He had turned off the main road now, and Jenna cursed his mental dexterity which enabled him to continue driving and questioning her at the same time.
‘Am I permitted to ask if this aversion is of a recent or long-standing nature?’
‘Does it really matter?’ Suddenly Jenna felt tired and defeated. ‘If you still want to marry me then you know my terms, James. It’s up to you.’
They were driving past stone pillars embellished with spread-winged eagles, attractive flares illuminating their path.
‘This hotel is renowned for the excellence of its suites,’ James told her wryly, as he stopped the car. ‘If it wasn’t for your embargo on sex, I might have suggested that we stay the night and sample one—all in the course of business, naturally,’ he added in an indolent drawl.
Jenna refused to be affected by his mockery. ‘I’m sure there’ll be other times—and other companions, James,’ she said to him crisply.
His questioning about her reasons for wanting a no-sex marriage had left her nerves raw and edgy. The last thing she wanted to do now was sit down and dine with him as he discussed their forthcoming marriage, but as on so many occasions since he came into her life, it seemed she had no choice.
‘Shall we go in?’
Jenna joined him reluctantly, pausing briefly to admire the clever lighting that made the most of the hotel’s creeper-clad exterior. Architecturally it had no particular beauty and was, she suspected, Edwardian originally.
Unusually, the entrance of the hotel was via a conservatory. A huge vine covered most of its roof and walls, the greenery massed in the background high-lighting the black and white lozenge-tiled floor.
The area behind the reception desk was mirrored and cleverly lit, the whole effect striking and original.
‘The restaurant is through here,’ James touched her arm indicating an archway to their right.
A thick carpet in a rich blue-grey muffled their footsteps up the shallow flight of half a dozen stairs leading to a wider archway with the restaurant beyond.
An aura of intimacy had been created by the deft use of deep, upholstered sofas instead of the regulation chairs, the tables set at angles to one another so that they were not directly overlooked.
The same blue-grey carpet in the corridor covered the floor, a peachy-toned wallpaper in a ragged effect adding a note of warmth. Very traditional blue-grey velvet curtains hung at the windows, their matching pelmets edged in the same peach as the paper, as were the tie-backs.
The sofas were upholstered in a peach-on-blue fabric in some instances, with the colourway reversed to blue on peach in others, contrasting cushions adding a definitive note. The tablecloths were white damask, the cutlery a very traditional silver-plate. There was a soothing murmur of conversation all around them—no single voice particularly discernible, just a pleasant background sound like waves on a beach.
The head waiter greeted James by name and personally escorted them to a discreetly sheltered table.
In an effort to maintain some control of the evening Jenna made a show of studying the menu she was handed. She had never felt less like eating but having allowed the printed words on the card held in her hand to dance illegibly in front of her for several minutes she put it down as though having made her choice.
James was still studying his menu, his concentration providing Jenna with a rare opportun
ity to study him at close quarters without him being aware of it. His hair was dark and thick, shining with health and good grooming. She wondered rather absently if it would feel as silky as it looked and then checked the thought, her eyes widening in faint shock at herself just as he put down his menu and looked up at her.
‘Something wrong?’
Jenna shook her head. She was astounded by the direction of her own thoughts.
‘Ready to order?’
A waiter was hovering and she told him what she wanted. A little to her surprise, when the wine waiter arrived James consulted her about her own preferences. Jenna rarely drank. The teachings of her Calvinistic great-aunt still clung, and had been reinforced during her teens by the stark realisation that too much to drink meant a corresponding lessening of self-control.
She had ordered petits éclairs de saumon ou truite fumée, for her first course—tiny éclairs filled with smoked fish mousse and served with a fresh cucumber and dill sauce—and James had ordered pté. Jenna had also ordered a fish dish for her main course, sole bonne femme, whereas James had chosen duck with a rich accompanying sauce.
‘I don’t really have any preference,’ Jenna told him. ‘Something white and fairly dry.’
She watched as James consulted the list and then conversed with the hovering wine waiter.
When he had gone James said to her, ‘Well, I hope you approve of my choice—it can be as difficult to choose a wine for someone else’s palate as it can be to buy perfume for a woman one doesn’t know well.’
Jenna shrugged indifferently. ‘It really doesn’t matter what it is. I don’t drink much.’
James’s eyebrows went up. ‘What do you do?’ he jibed softly. ‘It seems to me that for a beautiful woman you’re remarkably unappreciative of many of the more sensual pleasures in life. Even your clothes suggest a certain lack of——’