Was that the kind of woman Flavia Lassiter was?
He watched her toy with her knife, straightening it minutely, then drop her hand to her lap to pick up her linen napkin, dabbing it momentarily to her lips, dropping it again to her lap, smoothing it out. Her gaze was fixed on it, on anything that wasn’t him. Small, jerky, awkward movements, indicating glaringly how totally ill at ease she was.
Because she was embarrassed about desiring him or just embarrassed by his company?
The damnable thing was it was impossible to tell. Impossible to know what was going on inside her head. Was she essentially cut from the same cloth as her father, who had not troubled to hide his sense of superiority to those not from his privileged world? Did her outer beauty conceal an inner ugliness?
Or was there, as he so fervently hoped, more to her than that?
He had to find out.
Their waiter had approached, and was ready to set down their first course. Leon watched Flavia turn her head and smile at him as he carefully placed the plate in front of her, murmur thank you to him. That was a good sign, he realised. Not everyone bothered to acknowledge waiters. He felt reassurance go through him. Then it wavered again. It was easy for women like Flavia Lassiter to be gracious towards those who served them—it didn’t mean they regarded them as their social equals.
He glanced at her plate as she lifted her fork to make a start.
‘That looks very frugal,’ he observed, referring to the scattered salad leaves and slivers of asparagus.
She gave a constrained flicker of a smile—the barest acceptable. ‘I’m not very hungry,’ she replied, focussing her gaze on her food, not Leon.
Leon’s eyes washed over her. ‘You are very slender,’ he observed, meaning it as a compliment.
She didn’t reply, only gave that brief, constrained flicker in response, and reached for her glass of mineral water. Her movements were still stiff and jerky. Leon cast about for another subject, as he started in on his own first course, an array of seafood.
‘What do you think of the restaurant?’ he enquired c
onversationally.
Flavia glanced around. ‘It’s very … good,’ she said, having sought for an appropriate word, and only coming up with ‘good’.
‘I thought you might prefer somewhere like this to anywhere more flashy and crowded.’
The hesitant indentation of her lips in acknowledgement came again as she gathered some asparagus onto her fork. ‘Oh, yes. Thank you. I do.’
Even to her own ears her voice sounded staccato and disjointed. She tried again, looking about her, knowing that she had to make an effort, that she owed him that, at least, however impossible—totally impossible!—her presence here was.
‘I like the way it’s been furnished, in eighteenth-century style,’ she managed to say.
He must have sensed the unspoken approval in her voice, for she heard him say, as he took a mouthful of his wine, ‘Do you like historic houses?’
Without thinking, she glanced across at him. ‘Yes. I live in one.’
He frowned slightly. ‘Your father’s apartment is very modern, its style ultra-contemporary,’ he said.
She looked at him. ‘I don’t live there,’ she said.
Leon’s expression changed. ‘Your father didn’t say—’
Flavia’s face tightened. ‘No, I doubt he did.’ Her voice was clipped.
‘So where do you live?’ Leon was intrigued, realising just how little he knew about her. ‘Do you have your own flat in London?’
‘No.’ The rejection of such an idea was audible in her voice.
‘So where …?’ He let the question trail.
Flavia bit her lip. The last thing she wanted to risk was Leon finding out about Harford. He might start asking questions about it she dared not answer.
‘In the country,’ she said shortly, keeping it deliberately vague. ‘I don’t like cities.’