‘I’ve been thinking while I was upstairs, and I decided that there was no need for this unpleasantness. This cottage is big enough for two people—just, and we needn’t interfere with each other in any way.’
‘And what do you think Matt will say to that?’ he queried.
‘I’ve already told him. Ah, that surprises you, doesn’t it? Yes, I told—Matt, that I was staying on here, just as you probably told him you were. He wasn’t very happy about the arrangement, but he’ll come round.’
His mouth twisted. ‘Oh, I’m sure he will. You have your own little ways of getting to him, I suppose. Oh, eat your breakfast, and we’ll talk about it later,’ he added impatiently.
Caroline did as she was told, enjoying the meal he had cooked for her. Let him try and puzzle out her change of attitude for himself. She had deliberately chosen to wear a blue jumper that exactly matched the colour of her eyes and showed off her long blonde hair to advantage, intending to disconcert him. And she had succeeded! Well, watch out, André Gregory, because it had only just started. Before she had finished she would get him so intrigued by her behaviour that he would wonder what had hit him. And then would come the let-down. Oh yes, Mr Conceited Gregory, you’re time has come, she vowed silently.
She settled down in the studio to do some preliminary drawings. It was a long time since she had been to the cottage and she always found she could relax and paint better here than anywhere else. But this morning she seemed to be having some trouble settling down to any serious work, and put that down to the fact that she could hear André Gregory moving about downstairs. She wondered what he could possibly be doing. Finally, when she thought she could stand it no longer, he called up the stairs to her.
‘Caroline! Caroline, Matt’s on the telephone for you.’
She put down her equipment and rushed to the studio door. ‘Did you say Matt?’ she asked breathlessly.
He stood at the bottom of the stairs looking up at her. ‘I did, and I think it’s quite urgent.’
‘Oh, okay. Can you put the call through up here? Just press the switch on the side of the telephone,’ she explained.
‘Do you have any objection to speaking to him in front of me?’ his eyes taunted.
‘Certainly I do. My conversation with Mr Rayner is private.’
‘I see. And you still maintain there’s nothing between the two of you.’ His smile was frankly mocking as he moved out of her line of vision.
Caroline was tempted to flounce down the stairs and give him a piece of her mind, but was prevented from doing so by the buzzing of the telephone behind her. Bother the man! She snatched up the receiver, her mouth set in a mutinous line. It was going to be much more difficult to be pleasant to André Gregory than she had imagined. ‘Yes?’ she said sharply.
‘Caroline?’ her father’s gruff voice enquired. ‘Has something upset you?’
She laughed softly at his understatement. ‘Only your arrogant friend, nothing I can’t handle.’
Now it was his turn to laugh. ‘If you believe that, Caroline, then you certainly don’t know André very well. Some of the most self-assured women in the world have tried to manage him, and failed. I can’t see that you’ll succeed where so many others have failed.’
‘I’m not intending to marry the man, Daddy, just teach him a lesson he’s badly in need of.’
‘Caroline, you just don’t understand, or you don’t want to understand. André is not the man to try tricks like this on. And why did I have to just ask for Caroline and not for my daughter?’
‘Because for the moment that is the one thing I’m not, although according to your friend I’m plenty of other things.’
‘Like what?’
She bit her lip thoughtfully. ‘I know—your mistress, for one thing.’
‘My what!’
She laughed at his astonishment. ‘Your mistress,’ she repeated. ‘Besides being a member of the permissive society.’
‘Damn cheek of the man!’ came the mumbled reply.
‘Oh, come off it, Daddy, wouldn’t you think the same in the circumstances?’
‘No, I wouldn’t.’
‘Daddy!’
‘Well… perhaps. But he has a nerve suggesting something like that. What does he think I am, a cradle-snatcher?’
‘There isn’t that much difference between your age and Greg Fortnum’s, and you thought we would be well suited,’ she pointed out reasonably. ‘Anyway, he said I shouldn’t be ashamed of bringing a little happiness into someone’s life, your life.’
‘Big of him!’
‘That’s what I thought. So I’m going to pay him back for it. By the time I’ve finished with him he may not have quite such an inflated ego,’ she said with relish.
‘Caroline, I wouldn’t advise—–’
‘Don’t worry, Daddy. I’ll leave before things get too hot, but I really do think your pushy friend needs his ego knocked down a bit.’
‘Well, all right, if that’s what you want to do, but it’s against my advice. And if it gets out to the press that you’re living out in the wilds with André Gregory your reputation will be in shreds.’
‘It won’t get out, there’s no reason why it should.’
‘I suppose not,’ he mumbled. ‘But I want you to keep in touch with me.’
‘Of course I will, but not too often. How can I play the seductress if he thinks I’m involved with you?’
‘Play the seductress?’ he queried sharply. ‘Now, Caroline, that isn’t a good idea.’
‘Why not? I can assure you that there’s absolutely no risk of my actually falling for him. He’s just an arrogant, bossy prig. And I’m going to bring him to his knees!’
She heard her father laugh. ‘I wish you luck,’ he chuckled before ringing off.
Caroline stared at the telephone for a moment before gently replacing it back on its stand. Her father hadn’t taken her plans too badly under the circumstances, and she was looking forward to teaching André Gregory a lesson. But she had to go carefully or he would become suspicious. But there was no time like the present to start her plan.
The man so much in her thoughts of late was sitting back comfortably in an armchair before the warm fire, his bare feet roasting, in front of the flames. A cigar burnt slowly between his slender fingers and his attention seemed to be wholly on the book he was reading.
She sat impishly before him on the carpet, instantly feeling the heat of the fire. ‘Is it good?’ she asked huskily.
The book slowly lowered and a pair of deceptively sleepy green eyes looked at her over its top. ‘Very good,’ he replied shortly.
‘I’ve read quite a lot of Alistair Maclean books myself. But I haven’t read that one,’ she tried to draw him into conversation.
‘You can have it when I’ve finished it. Perhaps it will keep you out of trouble for a while.’ He returned his attention to the book.
Caroline put out a hand and lowered it again. ‘Couldn’t you talk to me?’
He raised dark eyebrows. ‘Now what could we possibly have to say to one another? As far as I know we have nothing in common.’
She