For someone who claimed she wasn’t in the least interested in David Melton, May seemed to be seeing rather a lot of the other man. Not that it was any of his business, Jude reminded himself frowningly. It was probably just another example of what he considered to be the woman’s contrariness!
‘How kind of you,’ May snapped back, obviously still angry at having been trapped into giving him dinner.
‘I thought so.’ Jude nodded, deciding this was probably a good time for him to leave.
After all, he would be seeing May later this evening, when they would hopefully have the time to talk more calmly about the offer he had made on this farm.
‘With two good meals inside you today, you might actually start to put some weight on those bones, and so look a little less like a waif and stray,’ he added hardly.
May was incredibly beautiful, breathtakingly so, but it was a beauty edged with an air of frailty, a certain look of delicacy that didn’t suit the hard work she had to do living on a farm.
Although she didn’t look too delicate at this moment, Jude acknowledged ruefully; instead she looked as if she would like to pick up the pitchfork she was still holding and stab him through the chest with it.
‘For your information,’ she bit out through gritted teeth, ‘I am naturally slender! We all are,’ she added defensively.
Jude gave her a considering look. ‘I obviously can’t speak for your sisters, May, never having met them,’ he said dryly. ‘But there’s slender, and then there’s gaunt—and I know which category you fit into at this moment!’ he assured her dismissively.
‘And when I want your opinion, Jude, I’ll ask for it!’ She turned her back on him and once again began forking the straw over in the empty pens.
Obviously that was the end of this particular conversation!
Jude gave a shrug, quite happy with what he had already achieved today. After all, she had called him Jude just now without any prompting from him. And with the promise of seeing May again this evening, he had every hope of achieving much more.
It was only once he was back in his car, driving down the rutted track that led up to the farm, that he realised May, with this infuriating habit she had of answering his questions with one of her own, hadn’t actually given him a sensible answer as to the reason she had left the restaurant so hastily the evening before…
CHAPTER FOUR
‘FEELING better?’ David prompted concernedly as the two of them sat in the bar of a pub not far from the farm.
‘Much, thank you,’ May answered huskily, guilty warmth entering her cheeks as she did so, not quite able to meet David’s gaze, either.
She had been in an agitated state the previous evening when David had left the restaurant and joined her in the foyer of the hotel, able to feel it as her cheeks had first paled and then reddened, her eyes glittering brightly, as if with a fever, her movements agitated as she’d paced up and down waiting for him.
In the circumstances, it hadn’t been too difficult for David to believe the lie that she hadn’t been feeling well, that she would rather cancel dinner altogether and just go home.
And it hadn’t been a complete lie, May had consoled herself; she had felt sick, and there was no way she could have eaten anything feeling the way that she had.
But she had agreed to have lunch with David today only as a means of escaping yesterday evening, still felt too nauseous to contemplate eating anything.
And Jude Marshall’s visit to the farm this morning, a stark reminder of yesterday evening, had done little to alleviate that feeling!
She moistened dry lips. ‘You said yesterday, David, that there is someone you would like me to meet…?’
‘Why, yes.’ He looked surprised at the change of subject.
May nodded. ‘I believe I know who that someone is. And I have to tell you—’
‘May, I simply thought over what we discussed in London a couple of weeks ago—’ David sat forward in his seat, looking at her intently ‘—and I realised that you seemed to change after I had told you who the stars of the film were to be.’ He gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘I realise that working with big stars like Dan Howard and April Robine must have sounded a little overwhelming. But Dan is a great chap to work with, and as for April—’
‘Jude mentioned that you went over to their table and spoke to her at the restaurant yesterday evening,’ May put in stiltedly, if only to let him know how she had guessed who his ‘someone’ was.
David raised surprised brows. ‘He did?’
‘He did,’ she confirmed, not about to get into a discussion about exactly when Jude had told her that; sufficient to say that May now knew exactly who David wanted her to meet while he was still in the area.
She also knew exactly why that meeting would never take place.
‘I’m not in the least overwhelmed at the thought of working with April Robine, David,’ she told him hardly, her jaw tightly clenched on her emotions. ‘And I certainly have no desire to meet her,’ she added harshly.