The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher Read Free Book Online

coral-coloured cashmere muffler around his slender tanned neck. His appearance, though rumpled, was nevertheless deliciously clean, like fresh laundry, dried in the sunshine, but not yet ironed. She found him extremely attractive.
     
    "Carla's told you the brief?" Carla was Olivia's Fashion Editor. "It's for the July issue, a last feature on holiday clothes before we go into tweeds for the moors."
     
    "Sure . . . she mentioned location shots."
     
    "Any suggestions where?"
     
    "We talked about Ibiza ... I have contacts out there. . . ."
     
    "Ibiza."
     
    He was quick to accommodate her. "But if you'd rather someplace else, its okay by me. Morocco, maybe."
     
    "No." She pushed herself away from the table and went back to her chair behind her desk. "We haven't used Ibiza for some time ... but I think not beach shots. Rural backgrounds would be a bit different, with goats and sheep and hardy peasants tilling fields. You could rope some of the locals in to add a bit of authenticity. They have wonderful faces and they love having their pictures taken. . . ."
     
    "Great . . ."
     
    "Talk to Carla about it then. . . ."
     
    He hesitated. "So, I've got the job?"
     
    "Of course you've got the job. Just do it well. . . ."
     
    "Sure. Thanks . . ." He began to gather up his prints and stack them into a pile. The buzzer on Olivia's intercom rang, and she pressed the button and spoke to her secretary.
     
    "Yes?"
     
    "An outside call, Miss Keeling."
     
    She looked at her watch. It was twelve-fifteen.
     
    "Who is it? I'm just going out for lunch."
     
    "A Mr. Henry Spotswood."
     
    Henry Spotswood. Who the hell was Henry Spotswood? And then the name came back to her, and she remembered the man she had met two evenings before at the Ridgeways' cocktail party. Greying hair and as tall as she was. But he had called himself Hank.
     
    "Put him through, Jane, would you?"
     
    As she reached for the telephone, Lyle Medwin, the folder of photographs under his arm, made his soft-footed way across the room and opened the door.
     
    " "Bye," he mouthed as he let himself out and she raised her hand and smiled, but he had already gone.
     
    "Miss Keeling?"
     
    "Yes."
     
    "Olivia, Hank Spotswood here, we met at the Ridgeways'."
     
    "Of course."
     
    "I have a free hour or two. Any chance of lunch?"
     
    "What, today?"
     
    "Yeah, right now."
     
    "Oh, I am sorry, I can't make it. My sister's coming up from the country and I'm having lunch with her. I'm already late, I should be on my way."
    "Oh, that's too bad. Well, what about dinner this evening?"
     
    His voice, remembered, filled in the details. Blue eyes. A pleasant, strong-featured, wholly American face. Dark suit, Brooks Brothers shirt with a button-down collar.
     
    "I'd like that."
     
    "Great. Where would you like to eat?"
     
    For perhaps an instant she debated, and then made up her mind.
    "Wouldn't you like, just for once, not to have to eat in a restaurant or an hotel?"
     
    "What does that mean?"
     
    "Come to my house, and I'll give you dinner."
     
    "That would be great." He sounded surprised but by no means unenthusiastic. "But isn't that a chore for you?"
     
    "No chore," she told him, smiling over the homely word. "Come about eight o'clock." She gave him the address and a simple direction or two in case he found himself a moronic taxi driver, and they said goodbye and she rang off.
     
    Hank Spotswood. That was good. She smiled to herself, then looked at her watch, put Hank out of her mind, sprang to her feet, collected hat, coat, bag, and gloves, and stalked from the office to keep her luncheon date with Nancy.
     
    Their venue was L'Escargot in Soho, where Olivia had booked a table. This was where she always came for business lunches, and she saw no reason to make any other arrangement, although she knew that Nancy would have been much more at home in Harvey Nichols, or someplace full of exhausted women resting their feet after a morning's shopping.
    But L'Escargot it