A CELEBRATION OF PENNY
JORDAN
Two favourite stories in one collectible volume Just one night can never be
enough for these passionate couples...they’ll need a lifetime One Night in His
Arms Ranulf Carrington’s cruel words had crushed Sylvie’s youthful passion.
But she was a woman now, sophisticated and confident. Everything was
different...yet nothing had changed. Ran might never come to love her, but
Sylvie knew she’d still do almost anything for just one night in her first love’s
arms.
One Intimate Night
Piers’s relationship with Georgia was strictly business, nothing more, which
should have made their living under the same roof a fairly straightforward affair.
So why couldn’t Piers stop Georgia from stealing into his thoughts? He wasn’t a
man to act on impulse, but how long could he resist this beauty...?
Praise for New York Times bestselling author
Penny Jordan “Women everywhere will find pieces
of themselves in Jordan’s characters.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Ms. Jordan produces an absorbing tale with rich
characters, a layered conflict and a sensual tone.”
—RT Book Reviews on One Night in His Arms “Jordan’s record is phenomenal.”
—The Bookseller
“One Intimate Night...is a charming tale
with warm scenes and a pleasant storyline.”
—RT Book Reviews
“[Penny Jordan’s novels] touch every emotion.”
—RT Book Reviews
Penny Jordan, one of Harlequin’s most popular authors, sadly passed away on
December 31st, 2011. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over 100
million books around the world. Penny wrote a total of 187 novels for Harlequin,
including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honor and
Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the New York Times
bestseller list. Loved for her distinctive voice, she was successful in part because
she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with
readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan, “Women
everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan’s characters.” It is perhaps
this gift for sympathetic characterization that helps to explain her enduring
appeal.
Penny Jordan Collection
ONE NIGHT IN HIS ARMS
ONE INTIMATE NIGHT
Penny Jordan
www.millsandboon.com.au
ONE NIGHT IN HIS ARMS
Penny Jordan
Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
PROLOGUE
‘WHAT the hell are you doing, Sylvie? Just what kind of game are you playing
now?’ Ran demanded angrily as he removed her hands, releasing her fingers
from his shirt where she had unconsciously curled them in her attempt to get him
to listen to what she wanted to say, to understand that she was no longer a child,
that she was now completely and totally a woman...a woman who loved and
wanted him.
‘Ran, this isn’t a game,’ she protested, her eyes starting to fill with anguished
tears as he thrust her away. ‘I want—’
‘Oh, I know exactly what you want, Sylvie,’ he interrupted her savagely. ‘You
want me to take you to bed. But right now what I feel more like doing—’ He
broke off, said something she couldn’t quite catch under his breath and then
turned to look at her so that the light fell sharply across his face, outlining the
aristocratic arrogance of his profile.
‘Your stepbrother is one of my closest friends and my employer and—’
‘This doesn’t have anything to do with Alex,’ Sylvie protested frantically.
‘This is just between you and me, Ran.’
‘You and me? There is no you and me,’ he told her cruelly. ‘You are just a
schoolgirl, Sylvie, whilst I am a fully adult man.’
‘But Ran, I love you,’ Sylvie pleaded desperately, throwing everything she
had left into one last attempt to make him see how she felt.
‘Really?’ Ran drawled mockingly. ‘How much? As much as the pop star you
were ready to die for six months ago, or the pony you wanted three months
before that?’
‘That was before I was properly grown up,’ Sylvie told him.
So very little space separated them—a few feet...that was all. If she let him
walk away from her now without at least trying...
Boldly she closed the distance between them, taking him off guard as she
placed her body close to his and wrapped her arms possessively around him,
possessively and far too tightly for him to remove them as he had done so easily
a few moments ago.
‘Ran...’ She pleaded with him, lifting her face to him, her mouth trembling.
‘Ran, please...’
She felt something that could have been a shudder galvanise his body before
clumsily and inexpertly she pressed her mouth against his in a closed-lipped,
clumsily and inexpertly she pressed her mouth against his in a closed-lipped,
untutored kiss.
His mouth felt hard and hot, his skin where he had shaved thrillingly rough
against her own. Fireworks ignited and exploded deep within her body; her heart
was beating so fast she thought she might die of the excitement.
‘Ran,’ she moaned passionately against his mouth as she twisted with
innocent provocation against his body.
Suddenly his own arms were around her, not pushing her away as he had done
earlier, but holding onto her, his fingers biting hard into her slender arms as he
slid one hand into the back of her hair, holding her head still whilst his mouth
started to move on hers.
Sylvie felt her head start to spin and her knees go weak.
If she had thought that her heart was beating fast before, that was nothing to
the way it was pounding now. Her whole body ached and pulsed with the
intoxication of what was happening.
Ran! Ran! Ran!
She loved him so much, wanted him so much. Eagerly she pressed her still
coltishly youthful body even closer to his. She could feel every nerve-ending in
her skin aching with the intensity of her yearning for him.
