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ignored the other tables.
The hostess led them to a rather more secluded table than the others,
and Katherine sank into the chair that Luke held for her with a smile
of thanks. He pulled out the other and sat down also, smiling his first
real smile of the evening full into her receptive eyes. It was quite
something; he could turn on enough charm to coax a badger out of its
hole if he wanted to. It made her blink.
'You know,' he said softly, his eyes twinkling, 'you quite disappointed
me back there.'
This made her blink. 'Back where?' she asked in confusion. 'I didn't
mean to do anything.'
'Don't worry,' he said, starting to laugh a little. 'It wasn't intentional, I
know.' He looked into her mystified eyes for a minute, and then
relented. 'I was expecting a rather different reaction when you saw
that precious little brunette, but to my surprise you didn't even
acknowledge the girl's existence! You didn't have any curiosity as to
who she was?'
She looked amused. 'Okay, who was she?' she asked obligingly.
He threw back his head and laughed harder. 'Love, I have no idea!
She just came up to me and started talking!'
'It's just as I thought,' she shrugged it away, tossing her gleaming hair
behind one shoulder. 'Nobody important to me.'
'Now you have disappointed me!' he shook his head despairingly. 'I
was hoping for some show of jealousy in those green eyes, some little
indication of emotion! You've broken my sorry heart, Katie.' As she
laughed at Luke's welcome light-hearted change of mood and sent her
eyes casually, idly around the occupants of the dining-room, she
caught sight of the man who had bumped into her in the hall, his gaze
upon her, his manner anything but casual. Alert, speculating, and
sharp, yes, but not the gaze of a man merely admiring a good-looking
and strange woman. Her eyes widened in surprise and some alarm,
and she dropped them to her empty place-setting in consternation.
Unless she was grossly mistaken, she had seen that man somewhere
before. Just where, she couldn't place, but she had seen him
somewhere.
'What is it?' Luke asked her sharply, catching sight of something in
her face that evidently alarmed him, and he leaned forward to grasp
her hand.
That brought her eyes back up, this time to look at him, and she
replied quickly, 'Nothing! Nothing at all. I'm hungry, aren't you?' Her
tone was light, but her eyes were troubled.
CHAPTER SEVEN
'DON'T give me that.' He was not, she saw, so easily put off, and his
grip on her uninjured hand tightened. 'Tell me, Kate. What's troubling
you?'
'It's really stupid,' she began in a low voice. Her eyes travelled away
from his and started inspecting the table' s furnishings. 'This fellow
who bumped into me in the hall and quite rudely pushed me away
even after I had apologised, is sitting just behind your left shoulder,
alone, and he is staring at me very hard. It's just a little uncomfortable,
that's all, no big deal.' Her eyes once again met his and found him
reassuringly calm. 'Dumb?'
'Of course not. What does he look like?' he asked idly, releasing her
hand and leaning back in his chair nonchalantly.
'It's the funniest thing, but I think I've seen him before oh!' she
exclaimed as she casually looked over to the table where the man had
been sitting. She sat upright in astonishment. 'He's gone!' She quickly
glanced all over the restaurant's dining-room, but he was nowhere to
be found.
'Perhaps,' said Luke, sounding bored, 'he finished eating and left for
the evening.'
She searched the table with her eyes and looked at him with the
beginnings of frostiness. 'You think,' she said coldly, 'that I'm making
all this up, don't you? I'm not. Why is there an open menu where he
was sitting? Why should he leave in such a hurry?'
'I am most certainly not thinking that you have made all this up,' he
replied with a maddening calm.
'And, I cannot guess why the fellow would get up and leave before
eating. Perhaps he just changed his mind?'
Her green eyes threw silent and virulent sparks at him, which had the
opposite effect that she wished: he smiled in amusement. 'Do you
know,' she said reflectively, 'that I think you are being quite
provokingly odious?'
He laughed outright. 'Come on, sweetheart, describe this menacing
character to me and get him out of your mind once and for all,' he
coaxed, his face open and relaxed. She caught the look in his eyes and
started. Those eyes were anything but relaxed, and she must have
stared too hard, because he lowered them instantly. 'Out with it,
Katie-bug.'
She dispelled her uneasy feelings with a shrug, and started to describe
the man to Luke. 'Well, he was dark not as dark as you, mind, but
more in a brown sort of way. He looked pretty big; when I bumped
into him, it felt like I was running into a brick wall! His nose was a
little battered-looking, like he'd been caught between a rock and a
hard place, or should I say hard fist? He had a rather tough expression
that could give you the shivers if you met him in a dark alley and you
had something that he wanted.' Her voice trailed away.
'Observant chit, aren't you?' remarked Luke easily. 'He must've made
an impression.'
'It's just,' she looked troubled, 'that I feel like I've seen him before, but
can't quite remember where . . . oh, forget it! Here comes our waiter.
What are you going to have?'
After they had ordered, both relaxed with drinks. His was a whisky,
and she sipped at a mixed fruit drink that was filled with crushed ice.
'You haven't been much from the house this last week, have you, poor
Katie-bug?' Luke asked her sympathetically after taking a sip from
his glass. When she looked into his eyes from over the rim of her own
glass, she saw again that peculiar flash in them that made her wonder
again at his strange, concealed intensity, but it was soon forgotten and
she answered his light question easily.
'No, the only place I've been is in the back yard with Oliver,' she said,
shaking her bright head at him in sadness. 'And, of course, the walks
I've taken with you. It's been really nice, though. I have had the time
to think, which I really needed. The weather's been so bad that I
haven't had the least desire to play tennis! Do you play?' At his nod,
she exclaimed excitedly, 'Why, splendid! You and I can play a few
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