Yesterday's Bride (16 page)

"He's such a dynamic man, so hard-driving," she shivered delicately, "that he can't help being a success. But of course you know all that."

With elaborate care she put the fragile cup and saucer down and leaned back again to pin Leigh with a curiously hard stare.

"Jason can be very ruthless." There was a brief pause. "In business, of course." Her glance fell to her nails, painted a dark crimson. She studied their oval perfection before she spoke again. "In his line of work, Jason often forms limited partnerships for a time, but when he's through with a relationship, he's through, even though the partner wants it to continue. Jason can walk away without a backward glance."

Once again the blue eyes lifted to Leigh, a message clear in their depths. Leigh felt she had been well and truly warned and she experienced an urgent desire to get out of the suddenly stifling room.

"Oh, really," she returned with some irony. "I don't know much about Jason's business matters."

"No, I don't suppose you do," Paula murmured. "I'm sure you couldn't have realized how very busy Jason is right now when you persuaded him to take you away for the weekend."

Leigh had had enough. She stood up, smoothing down her blue denim skirt.

"On the contrary, Paula, Jason persuaded me to go away this weekend, not the other way round. Not that it matters," she said softly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to let Smitty know that I'm back."

She made it to the door before Paula's voice stopped her.

"Oh, Leigh, would you ask Smitty to have some hot tea ready for Jason when he gets back. I'm sure he'll need something refreshing."

Suppressing a sigh of irritation, Leigh crossed the room and picked up the silver teapot, and then she made her escape.

Smitty was in the kitchen, noisily banging pots and pans and muttering under her breath. One look at her set face and Leigh decided not to mention Paula's request for fresh tea. She'd make it herself after she had smoothed Smitty's obviously ruffled feathers. She was sure she knew the cause. Paula Knight just rubbed Smitty the wrong way.

She made the tea and was discussing Betty Pender's suggestion about an outing for the children when she heard the front door open. Leigh arrived in the hall a few seconds after Paula, but Jason came straight to her and gave her a light kiss on the cheek.

"Hi. Did you miss me?" Not waiting for an answer, he put down his case and greeted Paula.

"Why are you here, Paula?" he continued with a slight frown. "Is anything wrong at the office?"

She came to stand close by his side, bringing with her a cloud of expensive perfume. "No, but I have a number of letters ready to go out. I thought you'd want to sign them." .

"This late on a Friday afternoon, it really doesn't matter," Jason said impatiently. "Monday morning would have done as well."

At the glimmer of hurt in the blue eyes, he softened. "Oh, all right. It was thoughtful of you to come all this way. Let's go in the study and I'll take a look at them."

While she waited, he turned back to Leigh. "All packed? Good. We'll leave as soon as I deal with this."

As Leigh watched the two of them disappear down the hall, Jason's head bent to catch something Paula was saying, she felt a sharp stab of jealousy.
Oh, no, you don't
, she told herself and marched determinedly up the stairs.

When she had packed for the weekend, Leigh hadn't been very clear on what to take. From Jason's brief description, she gathered that the lodge was of the luxurious, rather than rustic variety, so she put in a few formal outfits, but with casual things in predominance.

Her eyes on the clock, she quickly showered and changed into a matching skirt and blouse of blue-green silk. With a practiced hand, she smoothed on a colorless lip gloss and decided not to bother with any more makeup. She didn't really need it since exposure to the sun had given her a light tan.

At last, after good-byes to Smitty and Jody, they were on their way.

For the most part, Jason seemed to prefer to drive in silence, a brooding expression on his face. Several times Leigh tried to start a conversation, only to get monosyllabic replies in return, so she amiably shut up. Instead, she watched Jason sideways through her long lashes. He drove as he did everything else, expertly, with a minimum of effort and complete assurance as he wove in and out of traffic. His hard profile was etched with power. Intelligence, experience and confidence were there to be read in his face as well. Strain, too, Leigh's observant eyes noted, and she guessed that he had overworked. She was right, as he confirmed when they stopped for dinner.

"I only had about three hours sleep last night," he admitted finally in answer to her direct question. "I wanted to finish up and get back to you."

Flushing, Leigh bent her head and concentrated on her food for the rest of the meal.

"Do you want me to drive now?" she asked when they returned to the car from the roadside restaurant.

"No. It's only a little over an hour more."

Jason held the door for her and walked around to the other side of the car. After he had started the engine and maneuvered the sleek vehicle out onto the expressway, he seemed more disposed to talk. The meal had apparently refreshed him.

So Leigh told him how she had been working with the contractor for the past few days and described the various selections she had made.

"Sounds nice," he commented.

Hesitantly she admitted to adding some lighter colors to the master bedroom.

He quirked an amused eyebrow at her. "If you like it, I'm sure I shall. Do you think it's attractive enough to tempt you to move in there?"

To Leigh's relief, he didn't seem to expect an answer but began to tell her about some of the places to visit near the lodge.

