Hostile engagement Read Online Free

staff to answer the door he had performed that service himself That in itself told her he was no snob.
    `Hello,' said Carol Stanfield, still in the same friendly tones she had used only that morning—Lucy regretted that Carol wouldn't be feeling so friendly towards her at the end of her visit. 'How nice of you to come to see us.'
    `This isn't a social call,' Jud put in at the side of Lucy, causing her to glance at him and quickly away. His expression was inscrutable, telling her nothing other than that she had definitely, but definitely, imagined that 'your place or mine' look at the village hall this morning.
    `Not a social call?' Carol was obviously having a hard time wondering what on earth his visitor could want to discuss with him that wasn't social.
    Lucy was now hating the reason for her call as she watched Carol's puzzled face.
    `I'll see you later, Carol,' said Jud, indicating that Lucy
     
    should follow him into the room she knew used to be the drawing room.
    `You mean I can't come with you?' Carol queried.
    That was the last thing Lucy wanted. She was going to have a hard enough time convincing this sombre man at her side that the ring was hers without the added disquiet of trying to convince him while the girl she was sure now was his fiancée was present.
    `I'd rather see Mr ...' Oh God, she wished she knew his name, wished it was over. 'I'd rather see him alone.' She didn't look at him to see what he was making of it.
    `Don't be long, then, Jud—you promised to teach me to play billiards, remember,' said Carol, having to accept that her presence wasn't wanted.
    `This shouldn't take long.'
    Lucy silently echoed his words with the fervent hope that inside ten minutes she would be driving away from Rockford Hall with her mother's ring in her possession.
    The man she knew as Jud closed the door of the drawing room behind them, and looking directly at her indicated that she should take a seat on one of the several giant-sized settees the room housed. Lucy didn't want to sit down, she felt too uncomfortable in this man's presence—this man who by his very silence wasn't making it any easier for her to begin. But she felt compelled, as he stood silently waiting, to sit down, if only to give herself some small thing to do. Straight away she wished she hadn't, as he remained standing, and as she looked at him, taking in that he was taller than she remembered with him towering over her, she saw he looked ten or fifteen years older than herself, had dark hair the same as she had, but that his eyes were a hard grey-green. In fact it was not only his eyes that-were hard—the whole appearance of the man was hard : hard mouth, hard muscular body.
    `The name is Judson Hemming.'
    His voice was just as hard as the rest of him, she thought,
     
    as he reminded her that she had called to see him on a business matter without even knowing his name.
    `I'm sorry.' She wished she hadn't apologised, it gave him the advantage straightaway. 'We never got round to being introduced this morning, did we?' That was better, her voice was sounding quite cool again. `I'm Lucy Carey—I live at Brook House.'
    He received this information without comment, and she wondered if he already knew who she was. Anyone could have told him at the village hall, though he didn't look as though he was sufficiently interested enough to enquire. She wasn't used to this sort of treatment from a man. It jolted her a little to know how indifferent this man was to her.
    `You said you wanted to see me on a business matter,' he reminded her darkly, as though to suggest that if she didn't soon spit it out he would very shortly be showing her the door. `I'll warn you now, Miss Carey, guessing games aren't much in my line.'
    His sarcasm stung, making her head come up sharply, putting starch into her wilting backbone, making her so angry that sparks flew to her eyes. Judson Hemming was just about the most impossible man she had ever come into contact with. He had known