Lola grimaced. She hated playing games. She suspected that was one of the main reasons why she had dated men so infrequently—because she had a habit of saying what she actually meant. And a lot of men, it seemed, found it difficult to cope with the truth!
She forced herself to look with interest at the contents of the tray he had placed on the window-seat. ‘What have you brought?’ she asked.
‘Tea. Wine. Sandwiches. Cake. And some cold chicken and salad I found in the fridge—take your pick.’
Lola adopted a resolutely cheerful tone. ‘And what’s that supposed to be? Tea or dinner?’
‘Either. We’ve missed both.’
Lola’s eyes widened. ‘Good grief! What time is it?’
‘Getting on for nine.’
‘You mean we’ve been . . . I mean—’
He cut across her discomfiture with a rueful glance. ‘Yes, Lola—we’ve been in bed for almost four hours. Aren’t you hungry?’
She stared at him miserably. ‘I might be, if you’d only come back to bed—it’s awfully lonely in here.’
He did not answer immediately, but went abruptly over to the window and stood staring out into the empty night, before drawing the heavy velvet drapes and shutting out the starlight. ‘Why don’t we eat something first?’ he suggested.
If he hadn’t had such a grim expression ruining a perfectly handsome face, then Lola might have made a joke about the condemned man being given a last meal—because that was exactly what the atmosphere felt like. But she didn’t even dare joke about it.
She was frightened. Frightened by the cold, distant expression on his face and frightened by the physical distance he was putting between the two of them.
But Lola knew that she had to take it like a woman. If Geraint was now regretting having made love to her, then nothing she could say or do could possibly change his mind.
If he had decided, for whatever reason, that she was not the kind of person he wanted to have a relationship with, then she must just accept that—and gracefully, too. So that whenever he remembered her—if he remembered her—he would remember her dignity and calmness and not just the way she had blatantly invited him to make mad, passionate love to her!
She chewed on her bottom lip anxiously and wondered just how she had had the gall to ask him outright like that!
‘What would you like?’ he asked politely, as if he had just met her for the first time.
Lola bit back the desire to scream, and instead said, very calmly, ‘I’ll have one of those sandwiches, please.’
‘Coming up.’ He put the sandwiches on two plates, then handed her one—a beautiful bone-china plate in deep green, overlaid with a delicate lily-of-the-valley design, which Lola had never seen before.
‘Where did you find these?’ she queried as she took the plate from him. ‘Or did you go next door to Dominic’s and bring them?’ Even to her own ears the question sounded ridiculous.
He seemed to change his mind about his sandwich, and put the plate down quickly, as if it were made of hot metal. ‘No, I didn’t go next door. The plates were here,’ he said slowly. ‘In the china cupboard.’
‘The china cupboard?’ asked Lola, screwing her nose up in bemusement. ‘Here?’
He nodded. ‘Along the corridor that runs from the cellar—you know? There’s a doorway just at the back. . .’
She knew the part of the house to which he was referring—the basement area which looked as though it could be used as the set for a Gothic horror film. She had been in there once—very briefly. It was dark and dingy and it gave her the creeps.
‘I never use it,’ Lola said as she eyed the sandwich without enthusiasm, and then something else occurred to her. ‘So how come you know more about my house than I do?’ she demanded half-jokingly.
There was a silence, but it was not the tranquil hush born of easy companionship. Instead, it was a tense, uneasy silence, made all the more ominous by the bleak, haunted expression on Geraint’s face.
‘There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there, Geraint?’ Lola put the plate down on the beside table with a clatter and looked at him, noticing that her voice was suddenly sounding very unsteady.
There was only a fractional pause this time. ‘Yes, there is,’ he said grimly. ‘And it’s about time you heard it.’
The fear which was building a bigger barrier between them second by second made her hold her hands up to him in appeal. ‘No, Geraint,’ she said flatly. ‘Not yet.’
She felt at a disadvantage and she was scared. Scared because she instinctively dreaded that he was about to tell her something which would, by necessity, change the whole nature of their relationship. And disadvantaged because she was about to hear what she suspected would be a kind of true confession and she wasn’t even wearing any clothes!
She ran her fingers through the tangled mess of dark curls which fell over her shoulders and, thankfully, a few stray locks fell to conceal her breasts. ‘Is this something you could tell me in one sentence, Geraint?’
He gave a weary shake of his head. ‘No.’
‘Then I need to put some clothes on first.’
‘Yes, of course. Here.’ He bent to retrieve her stockings and panties and bra, and held them out to her in a crumpled array of different silks and lace, but Lola shook her head hurriedly and it took all her determination not to recoil from them.
She wanted something clean and fresh to wear, something which did not remind her of the four hours she had just spent in bed with Geraint Howell-Williams.
‘I meant my jeans,’ she said. ‘And I ought to shower—’
‘No!’ His response rang out decisively around the room.
‘No?’ Had he actually said no? Lola raised her eyebrows at him coldly. ‘I know I’ve just been to bed with you, but I’m not quite your chattel yet, Geraint!’
‘Don’t be so damned stupid!’ he snapped.
‘Then don’t you be so damned cavalier! Telling me I can’t shower, indeed—and in my own house!’ she added, on a puff of derision. ‘Wait here, and I’ll be back.’
‘How long will you be?’
‘However long it takes,’ she answered coolly, without a backward glance.
She marched straight along the corridor to her bedroom, where the pale, subtle greens and peaches of the walls and drapes for once failed to soothe her.
She did not take long; she could not bear to prolong the agony of waiting any longer than was necessary. Something in his expression had warned her that she was about to face an unpalatable truth.
So she showered quickly and felt a million times better afterwards for having done so, even though she hadn’t washed her wild, unruly hair. Then she threw on a pair of black denims and a thick black woollen jumper, brushed her hair quickly and clipped it back from her face on both sides.
She stole a swift glance in the mirror, thinking how pale her face looked against the background of the black clothes she wore. Had she subconsciously dressed in mourning? she wondered wryly.
When she went back into the room, Geraint was standing where she had left him, as if someone had cast a spell and turned him to stone.
She took a deep breath and asked him the question she had been rehearsing over and over in the shower. ‘Are you trying to tell me you’re married, Geraint?’