The tip of his tongue was caressing the softly swollen outline of her mouth.
She wanted him to make love to her so desperately. These last few weeks,
whilst they had been working together clearing the overgrown stagnant lake in
the woods on her stepbrother’s estate, working on a conservation project which
Ran, as her stepbrother’s estate manager, had been overseeing, she had come to
see him in a new light and in doing so had fallen head over heels in love with
him, with all the passion and intensity of her seventeen-year-old nature.
And now, after the corrosive hurt of all his recent rebuffs, all his painful
rejections of her attempts to make him realise how she felt, here he was holding
her, kissing her...wanting her...
A fiercely sharp thrill of feminine excitement spun through her. Her breasts
ached for the touch of his hands, to be held and caressed by him as she had read
about, seen in films. The thought of their two naked bodies entwined in the
sensual privacy of Ran’s bed was almost too much for her. Eagerly she opened
her mouth, inviting him to probe deeper with his tongue, but then abruptly, to
her shock, Ran was suddenly pushing her away as quickly as he had taken hold
of her, his face dark with anger.
‘Ran, wh-what is it...what’s wrong?’ she stammered.
‘What’s wrong? Oh, for God’s sake...’ she heard him mutter. ‘The fact that
you even need to ask that kind of question shows just how... You’re a child still,
you even need to ask that kind of question shows just how... You’re a child still,
Sylvie... Six months from now...’
She bit down hard on her bottom lip when she saw the irritation in his eyes as
he ran his hand through his thick dark copper hair.
‘I’m sorry... I should never have done that...’ he told her tersely.
Sylvie felt her eyes fill with vulnerable tears.
‘You kissed me,’ she protested shakily. ‘You wanted me...’
‘No, Sylvie,’ she heard Ran telling her grittily. ‘What I wanted,’ he told her
bluntly, ‘was not you, but what you offered. I’m a man, and when a woman
comes on to me, offering me sex...’ He stopped and shook his head. ‘You’re a
child still, Sylvie.’
‘I bet if we were in bed together you wouldn’t be saying that,’ Sylvie
challenged him boldly, adding recklessly, ‘I’m not a child at all, Ran, and I could
prove it to you...’
She heard the savage hiss as he expelled the air from his lungs.
‘Dear God,’ she heard him rasp, ‘have you the first idea of what you’re
saying...suggesting...?’
‘I want you, Ran... I love you...’
‘Well, I sure as hell don’t want or love you,’ he told her ferociously, his face
suddenly shockingly pale underneath its weather-beaten tan. ‘And let me give
you a small warning, Sylvie: if you continue to go around offering yourself to
men, sooner or later one of them’s going to take you up on your offer and I
promise you that the experience won’t be a pleasant one. You’re far too young to
be experimenting with sex, and when you are old enough it should be with
someone of your own age and not... I’m a man, not a boy, Sylvie,’ he told her
brutally, ‘and...well, let’s just say that the idea of taking some over-excited and
inexperienced little virgin to bed and playing touchy-feely games with her is not
my idea of a particularly satisfying relationship—not sexually, not mentally and
certainly not emotionally...
‘Go and find someone your own age to play with, Sylvie,’ he told her grimly.
For a moment Sylvie was tempted to protest, to argue and plead, or even more
daringly to throw herself back into his arms and prove to him that she could
make him want her despite her age and her lack of experience. She was not
normally so easily defeated or diminished, but something deep down inside,
some very new sense of womanliness, shrank from enduring another rejection
from him. And so, instead, swallowing back the tears she was aching to cry, she
lifted her head and, tilting her chin to him defiantly, said, ‘Yes, I think I will...’
There had been one boy in particular in the party of co-workers involved in
There had been one boy in particular in the party of co-workers involved in
the conservation campaign who had shown a very marked interest in her. At the
time, newly, wildly in love with Ran, she hadn’t paid him very much attention,
but now...
A militant sparkle illuminated her eyes. She could see Ran beginning to
frown.
‘Sylvie,’ he warned. Angrily she refused to stop and listen to him, he had no
jurisdiction over her.
The bright delicacy of her newly emergent tender love was already tarnishing
and fading as resentment, pride and enmity took its place.
Ran!
She loved him but now she felt as though she could very easily come to hate
him—she certainly wanted to hate him.
CHAPTER ONE
‘YOU’RE not serious...’
Sylvie frowned as she studied the synopsis pinned to the front of the file her
employer had just handed her.
Lloyd Kelmer the fourth was the kind of eccentric billionaire who, by rights,
only ought to have existed in fairy stories—as a particularly genial and indulgent
godfather, Sylvie thought. She had been introduced to him at a party to which
she had been invited by some acquaintances of her stepbrother’s. She had only
gone to the party because she had been feeling particularly lost and insignificant,
having only recently left her American college and moved to New York. They
had got chatting and Lloyd had begun to tell her about the trials and traumas he
had experienced in running the huge wealthy Trust set up by his grandfather.
