Read High Society for Free Online Page B

suite’ was actually in the rafters of the house, and that the tiny window in the corridor beside the lift was so low that an adult would have to kneel down in order to be able to look out of it.
    She watched whilst Silas inserted the key into the lock of the heavy-looking door, and then opened it.
    The room that lay beyond it was furnished as a sitting room, its double doors open to reveal the bedroom that lay beyond it. And a huge bed.
    ‘Apparently there are two bathrooms,’ she heard Silas informing her. ‘And the sofa in the sitting room area converts to a double bed.’
    ‘In case we want a foursome?’ Julia couldn’t resist saying lightly.
    There was a cold steeliness in the look Silas lanced in her direction.
    ‘The only kind of bed-sharing foursome I find acceptable is the non-sexual variety with a couple and their two children. And if Blayne’s been dragging you down into that kind of gutter—’
    Julia’s face burned.
    ‘It was just a joke, that’s all. I didn’t mean anything... I suppose you’re expecting me to sleep on the sofa bed?’
    ‘No. You can take the bed. After all, I’m not the one who has the problem waking up in the morning, am I?’
    It was true that she was more of an owl than a lark, Julia knew, and it was also typical of Silas that he wouldn’t have forgotten that as a teenager she had preferred to sleep late in the mornings—especially when she was on holiday.
    ‘Which side of the bed do you prefer to sleep on?’
    Julia gave him a suspicious look. ‘If I’ve got the bed to myself it doesn’t matter, does it?’
    Silas exhaled slowly and warningly.
    ‘Julia, it would help us both if you were able to refrain from looking for a sexual connotation in everything I say. My question about which side of the bed you prefer was provoked quite simply by a desire to know which of the two bathrooms it would make sense for you to use. That is to say, if you sleep on the left-hand side of the bed then, should you need the bathroom during the night, you would probably automatically use the one on the left. On the other hand—’
    ‘All right, Professor, I get the picture.’ Julia stopped him crossly. ‘Why on earth couldn’t you just say that, Silas?’
    ‘Why couldn’t you simply answer my question?’
    ‘This is never going to work,’ Julia told him, raking her hand impatiently through her hair.
    ‘It certainly won’t work if you don’t want it to,’ Silas agreed succinctly. ‘If we want it to work then it’s up to us both to make sure that it does.’
    She certainly didn’t want another run-in with Nick like the one she had had earlier in the evening, But his behaviour towards her had set her wondering just how he treated Lucy, and if in helping to preserve her marriage she was truly doing her friend a favour.
    ‘There’s no way I want to be the cause of Lucy being hurt,’ she agreed. ‘But if she’s unhappy in the marriage too, then—’
    ‘Has she told you that she’s unhappy, or are you relying on Blayne for that piece of information?’
    ‘I haven’t discussed her marriage with Lucy, but—’
    ‘But you have discussed it with her husband?’ Silas pointed out coolly.
    Julia slanted him a sideways and slightly wary glance. He was angry with her now; she could tell that just from the way in which his voice had hardened.
    ‘This isn’t the eighteen hundreds, Silas, when a woman couldn’t speak to a friend’s husband or have male friends.’
    ‘It isn’t your friendship that Blayne wants, though, is it?’
    She was tired, and a small dull ache at the back of her eyes was steadily becoming an insistent stabbing pain. All she wanted to do was to have a bath and go to bed, not stand here arguing with Silas.
    ‘Why don’t you climb down off your moral high horse?’ she suggested grittily. ‘After all, you aren’t in this just out of altruism, are you?’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    He went so still so quickly, like a hunter suddenly on the watch, that