door, which gave him access to the rear garden, and the big, warm comfortable basket in one corner of the kitchen, next to which were two saucers. Two empty saucers—a fact which the cat immediately brought to their attention by his plaintive miaows.
‘Oh, he must be starving, poor thing.’
Sephy was all concern as the enormous feline wound hopefully round her legs, but as she glanced anxiously at Conrad she saw him shake his head mockingly, and his voice was amused as he said, ‘He’d have you wrapped round one paw the same as he has Madge. If ever a cat could look after itself this one can, I assure you. Angus always has his eye to the main chance and he keeps everyone dancing to his tune.’
It takes one to recognise one.
For an awful moment Sephy thought she had actually spoken the words out loud, but when Conrad’s face didn’t change and he merely gathered up the cat basket and the saucers she breathed out a silent sigh of relief. She’d said more than enough already.
‘See if you can find a tin of cat food for tonight while I take these out to the car. Although once I get him home I dare say Daniella will be feeding him salmon and steak.’ Conrad shook his head again at the huge cat, who eyed him unblinkingly out of serene emerald eyes. ‘He boarded with us last year while Madge had a couple of weeks’ holiday with her sister, and he didn’t taste cat food once.’
‘Daniella?’ Sephy queried carefully as he passed her with the basket. She didn’t think it unreasonable to ask now.
‘My housekeeper,’ he tossed easily over his shoulder.
His