‘The old man had this thing about stately homes, I guess I kinda feel the same.
He owned a fair handful of the things himself, so he kinda had a taste for them,
if you know what I mean. There was the plantation down in Carolina and then a
couple of châteaux in France and a palazzo in Venice, so it just kinda happened
naturally that he should have this idea of using his millions to preserve and
protect big houses, and now the Trust has a whole skew of them all over the
world, and more wanting to have the Trust bankroll them every day.’
Sylvie, with her own admittedly second-hand experience of her stepbrother’s
problems in running and financing his own large family estate in England, had
quite naturally been very interested in what Lloyd had had to say, but it had still
surprised her a few days later to receive not just a telephone call from him but
the offer of a job as his personal assistant.
Sylvie wasn’t seventeen any longer, nor was she the naive and perhaps overprotected girl she had once been. Lloyd might be in his early sixties and might,
so far, not have done or said anything to suggest that he had any ulterior motive
whatsoever in making contact with her, but nevertheless, having asked him for
time to consider his unexpected offer, the first thing Sylvia had done was
telephone her stepbrother in England and ask for his advice.
An unscheduled and unfortunately brief visit from Alex and his wife Mollie to
vet Lloyd and talk over the situation with Sylvie had resulted in her deciding to
take the job, a decision which, twelve months down the line, she regularly
paused to congratulate herself on making, or at least she had done until now.
Her work was varied and fascinating, and barely left her with any time to
Her work was varied and fascinating, and barely left her with any time to
draw breath, never mind for any personal relationships with members of the
opposite sex, but that didn’t worry Sylvie. So far, what she had learned from her
experiences with men was that she was a particularly poor judge of the breed.
First there had been her revoltingly humiliating teenage crush on Ran and his
rejection of her, then there had been the appalling danger she had put herself and
her family in with her foolish involvement with Wayne.
She and Wayne might never have been lovers but she had known, from the
first, of his involvement in the drug scene and, as foolishly as she had tried to
convince herself that Ran would fall in love with her, she had also tried to
convince herself that Wayne was simply a lost soul in need of protecting and
saving.
She had been wrong on both counts. Love was the last emotion Ran had ever
felt for her. And as for Wayne... Well, thankfully he was now safely out of her
life.
Her new job took every minute of her time and every ounce of her energy.
Each new property the Trust decided to ‘adopt’ had to be inspected, vetted and
then painstakingly brought up to the same standard as all the other properties the
Trust financed and opened to the general public.
Sylvie knew that her employer’s highly individualistic and personalised way
of deciding which of the multitude of properties he was offered as potential new
additions to the Trust’s portfolio were worth acquiring caused other
organisations to eye him slightly askance. For Lloyd to accept a house it had to
have what he described as the ‘right feel’, but his eccentricities tended to make
Sylvie feel almost maternally protective of him.
Or at least they had until now.
To return from a six-week trip to Prague, where she had been supervising the
takeover of a particularly beautiful if horrendously run-down eighteenth-century
palace they had recently added to their acquisitions, to discover that in her
absence Lloyd had made yet another acquisition in the form of Haverton Hall, a
huge neoclassical building set in its own parkland in Derbyshire, had caused her
heart to sink into her shoes.
‘But Sylvie, this place is a gem, a perfect example of English neoclassicism,’
she could hear Lloyd protesting as he studied her stubborn expression. ‘I
promise you, you’ll love it. I’ve had Gena book you onto the day after
tomorrow’s Concorde flight for London. I thought you’d be pleased. You were
only complaining way back in the spring how much you wanted to spend more
time with your stepbrother and his wife and their son...
‘This house... Did I tell you, by the way, that the guy who inherited it just
‘This house... Did I tell you, by the way, that the guy who inherited it just
happens to know your stepbrother and that’s how he’d got to hear about us? It
seems that he was telling your stepbrother about the problems he was
experiencing, having unexpectedly inherited this place, and Alex suggested that
he should get in touch with me... I wasn’t too sure at first. After all, we’ve
already got that pretty little Georgian place down near Brighton, but, well, I
kinda felt I owed it to Alex, so I flew over to Britain and went to have a look.’
Sylvie closed her eyes as she listened to Lloyd extolling the virtues of
Haverton Hall.
How could she admit to him that it wasn’t so much the house itself she
objected to as its owner?
Its owner...
There it was on the front page of the report... Haverton Hall... Owner... Sir
Ranulf Carrington. Sir Ranulf now, not just Ran any longer... Not that Sylvie
was impressed by a title. How could she be when her own stepbrother was an
earl?
She had known all about Ran’s unexpected inheritance of course. It had been
the subject of a good deal of discussion at Christmas, when she had gone home,
not least because Ran, with an estate of his own to run, quite naturally could no
longer run her stepbrother’s.
