Hostile engagement by Jessica Steele

him for twenty minutes-but when he said, "The last thing I want, Rupert, is that you should lose your status in the community"-well, it niggled me. Who does he think he is, for God's sake? So I told him, "Actually, Mr Arbuthnot, I think there's very little likelihood of that," and you should have seen his face, Lucy, when I told him you were engaged to the millionaire owner of Rockford Hall.'
    Lucy turned away from him trying to drown her thoughts as she filled the kettle to make a cup of tea. So it had been bravado-sheer bravado, that had been the reason for Rupert telling Charles Arbuthnot she was engaged, and to whom. She wondered who else the bank manager had told besides his wife, and realised it didn't really matter who else he had told—as Jud had said, it wouldn't be long before it was all over Priors Channing anyway. Mrs Arbuthnot was not likely to keep that snippet of news to herself.
    `I say, you're not upset about it, are you?' Rupert, Lucy thought, was being particularly insensitive about the whole affair.
    `I was upset, Rupert,' she confessed, by calling him by his full name showing she wasn't feeling all that friendly to him just then. `Jud Hemming came here yesterday—Mrs Arbuthnot had told Jud's mother, and he insisted I
     
    went to the Hall and be introduced to her.'
    `Strewth!' muttered Rupert, taken out of his stride momentarily, only to come bouncing back to say, 'Well, you're still alive to tell the tale.'
    Lucy saw it was pointless telling Rupert any of her feelings, the uncaring mood he was now in. 'Yes, I am, aren't I,' she said quietly. 'Do you want a cup of tea?'
    `Might take some of the fur off my tongue,' Rupert replied, letting her know he had drunk his fill last night. She joined him at the kitchen table, and sat absentmindedly stirring her tea-she didn't take sugar.
    `You'll have to look after yourself this weekend,' she stated unemotionally. `I'm going to stay with Jud's mother for a few days on Friday.'
    Rupert went up to his room shortly after he had drunk his tea. No doubt to catch up on the sleep he had missed, Lucy thought, as she rinsed the teacups they had used. Far from showing regret that she had been manoeuvred into going to Malvern on Friday, he had seemed delighted-not that she had told him how Jud had accepted the invitation for her when she had been certain he would have refused; Rupert's face, she recalled, had beamed at the news and all he had said was, 'I thought you said Jud Hemming didn't fancy you.' She hadn't used those actual words, though she had implied them, she recalled as she took the sponge cake out of the oven. Then feeling her emotions beginning to get on top of her, she tipped the cake out on to a rack to cool and went outside into the sunshine and taking a route across fields that were as familiar to her as breathing, she took herself off for a long walk, not returning until she had walked her agitated feelings out of her system.
    Lucy saw nothing of Jud Hemming for the next few days, and was relieved about that. She had no idea where he worked, but since the nearest Hemming Aluminium plant was about forty miles away she reasoned that he probably went there daily. Assuming he would be working dur-
     
    ing the day, that still left him with his evenings free, but when it came to Thursday and he hadn't contacted her, she began to feel a little irritated. He was playing the lord of the manor with a vengeance, she thought. Having said he would call for her on Friday afternoon he had left it at that, as if having given his instructions he need not concern himself with her until Friday.
    News of her engagement had spread rapidly round the village and she had several phone calls from friends who rang to wax enthusiastically about her good fortune. Philippa Browne was one of her telephone callers, saying she couldn't believe it when she had heard.
    `I never had any inkling that a romance was going on right under my nose,' said Pippa, who always reckoned to know