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.‘You shouldn’t have burnt your clothes,’ he told her shortly.‘Metaphorically speaking, of course.I never knew a woman who voluntarily got rid of designer clothes so that she could run out and buy a wardrobe full of suits.’‘Not among the women you know, at any rate,’ Katherine muttered under her breath.The restaurant was small, intimate, with candles and flowers on the tables, and waiters who appeared to have taken degrees in subservience.They were ushered like royalty to a table in the corner of the room, half hidden by an exotic-looking plant, and as soon as they had sat down, she said, ‘Now, what was it that you wanted to discuss?’‘What happened to your friend in London?’ Dominic asked, ordering drinks for both of them and, to her surprise, remembering precisely what she had liked—white wine with soda water.‘I still keep in touch with her,’ Katherine said, shrugging and playing with the stem of her wine-glass.Not quite a complete lie.They did still keep in touch, but only via the occasional letter and Christmas cards.Twice, Emma had come to visit, but country life bored her and she had spent the entire time trying to rouse Katherine’s interest in returning to the much more exciting playground of London.‘Well, it’s heartening to know that she didn’t go the way of the clothes,’ Dominic murmured, and she looked at him warily from under her lashes.‘I don’t suppose you came here to discuss me.’ Back to the brisk tone of voice.It was the one she felt most in control with.‘Why do you suppose that?’The waiter handed them their menus, great, ornate things, which looked as though they should have far more important contents than descriptions of food.‘Because I am a very boring subject.’ She was busy scanning the menu and didn’t realise that he hadn’t answered until she looked up at him and found that he was staring at her.‘What makes you say that?’‘Does it matter?’ she asked, a little taken aback.‘I think I’ll have the sole.’‘Was that the reason your boyfriend gave you when he walked out on you?’‘I don’t want to discuss all that.It’s in the past.’‘Exactly,’ he said smoothly, coolly, ‘so why should it bother you if we discuss it or not? Why do you think that you’re boring? You had a great deal more self-confidence when I knew you.You didn’t continually act as though you were running away from something.’‘Everyone’s running away from something,’ she muttered ambiguously, and when he raised his eyebrows she continued irritably, ‘You don’t give up do you? All right, I’m not boring, I’m vastly exciting, with my wardrobe of suits and my early nights and my sensible job!’ She knew that she sounded bitter and she hated the way he had managed to draw this heated response out of her when she had spent thirty-five minutes in the car rehearsing her composure.‘Well, well, well.’ He sat back and looked at her with such undiluted concentration that she began to feel jumpy and defensive and hot under the collar.‘I know what you’re thinking.’ She gave him a chance to jump in here and conduct a little psychoanalysis on her, but he remained silent, which propelled her into more murky waters.‘I’m really quite a self-confident person.’‘You must be,’ he agreed, ‘to hold down a job like the one you do.Children soon see through someone who’s not at ease with them.’Katherine laughed, an open, honest sound.‘I’m not entirely sure about that.At the age of four and five, they’re far more concerned with what’s happening around them than they are with the mental state of their teacher.They’re also terribly trusting.The urge to take advantage of people’s weaknesses comes later, I think.’‘Is Claire finding it hard going?’ he asked, looking at her intently.That was something she had forgotten over the years, the way he could give his undivided attention to whatever was being said to him.‘She did to start with, I think,’ Katherine said, pausing while their food was elaborately laid in front of them, then continuing between mouthfuls of sole and vegetables.‘She speaks English very fluently, but her mind just didn’t work fast enough sometimes to catch on to what the other children were saying.Now, she’s marvellous.Not boisterous, but then, I don’t think that she’ll ever be, do you?’‘No,’ Dominic said thoughtfully.‘She’s always been quite an introverted child.’‘Yes.I know.I can sympathise.’ She stood back and looked at what she had just said, and then murmured, unwillingly drawn into confiding, ‘I was quite the same.My father left home when I was very young, and my mother…’ She paused.She never spoke about her mother to anyone.She had internalised all the problems she had endured and had always made the best of them.It was only in later years that she had been able to realise how much things had affected her.‘Your mother…?’ There was interest there, but not pressing, and she plunged on.‘My mother resented my father’s leaving.She always maintained that he had abandoned us, which of course he had, but…’‘She blamed you?’‘No.’‘She made you pay for his desertion?’‘Something like that.’ Katherine laughed nervously.‘I told you I was a terribly boring person.’‘You never really discussed your past with me all those years ago,’ he murmured, ‘did you?’Katherine met his eyes steadily and said with utter truthfulness, ‘When I met you, I had no past and no future.’‘Tell me,’ Dominic said, and there was a latent urgency in his voice that unsettled her.‘Tell you what?’‘Tell me what you’re hiding.’She lowered her eyes.She could feel the fine prickle of perspiration.Tell him? she thought.The truth? The long, involved truth that had cost her so dear? He had said that the past no longer mattered because what they had had was finished, that two strangers who had briefly crossed paths no longer needed secrets, but she felt otherwise.He might have eliminated her from his life, but she was honest enough to realise that she had never managed to do the same to him.It was pointless trying to analyse what, precisely, she did feel for him, but she knew that it certainly wasn’t the indifference which she would have needed if she were to suddenly plunge into a polite, amusing confession of things that had happened six years ago.‘I’m not hiding anything,’ she said, keeping her eyes lowered.‘Were you involved with the two of us at the same time?’ he asked, with a sharp narrowing of his eyes which belied the mild curiosity in his voice.‘Did you get pregnant by him?’Katherine looked at him, startled, then she laughed, throwing her head back, leaning back into the chair.‘Do share the joke,’ Dominic said coldly, and her laughter subsided into bursts of giggles.‘I have never been pregnant in my life,’ she said, thinking that pregnancy by a fictitious lover would certainly have guaranteed her a place in the Guinness Book of Records.‘That is the most absurd suggestion I have ever heard in my entire life.’ Which made him frown even more.‘Have you ever thought of going into writing fiction?’‘Very droll, Katherine,’ he muttered, unamused, judging from the look on his face.‘I don’t know why you feel the need to get to the bottom of all this,’ she said seriously
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