No one, least of all Ran himself, had expected that he would inherit. After all,
his cousin had only been in his early forties and had seemed perfectly fit. The
last thing anyone imagined was that he would suffer a fatal heart attack.
Sylvie had smiled politely, but without interest. The last thing, the last person
she wanted to waste time talking about was Ran.
Her memories of the way he had rejected her might have been carefully and
very deeply buried but...but every time she returned to her brother’s home she
was painfully reminded of her seventeen-year-old self and her vulnerability.
No question about it, she must have annoyed and aggravated Ran with her
unwanted adoration, but surely he could have handled the situation and her a
little more gently, let her down a bit more caringly instead of...
Sylvie was aware that Lloyd was watching her expectantly. How could she, as
her instincts urged her to do, totally and flatly refuse to have anything to do with
Ran? She couldn’t. She was a woman now, a woman who prided herself on her
professionalism, a woman who along with her outward New York shine and
gloss had also developed an inner self-worth and determination. She loved her
work and she truly believed that what Lloyd and the Trust were doing was
extremely worthwhile.
extremely worthwhile.
Secretly, there was nothing she enjoyed more than watching the houses that
Lloyd rescued from their often pitiful state of decay being restored to their
former glory... Perhaps it was idealistic and, yes, even foolishly romantic of her,
but there was something about watching the process, of seeing these once grand
homes rising phoenix-like from the ashes of their own neglect, that touched a
chord within her. She could well understand what motivated Lloyd, and she
suspected that, ironically, it had been that long-ago conservation scheme she had
worked on under Ran’s supervision which had awakened within her the
awareness of how very important it was to preserve and care for—to protect—a
landscape and its architecture, which had ultimately led to her sharing Lloyd’s
passion for their task.
However, Sylvie’s responsibility as an employee of the Trust included a duty
not just to share Lloyd’s enthusiasm but to make sure as well that the Trust’s
acquisitions were funded and run in a businesslike manner, and that the Trust’s
money was used shrewdly and wisely and not wasted or squandered—a
responsibility which Sylvie took very seriously. No project, and certainly no bill,
was too small for Sylvie to break down and scrutinise very carefully indeed, a
fact which caused the Trust’s accountants to comment approvingly on her
attention to detail and her excellent bookkeeping.
It had been pointless for Lloyd to protest when they had been renovating the
Venetian palazzo that he preferred the red silk to the gold which Sylvie had
favoured.
‘Red is almost twice as expensive,’ she had pointed out sternly, adding as a
clincher, ‘And besides, the records we’ve managed to trace all indicate that this
room was originally decorated in gold and hung with gold drapes...’
‘Then gold it is, then.’ Lloyd had given in with a sigh, but Sylvie had been the
one who had been forced to give in to him a few weeks later when, on their
departure from Venice, Lloyd had presented her with a set of the most exquisite
and expensive leather luggage crafted as only the Italians could craft leather.
‘Lloyd, I can’t possibly accept this,’ Sylvie had protested with a small gasp.
‘Why not? It is your birthday, isn’t it?’ Lloyd had countered, and of course he
had been right, and ultimately Sylvie had given in.
Although, as she had told her stepbrother defensively at Christmas when
Mollie had marvelled enviously at the luggage, ‘I didn’t want to accept it but
Lloyd would have been hurt if I hadn’t.’ She’d added worriedly, ‘Alex, do you
think I should have refused...? If you...’
‘Sylvie, the luggage is beautiful and you did the right thing to accept it,’ Alex
had reassured her gently. ‘Stop worrying, little one,’ he had commanded her.
had reassured her gently. ‘Stop worrying, little one,’ he had commanded her.
‘Little one’! Only Alex ever called her that, and it made her feel so...so
protected and safe.
Protected and safe? She was an adult, a woman, for heaven’s sake, and more
than capable of protecting herself, of keeping herself safe. Irritably she dragged
her attention back to the file she was holding.
‘You don’t approve, do you?’ Lloyd demanded, shaking his head ruefully.
‘Just wait until you see it, though, Sylvie. You’ll love it. It’s a perfect example
of...’
‘We’re already very close to the limit of this year’s budget,’ Sylvie warned
him sternly, ‘and—’
‘So what? We’ll just have to increase this year’s funding,’ Lloyd told her with
typical laid-back geniality.
‘Lloyd,’ Sylvie protested, ‘you’re talking about an increase of heaven alone
knows how many million dollars... The Trust...’
‘I am the Trust,’ Lloyd reminded her gently, and Sylvie had to acknowledge
that he spoke the truth. Even so, she gave him an ironic look to which he
responded by informing her loftily, ‘I’m just doing what I know the old man
would have wanted me to do...’
‘By buying a decaying neoclassical pile in the middle of Derbyshire?’ Sylvie
asked him dryly.
And she was still shaking her head as Lloyd told her winningly, ‘You’ll love
it, Sylvie...I promise you!’
