A Masterful Man

'I can imagine,' Davina murmured and raised an eyebrow at him. 'So, you've stuck with her through thick and thin?'

'Her mother used to work for my mother and her husband, now deceased, worked on one of our boats. I would feel guilty for the rest of my life if I abandoned Maeve.'

'She certainly is a great fan of yours,' Davina commented.

'That probably surprised you,' he replied, with a glinting little smile.

Davina didn't answer but sipped her drink then put it down. 'Dinner should be ready in about fifteen minutes. Where would you like to eat it? Here?' She gestured to the dining setting across the room. 'Or-'

'Here,' he said. 'Why waste the view? I'll set the table-you weren't planning to abandon me to dining alone, were you?'

He only set one end of the big glass-topped table but he did it quite artistically and he opened a bottle of red wine.

'That's not necessary-for me, I mean,' she said when she saw it as she put a silver dish down, loaded with roast beef with faintly pink juices running from it, roast potatoes, pumpkin and sweet potatoes. She also had on the tray she'd brought from the kitchen cauliflower au gratin, gravy and some wonderfully risen Yorkshire puddings.

'Hell,' he said, ignoring her comment entirely as he gazed with genuine admiration at the puddings, 'and you whipped this all up in a matter of minutes!'

'I've had plenty of practice,' she said with a grimace. 'Would you like to carve or shall I?'

'I will. Do sit down, Mrs Hastings-what's that old saying about the way to a man's heart?' He picked up the carving knife and fork, looking gravely attentive.

Davina sat and said quite calmly, 'But we've spoken of that before and both agreed it's not on, haven't we, Mr Warwick?'

He put the fork into the meat and sliced one slice of beautiful, just rare roast beef before he said, 'We may have, Davina, but other things have spoken for themselves.'

She took up her as yet empty wine glass and examined the pattern on the crystal. 'I think-I'm sure-we should put that down to a momentary aberration.' And her violet eyes were level and cool as she looked at him across the table.

'Well, you're certainly a lot more composed about it now,' he commented, and returned to carving the beef.

She gritted her teeth but forbore to reply. Instead, she rose to serve the vegetables and she was still silent as he poured two glasses of wine, without consulting her. Which left her thinking he really was impossible. But as she was to discover more and more, just when you thought Steve Warwick was impossible, he had a habit of turning the tables. He did so then…

'Tell me about your photography.'

She hesitated then with a slight shrug began to do so. And he listened attentively while she explained how she'd always been fascinated by light and shade, by juxtaposing unlikely subjects and capturing them on film.

'So it's been a lifelong ambition?' he said after a bit. 'How come you got sidetracked into catering?'

'That was my mother. She insisted I have some 'solid' qualifications, as she put it, behind me. She's the kind of person who thinks that being artistic in any way is all very well but not much to fall back on when the chips are down-she was right, as it happened, although what she'd had in mind for me was starting my own business that catered for very exclusive parties for the rich and famous.'

'But I should imagine you have a flair for it anyway.' He put his knife and fork together and pushed his plate away. 'That was absolutely delicious.'

'I do enjoy cooking,' Davina agreed as she did the same and picked up her glass. But as he offered to top it up she said, 'No, no more, thank you. I was going to make a pudding but ran out of time. I've prepared a cheese-board and fruit instead.'

'That'll be fine but don't rush. How come the chips came to be down?' He looked at her quite seriously across the table.

Davina looked away and finished the last of her wine. 'I'd rather not go into that.'

'Sometimes it helps,' he commented.

'With a perfect stranger? I doubt it.'

'We're not exactly perfect strangers. On the other hand, strangers can have a less-biased view of things.'

'Why do you really want to know?' she said, at last. 'Anyway, it's nothing earth-shattering and I'm quite happy the way I am, believe it or not.' She smiled faintly.

He lay back in his chair and regarded her thoughtfully. 'Marriage to someone who thought you were a frigid bitch, which, incidentally, we've now proved you're not, must have been a bit devastating.'

A faint smile lit Davina's eyes. 'I think it was more devastating for him than it was for me.'

Steve Warwick took his time digesting this. 'So, it was an act?' he said at last.

'Not entirely. He certainly didn't turn me on-for want of a more elegant phrase.'

'Were you forced into marrying him?' 'I was… conned,' Davina said meditatively, then she sighed. 'You remind me of the Spanish Inquisition in velvet gloves. So, if it will set your mind at rest, my father was faced with the prospect of bankruptcy, my ex-husband was the guy who could either bring it all about or save him, I was the price he asked to take the latter course. There you are.' She smiled at Steve Warwick but not with her eyes. 'You have it in a nutshell.' 'And after you'd done the deed you discovered it wasn't all that simple?' he queried perceptively after a moment.

'After I'd done the deed I discovered… well, eventually, that my parents were still going to go bankrupt.'

'He reneged, in other words?'

She shrugged. 'He was one of the crop of entrepreneurial millionaires who popped up all over Australia at the time with about as much substance to them as a pack of cards. He crashed like a pack of cards too,' she said dispassionately.

Steve Warwick acknowledged this phenomenon with a grimace and a faint frown in his eyes and Davina knew he was trying to place the name and she held her breath for a moment but all he said was, 'So he conned your father as well?'

Davina traced a pattern on the tablecloth with her finger. 'My father was desperate. So was my mother- desperate about how it was all affecting my father's health, and right to be. He died of a heart attack.'

'I'm sorry. Was that when you-released yourself from the marriage?'

'Yes, more or less.'

'How old were you when you got conned into this marriage?'

'Twenty,' she said briefly. 'How old was he?'

'Forty. But a very fit and young-looking forty, I'll give him that.'

'How did you first come to his notice?' Davina narrowed her eyes and glanced at him coolly. 'At a ball.'

'Where else?' Steve Warwick murmured, looking wry. 'What do you mean?'

'My dear Davina, you in a ballgown…' He shrugged. She closed her eyes for a moment and remembered the gown. It had been black and strapless and had fitted her like a glove. She'd also worn long white gloves with it and a choker of pearls… And she remembered the sick feeling that had started to grow in the pit of her stomach as she'd realised her mistake, that she'd have been far better off to wear sackcloth and ashes rather than display herself in a ballgown to a man who stripped her naked with world-weary, cynical brown eyes in a way that left no doubt he meant to have her in his bed by hook or by crook.

She stood up abruptly. 'Yes, well, there you have it, Mr Warwick, but I'm afraid 'show and tell' time is over. I'll bring the cheese.'

'So you've hated all men ever since?' he queried softly, making no physical effort to detain her, but managing to do so all the same.

'Yes,' she said through her teeth but added, 'I certainly don't trust them and if you're about to lecture me on the folly of making sweeping generalisations like that, please don't waste your time or mine!'

'I wouldn't dream of it!' He stood up. 'A lot of people prefer to enjoy their misery.'

Davina stilled with her hands around the silver platter, and was briefly tempted to hurl the remains of the roast at him. She said instead, coldly, 'But I'm not miserable, that's what you don't seem to understand. Not all women