A Stranger's Kiss

are totally efficient, Mrs Lambert.’
    ‘Please don’t—’
    ‘Why not?’ She flinched as he stabbed the words at her, fixing her with wintry eyes. ‘I’m only doing what you asked.’
    She didn’t answer and apparently satisfied he closed his eyes again. They completed their journey in silence and checked in at Heathrow, accomplishing the formalities without delay.
    Adam hesitated as he handed back her passport, glancing at the name, Mrs Tara Lambert, printed neatly in the space provided and then flickered a glance at her pale face. Her outburst the previous evening had at least saved her the embarrassment that would have resulted from his more public discovery. Except that she could simply have told him that she was a widow and instead of that cold dislike his eyes might have softened with sympathy. She closed her eyes momentarily. Much better this way. His sympathy was the last thing in the world she wanted. His dislike was infinitely safer.
    Their bags disappeared along the conveyor and the clerk handed Adam their boarding cards.
    ‘Would you like some coffee?’
    Startled by the unexpected normality of his offer she shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’ She made a move towards the book stall. ‘I’ll just get something to read.’ She couldn’t imagine being able to concentrate for more than a minute on anything, but a book would make the likely silence during the long flight less noticeable.
    He watched as she nervously turned a carousel filled with paperbacks. She came to an abrupt stop at the sight of a particularly garish cover. Adam raised an eyebrow and lifted the book from the rack.
    ‘I wouldn’t have thought this was your cup of tea, Mrs Lambert.’ He regarded her steadily for a moment. ‘Much more the Jane Austen type I would have thought. Do you want this?’
    ‘I’ve read it, thank you.’ Cover to cover, at least twenty times.
    ‘Have you now?’ He held on to it. ‘You’re all surprises, Mrs Lambert. I’ll take it. It might provide some clues—’
    ‘I said I’d read it. Not that I had enjoyed it.’
    ‘Even more interesting.’ He turned the book over and examined the back cover, gesturing at the carousel. ‘Is there anything you want there?’
    She shook her head. ‘No, thank you. I’ll just take a magazine.’ She scooped up a couple, hardly looking at the covers and found him waiting at the cash desk. She surrendered them unwillingly. But he appeared for the moment to have lost interest in baiting her and didn’t even look to see what she had chosen. The flight call was a welcome interruption and they walked along the wide corridor to their gate.
    The stewardess settled them in their seats. It was the first time that Tara had flown on anything but a charter flight and the amount of space in the first class cabin on a scheduled airliner came as something of surprise. After the flurry of take-off she looked around with interest.
    ‘Is this the first time you’ve flown,’ Adam asked, watching her.
    ‘No. But this is a long way from a package holiday to Greece.’
    ‘Was that where Mr Lambert took you on your honeymoon?’ he asked, so casually that for a moment she thought she hadn’t heard correctly.
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘Greece. Is that where—’
    ‘No.’ She deliberately opened a magazine and stared blankly at the page in front of her, although she couldn’t for the life of her have said what was on it.
    He shrugged. ‘Where was he this morning? Discreetly out of sight?’ When she didn’t answer he picked up her left hand, effortlessly resisting her efforts to pull away, and laid it flat across his own much larger one. ‘Only I couldn’t help noticing that you don’t wear a ring.’
    ‘It’s... too big.’ She had been so much rounder as a girl, but the weight had fallen off with the shock of Nigel’s death and it had never returned. She looked him full in the face. ‘I was afraid of losing it.’
    ‘You could have had it taken in. So helpful to know exactly where you stand.’
    ‘For whom?’ Tara suddenly realised that her hand was still lying in his and snatched it away. ‘It doesn’t bother you surely, one way or the other? And I know I’m married.’
    ‘You have a very odd way of showing it, Mrs Lambert. And I disapprove of lying.’
    ‘I have never lied to you.’
    ‘No? I did ask you if that poor besotted fool was your husband.’
    ‘And I told you that he was not. And that’s the truth.’
    His mouth pulled down into a