Cravenly Sylvie was tempted to tell him that she was far too busy and that he
would have to find someone else to take charge of this particular project, but her
pride—the same pride which had kept her going, kept her head held high and her
spirit strong through Ran’s rejection of her and everything that had followed—
refused to allow her to do so.
This time she and Ran would be meeting on equal ground—as adults—and
this time...this time...
This time what? This time she wasn’t going to let him hurt her. This time her
attitude towards him would be cool, distant and totally businesslike.
This time...
Sylvie closed her eyes as she felt the tiny shivers of apprehension icing down
her spine. The last time she had seen Ran had been when he had unexpectedly
turned up at the airport three years ago when she had been leaving England to
finish her degree course in America. She could still remember the shock it had
given her to see him there, the shock and the sharply sweet surge of helpless
given her to see him there, the shock and the sharply sweet surge of helpless
pleasure and longing.
She had still been so vulnerable and naive then, a part of her still hoping that
maybe, just maybe, he had changed his mind...his heart... But of course he had
not. He had been there simply to assure himself that she was actually leaving the
country and his life.
Alex knew, of course, that she had once had a foolish adolescent crush on his
friend and employee but, thankfully, that was all he did know; thankfully, he had
no knowledge of that shaming and searingly painful, never to be thought about,
never mind talked about incident that had taken place when she had still been at
university in England.
No one knew about that. Only she and Ran. But that was all in the past now,
and she was determined that this time when she and Ran met, as meet they
would surely have to, she would be the one who would have the upper hand and
he would be the one who would be the supplicant; she would have the power to
deny and refuse him what he wanted and he would have to beg and plead with
her.
Immediately Sylvie opened her eyes. What on earth had got into her? That
kind of warped, vengeful thinking was, to her mind, as foolish and adolescent as
her youthful infatuation with Ran had been. She was above all that kind of thing.
She had to be; her job demanded it. No, she would make no distinction between
Ran and all the other clients she had had to deal with. The fact that Ran had once
cruelly and uncaringly turned down her pleas for his love, for his lovemaking,
the fact that he had once rejected and demeaned her, would make no difference
to the way she treated him. She was above all that kind of small-mindedness.
Proudly she lifted her head as she continued to listen to Lloyd enthusiastically
telling her the virtues of his latest ‘find’.
*
Ran stared grimly around the unfurnished, dusty and cobweb-festooned hallway
of Haverton Hall. The smell of neglect and the much more ominous dry rot hung
malodorously on the still, late afternoon air. The large room, in common with the
rest of the Hall, had a desolate, down-at-heel air of weariness which reminded
him uncomfortably of the elderly great-uncle who had owned the property when
Ran was growing up. Visits to see him had been something which Ran had
always dreaded and, ironically, he could remember how relieved he had been to
discover that it was not he but an older cousin who would ultimately inherit the
responsibility for the vast, empty, neglected house.
responsibility for the vast, empty, neglected house.
But now that cousin was dead and he, Ran, was Haverton’s owner, or at least
he had been until a week or so ago, when he had finally and thankfully signed
the papers which would convey legal ownership of Haverton and all the
problems that went with it into the hands of Lloyd Kelmer.
His initial reaction when he had unexpectedly and unwontedly inherited the
place had been to make enquiries to see if any of the British trusts could be
persuaded to take it over, but, as their representatives had quickly and wryly
explained, the trusts were awash with unwanted properties and deluged with
despairing owners wanting them to take on even more.
Faced with the prospect of having to stand aside and watch as the house and
its lands fell into an even greater state of decay, Ran hadn’t known what on earth
he was going to do—his inheritance had been the house and the land; there
hadn’t been any money to leave for its upkeep—and then Alex had happened to
mention the existence of an eccentric American billionaire whose main vocation
and purpose in life was the buying up and restoring of old properties which he
then opened to the public, and Ran had lost no time in getting in touch with him.
To his relief Lloyd had flown over to England to view the house and promptly
declared that he loved it.
That relief had turned to something very different, though, when he had
received a fax from Lloyd advising him that his assistant, Ms Sylvie Bennett,
would be flying over to Britain to act as his representative over the repair and
renovation of the property. He could, of course, have simply chosen to turn his
back, walk away, and leave someone else to liaise with Sylvie, but Ran wasn’t
like that. If he had a job to do he preferred to see it through for himself, no
matter how unwanted or potentially problematic that task might be.
Potentially problematic! A bitter half-smile curled his mouth. There was
nothing potential about the problems that Sylvie was likely to cause him...
Nothing potential at all.
He had heard scraps of news about her over the years, of course, mainly from
Alex and Mollie. Sylvie had completed her degree course and majored summa
cum laude... Sylvie was living in New York and looking for a job... Sylvie had
got a job... Sylvie was working in Venice... In Rome... In Prague... Sylvie...
