Page 25
He nodded. ‘We’ll make a Quaker of you yet, Miss Frobisher.’
__________
Matthew reached towards the sugar bowl that was rattling against the tiny milk jug and separated them. He blinked at her. ‘Arnold had a lovely way of strategising how to engage you as a guide without offending his Yorkshire girls.’
‘Yes, most diplomatic,’ she agreed.
‘Is that you jiggling your leg against the table?’ he asked, bemused.
She gave a guilty grin. ‘Horrible habit when I’m nervous. Makes me useless at cards.’
He laughed. ‘Ah now, I have an excellent deadpan expression for all games of cunning.’
‘I believe you.’
‘You’ll need to develop one if you don’t want everyone reading you like today’s newspaper.’
Alex sighed. ‘She’s going to see right through me.’
‘Well, here’s a thought – how about telling the truth?’
She blinked in irritation. ‘You’ve met my mother, Matthew.’
‘Yes, but all lies have a crafty way of coming back to find you, biting you, haunting you. If you can avoid the lie, I’d recommend it.’
‘Speaking from experience?’
He gave her one of his wide grins where she felt he was laughing at her rather than with her, except with Matthew she never felt any malice. It was as though she amused him like a younger sister.
‘Of course, speaking from experience!’ he gusted. ‘However, lying should be the fallback position, not the frontline, if you’ll pardon the war theme.’
She smiled and frowned at the same time. ‘You seemed to know what I should do before I did.’
‘That’s the practical man in me; also the entrepreneur who lives alongside! Despite this my father doesn’t recognise that I have a Machiavellian talent for spotting opportunities.’
‘Well, I’m in awe of your astute nature and grateful for your support. For something I’ve never thought about as a career for myself, I’m shaking with glee at the prospect,’ she admitted as their pots of tea were refreshed.
They were seated in the fashionable Harker’s Hotel tearoom in St Helen’s Square, awaiting the arrival of Minerva Frobisher, whom they’d telephoned and invited to join them for afternoon tea.
‘Here she comes . . .’ Alex murmured, spotting the familiar black ostrich feather of her mother’s hat bobbing above the queue of people milling around the chamber’s entrance, as she approached.
Matthew reached for her hand and Alex was surprised at how comforting the gesture felt. ‘I’m here; I won’t let her attack, I promise,’ he said. ‘Don’t just blurt it out and tell her your plan. Instead, dear Alex, sell her the idea. Use all your powers of persuasion to get what you want.’
‘Is that what you’re doing with me?’
He didn’t reply and she regretted her accusation. ‘Anyway, Mother wouldn’t dare attack with you present; she’s already entirely in love with you, Matthew.’
‘Could you be?’ he asked mildly. ‘We could give her some other news that would relegate your fib into mere passing words,’ he baited.
‘Don’t tempt me.’
‘Why not? We could be content, you know. We’d both remain sane in our marriage too. I promise I would look after you always.’
‘And love me?’
‘In my way, absolutely. I’m sure I already do.’
There it was again, that odd manner and curious phrasing to give her pause. And yet she was finding his offer increasingly hard to turn down. It would solve a lot of headache. She lifted a hand in a little wave of salutation to her approaching mother and imagined what joy she could bring Minerva by simply saying yes to Matthew’s proposal. If she rolled all of the other contenders’ best assets together, they’d come up wanting against Matthew Britten-Jones. The chance of falling madly in love with another man between now and perhaps Duncan Cameron coming home from the war, or even peace being achieved, seemed remote at best. Matthew, at least, would become her fiancé on her terms and they would go into marriage having made a decision together, having been entirely honest with each other about formalising a near platonic arrangement. Should that arrangement move into something romantic – and she saw no reason not to let it develop gradually – then that would be a special blessing.
