Tycoon's Ring Of Convenience. Julia James

me to offer you a lift,’ he said. His voice was smooth.

      Diana stiffened. ‘Thank you, but a taxi will be fine.’

      ‘You won’t find one closer than the Strand, and it is about to rain,’ he returned blandly.

      Then he was guiding her forward, opening the rear passenger door for her. Annoyed, but finding it hard to object without making an issue of it, Diana got in. Reluctantly she gave the name of the hotel she and her father had always used on their rare visits to the capital, and the car moved off.

      In the confines of the back seat, separated from the driver by a glass divide, Nikos Tramontes seemed even more uncomfortably close than he had in the opera box. His long legs stretched out into the footwell.

      ‘I’m glad you enjoyed this evening,’ he began. He paused minutely. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come with me to another performance some time? Unless you’ve seen all this season’s productions already?’

      There was nothing more than mild enquiry in his bland voice, but Diana felt herself tense. Dismay filled her. He was making a move on her after all, despite the presence in his life of Nadya Serensky. Her hopes that her disturbing reaction to him were not returned plummeted.

      ‘I’m afraid not,’ she said, giving a quick shake of her head.

      ‘You haven’t seen them all?’ he queried.

      She shook her head again, making herself look at him. His face was half shadowed in the dim interior, with the only light coming from the street lights and shop windows as they made their way along the Strand towards Trafalgar Square.

      ‘That isn’t what I meant,’ she said. She made her voice firm.

      His response was to lift an eyebrow. ‘Masterson?’ he challenged laconically.

      She gave a quick shake of her head. ‘No, but...’

      ‘Yes?’ he prompted, as she trailed off.

      Diana took a breath, clasping her hands in her lap. She made her voice composed, but decisive. ‘I spend very little time in London, Mr Tramontes, and because of that it would be...pointless to accept any...ah...further invitation from you. For whatever purpose.’

      She said no more. It struck her that for him to have sounded so very disapproving of a fictional case of adultery in the plot of Don Carlos was more than a little hypocritical of him, given that he’d just asked her out. Clearly he was not averse to playing away himself, she thought acidly.

      She saw him ease his shoulders back into the soft leather of his seat. Saw a sardonic smile tilt at his mouth. Caught a sudden scent of his aftershave, felt the closeness of his presence.

      ‘Do you know my purpose?’ he murmured, with a quizzical, faintly mocking look in his dark eyes.

      She pressed her mouth tightly. ‘I don’t need to, Mr Tramontes. I’m simply making it clear that since I don’t spend much time in London I won’t have any opportunities to go to the opera, whomever I might go with.’

      ‘You’re returning to Hampshire?’

      She nodded. ‘Yes. Indefinitely. I don’t know when I shall be next in town,’ she said, wanting to make crystal-clear her unavailability.

      He seemed to accept her answer. ‘I quite understand,’ he said easily.

      She felt a sense of relief go through her. He was backing off—she could tell. For all that, she still felt a level of agitation that was unsettling. It came simply from his physical closeness. She was aware that her heart rate had quickened. It was unnerving...

      Then, thankfully, the car was turning off Piccadilly and drawing up outside the hotel where she was staying. The doorman came forward to open her door and she was soon climbing out, trying not to hurry. Making her voice composed once more.

      ‘Goodnight, Mr Tramontes. Thank you so much for a memorable evening at the opera, and thank you for this lift now.’

      She disappeared inside the haven of the hotel.

      From the car, Nikos watched her go. It was the kind of old-fashioned but upmarket hotel that well-bred provincials patronised when forced to come to town, and doubtless the St Clairs had been patronising it for generations.

      His eyes narrowed slightly as his car moved off, heading back to his own hotel—far more fashionable and flashy than Diana St Clair’s. Had she turned down his invitation on account of Nadya? He’d heard Louise Melmott say her name. If so, that was all to the good. It showed him that Diana St Clair was...particular about the men she associated with.

      He had not cared for her apparent tolerance of the adultery in the plot of Don Carlos, but it did not seem that she carried that over into real life. It was essential that she did not.

       No wife of mine will indulge in adultery—no wife of mine, however upper crust her background, will be anything like my mother! Anything at all—

      Wife? Was he truly thinking of Diana St Clair in such a light?

      And, if he were, what might persuade her to agree?

      What could thaw that chilly reserve of hers?

       What will make her receptive to me?

      Whatever it was, he would find it—and use it.

      He sat back, considering his thoughts, as his car merged into the late-night London traffic.

      * * *

      Greymont was as beautiful as ever—especially in the sunshine, which helped to disguise how the stonework was crumbling and the damp was getting in. The lead roof that needed replacing was invisible behind the parapet, and—

      A wave of deep emotion swept through Diana. How could Gerald possibly imagine she might actually sell Greymont? It meant more to her than anything in the world. Anything or anyone. St Clairs had lived here for three hundred years, made their home here—of course she could not sell it. Each generation held it in trust for the next.

      Her eyes shadowed. Her father had entrusted it to her, had ensured—at the price of putting aside any hopes of his own for a happier, less heart-sore second marriage—that she inherited. She had lost her mother—he had ensured she should not lose her home as well.

      So for her to give it up now, to let it go to strangers, would be an unforgivable betrayal of his devotion to her, his trust in her. She could not do it. Whatever she had to do—she would do it. She must.

      As she walked indoors, her footsteps echoing on the marble floor, she looked at the sweeping staircase soaring to the upper floors, at the delicate Adam mouldings in the alcoves and the equally delicate painted ceilings—both in need of attention—and the white marble fireplace, chipped now, in too many places. A few remaining family portraits by undistinguished artists were on the walls ascending the staircase, all as familiar to her as her own body.

      Upstairs in her bedroom, she crossed to the window, throwing open the sash to gaze out over the gardens and the park beyond. An air of unkemptness might prevail, but the level lawns, the ornamental stone basin with its now non-functioning fountain, the pathways and the pergolas, marching away to where the ha-ha divided the formal gardens from the park, were all as lovely as they always had been. As dear and precious.

      A fierce sense of protectiveness filled her. She breathed deeply of the fresh country air, then slid the window shut, noticing that it was sticking more than ever, its paint flaking—another sign of damp getting in. She could see another patch of damp on her ceiling too, and frowned.

      Whilst her father had been so ill not even routine maintenance work had been done on the house, let alone anything more intensive. It would have disturbed him too much with noise and dust, and the structural survey she’d commissioned after he’d died had revealed problems even worse than she had feared or her father had envisaged.

      A new roof, dozens of sash windows in need of extensive repair