Sylvie... Sylvie...
Alex and Mollie weren’t his only sources of information, though. Only the
previous winter in London, Ran had unexpectedly bumped into Sylvie’s mother,
Alex’s stepmother, predictably just outside Harvey Nichols.
Belinda had gushed enthusiastically over his recent elevation to the peerage.
Belinda had gushed enthusiastically over his recent elevation to the peerage.
She had always been the most appalling snob and Ran could still remember how
bitterly she had opposed Alex’s request to her after his father had died that
Sylvie be allowed to stay on at Otel Place with him instead of being sent to
boarding school.
‘Sylvie cannot possibly live with you, Alex,’ she had told him sharply. ‘For
one thing it simply wouldn’t be proper. There is, after all, no blood relationship
between you. And for another... Sylvie has been spending far too much time
with the wrong sort of people.’
Ran, who had been standing outside Alex’s library whilst this conversation
had been taking place, had turned round and been about to walk away when, to
his disgust, he had suddenly heard his own name mentioned. Alex had demanded
of his stepmother, ‘What wrong sort of people...?’
‘Well, Ran for a start... Oh, I know you count him as one of your friends, but
he’s still merely an employee and—’
Alex had immediately exploded, informing his stepmother, much to Ran’s
chagrin, ‘Ran is a friend and, as for anything else, he happens to be far better
born than either you or I.’
‘Really?’ had come back the acid retort. ‘He might be better born, Alex, but
he still doesn’t have any money. Sylvie is very much in danger of developing the
sort of crush on him that could totally ruin her reputation if she’s to make the
right sort of marriage.’
‘“The right sort of marriage”?’ Alex had retorted angrily. ‘For heaven’s sake,
what century are you living in...?’
‘Sylvie is my daughter and there’s no way I want her mixing with the estate
workers...and that includes Ran... And whilst we’re on the subject, Alex, I really
do think that as Sylvie’s stepbrother you do have a responsibility to her to
protect her from unsuitable...friendships...’
Ran could still remember how bitterly, furiously angry he had been, how
humiliated he had felt... He had made sure that he kept his distance from Sylvie
after that, even if Sylvie herself had not made that particularly easy. He had been
twenty-seven then, ten years older than Sylvie. A man, whilst she was still only a
child.
A child... A child who had told him passionately that she loved and wanted
him; a child who had demanded even more passionately that he love her back,
that he make love to her...with her...that he show her...teach her...take her...
He could have wrung her pretty little neck for that...wrung it or— He could
still remember how she had defied him, flinging herself into his arms, wrapping
them round him, pressing her soft lips against him...
them round him, pressing her soft lips against him...
Then, he had managed to resist her...just...that time...
She had always been so passionately intense. It was perhaps no wonder that
the love she had professed to feel for him had ultimately turned to loathing and
hatred.
And now she was coming back. Not just to England but here, to Haverton,
into his home...his life...
What would she be like? Beautiful, of course; that went without saying... Her
mother had told him as much when he had bumped into her—not that he needed
telling; it had been blindingly obvious even when she was a child that ultimately
she would be an extraordinarily beautiful woman.
‘You’ll know, of course, that Sylvie is working in New York...for a
billionaire...’ Belinda had cooed happily at him, smiling with satisfaction.
‘He’s totally besotted with her of course,’ she had added, and though it hadn’t
been put into as many words Ran had gained the distinct impression from
Sylvie’s mother that the relationship between Sylvie and Lloyd was rather more
than that of merely employer and employee...
It had come as something of a shock to him later, when he met Lloyd, to
recognise how much older than Sylvie he actually was, but he had told himself
that if Sylvie chose to have as her lover a man who was plainly so much older
than her then that was her business and no one else’s.
Sylvie... In another few hours she would be here, their roles in many ways
reversed.
‘I despise you, Ran, I hate you,’ she had hissed at him between gritted teeth
when she had first left for New York, averting her face when he had leaned
forward to kiss her cheek.
‘I hate you...’ She had said it with almost as much passion as she had once
cried out to him that she loved him. Almost as much...
CHAPTER TWO
FIVE miles or so before her ultimate destination Sylvie pulled the car she had
hired at the airport over to the side of the road and switched off the engine—not
because she was unsure of where she was going, not even because she wanted to
absorb the beauty of the Derbyshire countryside around her, magnificent though
it was as it basked warmly in the mid-afternoon sunshine, devoid of any sign of
human occupation apart from her own.
No, the reason she had stopped was that she had been tellingly aware for the
last few miles not just of the slight dampness of her hands on the steering wheel
but, even more betrayingly, of the increasing turmoil of her thoughts and the
nervous butterflies churning her stomach.
When she finally met...confronted...Ran, she wanted to be calm and in control
of both herself and the situation. She was not, she reminded herself sternly,
meeting him as an idealistic teenager who had fallen so disastrously and
desperately in love with him, but as a woman, a woman who had a job to do. She
would not, must not allow her own personal feelings to affect her judgement or
her professionalism.
