Worthy Of Marriage. ANNE WEALE

five-ten and Grey topped him by two or three inches. Had she known nothing about him, from the way he carried himself she might have surmised that he was a professional soldier. He looked like an off-duty army colonel rather than a fat-cat businessman.

      At that moment he broke his stride to put his foot on a felled tree at the side of the ride and retie the lace of his shoe. As the movement pulled the seat of his chinos tight across his backside and outlined the muscular thigh of the leg he had raised, she felt a stirring inside her that she recognised as desire.

      It annoyed her that the physical appeal of a man who didn’t like her, and who she had no reason to like, could affect her so strongly. It was not as if she had had an active sex life before being imprisoned and was impatient to resume it. The months of nursing her father had cut her off from most social contacts. Even before that, when she was working at the agency, she had never been comfortable with the casual relationships that some of her colleagues and contacts regarded as normal.

      To Lucia, sex was meaningless unless it was accompanied, at the very least, by some warmth and tenderness. Which made it all the more annoying that a man who didn’t like her and whom she had no reason to like could arouse these disturbing feelings in her.

      ‘There’s a lot of my father in Grey,’ said Jenny, after giving Lucia’s question some thought. ‘I loved Dad, although it has to be said that he was a prime example of a male supremacist. But then most of his generation were. I’m certain that, once he was married, he was totally faithful to Mum. But it wouldn’t have occurred to him that she needed something more than to be his adoring slave. He would have given his life for her…but he didn’t want her to have any life of her own that wasn’t centred around him. Grey has inherited that protective instinct—at least with women related to him,’ she added, in a dry tone. ‘I have more confidence in Mum’s ability to look out for herself. Do you have any ulterior motives?’ she added bluntly.

      ‘How could I have? I didn’t know I was coming here until I arrived. I still feel I’m going to wake up and find I’ve been dreaming. After all, she has more reason than most to dislike me. Her son was one of the people who got hurt.’

      ‘Only in his pocket,’ said Jenny. ‘My impression, from reading the evidence, is that you were a victim yourself. The guy who’s still in clink…were you and he an item?’

      Lucia remembered the day Alec had made a pass at her. Knowing that he was only trying it on because every halfway presentable woman was a challenge to him, she had forced herself to rebuff him. But she hadn’t wanted to. In a flashy way, he was attractive, and she was lonely and hungry for the love that was a long time coming.

      ‘No,’ she said. ‘It was strictly a business relationship.’

      ‘And none of your pre-prison boyfriends was close enough to be waiting outside the gates when they let you out?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘I could be wrong, but I’m inclined to take you at your face value,’ said Jenny. ‘You look to me like a person I’d trust to keep an eye on my luggage while I went to the loo on a train. Not, come to think of it, that that’s taking a huge risk,’ she added, smiling. ‘At least not on a train in this country. According to our backpacking children, there are countries where you need to hang onto your stuff every single second or someone will swipe it from under your very nose.’

      She began to tell Lucia some of her children’s adventures.

      At the end of the ride there was another five-barred gate to climb. Grey swung himself over it in one easy moment and stood ready to put out a steadying hand while his mother, who had changed into trousers before coming out, climbed over. Still slim and agile, she needed no more assistance than Jenny did.

      Lucia too, despite the months of confinement with limited opportunities to exercise, was not so out of condition that she couldn’t get over a gate. It was bad luck that she went over at the place where the top bar had been clouted by something heavy, perhaps by a piece of log-moving equipment. The impact had left the wood bruised and her hand was snagged by a splinter.