remember what her own reaction had been in that very first instant when she had laid eyes on Slane, but her uncooperative mind kept leaping too far forward, presenting her with images that made her cheeks burn despite the chill of the rain now drizzling lightly against them.
‘We’re going to one of my old haunts—Bewleys,’ he told her, the touch of his hand at her elbow light as he guided her through a sudden swell of people.
‘I’ve never seen so many people!’ exclaimed Maggie. ‘Is it always this crowded?’
‘I guess quite a few of these people are on their way to work,’ he laughed, steering her through a doorway and into a shop heavily scented with the aroma of coffee, ‘but Grafton Street is usually pretty lively.’
Slane at last removed his coat as they entered the famous coffee-house, grinning at Maggie’s reaction of wide-eyed delight as she gazed around the dark wood and marble interior, packed almost to the hilt, and filled with the soft buzz of conversation.
‘Are you hungry?’ he asked once they were seated.
‘Starving,’ she replied, a hand rising self-consciously to her damp hair as her eyes met those of a strikingly attractive woman at the next table who had just finished giving Slane a thorough perusal. The woman smiled in sympathy and patted her own hair as much as to say, Mine too, then resumed conversation with her companion.
Just about every woman in their immediate vicinity had done it, observed Maggie without rancour—given Slane an appreciative inspection, followed by a quick appraisal of the woman accompanying such an Adonis. A pretty natural reaction, she thought with a tinge of ruefulness that quickly deteriorated into a pang of alarm as her nose began to throb—with her present luck it was probably shining like a beacon!
‘Shall I just order us the full works?’ asked Slane as a waitress approached.
Maggie nodded, and made the grave error of distracting herself from gloomy speculation regarding her appearance by subjecting Slane to a surreptitious inspection as he spoke to the waitress.
All right, so she was still in a state of shock, she reasoned miserably, feeling as if her mind was operating on badly depleted batteries as her eyes lapped him up. But she had to snap out of it, she told herself angrily. And accepting one minute that her past was a fact that she could no longer avoid facing, then in the next wallowing in the fantasy that she would wake to find it had all been a terrible dream was only a short cut to insanity.
‘You look pensive,’ Slane observed when the waitress had left, his eyes disconcertingly inscrutable as they flickered over her.
‘Do I?’ she exclaimed with a guilty start.
‘Yes.’ He leaned back in his chair, his amused, mocking eyes holding hers.
‘Well, I was thinking,’ she blurted out defensively, and then had to ransack her mind for a topic to back up the claim. ‘I was thinking…about that plant Obviously the aim is to reproduce it intact—but if it grows like a weed why get Maurice to do the trials here? Surely it would have been more practical for you to get someone to grow it in America?’
‘Perhaps—except that I didn’t get anyone to grow it for me anywhere,’ he replied unenlighteningly, then began gazing around him, a look of bored detachment on his face.
Maggie felt anger and confusion doing battle within her. Even if she had only been roped in at the last moment as a lowly lab assistant, it was perfectly natural for her to show an interest in the project…Or perhaps it was simply that he was loath to discuss anything with a woman with whom he had had a one-night stand and whom he was determined not to acknowledge.
‘Ah!’ he exclaimed, his face brightening. ‘Food. What a welcome sight’
What a welcome distraction, thought Maggie, gratefully inhaling the glorious aromas emanating from the huge platters set before them. Whether he remembered her or whether he was simply an uncommunicative boor with a bad memory, for now she didn’t give a toss—she was starving!
They ate in the silence that such hearty, immaculately prepared food warranted. And it was only after her hunger pangs had been well and truly pandered to that Maggie found her thoughts straying back to where they had been before the arrival of the food had rescued her.
‘I feel it’s almost criminal to leave all this,’ she sighed, resisting the tug of those thoughts, ‘but I couldn’t manage another mouthful—there was enough for three on my plate.’
He grinned across at her, then casually speared a juicily glistening sausage from her plate with his fork.
‘It’s just as well Mrs Morrison isn’t around,’ he laughed. ‘I once made the near-fatal error of telling her I’d breakfasted here—boy, did I have to grovel to get back into her good books.’ He demolished the sausage, then returned to her plate to forage further.
It was what lovers did, thought Maggie weakly—ate titbits from one another’s plates…And wasn’t that what they had been so briefly—the most passionate of lovers?
‘So, this Maurice doesn’t actually work for your company,’ she stated, her need for distraction driving her back to the topic he had so abruptly dismissed.
‘Maurice?’ he echoed, one blue-black eyebrow arching superciliously. ‘I thought I’d already explained—Maurice doesn’t work for anyone. He’s just a brilliant botanist who does his own thing.’
It was like pulling teeth, thought Maggie angrily. ‘You haven’t explained anything—despite your intimation last night that you would,’ she snapped. ‘And that’s why I’m still asking.’
‘So what do you want to know?’ he drawled, his eyes like glittering ice.
‘Well, for a start, if this is Maurice’s thing, why can’t he do his own analyses?’
‘It isn’t his thing.’
‘Well, thanks a million,’ hissed Maggie across the table at him. ‘If that’s the way you motivate your staff, all I can say is God help them!’
‘You need motivating to assist with a bit of lab work, do you?’ he enquired, scowling back at her.
‘Forget I ever showed any interest,’ she snapped, picking up her coffee-cup and draining it. ‘And we can do the work in complete silence for all I care.’
His lips were pursed as he picked up the coffee-pot and refilled both their cups. ‘Give me a break, Maggie,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve been through so many time zones in the past few days that right now I’m not too sure which way is up.’
He ladled sugar into his coffee and stirred it, a closed, far-away expression on his face. ‘I’ve no idea whether or not Maurice has succeeded in reproducing this plant in its pristine state, but we’ll know soon enough after it’s been tested—’
He broke off to take some coffee, an expression of utter bleakness on his face. ‘Maurice and my father go back a long way…They first met as kids and kept in regular touch, both being prolific letter writers, right up until my father’s death.’
His father, thought Maggie, her heart constricting.
‘Slane, I—I…’ she stammered, guilt flooding her. ‘Look, if you’d rather not talk about it—’
‘Make up your mind,’ he cut in exasperatedly. ‘Do you want to hear about this or not?’
‘I want to hear,’ she replied robotically. She had known from the little that Connor had said that Slane bore wounds with which she was achingly familiar… Now his had been opened up and there was nothing that could be done to spare him.
‘It seems Maurice came across this plant a few years ago and wrote to my father about it. Some forest tribe or other used it medicinally—mainly as an antidote to poisons and allergies. Maurice plainly thought it was worth investigating—’
He broke off to ask a passing waitress for the bill.