Hostile engagement by Jessica Steele Page A

everything that was happening. 'Mrs Hemming was at the hairdressers at the same time I was having my hair done-I've had it done in that new frizzy .style, though I don't think I like it-anyway, Mrs Hemming was saying you met her son when he first came to view the Hall, and that things grew from there. You are lucky, Lucy—I'd give my eye teeth for him, with or without his bank balance!'
    Lucy had sat stunned for a while after the call. It took all sorts, she mused, thinking over what Pippa had said about giving her eye teeth for Jud Hemming. She had to admit, if she was to be truly honest, that some women might go for his cool manner-she refused to dwell on the nebulous thought that had come to her when he had kissed her, that if she didn't dislike him so much she might have enjoyed the experience; the kisses she had received prior to the ones he had bestowed had lacked the experience of the more mature man. Hastily she turned her mind away to reflect that he must have told his mother that bit about their first meeting when he had come to view the Hall. Were there no lies he wouldn't utter in order to get his own way?
    On Thursday evening she had done nothing about packing her weekend case. It was as though by not doing so she
     
    felt herself uncommitted. Rupert was out again tonight, probably again with Archie Proctor. He would have told her who he was meeting if she had asked him, only like an ostrich burying its head in the sand, she had decided she didn't want to know, and in consequence now wished she had.
    When the phone rang she went to answer it, wondering if it was Rupert to say he wouldn't be coming home that night. But it wasn't Rupert's voice she heard but that of Jud calling her from Germany.
    `I didn't tell you what time to be ready,' he said infuriatingly.
    `I've been sitting here waiting for my orders,' she came back sarcastically.
    There was a small pause, and when he spoke next she thought she could detect a faint trace of amusement in his voice, but it must have been a distortion in the telephone cables, she thought, because it soon disappeared.
    `You haven't been up to the Hall,' he stated.
    She had no idea how long he had been in Germany, but no doubt he would have been in touch with the Hall by telephone and his mother would have told him she hadn't seen her.
    No—I'm not as practised as you in the art of lying without verbally committing myself.'
    `You are committed, though, aren't you?' he jibed.
    `Roll on the end of August,' Lucy retorted fervently. It was indelibly imprinted on her mind that the end of August would see the end of their engagement. `What time shall I be ready tomorrow?' she asked into the silence left when Jud made no reply to her fervent wish.
    `I'll call for you around three,' he said smoothly, then the line went dead.
    Lucy was ready when the Bentley pulled up outside Brook House the following afternoon. She had been pacing up and down the sitting room carpet still trying to think up
     
    ways of getting out of going, when she spotted the car from the window. There was no one in the passenger seat, so she guessed they would be returning to the Hall to pick up Mrs Hemming.
    Dressed in a linen suit of ice blue, she went to let Jud in. Rupert had gone out before lunch, and she had hoped he would be back before Jud arrived if only because it would have meant he had sufficient brotherly concern to see for himself the man she was engaged to. But Rupert hadn't returned and if she didn't know better she would have suspected he was purposely keeping out of Jud's way, which was ridiculous because the two had never met and there was no reason for Rupert to avoid meeting him.
    `Ready?' asked Jud, as she opened the door to him putting his hand out for the weekend case she was holding.
    Unspeaking, Lucy handed her case over, pulling the door closed behind her. It annoyed her that Jud checked to see that the door was securely locked, but she stamped down her feeling of annoyance, knowing that