In the eyes of other people, her job might appear to be an enviable sinecure,
travelling the world, living and breathing the air of some of its most beautiful
buildings, able to afford to commission its very best workmen, but there was far
more to it than that.
As Lloyd had remarked admiringly to her the previous year, when he had
viewed the finished work on the Venetian palazzo, Sylvie didn’t just possess the
most marvellous and accurate eye for correct period detail, for harmony and
colour, for the subtlety that meant she could hold in her mind’s eye the entire
finished concept of how an original period room must have looked, she also had
an extremely shrewd and practical side to her nature which ensured that with
every project she had worked on so far she had managed to bring the work to
completion on time and under budget.
This was something that didn’t just ‘happen’. It involved hours and hours
spent poring over costings and budgets, more hours and hours tramping around
warehouses, inspecting fabrics and furniture, and in many cases, because of the
age of the houses, it also meant actually finding and commissioning workmen to
make new ‘aged’ copies of the pieces she required. Italy, as she had quickly
discovered, was a treasure house for such craftsmen and so, oddly, was London,
discovered, was a treasure house for such craftsmen and so, oddly, was London,
but always at a price, and Sylvie had surprised herself a little at her ability to
haggle and bargain for days if necessary, until she had got what she wanted and
at a price she considered to be fair.
This had, of course, led to her often having to take an extremely firm line, not
just with the craftspeople she dealt with but very often with the original owners
of their properties as well, who very often retained life tenancy in the houses and
quite naturally wanted to have their say in how they were restored and furnished.
Oh, yes, Sylvie was used to dealing with sometimes difficult ex-owners, and
situations where she had to use both patience and tact to ensure that no one’s
pride was hurt.
It was a very definite skill to be able to walk the tightrope between avoiding
hurting a prior owner’s often sensitive pride and ensuring that the house was
restored as she knew Lloyd would want it to be.
But this time it wasn’t just the sensitive feelings of a property’s ex-owner she
was going to need to consider. No, this time the person whose feelings, whose
emotions were going to need careful handling was herself.
Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply and calmly several times and then
opened them again, wiping her hands on a tissue and then re-starting the
Discovery’s engine.
She had hired a four-wheel drive, not just because she suspected from the
plans and other papers Lloyd had given her to study that it would be useful for
travelling over the rugged terrain and the no doubt overgrown driveways that
surrounded Haverton Hall, but also because, as she had discovered in the past, a
large sturdy off-road vehicle often provided a boon for transporting the odd
‘find’ she came across when scouting around looking for materials for the
restoration work to a property.
The statue she had found for the secluded enclosed garden of the Italian
palazzo had been one such find, bought and paid for on the spot before the
vendor could change his mind, and loaded immediately into her car.
*
Ten minutes later she was driving through the open gates to Haverton Hall. The
twin lodges at either side of the gate, joined by a pretty spanning ‘archway’, had
both looked run-down and in need of repair.
Sylvie knew from her homework that they had been constructed at the same
time as the main house—and the house, like them, had been designed by one of
the country’s foremost architects in the Palladian manner favoured by the likes
the country’s foremost architects in the Palladian manner favoured by the likes
of Inigo Jones.
Theatrically, the drive to the house curved through flanking trees, several of
which were missing, spoiling its original symmetry, although those which
remained were so heavily in leaf that they still obscured all her attempts to
glimpse the house until she had driven past the final curve in the drive.
Sylvie caught her breath. Used as she was to beautiful properties—after all,
Alex’s ancestral home was renowned for its elegant grace—this one, despite the
shabbiness of its fading elegance, was something very special and she could see
instantly why Lloyd had fallen so immediately and completely in love with it.
Set on a small incline, so that it could overlook its surrounding gardens and
parklands, it was everything that the neoclassicist architects had decreed their
houses should be and then some more, Sylvie acknowledged as she drove slowly
towards the gravelled parking area in front of the massive columned portico to
the house. Stopping the Discovery, she opened the door and started to get out.
*
Ran had seen her drive up from an upstairs window. She was just a few seconds
short of five minutes early. Remembering a younger Sylvie, and her apparent
total inability to arrive anywhere on time, he grimaced ruefully to himself before
making his way downstairs.
They met on the paved portico. Ran opened the massive front door just as
Sylvie mounted the last step. She stopped the minute she saw him, freezing
instinctively like a gazelle scenting the presence of a leopard.
He hadn’t changed, but then why should he have? He still looked exactly the
same. Tall, broad-shouldered, with the smooth warm skin of a countryman, his
jeans clinging softly to the taut muscles of his long legs, his forearms bare and
bronzed, the soft checked shirt he was wearing exactly the same kind of shirt she
could remember seeing him wearing all the years she had been growing up. His
hair was still as thick and darkly rich as ever, his jaw just as chiselled—no signs
of soft, rich living there, despite the odd snippets of gossip she had picked up
from her mother and from Mollie about the discreet parade of elegant, wealthy
women who had passed through his life—Ran had always had a penchant for
that type, women in the main who were slightly older than himself, soignée,
knowing...all the things that an adoring, unknowing seventeen-year-old was not.