What with not getting away until very late afternoon and then stopping an hour for dinner, it was almost ten by the time they arrived at Blackstones.

From what Jason said, it had once been the mountain home of a tobacco baron who had spared no expense. The lodge took its name from the sooty gray, almost black stones with which it had been built. Leigh's eyes widened as she got out of the car at the porticoed entrance. Above her was a massive pile of stones that resembled a gothic, turreted castle.

"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes!" she laughingly told Jason who was standing just behind her.

"Wait until you see the inside."

The tobacco baron, apparently seeking his European heritage, had put together his own baronial mansion. Jason told Leigh that on a vacation trip to England, the man had impulsively bought a stately home, parts of which he then had disassembled and shipped back to the United States to decorate his own summer home.

"It's fantastic," Leigh exclaimed, looking around in awe at the ancient tapestries that adorned the walls of the lobby.

While Jason checked them in, she wandered around, admiring the rich rugs, the burnished furniture, even laughing here and there at a particularly ornate piece. Finally the bellhop whisked away their bags and they were speeding up to the third floor on the elevator.

Jason stopped in front of a door. "This is your room," he told her as he unlocked the door and handed her the key. "Would you like to go back downstairs later for a drink?"

Leigh reached over and tilted Jason's wrist toward her to look at the thin circle of gold there.

"Uh-uh. It's late and you didn't get much sleep last night."

"OK, tyrant," he teased, his dark eyes warm with laughter and something else Leigh couldn't quite define.

"Shall I come in and tuck you in?"

When she smilingly shook her head, he sighed in mock despair. "Oh, well, if you should need me in the night, just whistle. Or better yet, knock on the wall."

He winked and turned to enter the room next door.

The telephone rang shrilly in Leigh's ears. She reached groggily out and succeeded in knocking the receiver off its rest. It clattered loudly against the tabletop and Leigh muttered to herself until she had grabbed it and lifted it to her ear.

" 'Lo," she said, her voice slurred with sleep.

"Good morning, sleepyhead. Did you have pleasant dreams?"

Leigh's eyes focused on the face of her bedside traveling clock. "Jason," she groaned, "do you know what time it is?"

"Time to be up and out, sweetheart. We don't have a moment to lose."

Leigh rolled over, carrying the receiver with her. "Just another half hour. Please, Jason," she pleaded.

His chuckle came softly over the wire. "If you need any help getting dressed, I'll be right over."

Hastily Leigh threw back the covers. She didn't doubt him for a minute. "I'm up," she said, shivering in the cool early morning air. "Be with you in half an hour."

They had an enormous breakfast in one of the smaller dining rooms and then set off for a walk. Jason insisted that the view from one particular hill was superb, so Leigh good-naturedly agreed to the climb. Blackstones was located just where the aptly named Blue Ridge Mountains started their precipitous rise, and as they walked, Leigh and Jason could admire the hazy blue-gray peaks towering over them from the distance.

There were several pathways that led to the crown of the hill. Jason started along a well-trodden grassy trail that eventually left the trees behind to wind through a section of low scrub underbrush.

"You've been here before," Leigh noted, observing his familiarity with the area.

"A long time ago, when I was a kid." He looked down at her flat-heeled, strappy sandals. "Think you'll be all right in those shoes? The going is getting steeper now and can be pretty rough farther up."

A group of teenagers passed them, leaving the path to scramble up a rocky incline, with hilarious bursts of laughter at their slippery progress.

"Too hot for that kind of climbing," Jason remarked.

Leigh nodded agreement, but her mind wasn't really on the boisterous group ahead of them. She couldn't help but wonder if Jason had enjoyed such careless fun when he came here as a youth, before family problems bore down on him, forcing him to grow up too fast. He was a serious man, but one with a good sense of humor, yet she just couldn't imagine him as an uninhibited, loud teenager.

As they walked, Jason's hand seemed automatically to find hers, his grip firm and sure. Leigh discovered that she liked holding on to him, striding along close beside him. They seemed in tune somehow, matched.

The day was slightly overcast, with a few heavy clouds scudding about overhead, but to Leigh, the colors were brighter, the air clearer, the pungent smell of the pine needles sharper than ever before.

They reached the top of the hill and paused to drink in the panorama before them. Although they had passed several people on the climb, no one was around at the moment and they had the place to themselves. The view was spectacular. Below, the vivid green of the rolling land met the blue-gray of the sky in a line delineated by a thin band of haze. They could see for miles, a seemingly infinite stretch of distant horizons, and behind them, the majesty of the mountains provided a stunning backdrop.

Leigh caught her breath. Her heart was beating erratically and she knew it wasn't entirely due to the view or the exertion of the climb. She was overwhelmingly conscious of the man by her side, especially so when his arm came around her shoulders and his head came down close to hers as he pointed out a landmark, a tiny log hut way down in the very pit of the valley.