Never to Love Read Online Free Page B

grandmother,” Jill retorted.
    In the weeks that followed, Andrea went out with Justin Templar more and more frequently. She had an uneasy feeling that she was playing with fire, but it was very pleasant to be taken out by a man who could afford the best of everything, and she avoided thinking about the possible developments of their friendship. There was one side of Justin that she grew to know and like. He was a stimulating companion and had a sense of humor akin to her own, so that they often shared laughter that other people would have found incomprehensible. But of the man behind the charming, considerate escort she felt she knew nothing, and there were often moments when he looked at her in the enigmatic way that had disturbed her when they first met in Cornwall. He never attempted to make love to her, but she felt sure that he would do so eventually, and in spite of her raillery at Jill’s melodramatic suppositions on the subject, the prospect sent a faint shiver down her spine.
    One evening, after they had been to a concert at the Festival Hall, Justin suggested that they should dine at his house the next night, and although she had no convincing reason to refuse the invitation, she was very much afraid that the evening would make a climax in their relationship.
    She spent a restless night and found it hard to concentrate on her work the next day. For the first time in her modeling career she was fifteen minutes late for an appointment, and the photographer for whom she was posing complained that she was thinking about something else. With an effort she pulled her thoughts back to the vivid play clothes that were to illustrate a holiday plans feature in the April issue of a teenager’s magazine.
    By the time Justin called for her she was inwardly tense with nervousness, but as they drove toward Mayfair his manner seemed so normal that she began to wonder if she was imagining a crisis where none existed.
    She had often used Syon Place as a shortcut from Park Lane to Bond Street and had admired the tall Georgian houses, most of which were still privately owned and not, like so many Mayfair mansions, converted into offices and service apartments. During the day typists and clerks ate sandwich lunches on the benches in the square gardens and the curbs were close packed with opulent cars, but after dark it was possible to recapture the atmosphere of Regency London, when the blaze of chandeliers shone down onto the cobbled street and liveried flunkeys stood beneath the graceful porticoes, bowing to guests in the satins and silks of a bygone century.
    Now, stepping out of the car and standing still for a moment, she could imagine herself in another age, arriving at a rout with the tinkling music drifting down from the ballroom and the clatter of hooves as a carriage lurched around the corner.
    “What are you thinking?” Justin asked, seeing her absent expression.
    “About this square; a hundred and fifty years ago.”
    “Does the Regency period appeal to you?”
    “Yes, although I would probably have been a kitchen maid in those days. ”
    “And I a merchant, so we’d both have been outside the bounds of polite society.”
    “Oh, hasn’t the house always been in your family?”
    “No, my grandfather bought it at the turn of the century.”
    He led her up the steps and opened the front door. The hall was carpeted with dove-gray pile and dominated by the wide curving staircase. The paneled walls were painted white with gilded moldings. A magnificent crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling.
    Helping her off with her coat, Justin said, “The drawing room is upstairs, but I think we will be more comfortable in the library.”
    He indicated a doorway on their right.
    The library was a long, narrow room with windows at either end, curtained with rich folds of pale gold velvet. A fire was burning in the hearth and the room was lighted by a lamp on the leather-topped writing desk and another on an elegant Sheraton