His Convenient Mistress Read Online Free Page A

outstretched to take his cup. ‘I hate to rush you away, but I really have a million things to do and Simon will start acting up in a minute if I don’t go through.’
    â€˜Have you been to the town yet?’ Of course she hadn’t. She had managed to keep herself to herself. ‘Met any of the locals?’
    Sara was grateful to be able to look away from those penetrating eyes as she moved towards the kitchen sink with both their cups in her hands. ‘Not yet, no.’
    â€˜Then I insist you come to a luncheon party my mother is having on Sunday.’
    â€˜I…’
    â€˜You might as well satisfy their curiosity,’ he commented drily, ‘or they will simply start fabricating half-truths about you. Why did you choose to live here if you are afraid of facing the people you will find yourself living amongst?’
    â€˜I’m not afraid of any such thing!’
    â€˜Twelve precisely. You can’t miss the house. It’s the one next to yours. First left.’ He stood up and Sara followed him with her eyes as he walked towards the kitchen door, giving her a brief salute before disappearing outside towards his car.

CHAPTER TWO
    â€˜S O WHAT’S she like?’
    â€˜Red hair. Green eyes. Tall. Has a child, a boy.’
    â€˜No, James, I meant what is she like ? You know. Chatty, sociable, boring, what ?’
    Good question, James thought. He looked down at Lucy Campbell and then absentmindedly out towards the direction of the Rectory. She hadn’t shown up. It was now four in the afternoon, lunch had been served, a splendid buffet of cold meats and salads, which had been eaten on the sprawling back patio with its rich scent of flowers. Croquet had been played amateurishly by a handful of the guests. There had been some talk of lawn tennis, but this had fizzled out to nothing because most of the guests had had too much of the very fine white wine to drink and were disinclined to put themselves through the effort of running around trying to hit a tennis ball over a net.
    â€˜James?’
    He focused on the woman in front of him. By any standards, she was a pretty girl. Petite, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, impeccably haute-coutured and with the regulation cut-glass voice. Unfortunately, she irritated the hell out of him, and she was irritating him now, gazing up at him with the expectant expression of someone looking forward to a bit of juicy gossip.
    â€˜She seems pleasant enough,’ he expanded with a shrug. He sipped some of his wine and found his gaze straying again in the direction of the Rectory.
    â€˜Pleasant?’
    â€˜No obvious psychological problems that I could spot,’ he said edgily. Just damned hostile, he thought to himself. Was that a reaction to him in particular, he wondered, or men in general? He had found himself thinking about her more than he had anticipated and the fact that he was thinking about her now annoyed him.
    â€˜Very droll, James.’ Lucy smiled a coquettish little smile, a smile she had perfected over the years and one that usually had men melting. It didn’t appear to be working now. ‘That’s one of the things I absolutely adore about you.’
    â€˜Sorry?’
    â€˜You were telling me all about your fascinating new neighbour.’ She held on to the smile but with difficulty. ‘So she’s tall, has red hair and seems pleasant. Is that all? What about this son of hers? What do you think they’re doing here? Really? Would you like to know what we think?’
    James didn’t have to ask her who the we were. He knew well enough. Her little clique of privileged friends, four of whom had trooped along with their parents to the luncheon.
    â€˜You can tell me if you feel inclined,’ he said discouragingly.
    â€˜Well, we all think that she’s a bit of a nobody who’s suddenly found herself the owner of a pretty nice house, you must admit, and has decided to land herself up