you,’ she said, surprised to discover James had ever noticed her appearance. ‘I certainly never wear navy blue.’
‘I thought not.’ James subjected her to a comprehensive scrutiny. ‘Tonight you look positively dazzling—more exotic and Italian, I suppose, with your hair loose.’
Eleri looked at him in astonishment, her heart suddenly hammering. To cover her shock she laughed a little, and drank down her coffee. ‘You’re misled by my colouring. My looks come from my Welsh mother. My father’s fair.’
‘Northern Italian?’
She nodded. ‘The Veneto.’
James folded his arms across his chest, his eyes intent on her face. ‘Eleri, are you refusing to come back because you don’t want to, or because your pride won’t allow it?’
Unlike her heart, Eleri’s memory was in perfect working order. Her eyes gleamed coldly. ‘I left under a cloud, if you remember. How could you possibly expect me to come back in the circumstances?’
‘No one knows about your connection with Maynard other than my brother-in-law and myself.’ He looked away across the bar. ‘Sam told me Maynard obtained the information from someone at Merlin Ales. You’re completely exonerated.’
‘I want to be trusted, not exonerated,’ she retorted.
‘I do trust you. I told you that the day you walked out on me.’ James paused, smiling crookedly. ‘I didn’t tell anyone you’d resigned, except for Bruce Gordon. The rest of the staff think you’re taking some leave because your family needed you for a while.’
‘They need me full stop,’ she said flatly. ‘So even if I wanted to come back I can’t.’
‘Ah, but you’d like to,’ he said swiftly.
‘All right. I would,’ she admitted. ‘I enjoyed my job. But I care too much for my family to take off again and leave them in the lurch.’ Nor did she intend running back to Northwold just because James Kincaid crooked his finger and whistled. Much as she wanted to. She stood up. ‘If you’d ask the waiter for my coat and call me a taxi it’s time I went home. Busy day tomorrow.’
James signalled to a waiter. ‘I’ll drive you.’
‘There’s no need to go so far out of your way.’
‘I literally pass your door.’
‘You’ve moved from Compton Priors?’
‘Yes. I never meant the cottage to be more than a stop-gap while I looked for something permanent. It actually belongs to my parents, so from now on I’ll just use it as a weekend retreat now and again. I moved into a flat in town last week.’ He helped her into her heavy gold wool jacket. ‘Let’s dash; it’s started to snow again.’ They went outside into a white, whirling night, and James rushed her over to his Land Rover Discovery and tossed her up into it, flakes of snow frosting his hair when he ran round to get in beside her. ‘Brrr!’ he complained, shivering. ‘Weather like this spurred me into finding a flat. This winter I’ve had a couple of dicey journeys out to the cottage.’
The snow was coming down so thick and fast by the time they arrived in the town, Eleri told James to drop her at the end of the cul-de-sac.
‘The house is at the end, so don’t try and drive down—it’s difficult to turn round,’ she instructed, and James killed the engine.
‘I shan’t give up, Eleri. When you change your mind you know where to contact me.’ He turned in his seat to look at her.
Eleri kept her eyes on the seat belt she was unfastening. ‘I doubt that I will. But thanks for the meal. I’m afraid it was rather a wasted evening for you.’
‘How could any time spent with you be wasted, Eleri?’
‘You’re very kind,’ she said politely. ‘I’m only sorry I had to disappoint you.’
‘So am I.’ He got out of the car and went round to help her out, then took her by surprise by clasping both her hands in his. ‘Goodnight—but definitely not goodbye.’
CHAPTER THREE
NEXT day, over lunch, Eleri’s family were full of curiosity about her evening—her mother, particularly, inquisitive about James Kincaid’s motive for asking her out.
‘If it was any other man, cariad, the reason would be obvious, but in the circumstances, you must admit it’s a bit odd.’
‘Perhaps he just fancies her,’ said Nico, wolfing down large quantities of roast lamb. ‘What’s in this stuffing, Ma? It’s different.’
‘Laverbread, cariad,’ said Catrin, and smiled at her mystified husband. ‘Seaweed, of a sort, Mario. They’ve begun to get it in the market occasionally—sent up from Swansea.’
‘Seaweed?’ he said with professional interest. ‘This is some Welsh recipe, no?’
‘My mother used to do it this way,’ she said, nodding. ‘I’d forgotten about it until I read it in a magazine the other day. It’s mixed with onion and bread-crumbs and a dash of orange juice. Do you like it?’
‘It’s magnificent!’ said Mario with relish. ‘We shall serve it in the restaurant.’
They were sitting round the oval table in the dining room for the midday meal always eaten together on Sundays, at Catrin’s insistence, since sometimes it was the only time in the week she could gather all her family together. Claudia and her husband Paul often came too, but today the weather was bad and the Contis were reduced to four, which centred squarely on Eleri’s evening with James Kincaid.
‘If you must know,’ she said, resigned, ‘Mr Kincaid took me out to dinner to try to persuade me to go back to my job at Northwold. It’s my office skills he lusts after, not me.’
Her father gave her a startled, searching look. ‘What did you say, cara?’
‘I refused, of course.’ She stood up to take their plates. ‘I’ll fetch the pudding.’
Her mother followed her out into the kitchen with the vegetable dishes. ‘But you wanted to accept, love, didn’t you?’
Eleri nodded. ‘Yes. But don’t worry. I wouldn’t let you down like that. And it may be cutting my nose off to spite my face, but I’ve no intention of running back to Northwold at the drop of a hat. I do have my pride, Mother.’
‘But you weren’t really sacked.’
‘No. But my integrity was questioned.’ Eleri took a bowl of zabaglione from the fridge. ‘Though I’m completely exonerated, James informed me.’
‘James? On first-name terms now, then?’
‘His idea, not mine.’ Eleri smiled cajolingly at her mother. ‘Shall I take the apple tart in, too? Zabaglione won’t be enough for Nico.’
Later that night, Eleri was glad when the wedding supper had been served and she could escape from the restaurant to enjoy some time to herself at home. Sometimes she longed to join Vicky in London as her friend wanted. Until James Kincaid’s arrival she’d tended to look on the Northwold post as a stepping-stone to some future high-powered job in the capital. But James’s advent had put her ambitions on a back-burner, and now she was farther from realising them than ever before, involved in the family business after all, and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.
The following week, to Eleri’s intense irritation, she found herself looking up in anticipation every time a tall, dark man came into the coffee-shop. How could it be James during the week? she asked herself scornfully. Or any time at all. He’d done his persuading. He wouldn’t ask again now she’d turned him down. She’d been foolish to accept his invitation to dinner. Her efforts at getting over him had been going rather well up to that point. Now, damn the man, she was back to square one.
One