No More Lonely Nights

The stuff of my trade, she thought cynically as she slowed down among the trees. Among them she saw a white ironwork seat against a swag of rich pink clematis, the flowers spilling down behind it from an old half-dead apple tree which looked as if it had been struck by lightning and no longer fruited.

Sian made for it and sat down sideways, her knees clasped by her two hands and her feet on the end of the seat, propped on the elegant curled ironwork armrest.

Cass was a ruthless man. He had used her without scruple whenever he felt it necessary—to distract the media from Annette, or in covering up what his sister had done. It didn't bother him that she might have been badly hurt by believing that it had been he who had forced her off the road and then driven on without stopping.

Did that mean he had no idea she was falling in love with him? Or merely that he knew, yet was still prepared to use her feelings for his own purposes without caring what that did to her?

She closed her eyes, then angrily opened them again and pulled a swathe of clematis towards her; she fingered one flower, played with the petals unthinkingly, shredding them and letting them fall lightly on the long grass—soft, velvety, pink drifts among the whiskery stems.

He was a mystery, a shadowed maze into which she had wandered, in which she was lost. She didn't understand him at all, nor did she think he wanted her to!

She ought to leave now, right away, without seeing him again. Why had he been going to marry Annette? Sian found it increasingly difficult to believe he had ever been in love. He didn't act like a man in love; he had made passes at her ever since they had met; and when he talked about Annette he didn't sound like a man in love. Sian heard more genuine excitement in his voice when he talked to her. In fact, he spoke about Annette kindly, patiently, as if she were a child he was responsible for—even his fury over her flight had not been quite in keeping with the way a jilted bridegroom would feel. It had been more the exasperation of someone who has been made to look a fool in public, and he had pursued her to bring her back only for her father's sake. Had he seen her since the day he'd driven Sian back to London from the hospital? Had he tried to see her? If he had, he hadn't mentioned it, but then, he was a secretive man who never mentioned anything if he could avoid it.

A movement among the trees made her stiffen and look round, expecting to see Cass and steeling herself to send him away.

It was a man hovering there, watching her among the leafy branches, but it wasn't Cass. For an instant Sian had a primitive flash of terror. She was alone and the unknown seemed sinister.

Then he came out into the sunlight of the little glade, and with a start of incredulity she recognised him.

'Louis?'

'Hello,' he said, strolling over, very London-dressed in a smooth pale grey suit with a pink shirt and a grey tie slashed with pink stripes. He looked totally out of place, totally wrong.

'What on earth are you doing here?' Sian asked.

'You don't seem too pleased to see me!' His voice had the familiar petulant ring, but she was long past the stage of placating him and she answered shortly.

'I don't know why you're here. I wasn't expecting to see you.'

'I'm not sure why I'm here myself—curiosity, I suppose.' He picked up her feet and held her legs up while he sat down on the seat beside her, lowering her legs again over his lap. Sian would have swung them free, but he held them firmly, one hand stroking along her calf.

'What do you think you're doing?' she said, struggling to break free, but then he took her breath away.

'When the invitation came, I almost threw it in the bin.'

'Invitation?' Sian gave him a startled look.

'From your editor… what's-his-name.'

'Leo?'

'That's it, Leo. Funny chap; what is he up to, anyway?'

'Leo sent you an invitation? To what?' she patiently persisted, and he gave a querulous sigh.

'To this garden party, of course!' he said, and Sian's eyes rounded in disbelief.

'He doesn't have the right to hand out invitations, and anyway, I don't think you need an invitation, it's a public event to raise money for charity.'

'But there are tickets to get in—and the press were given some free ones. Complimentaries. He sent me one of those.'

'Leo sent you a complimentary?'

He eyed her shrewdly, his hand wandering up and down her leg, because Sian had been too dumbfounded to notice what he was doing for some time. 'You never used to be this slow-thinking. What's happened to you lately? Your brain seems to have gone to seed. It must be all this mixing with the rich and famous; it's finally got to you.'

'Why on earth would Leo do that?' Sian slowly thought aloud, and Louis gave her a teasing grin.

'Isn't it obvious? He was mischief-making—what else? Heaven alone knows what he expected to happen, but I can tell when someone's hoping to cause trouble, and that's that he was doing. I just wondered why—is he afraid he'll lose the best girl reporter in Fleet Street, or something?'