Fugitive Wife Read Free

uttering a few shy words of .congratulation to writers, photographers and artists who had been merely names to her up to now.

    She was just beginning to shed some of her inhibitions and enjoy being the centre of the stage, when she became aware of a man watching her across the room. For a moment their eyes met and locked, and Briony was teased by an odd sense of familiarity. But she knew he was not one of those she had met at the dinner.

    And in the same moment she realised that the expression in the aquamarine-pale eyes, looking her over from head to foot, was neither paternal nor deferential. It was cooly chalenging, even faintly amused, and it told Briony quite clearly and unequivocaly that wherever the sex war was waged, this man would expect to emerge as a victor. Nor did she have to wonder how anyone of her age and inexperience,
    only recently released from the shelter of school, could have known this. It was pure instinct, and she recognised it as such.

    But al the same, she turned away hurriedly, aware that embarrassment mingled with indignation was heightening the colour in her face, and was annoyed to find that her mind stil retained an image of him, tal and lean, his tawny hair bleached into blond streaks, and his eyes startlingly pale against the deep tan of his face.

    Al she had to do, of course, was wait until her father deep in conversation with Hal Mackenzie, the editor of the Courier, the group’s leading and influential daily paper, was free, and then ask the man’s name. But she was reluctant to do this, for reasons she only dimly perceived herself. Something told her that if her father wished her to know this man, then he would have arranged for there to be an introduction earlier in the evening.

    In the event, she did not have to wait to be told who he was. When the time came for the prestigious ‘Journalist of the Year’ award to be made, and the name Logan Adair was caled, he walked forward. As she picked up the award, Briony discovered crossly that the palms of her hands were damp, but she managed to present a calm exterior as Logan Adair shook hands, first with her father, who was murmuring a few conventional phrases of congratulation, and then turned to her.

    She said politely, ‘Wel done, Mr Adair,’ in a smal, cool voice, and held out his award and envelope.

    Everyone else had taken their award, thanked her, shaken hands and walked away, usualy back to the bar with ilconcealed relief. But not Logan Adair.

    He said with elaborate courtesy, ‘On the contrary, thank you, my dear Miss Trevor,’ and his hand reached out to clasp not her fingers as she expected, but her wrist, puling her forward towards him slightly off balance, so that she looked up in quick alarm and saw the amused glint in his eyes before he deliberately lowered his mouth to hers. The pressure was quick and light, and casual in the extreme, so there was no reason on earth why Briony should jerk back as if she had been branded, only to find the little incident had been witnessed in -the loudest silence she had ever heard.

    Logan Adair said smilingly, ‘A pleasure to have met you, Miss Trevor,’ and turned away.

    Briony’s cheeks were stained with bright colour and her fragile poise was shaken to its core. The chatter round the room had broken out again, but too loudly, and out of the comer of her eye she saw Sir Charles, frowning thunderously, wheel on Hal Mackenzie. She wished with al her heart, in spite of her embarrassment, that her father would treat it as the joke it had undoubtedly been, or else forget it altogether, but she knew this could never happen.

    Sir Charles was wel known for his ambivalent attitude to the empire he controled, she thought unhappily. He was proud of his newspapers and magazines and the influence they wielded, yet he had little time for the rank and file journalists and photographers who provided the words and pictures for his milions of readers to pore over. United Publishing had had