Love's Duel

Except in court! In court he had been John G. Noble. Well, at least now she knew what the G. stood for! This man, this hateful, sarcastically cruel man, was Emily’s beloved nephew. Either Emily was unaware of the harshness in him or else she knew of it and excused it. Knowing Emily it would be the latter, she always had sympathy and understanding for the unpleasant quirks in people’s natures.

‘And this is Leonora,’ she announced proudly.

‘Leonora…?’ Giles Noble raised an enquiring eyebrow.

‘Carter,’ Leonie supplied in a stilted voice.

His piercing gaze went to the simple gold band that encircled her wedding finger. ‘Ah yes,’ he drawled. ‘You’re a widow.’

‘Leonora lost her husband two years ago,’ his aunt supplied. ‘Such a shame for one so young.’

‘Yes.’ Giles took the proffered cup of coffee. ‘When you spoke of your widowed friend Leonora, Aunt, I naturally assumed her to be a—lady of your own age.’

‘Did you, dear?’ Emily said vaguely. ‘But I’m sure I mentioned how young and pretty she is.’

‘No, you never did.’ Giles Noble’s mouth twisted, his gaze rapier-sharp as it raked over every inch of Leonie’s body.

He was doing it again, but now he was stripping her not only of her pride but of her clothes too. She had never seen that insultingly familiar look in any man’s eyes before, never felt such degradation at a man’s glance. Her humiliation was complete as with a contemptuous twist of his lips he turned away.

‘Oh well, it doesn’t matter,’ his aunt smiled brightly. ‘I’m sure the two of you will be good friends.’

Leonie almost choked over her coffee at the unlikelihood of that happening. Her hand shook as she returned the cup to its saucer, her fear a tangible thing. This man was her tormenter, the evoker of all her night-time fears, and yet she could feel his magnetism as strongly as she had in the courtroom, knew that once again he was swallowing her up, absorbing her personality, reducing her to the naïve child she had still been four years ago when she first met him.

Giles Noble looked at her again. ‘My aunt tells me you’ve been to see your brother this weekend. I believe he has been—away?’ his voice taunted her.

‘I—er—Yes.’ She stared down at her hands, her breath catching in her throat as she waited for him to speak again, for that cold clipped voice that could be silkily soft when he wanted it to be to rip into her once again.

‘Where?’ he asked finally.

She drew a ragged breath, raising her head slowly. ‘He’s been—working abroad,’ her eyes met his challengingly. ‘On an oil-rig,’ she added defiantly.

‘Really?’ Giles Noble drawled slowly. ‘How interesting—for him.’

Leonie swallowed hard. ‘Yes.’

‘Why don’t you both sit down?’ Emily asked from the sofa. ‘I don’t like you both towering over me like this.’

‘Sorry, Aunt. Mrs Carter…?’ He waited for Leonie to be seated before sitting himself, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his position relaxed.

Leonie sat in a daze, wondering why he didn’t just expose her to his aunt. He knew damned well Phil hadn’t been working abroad, he could do his arithmetic as well as he did everything else, and he knew very well Phil had just been released from prison. And yet he said nothing. What sort of cat-and-mouse game was he playing with her now?

‘I’m sure you can call her Leonie, Giles,’ Emily was still unaware of the tension between them. ‘Can’t he, dear?’

‘Leonie?’ he repeated softly. ‘But I thought your name was Leonora?’

She bit her lip. ‘It is. Emily just—prefers to call me that.’

‘It’s too pretty to shorten,’ Emily put in.

‘Most people call me Leonie,’ she said firmly.

‘Do they indeed?’ Giles slowly drawled.

‘Yes!’ she snapped, her tension almost at breaking point.

‘Then so shall I. You see, dear Aunt, I happen to think Leonie is a much prettier name.’

Thank goodness for that. She could still remember the contemptuous way he had called her Leonora in court. At least she was to be spared that.

‘Does your brother enjoy his work on the oil-rig?’ Giles Noble asked suddenly.

Leonie visibly jumped, the question unexpected—as he had known it would be. He was still the lawyer, throwing her off guard, tricking her. ‘He’s left now. He has a job in London.’ Why didn’t he just say that he knew it was all a pack of lies, that her stepbrother was a jail-bird?

He nodded, his expression mocking. ‘You’ll be able to see more of him, one presumes.’

‘Yes.’

‘That will be nice, for both of you. I’m sure it can’t have been all that comfortable where he’s been.’

‘Don’t be silly, dear,’ his aunt chided. ‘They have all the conveniences on those places nowadays.’

‘So they do,’ he gave a slight smile, even white teeth visible between those firm lips. ‘Except women. I suppose your brother was living it up this weekend?’

Leonie gave him a cold look, the memory of Wanda in Phil’s room still an embarrassing one. ‘We spent a quiet weekend together,’ she informed him resentfully.

Those firm lips tightened, the eyes glacial. ‘I’m sure you did.’

‘I don’t like to hurry you, Giles,’ his aunt cut in, ‘but it’s after eleven, and you have a long drive in front of you. I do wish you would leave it until morning, I don’t like to think of you driving all that way in the dark.’

Giles stretched his long legs. ‘I do it all the time when you don’t know about it, Aunt Emily.’

‘Well, I know, but the point of that is that I don’t know about it. I shall only worry,’ she added persuasively.

‘Actually, Aunt, I’ve been thinking of taking you up on your offer to stay an extra night. I don’t have to be in court until tomorrow afternoon, I could drive up after breakfast.’

‘Oh, that’s a splendid idea!’ his aunt clapped her hands together with pleasure. I’ll just go up and check that Dorothy hasn’t stripped your bed. She has a habit of getting things done before you want her to.’ She bustled out of the room, a worried frown on her brow.

Leonie gulped, glancing over at Giles Noble, hurriedly looking away again as she saw he was looking right back at her, his expression unreadable.

Suddenly he stood up, his movements restless. ‘Of course you know why I’m staying on,’ he said coldly.

‘Yes,’ Leonie didn’t attempt to prevaricate.

‘So your brother is out of prison now,’ he remarked quietly.

‘I’m surprised you remember us,’ she said tautly. ‘After all, you’ve prosecuted in much more important cases than ours.’

‘But I’ve never lost one that was quite so cut and dried,’ he told her contemptuously.