she could see the party was in full swing.
She stood just inside the entrance of the crowded room. But before she could do more than look to her left Greville was there. ‘I’ve been keeping an eye open for you,’ he beamed, and as always gave her a hug and a kiss.
Astra was still in his cousinly arms, in fact, when she had a strange sensation that someone was watching her. She looked to the right—and just couldn’t believe it! She was being watched! And her heart seemed to turn over. So much for thinking she would never see Baxendale again! There he was, tall, sardonic, those dark eyes inscrutable, looking unblinking at her.
She tilted her chin—and looked through him. He was close enough for her to see that he didn’t care very much for that. Good! She couldn’t have been more pleased, and pulled out of her cousin’s hug to smile up at him and ask, ‘How’s it going?’
He bent to whisper in her ear, ‘She’s here; I’ll introduce you.’
Over the next hour Greville introduced her to many people, though since he was being careful nothing should betray his most private of emotions at the end of that hour Astra had not the smallest notion as to which of the affable women he had introduced her to was the one.
Thankfully, he either did not know Sayre Baxendale or that man was not in the vicinity. But Greville did not get around to introducing Baxendale, anyhow. Though while she would have welcomed refusing to shake his hand had she had the chance she had no wish to embarrass her cousin. Greville and the family knew some of the details of the mistake she had made that had caused her to resign, but for reasons of confidentiality she had not mentioned any names.
Greville had no idea that she would rather spit in Sayre Baxendale’s eye than say ‘How d’you do’ nicely to him. Though that probably went for Baxendale, as well. He’d probably cut her dead regardless of embarrassing anyone, should Greville attempt any such introduction. She was definitely persona non grata.
That thought made her angry. Not that she wanted the scurvy knave to speak to her. But her mistake had been a genuine one, and once she had known of it she had swiftly taken steps to put it right. So why was she getting upset that Baxendale thought her more interested in her commission than in her client?
Ridiculous—she wasn’t upset, though she had to own that the party had started to pall. ‘Um, do you want me to stay to the end?’ she asked Greville.
‘Had enough?’
She felt mean. She was here to support Greville. What she wanted didn’t come into it. ‘Not at all,’ she smiled.
‘I’ll come too. We’ll just say goodbye to our hosts,’ he decided.
‘No, Greville!’ she protested. ‘We’ll stay and…’
‘We’ll go—and you’ve been a real pal.’
‘I’m dying to know which one?’ she stretched up to whisper in his ear.
He laughed delightedly. ‘You couldn’t tell? Didn’t see? Couldn’t guess?’
‘Not by word or look,’ she confirmed.
‘Whew! That’s a relief!’ Their heads were bent in close conversation. ‘I feel so—all melty inside whenever I look at her. I felt sure it would show.’
‘You must have learned to keep your expression deadpan in the boardroom.’ Astra might have added more, only just then she happened to glance across the room—and caught Sayre Baxendale’s dark-eyed, hostile gaze head-on.
Words died on her lips, but even as she adopted a cool pose and looked elsewhere she seemed powerless to be aware of anything but him. And then Greville was saying firmly, ‘Come on, sweetheart, let’s find our hosts.’
By the time they had thanked their hosts and said a few goodbyes they were leaving the room, and Astra was relegating to the bin any fanciful notion that Baxendale had a shred of power to make her aware of nothing but him.
‘I’ll see you to your car,’ Greville was just saying as they went to go through the double door, when some man Greville knew stopped him and seemed to want ‘just a moment’ of his time on a small matter of business.
A businesswoman herself, albeit just now an ex-businesswoman, Astra knew full well that a ‘moment’ could mean an age. She was quite capable of seeing herself to her car.
‘Be in touch,’ she said lightly, kissed her cousin’s cheek, and went out into the hall.
She didn’t make it to the outer door before she was pounced on by the man who had introduced himself as Leigh Jenkins. He was still only thinking of going home, then?
‘I didn’t get your name?’ He plonked himself straight in front of her, and looked as if he had no intention of moving until she supplied her name.
‘No, you didn’t,’ she answered, and went to go by round him.
He caught hold of her arm to stop her—she objected most strongly to being manhandled. She froze him with a look, and he had the grace to let go of her arm. ‘What’s a guy have to do to get a date with you?’ he asked peevishly.
Had he been other than the brash, pushy type, Astra might well have softened her refusal. But he was pushy, he was brash—and she hadn’t missed him ogling her several times that evening. Were it not for the fact that she and Greville had stayed comfortably close together, she had an idea he would have tried his luck earlier. So, ‘You don’t!’ she told him icily, and brushed past him to the outer door.
She didn’t immediately get to go through that door, however, because some other man had come out into the hall, and, by the look of things, had overheard every word of her conversation with Leigh Jenkins.
‘Now there’s a girl who lives up to her nickname,’ drawled a voice she was not a stranger to. And while she hesitated, her hand already down by the door handle, Sayre Baxendale strolled over to her, placing himself in between her and Leigh Jenkins.
She went to reach for the door handle, but, as Leigh Jenkins melted away, so, against all her instincts, she stayed where she was to face Sayre Baxendale. She’d be damned if she’d let him think that because of his low opinion of her she was running away.
‘I haven’t a nickname,’ she denied coldly. If he’d invented one for her—she didn’t want to know it.
‘That’s not what I heard,’ he mocked, his dark gaze flicking over her, taking in her cool, elegant deportment, her fine features and upswept red hair.
Astra was momentarily shaken. The only nickname she’d got—and since she’d left Yarroll Finance that would have left with her—was the one she’d been dubbed with while working there. But surely he couldn’t know…Yet—hadn’t she just been more than a touch frosty with Leigh Jenkins? Was that what Baxendale was referring to—North Pole Northcott?
‘Norman Davis wrote to you?’ She took a stab in the dark—surely to goodness her ex-boss wouldn’t have mentioned that nickname in any letter, even if he knew it, which she doubted. He was much more professional than that.
‘I don’t recall hearing from any Norman Davis,’ Sayre Baxendale replied. ‘Though I do believe I received a communication from a Maurice Robertson.’
Good grief! They didn’t come any higher up in Yarroll Finance than Maurice Robertson! In an instant Astra saw how it had been. Norman Davis had reported her oversight to his superior, mentioned the name Sayre Baxendale, as he naturally would, and so it had gone higher yet higher, until Maurice Robertson had heard of it.
‘I hardly think Mr Robertson would be so unprofessional as to bandy nicknames in any business letter thanking you for your interest,’ Astra tilted her chin to tell him haughtily.
Sayre Baxendale’s eyes narrowed for a brief moment, letting her know—as if she cared—that he wasn’t too enamoured by her uppity manner. Then that mocking look was back. ‘Neither did he,’ he drawled. ‘Apparently