In Want of a Wife? by Cathy Williams Page A

through her veins.
    ‘That’s not why I’m here.’ She pointedly gathered her hair with one hand and draped it behind her. ‘I haven’t dressed like this to prove anything.’
Hadn’t she?
‘I don’t want you to find me sexy. I think we’ve already concluded that we just aren’t each other’s cup of tea. I would have been more than happy to come here in jeans and a jumper but I figured that this restaurant might have a dress code.’ He was looking at her with such unblinking, shuttered intensity that it was making her as nervous as a kitten. ‘And please stop staring at me like that!’
    ‘When you dress like that, you should be prepared to be stared at.’
    ‘I came to have a conversation about Rose. Okay, well, about Rose and Nicholas.’ Food arrived and she sat back to allow the waiter to produce her main course of
poussin
with an elaborate flourish. ‘I. What you said about Dad being in a bit of financial bother is, well, true.’ She snaked a tongue nervously over dry lips, and when she glanced across at him his expression was closed and uninviting. ‘I think he’s invested badly and he said something about having to remortgage the house. So I can understand what’s going on in your head.’
    Louis maintained a steady silence. Had she known him at all, she would have known that begging missions never worked. He took a sip of wine and began eating, waiting for her to carry on.
    ‘You were cynical to start with and I guess that you’re even more cynical now that you’ve poked around in my father’s life and unearthed his financial situation. I suppose you’re really proud of having done that.’
    ‘I think we’re beginning to go over old territory here, Lizzy. And doing a background check on someone isn’t unusual. It’s always a good idea to have the full picture.’
    ‘You don’t
want
the full picture. You just see what you want to see!’ She made an inarticulate sound under her breath and flung her hands up in frustration.
    Frankly, that should have been the cue for Louis to bring the meal to an abrupt but necessary end. Outbursts in public places, while he could not care less what people thought of him, weren’t his style.
    But her cheeks were flushed and she had shoved the sleeves of her tight jumper up, exposing slim, firm hands. She didn’t seem to have noticed, but in the heat of the moment not only had her hair swung forward, tempting him to take some of the silky strands between his fingers yet again, but her knees were brushing his—and that was doing some interesting things to his body.
    ‘Rose doesn’t know anything about, well, about
anything.’
    ‘Maybe we’re getting a little over-excited here about nothing. How was the food? You don’t seem to be eating.’
    ‘The food’s great.’ She took a mouthful. It really was great—just a shame that she wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it. ‘And what do you mean about getting over-excited about nothing?’
    ‘I mean you seem to be under the illusion that Rose and Nicholas are destined for the altar.’
    ‘Illusion? Has Nicholas told you that he’s going to dump my sister?’
    ‘Nicholas hasn’t confided in me one way or another, but let’s face facts. He got sent up to Scotland to handle some ofthe ground work on Crossfeld. Nicholas’s family might have their pile in the country, but he’s only ever been accustomed to life in London.’ Louis shrugged, a man-of-the-world shrug, as though every word he was saying and every assumption he was making was shot through with unarguable fact. ‘Scotland would have been like another planet. It’s natural that he would have gravitated towards the first sympathetic attractive woman he met.’
    ‘You’re saying that Rose is just someone to keep him company until he can get back to his normal life?’
    ‘I’m saying that it might be a mistake for your sister to start thinking about wedding bells—and even more of a mistake for your parents to start imagining that a