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silence had been rather more worrying. Jamie had a grudge against Ross; bitterly disliked him. He had wilfully misled her why? Had he planned to use her as some sort of weapon in a revenge on Ross? The waiter removed their plates and began to serve their main course, so for a while they hardly said anything. Melanie ate her cold salmon and creamy mayonnaise without really tasting either; she left just under half of the meal, pushing the food around her plate idly, her mind angrily busy. Once when she looked up she found Ross - watching Liz and Jamie being shown to their table on the other side of the room. Ross looked grim, his grey eyes shadowed. Melanie wished she could be sure what she was seeing she no longer felt able to guess at anybody's motives, anybody's real feelings. There was no solid ground "under her feet. Her ears beat with hypertension and her mind kept dissolving into endless, unanswered questions. It seemed that Ross had some questions of his own. Leaning forward he asked abruptly, 'You didn't say how you came to meet Knox at Ullswater.' Melanie hesitated, but she was so sick of hiding things, keeping back the full truth. 'I went fell climbing while I was there and got trapped in heavy mist. He came to find me. We couldn't get down again, you couldn't see a yard ahead, so we had to spend the night in a hut up there.' Ross sat there staring. 'Alone?' She swallowed, nodding. Ross held her eyes, his face hard. 'I see.' 'I doubt if I'd have found it on my own,' Melanie stammered. 'The hut, I mean. I vaguely knew there was one but in that mist. . . and I'd hurt my ankle, I could only hobble. He was a real survival expert; I was very grateful for his help. He made a fire and found straw to sleep on and he . . .' Her voice trailed off. 'He may not actually have saved my life. I don't think it was ever in danger. But all the same, I was very glad he was there.' Even to please and placate Ross she wasn't going to lie about that. Whatever Jamie's reasons for coming to find her and she strongly suspected them now she had to be grateful for what he had done for her. 'Of course,' Ross said, but those cool grey eyes asked other questions which she certainly couldn't answer, because even to admit she knew what was in his mind would be some sort of admission. Not of guilt, necessarily, but of awareness. Jamie hadn't tried to make love to her that night. She could look Ross in the eye and tell him so truthfully. But something serious had happened while they were alone in the mist and rain, and that she could not talk to Ross about. Jamie Knox had got under her skin; he was there now, needling, infuriating, tormenting, driving her crazy. Ross looked down, his brows level, then looked up again. 'Were your aunt and uncle worried?' The question was casual but his eyes were far from casual, and she couldn't meet them. 'They only heard about it when I got back safely.' 'And how did they react to the news that you'd spent a night alone with Knox?' Ross murmured, pushing his own reactions on to Aunt Dolly and Uncle Teddy. She forced a smile; at least that made it easier for her to answer. 'Oh, they didn't get over-excited. They know me; I'm not stupid.' 'I wouldn't have thought Liz was stupid, either.' Ross said, glowering across the room at that other table. Jamie and Liz were just getting lobster Thermidor and were laughing like a couple of children. The sight of their enjoyment didn't seem to delight Ross, and it didn't do much for Melanie either. She felt stupidly excluded, shut out, watching them through a window. A glance at Ross made her suspect that he felt the same. 'Ross,' she said. He didn't take his eyes from the other two. 'Mmm?' 'We're not in love, are we?' she said gently. That caught his attention, his head swung and he stared at her fixedly, turning dark red. 'What?' Melanie gave him a wry, melancholy little smile. 'It was a mistake, wasn't it, for both of us?' Ross swallowed, his throat moving convulsively, but he seemed struck dumb. She held his eyes, reading relief in them. The barrier that had hidden his real thoughts and feelings from her for months had gone. Ross watched her nod, still smiling. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |