Nights in White Satin: A Loveswept Classic Romance by Linda Cajio Page A

people queuing on the street outside the popular wax museum. That he had paced and cursed and cursed and paced the length of that queue for the past hour wasn’t so important now. He didn’t like it that Jill was hurting, and an oddurge to protect her rose up in him. He moved closer, as if to shelter her. “What’s wrong?”
    A hunted expression came over her, then she shook herself and shrugged. “Nothing. We’d better get in line, or we’ll never get in.”
    “Why
do
we want to get in?” he asked.
    “Because I haven’t been here in thirty years,” Lettice said sharply. “So stop squawking like a mother hen with lost chicks and get in line.”
    “You really want to go to Tussaud’s?” he asked dubiously. He could understand if they wanted to go to Harrods, or the National Gallery, or the Savoy for tea, but a wax museum?
    “Yes, I really want to go to Tussaud’s,” his grandmother snapped. “And I do not want to play Twenty Questions about it. Now get in the damned line.”
    Rick blinked. He looked at Jill, who looked back and smiled. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s get in the damned line.”
    He took Jill’s elbow to guide her after his grandmother. Her skin was cool to his touch, yet it evoked an unexpected intimacy. If he adjusted his fingers slightly, so slightly, he would touch the side of her breast. He remembered what it was like to feel her grow hot with desire … desire he created.
    Shaking the thought away, he leaned over and whispered, “Look, Grandmother couldn’t hide a microdot from anybody if her life depended on it, and you’re certainly not fooling me. Now, what is going on? Where did you two go?”
    Jill glanced sharply at him, not quite hiding a moment of panic in her gaze. “Sight-seeing. Lettice got tired of waiting for you. She wanted to move on. It’s no big deal, Rick.”
    “The two of you in a strange city—”
    She rolled her eyes. “You make us sound like ‘innocents abroad.’ It’s the nineties, Rick, and we’re perfectly capable of finding our way around.”
    He lost his patience. “Damn it all, Jill. The car is kilometers away in a car park, and the buses are jammed and the taxis near impossible to get with the strike. What if we had missed each other here? What if either of you were in trouble? How could you have let my grandmother just wander off like that? Why didn’t you come back for me?”
    “I apologize.”
    He gaped at her, the righteous anger going right out of his sails.
    “I apologize,” she said in a firm voice. “I hadn’t realized you would be so upset about it.”
    “What’s he upset about?” Lettice asked, as they settled at the end of the line behind her.
    “Nothing,” Rick muttered, suddenly feeling like that mother hen. He’d had every right to be worried, but to his disgust, the two women had out-manuevered him. It was getting to be a habit.
    Grahame’s scathing comments that morning about his abrupt trip to London echoed in his mind. He hadn’t left the farm and surrounding area in years—until Jill. Then he had latched onto the first excuse to get away. He should have stayed home and away from intoxicating women. They were trouble.
    In a little form of revenge once they were in the museum, he insisted his grandmother have her picture taken with the Benny Hill statue. Letticefrowned, providing a perfect counterpoint to Benny’s saluting Fred Scuttle character.
    Jill ducked her head and chuckled.
    “You’re next,” he said, delighted to hear her laughter again.
    “Thanks, but no thanks,” she said, backing away from him and the photographer. She backed right into Elvis’s guitar. “Just what I needed. A rude awakening.”
    “Come on,” he cajoled, realizing she was cheering up. The color was back in her cheeks, and her eyes were sparkling.
    “Only if you have
your
picture taken with Benny,” she said.
    “But Jill, I’m not the tourist here, you are.” Laughing, he managed to grab hold of her arm and pull her