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revelations…’
    Lisa glared angrily at him.
    â€˜That suit looks good on you,’ he added softly.
    â€˜So you’ve already said,’ she reminded him through gritted teeth, all too aware of Henry’s and his mother’s silently suspicious watchfulness at her side.
    â€˜Yes,’ Oliver continued, as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘You can always tell when a woman’s wearing an outfit bought by a man for his lover.’ As he spoke he reached out and touched her jacket-clad arm—a brief touch, nothing more, but it made the hot colour burn in Lisa’s face, and she was not at all surprised to hear Henry’s mother’s outraged indrawn breath or to see the fury in Henry’s eyes.
    This was retribution with a vengeance. This wasn’t just victory, she acknowledged helplessly; it was total annihilation.
    â€˜Have you worn any of the other things yet?’ he added casually.
    â€˜Lisa…’ she heard Henry demanding ominously at her side, but she couldn’t answer him. She was too mortified, too furiously angry to dare to risk saying anything whilst Oliver Davenport was still standing there listening.
    To her relief, he didn’t linger long. Aunt Elspeth’s god-daughter, the same one who had so determinedly flirted with Henry half an hour earlier, came up and very professionallybroke up their quartet, insisting that Oliver had promised to get her a fresh drink.
    He was barely out of earshot before Henry was insisting, ‘I want to know what’s going on, Lisa… What was all that about your clothes…?’
    â€˜I think we know exactly what’s going on, Henry,’ Lisa heard his mother answering coolly for him as she gave Lisa a look of virulent hostility edged with triumph. So much for pretending to welcome her into the family, Lisa thought tiredly.
    â€˜I can see what you’re both thinking,’ she announced. ‘But you are wrong.’
    â€˜Wrong? How can we be wrong when Oliver more or less announced openly that the pair of you have been lovers?’ Mary intoned.
    â€˜He did not announce that we had been lovers,’ Lisa defended herself. ‘And if you would just let me explain—’
    â€˜Henry, it’s almost time for supper. You know how hopeless your father is at getting people organised. I’m going to need you to help me…’
    â€˜Henry, we need to talk.’ Lisa tried to override his mother, but Henry was already turning away from her and going obediently to his mother’s side.
    If they married it would always be like this, Lisa suddenly recognised on a wave of helpless anger. He would always place his mother’s needs and wants above her own, and presumably above those of their children. They would always come a very poor second best to his loyalty to his mother. Was that really what she wanted for herself…for her children?
    Lisa knew it wasn’t.
    It was as though the scales had suddenly fallen from her eyes, as though she were looking at a picture of exactly how and what her life with Henry would be—and she didn’t like it. She didn’t like it one little bit.
    In the handful of seconds it took her to recognise the fact, she knew irrevocably that she couldn’t marry him, but she still owed him an explanation of what had happened, and from her own point of view. For the sake of her pride and self-respect she wanted to make sure that he and his precious mother knew exactly how she had come to meet Oliver and exactly how he had manipulated them into believing his deliberately skewed view of the situation.
    Still seething with anger against Oliver, she refused Henry’s father’s offer of another drink and some supper. She would choke rather than eat any of Mary Hanford’s food, she decided angrily.
    Just the thought of the kind of life she would have had as Henry’s wife made her shudder and acknowledge that she had had a lucky