She gave a healthy snort in her mind. Good for whom? Not for her, that was sure.
Once Cassie had got them all seated at the table and the first course—baby spinach, avocado and crispy pancetta salad—had been served, it wasn’t quite so bad.
Clay was sitting opposite her for one thing, and the few feet of space across the elaborate dining table which was a picture of glittering crystal and snowy-white linen and silver, was very welcome. May’s husband was on one side of her and was quite attentive, and she knew Guy’s friend, John, on her left, well, so she concentrated her conversation on them without being too obvious.
Nevertheless she noticed, with acid amusement, that Clay was charming the two women either side of him with no apparent effort on his part. They were twittering and giggling like teenagers! Still, from all she had heard over the last years he’d had plenty of practice at being a ladies’ man since his young wife had died. Love ’em and leave ’em reputation, according to Guy. Which was fine, just fine if that was the way he wanted to live his life, Robyn thought nastily. A tom-cat always finds its own level.
Guy served a particularly delicious red wine with the main course of pan-fried pork fillet with sage and spring onion mash, and the excellent food and good wine produced a calmingly mellow effect on her racing nerves. Especially when John refilled her glass twice. By the time Cassie brought out the triple-chocolate torte, along with an Eve’s Pudding topped with caramelised sugar, Robyn was telling herself she was quite adult enough to handle this evening with dignity and aplomb. Clay Lincoln didn’t bother her!
She’d got off on the wrong foot maybe, she admitted silently to herself, but nothing was lost, not really. The worst thing she could do, with an egoist like Clay Lincoln, was to let him think he affected her in any way. She would treat him just the same as she did everyone else: she’d be friendly, charming, amusing—everything one was at occasions like this. Once the meal was over a little polite chit-chat, a laugh or two, and then she would bow out gracefully as soon as the first couple made a move to leave and that would be that. Easy.
Cassie brought in Guy’s pile of birthday presents from family and friends during the cheese and biscuits and, as Robyn left the table briefly to help Cassie in the kitchen with the coffee, her sister whispered, ‘You’ll never guess what Clay’s given us for Guy’s thirty-fifth. I still can’t believe it. Once the baby’s born and I’m feeling okay he’s going to fly the five of us out to his beach house in Florida for a couple of weeks, all expenses paid. What do you think about that?’
‘Really? That’s wonderful, Cass.’ Robyn was thrilled for them, really thrilled, but she couldn’t help wishing it had been someone else who had provided the trip. Anyone else.
‘Apparently you just step off the front porch straight onto white sand, but there’s an indoor pool as well and the use of one of Clay’s cars for the fortnight, and a housekeeper who will do all the cooking. It’s just too good to be true,’ Cassie beamed happily. ‘It really is.’
Bit like Clay Lincoln, then.
For an awful moment Robyn thought she had said the words out loud but when Cassie’s sunny face didn’t change, she knew the sarcasm had been in her mind only. ‘How often have you and Guy seen Clay over the last years?’ she asked carefully as she tipped the box of peppermint creams onto a silver plate and placed them on the serving trolley. ‘Isn’t a present like this a bit…extreme?’ she suggested expressionlessly.
‘According to Guy, Clay’s like that, unpredictable. And Guy’s seen him now and again; they go out to lunch mostly although Clay has been to dinner once or twice. He’s got a mansion-type place in Windsor apparently although we’ve never been there. He is always jet-setting here, there and everywhere—he’s never in one place for more than a few days, Guy says. Course, with all his business interests, you’d expect that.’
Robyn nodded. ‘What does he do exactly?’ she asked quietly as Cassie loaded the trolley with another plate of dark chocolates, slices of shortbread and jugs of steaming coffee, sugar, milk and whipped cream. Her sister always made sure everyone ate to excess.
‘Well, I understand his father was in shipping,’ Cassie said in a low voice, ‘but Clay’s diversified into property and one or two other things as well. Fingers in plenty of pies.’
‘A real entrepreneur,’ Robyn said lightly, keeping all trace of expression out of her voice with some effort. Filthy rich and with an ego to match. Just what she had thought in fact. She had been blind to everything but his overwhelming attraction and dark charisma at sixteen; it was different now. She was different.
When she and Cassie re-entered the room Robyn was aware of Clay’s eyes on her but she didn’t look his way, keeping her gaze on Guy at the head of the table. ‘Coffee for the birthday boy?’ she called brightly. ‘Black or white, Guy?’
‘Black, by the look of him,’ Cassie commented a trifle wryly at her side as she glanced at her husband’s flushed face and vacant grin. ‘I don’t fancy having to carry him up the stairs.’
Everyone lingered over coffee and brandy, the atmosphere mellow and comfortable as witticisms flashed back and forth and laughter reverberated in increasing waves of hilarity. Cassie was sitting basking in the glow of a supremely successful dinner party and Guy was surveying his guests with the air of a man who was truly satisfied with life. Robyn envied them. They had found each other as well as their niche in life and that was a double blessing. And then, as her gaze left Guy’s smiling, flushed, contented face it was drawn to the ice-blue eyes across the table and she found her breath catch in her throat at the mocking, mordacious quality to Clay’s hooded regard.
He was surveying them all in much the same way as a dispassionate scientist with a load of bugs under a microscope, she reflected angrily. How dared he? How dared he consider himself so far above the rest of them? Who did he think he was anyway?
‘I think Guy’s enjoyed his thirty-fifth, don’t you?’ The low drawl was just for her ears and although Robyn longed to tell him not to be so darn supercilious she knew she couldn’t. It was unthinkable to put a spanner in the works of Cassie and Guy’s evening. So instead she was forced to grit her teeth and give him a frosty little smile.
His eyes narrowed briefly but in the next moment she broke the hold and turned to John, and she made sure she didn’t glance Clay’s way again as she finished her coffee.
How was it, she asked herself silently, that all her previous good intentions of being distantly charming and amusing could be shattered with one glance from the man? In all the last twelve years she hadn’t met anyone who could set her teeth on edge like Clay Lincoln. Everything, but everything about him grated on her. She couldn’t imagine why he and Guy were friends.
She wasn’t going to wait for someone else to make the first move to leave. As soon as it was decently possible she would make her goodbyes and be out of here; she didn’t need this. She really, really didn’t need this. She would rather die than let Clay see it but she was acutely aware of every little movement he made and it was mortifying. Suddenly she just didn’t know herself any more and she was aghast at the way she felt.
Music was drifting in from the lounge, courtesy of Frank Sinatra who was doing it ‘his way’, and as Cassie began ushering them all out of their seats Robyn seized the opportunity to take her sister’s arm and say quietly, ‘I really need to be making tracks, Cass, I’m sorry. It’s been a lovely evening but—’
‘You can’t go yet.’ Cassie was horrified. ‘It’s only half past ten for goodness’ sake! Here, grab one of the bottles of brandy and port and bring them through, would you?’
