tightened in a horrible parody of his smile as she drew in a sharp breath. ‘Have I shocked you? Well, you’re very young. Still naive enough to believe in such rubbish. You’ll learn.’
‘Just how old do you have to be before you get that cynical?’ she asked.
‘Not very old,’ he said, with feeling, and she thought for the most fleeting moment that she had managed to dent his insufferable arrogance. But then the blade-edged smile was firmly back in place. ‘I’m not quite in my dotage, but by your own demanding standards, Elizabeth, I’m far too old for you,’ he replied very firmly. ‘I can assure you that whatever you may hear to the contrary you will be perfectly safe under my roof. I wouldn’t touch you with a bargepole.’
‘You...’ She barely managed to stop herself from telling him in the most graphic terms what he could do with his bargepole. ‘You kissed me,’ she pointed out, and achieved a certain sharp satisfaction in contradicting him.
‘And I shall do so again if the situation requires it,’ he replied, unmoved. ‘But we’ll both know that it doesn’t mean a thing.’
The slow burn of anger helped, she found. While she kept her mind simmering on the obnoxious Noah Jordan she could almost forget about Peter.
‘You kiss very... thoroughly...’ she said, deliberately provoking him. ‘I’m sure I shall learn a lot.’
‘And you kiss like a virgin.’
She pressed her tongue hard against her teeth to stop herself from screaming at him that there was a very good reason for that.
‘Kissed once when I wasn’t looking,’ she misquoted a little shakily, ‘and never kissed again, even though I was looking all the time?’
‘No doubt you’ll improve with practice.’ For a moment she thought that she detected that errant touch of humour in his voice. But his face, when she turned, was stony.
‘Don’t bother to apply for the position of coach. It isn’t vacant.’
‘On the contrary.’ Her blush deepened painfully under his searching glance, but she refused to be intimidated. ‘However, tonight I think we must do our best to convince the new Mrs Hallam that it has already been filled.’ He slowed as they reached the main road, and for a moment concentrated on the traffic. Once they were moving along smoothly again he continued. ‘After that you can do whatever you like.’
‘What would you suggest?’ she prompted. Anything rather than dwell on the thought of Mrs Hallam, she thought.
His eyes lingered on her for a moment, then he turned away. ‘I hardly think I’m the best person to advise you,’ he said abruptly.
‘You’ve been pretty free with your advice until now,’ she declared.
He shrugged. ‘I suggest you do whatever is necessary to take your mind off Peter Hallam. Isn’t there something you’ve always wanted to do, but never had the chance?’
Another reminder that it was time to be moving on? ‘So long as it isn’t bungee-jumping or free-fall parachuting?’ she offered sourly.
‘You’re young enough to survive a few painful landings.’ Heartache wasn’t fatal, then? She thought it was a little early to say. She was still numb with shock. But fighting with Noah Jordan was certainly a very effective diversion. He threw her a fleeting glance. ‘Have you ever lived away from home? Actually worked for a living?’
He made her sound like a parasite. ‘No. But it looks as if I’m about to get my first taste of both. I don’t have much choice, do I? I’ve been given my marching orders.’
‘Marching orders?’ His surprise was very convincing, but she wasn’t fooled.
‘Frankly, Noah, I don’t understand why you’re taking so much interest.’
His mouth thinned. ‘Like you, Elizabeth, I had my arm twisted.’
‘Well, you can consider it untwisted. Just take me to Islington.’ He didn’t bother to reply, and for a while they travelled in silence. Then Lizzie glanced at the man beside her. ‘Was I really so transparent? Back there?’ she was finally driven to ask.
He threw her a cursory look. ‘As the Crystal Palace with all the lights on.’ She paled. ‘I assumed you wanted an honest answer.’
‘There’s honest,’ she replied stiffly, ‘and there’s brutal.’ She stared straight ahead. ‘I’ll never be able to look that girl in the face again.’
‘You’re going to have to. I invited them to join us tonight.’
‘They won’t miss me.’
‘On the contrary, your absence would be impossible to attribute to anything other than...pique.’
‘Pique?’
‘Jealousy is such a nasty word.’
Lizzie frowned. Jealous? She had always imagined jealousy to be a sour, hateful emotion. This hollow, empty feeling had none of that. But there was no time to consider the matter as Noah claimed her attention.
‘You will be charming to Francesca, you will behave towards Peter like the doting little sister he has doubtless portrayed you as to his wife, and you will treat me...’ He said nothing for a moment, but as they slowed and came to a halt for the motorway roundabout he raised heavy lids to run an assessing glance over her. It was unnerving.
Something in that look—the slightest darkening of a pair of steely eyes—brought a fierce glow to her cheeks and played havoc with her pulse, sending it crashing into overdrive. Whatever he wanted from her, she didn’t think she was going to like it.
A blast on a car horn behind them made her jump. Noah raised an apologetic hand and turned his attention back to the road.
‘What?’ Lizzie demanded.
‘You will treat me as if we are lovers,’ he said with absolute conviction.
Lizzie swallowed, hard. She’d been right. She didn’t like it one bit. ‘And how am I supposed to do that from the end of a bargepole?’
‘You can safely leave all the details to me.’ If Noah had meant to be reassuring he failed signally. His kiss still burned like a brand on her lips, and the suggestion that there was more to come sent a tremor of apprehension rippling through her midriff. ‘So?’ he asked once he had negotiated the slip-road. ‘What do you plan to do with yourself in London?’
‘I haven’t had much time to make plans,’ she said.
‘But surely you...?’ Then he went on, ‘No, of course you wouldn’t have made any plans for London. You were planning on a trip to New York with young Mr Hallam.’ His chiselled features were rock-hard. ‘Well, Olivia asked me to make sure you had some fun.’ He made it sound like hard labour. ‘I’m sure I’ll think of something. I’ll have to. It’s clear that you’ve never had to stand on your own two feet.’
Her denial was whipped away by the wind as he put his foot down and the Bentley cruised majestically past a row of lorries. It couldn’t matter less, Lizzie thought,
