he said again. ‘She was very old when she died. Too fragile to travel all the way to London just for the wedding of her grandson.’
‘But you never mentioned that she lived in a Scottish castle. That you expected to inherit.’ Julie was still groping to find some reasonable motive in all of this.
‘Would it have made any difference if I had?’ he queried levelly, and her nails dug indignantly into her palms.
‘Of course not. You know what I mean.’
‘Umm.’ He straightened, flexing his back muscles. ‘Well, I didn’t expect to inherit. The castle has always passed to the eldest heir. My mother, who incidently didn’t get on with her mother – my grandmother was a rather autocratic old lady and didn’t approve of my father at all – had a brother, my Uncle Stuart. He was expected to inherit. Unfortunately, Stuart never married, and he was killed eighteen months ago in an air disaster in Switzerland.’
‘I see.’ Julie tried to absorb this. ‘Was that when you came back to England?’
‘No.’ He moved away from the door and as this movement brought him nearer to her, Julie bumped down rather jerkily into her chair again. ‘I came back about a year ago. I lived in London for a time, working on my novel, and then when my grandmother died I came here.’
‘You – were – in London?’ Julie made a helpless little gesture. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘Why should you?’ His eyes challenged hers. ‘I was the last person you wanted to see, wasn’t I?’
Julie looked down at her hands, regretting her momentary lapse. But she had always had the feeling that if ever Jonas returned to live in London she would know about it, sooner or later.
‘I still don’t understand why, if it was going to create so many difficulties, you insisted that I came here.’
‘Did I say it created difficulties?’
‘No, but—’ Julie moved her shoulders indifferently. ‘So – if I accept your reasons for revealing my identity, unnecessary though they seem, what do you intend telling Mrs. Macpherson when I leave tomorrow?’
Jonas walked to the hearth and stood with his back to the fire, feet apart, the cheroot between his teeth. For a few moments he seemed to be considering what she had said, staring broodingly towards the heavy oak door. Then the dark eyes were turned on her.
‘Let’s face that when we come to it, shall we?’ he suggested evenly.
Julie pressed her lips together. She didn’t altogether trust him or his motives. She could imagine her mother’s and Angela’s horror if they could somehow see her now. In their estimation there would be absolutely no excuse for her being there. And even Julie herself had found no good reason for Jonas’s insistence of her taking this interview. Not to mention the disturbing question of those clothes …
Her head was beginning to ache from so much confused thinking. With a sigh, she got to her feet again.
‘Would you have any objections if I went to bed now?’
Jonas threw the end of his cheroot into the fire. ‘But you haven’t had your coffee,’ he pointed out.
Julie looked down at the exquisitely arranged tray. Mrs. Macpherson had obviously taken a great deal of trouble with it, but she could not stand any more of this ambiguous conversation. She needed to be alone for a while, to absorb what had been said, to try and make some sense of it all.
‘I really don’t think I want any coffee, thank you,’ she replied tautly. ‘I know my way to my room. So – so I’ll say – good night.’
‘Good night, Julie.’
Jonas inclined his head enigmatically and she moved towards the door. For a moment she was tempted to reveal her feelings, to confront him with her fears and suspicions, to see how he would react. But then reason prevailed. Unless she included the summons that had brought her here, he had done nothing to arouse her antagonism. Since her arrival, he had been unfailingly polite, and the accommodation he had provided for her was more than adequate.
Why then did she continually suppose there had to be some ulterior design behind it all? Had her own traitorous reactions to him in some way coloured her reasoning? She had known it would not be easy before she came here. Jonas had been, and would always be, a disturbingly attractive man, and it was natural that she, who had once been his wife in every sense of the word, should still experience a certain amount of awareness of his physical attractions. She could have refused to come, she admitted that now. But she had wanted to prove to herself that anything she had felt for him really was dead, and not just numbed by the shock of his guilt at the time of his betrayal.
She opened the door and looked back at him. He was standing staring into the fire and for a moment was unaware of her scrutiny. There was a curiously vulnerable twist to his lips as he stood there, and something inside her contracted painfully.
With a jerky movement she put herself outside the door and closed it behind her, closing her eyes for a heart-stopping moment. No, she told herself vehemently, no! Jonas knew every trick in the book, and she would not be fooled again.
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