'Is that what you prescribe. A teaspoon of the seven deadly sins?' said Sarah lightly.
'Perhaps not all seven . . . but I think I've made myself clear on that subject before.'
'Crystal. You have a winning way with an insult,' Sarah told him, a trifle tartly.
'Learned at my mother's knee.'
Sarah's over-sensitised ears detected a hint of underlying bitterness in the smooth reply. Was he speaking the literal truth? Was this another tiny splinter of vulnerability threatening to work its way under her skin? She resisted it, remembering how skilled he was at manipulating people.
'You're lucky,' she replied. 'The only things I learned at my mother's knee were already thousands of years old. I decided not to embark on a course of continuing education, whereas you . . .'
'Now, now,' he admonished, with a gleam of appreciation, 'no fighting tonight. Shall we declare a truce?'
Sarah took a cautious taste of her sherry. She had better be careful, she didn't have much of a head for alcohol.
'Sometimes I can't help it,' she confessed.
'I know what you mean,' he murmured. Thick, dark lashes lay briefly against his skin as he looked down, idly stirring his Martini with the olive on a toothpick. Then the lashes swept back revealing the large dark pupils ringed by a halo of hazel. 'Why do you never wear any jewellery?'
'I... I don't own much.'
'Except your wedding ring.'
Sarah looked down at her left hand. That's an heirloom. It belonged to Simon's grandmother.' 'No engagement ring?'
She was past resenting his inquisitiveness. Besides, by answering some of his questions yesterday she had given him tacit approval to ask more. 'We didn't have a formal engagement. And anyway, Simon didn't believe in over-adornment, or in acquiring possessions for the sake of it.'
'Except you.'
Sarah's fingers curled into her palms at the quiet irony. 'That's not quite fair,' she protested, equally quietly. 'There was more between Simon and me than. . . perhaps I shouldn't have said what I did yesterday.'
'Why not? Who was it who said that one owes respect to the living; to the dead one owes only the truth?'
'Voltaire,' replied Sarah automatically, having Come across the quotation in her extensive reading after Simon's death, when she was trying to come to grips with her feelings about grief and guilt and the resulting emotional mess.
The man across from her smiled. He was too clever by half. Sarah gave him her haughty look.
'You should wear jewellery—gold perhaps, something warm and yellow, or rich and red, like rubies,' he said, to punish her, his eyes drifting over her bare ears and throat, to the beat of the pulse above her collarbone. 'But perhaps you're right,' he continued provocatively, 'bareness makes its own statement. . . and it's often a more interesting one!' His eyes dropped lower and glinted with satisfaction as she hastily brought her arms up on to the table in front of her, resting her chin on her hands, shielding the warm swell of her breasts from his gaze.
Sarah felt herself flush with a mixture of embarrassment and annoyance. Damn him for a disturbing devil! She had worn the dress braless before and not felt self-conscious, yet he made her feel a brazen hussy. In fact she had tried a strapless bra under the dress this afternoon, but the lace had been bulkily obvious under the thin silk and she had stuffed it back into her drawer, feeling a coward for having tried it on at all.
'Calm down, Sarah,' he said mockingly. 'I'm not going to leap on you in the middle of the restaurant. Credit me with a little finesse.'
'Oh, I credit you with more than a little,' she managed sarcastically, 'and it's not exactly a calming thought.'
'I'm glad you find it exciting,' he said, wilfully misunderstanding her and then disconcerted her by changing the subject. 'I meant what I said about your working overseas. Why don't you consider it? London perhaps? Wilde's has several publishing concerns there. I could make some enquiries if you like.'
'I already work for Wilde's,' she said, not sure whether he was serious or whether it was just part of his line.
'You're being obtuse,' was all he said.
'Still intent on playing the fairy godmother?' she taunted, deciding to take him lightly, fearing to do anything else.
His mouth turned down at the corners. 'I admit that at the time you accused me of being condescending my attitude may have been rather patronising, but I've since been cured of that. I suspect that Cinderella possesses more than enough of her own brand of magic.'
And with that enigmatic utterance he turned his attention to the listings in the leather folder beside his plate, and suggested that she choose from the menu for them both.
'Tom told me that cooking is one of your hobbies.' Sarah had a momentary frisson at that, remembering the other things she had told Tom during their numerous conversations. 'Well, wine is one of mine, so let's collaborate.' And, drily: 'Your surprise is most unflattering. I know I open car doors for women but that doesn't mean I'm the complete chauvinist pig. Have I ever given you reason to think that I was?'