Hostile engagement by Jessica Steele Page B

in ten minutes or so she would have to greet Mrs Hemming as though she hadn't a care in the world.
    Jud seemed quite unconcerned that she hadn't spoken one word to him, and that irritated her further. They were almost on the point of turning into the drive of the Hall before it came to her that she might be being a little childish. She looked down at the ring on her finger. She was being well paid after all, she thought, it wouldn't hurt to be civil to him—beast that he was.
    . . . did you have a pleasant time in Germany?' she enquired politely as the car turned into the drive of the Hall, and could have wished she had been able to make her remark without that stammering start.
    `You've spoilt a record,' Jud answered mysteriously. `Record?'
    `I've never known a woman be quiet for ...' he checked his watch as he halted the car outside the front door of the
     
    Hall, `... all of ten minutes,' he ended.
    `I'll bet,' said Lucy acidly, a mental picture of him with some willing female in his arms flashing unheralded through her mind. It was disconcerting to realise that Jud knew a fair bit of the thoughts that went through her mind, disconcerting also to hear that laugh she had heard once before.
    She was outside the car before he had come round to her side, and was a little ashamed of herself for the way she slammed the door behind her. The majestic Bentley had done nothing to deserve such treatment.
    Mrs Hemming greeted her warmly and when the time came to get into the car again Lucy went to the rear passenger door intending Mrs Hemming should sit with her son, but Mrs Hemming wouldn't hear of her occupying the rear seat.
    `You sit up front with Jud,' she smiled. 'I might want to nod off.'
    Suspecting that since her illness Mrs Hemming had most likely taken to having a rest every afternoon, Lucy smiled back. 'Are you sure?' she enquired, noticing now they were outside in broad daylight that Jud's mother did look a little tired.
    `Quite sure, Lucy—if my eyelids do begin to droop you and Jud can carry on a conversation without worrying about disturbing me.'
    Lucy got into the front seat knowing if Mrs Hemming did fall asleep, it was going to be very quiet inside the car indeed, for nothing would induce her to voluntarily say anything to Jud.
    It was a glorious afternoon and once on their way Jud drove expertly and without fuss. For the first hour talk flowed easily and without restraint between Lucy and Mrs Hemming, Jud saying very little, and at one stage half turned in her seat so Mrs Hemming shouldn't have to talk to the back of her head, Lucy caught a look on his face that
     
    told her he was silently reiterating what he had said about never having known a woman keep quiet for ten minutes. Lucy found she was able to ignore him without Mrs Hemming being aware of it. Then talk between them became spasmodic and thinking perhaps Mrs Hemming might now want to sleep, Lucy turned round to face the front.
    She saw the hills of Malvern long before they reached them, and as they came nearer and nearer she wondered, not for the first time, what the weekend would hold. So far everything had gone along swimmingly, and although neither she nor Jud were demonstrative with each other-God forbid—Mrs Hemming had not noticed that everything was not as it should be between two people who she thought were head over heels in love with each other. Lucy guessed that Jud wasn't the demonstrative type anyway, and reasoned that his mother would know that, and hoped if she did note the lack of outward affection between them, Mrs Hemming would put it down to the fact that both her son and his fiancée were rather 'private people'.
    Having sorted this out to her satisfaction, Lucy felt the first stirrings of interest in her weekend away from Brook House. At the beginning of the journey Mrs Hemming had enthused about Malvern, telling Lucy of the pleasures it had to offer besides the hills that Edward Elgar had once trodden and probably gained his