Читать книгу Keeping Luke's Secret - Кэрол Мортимер, Carole Mortimer - Страница 7

‘I THOUGHT you were paid to come here and work, not sit dreaming your time away under the apple blossom!’

Leonie didn’t need to turn to know the identity of her accuser—if the words weren’t condescending enough, the sarcasm of Luke Richmond’s voice was all too recognisable!

‘Actually, Mr Richmond,’ she drawled evenly, slowly turning to look at him as he stood behind the garden chair she sat in under the apple blossom, ‘I’m not being paid at all,’ she told him dryly. ‘And your mother suggested I might like to look through these photograph albums, with a view to the possibility of using some of them in the book, while she took her afternoon rest.’ She looked pointedly at the pile of albums on the wooden table in front of her.

Actually, it was a glorious day, the mid-May sunshine dappling through the apple blossom, she had enjoyed lunch with Rachel, and she was feeling rather sleepy herself. Certainly too relaxed and comfortable to feel like engaging in verbal warfare with Luke!

She grinned up at him. ‘I must say, you were gorgeous as a baby,’ she drawled mockingly.

There was no answering smile in the grimness of Luke’s features as he moved to settle himself in the nearest vacant chair to her own. ‘And now?’ he challenged tauntingly.

Now, if she was absolutely honest, he was more than gorgeous—he was breathtakingly handsome. His hair, in the sunlight, had red tints amongst the darkness, those chiselled features seeming to have a year-round tan, his sheer masculinity also in no doubt in the dark brown tee shirt and black denims. That was if she were to be absolutely honest—which probably wasn’t a good idea around a man whose only feelings towards her were wariness and suspicion.

She hadn’t seen or heard from him in the three weeks since she’d last been here, but if his attitude now was anything to go by his feelings towards her didn’t seem to have changed.

Leonie shrugged dismissively. ‘I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you what you can already see for yourself in the mirror every morning when you shave.’

His mouth twisted derisively at her obviously evasive answer. ‘I thought all babies were gorgeous? To women, at least,’ he added with a challenging lift of those dark brows.

‘Spoiling for a fight’ came to mind!

Relaxed as she was, Leonie was in no mood to give him that satisfaction. ‘Perhaps they are,’ she replied noncommittally. ‘Your mother didn’t mention you were coming down this weekend,’ she murmured sleepily.

‘Didn’t she?’ he returned unhelpfully, his hooded gaze fixed penetratingly on Leonie’s face. ‘What do you mean, you aren’t getting paid?’ He frowned. ‘I’m sure you can’t be giving up your weekends just for the fun of it!’ he added disparagingly.

Leonie shrugged again; it really was too lovely a day for a fight. Even with Luke Richmond. ‘I advised your mother that it would be better to wait until the book is written before we talk about remuneration.’

Luke’s gaze narrowed. ‘Why?’

She gave him a considering look before answering. ‘My work may not be what your mother wants. One successful biography, on someone I’m very close to, does not mean I will have the same success writing your mother’s story,’ she dismissed.

Luke was silent after this statement, as if mulling over the truth of what she had said. Maybe he was; at this moment, Leonie felt too soporific to care what he thought.

‘You don’t look much like your grandfather, do you?’ Luke suddenly bit out abruptly.

Giving Leonie a sharp reminder that it wasn’t a good idea to become too relaxed when around this man!

She straightened in her chair, the green tee shirt she wore, with black fitted trousers, a perfect foil for her fair colouring. ‘That’s probably as well—considering he’s an eighty-year-old man, and I’m a woman fifty years younger!’ she returned facetiously, no longer feeling quite so sleepy. In fact, she felt under attack!

Luke gave an unappreciative grimace. ‘That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it,’ he rasped.

‘Do I?’ she returned, her own gaze coolly challenging.

Luke stood up abruptly. ‘I’ll take you for a walk round the grounds.’

No ‘would you like to?’, or even a ‘shall we?’—just an ‘I’ll take you’! This man’s arrogance could prove extremely irritating if she were exposed to it for too long. Besides, she had little interest in accompanying him on a walk round the grounds. In accompanying him anywhere!