Only his eyes had changed, Sylvie noticed, with a sudden sharp flicker of
sensation which she immediately suppressed. Oh, they were still the same
incredible colour, somewhere between onyx and gold, still flecked with those
incredible colour, somewhere between onyx and gold, still flecked with those
heart-dizzying little specks of lighter colour and still surrounded by those
unfairly long, thick dark lashes.
Yes, all that was still familiar to her, but the lazily sensual way they were
studying her, the subtle but very male message she could read in them as Ran’s
gaze flicked over her T-shirt-covered breasts and her slim waist in the plain blue
jeans...that was most certainly not familiar to her, at least not from Ran.
And it was only then, when she countered that look with an instinctive and
automatically female one of cool reproval, that Sylvie realised that one of them
had closed the distance between them from its original safe several metres to a
much, much less secure three or four feet.
One of them... To her chagrin Sylvie recognised that it was not only Ran who
had moved so much closer and that she herself was halfway towards the front
door now instead of on the perimeter of the portico... When had she moved...and
how, without knowing what she was doing...? Ran had always had that kind of
effect on her... Had had... All that was in the past now, she reminded herself
fiercely. And just to ensure that Ran knew it too she held out her hand to him
and, raising her voice slightly, smiled with cool authority as she greeted him.
‘Ran, good, I’m glad you’re here. We can get straight down to work. I’ve
studied the plans of the house, but I always find that it makes an enormous
difference to actually walk over a property, so...’
God, but she was so incredibly sexy, Ran acknowledged. He could feel the
heat, the reaction, the response surging through his veins. He had been prepared
to find her beautiful. She had always been that. But in the past it had been almost
a sexless, childish kind of beauty... Now her sensuality, and his own reaction to
it, hit him in the solar plexus like a blow.
As for that cool little voice of authoritative superiority, that distancing little
outstretched hand... Later Ran was to ask himself what on earth he had thought
he was doing and if he had gone completely mad, but at the time...
Ignoring her outstretched hand, he covered the distance between them and
before Sylvie could even begin to guess what he intended doing his hands were
resting either side of her waist, his scent, his heat filling her nostrils, his body
and his mouth less than inches away from her own.
‘Ran!’
Was that really her own voice, that soft, husky, and, yes, somehow invitingly
sensual little thread of sound, gasping his name in a slow-drawn-out moan that
was more invitation than protest?
But it was too late to correct the erroneous message she knew instinctively she
But it was too late to correct the erroneous message she knew instinctively she
had given; Ran was already acting on what he had obviously interpreted her
‘protest’ to mean, his hands lifting from her waist to her arms, her shoulders, as
he drew her closer, his mouth fastening on hers as he kissed her, not as an old
acquaintance or a friend of her brother’s, Sylvie recognised, her senses reeling,
but in all the ways she had dreamed of him kissing her all those years ago, as a
man kissed a woman.
Despairingly she struggled valiantly to resist but it was useless. Her own
foolish senses were doing far more to aid Ran than to support her, turning traitor
and welcoming his sensual assault of her mouth with the eagerness of parched
land greedily soaking up a heavy rainfall.
‘Ran...’
She tried weakly to summon her flagging defences, but the objection she tried
to make was lost beneath Ran’s kiss and all the ineffectual parting of her lips did
was to allow Ran’s tongue to slip masterfully into the sweet moistness of her
mouth.
Briefly she tried to challenge its entry, but what should have been the rejecting
thrust of her own tongue against his swiftly became, under Ran’s sensually
skilful manipulation and expertise, more the intimate sparring of lovers rather
than the defensive rejection of adversaries.
‘Mmm...’ Instinctively Sylvie moved closer, close enough to lean her body
fully against Ran’s and let his strength support her weakness as delicious tremors
of sensation skidded dangerously over her.
‘Mmm...’
Beneath her hands Ran’s back felt so broad, so firm, so...
Eagerly she tugged his shirt free of his waistband, glorying in the sensation of
sliding her hands beneath it and onto the hard heat of his skin.
She felt him shudder responsively as she traced his spine and her own body
jolted fiercely in excited reaction.
Beneath her white T-shirt she could feel her suddenly swollen breasts pressing
eagerly against her bra. Her nipples ached and even without being able to see
them she knew the crests would be hard and erect, the soft flesh around them
flooded with aroused dark colour.
Ran could not see what he was doing to her, though...what effect he was
having on her as his tongue slid erotically against her own, no longer coaxing
but openly, fiercely demanding from her the response his sexuality wanted.
Only one man had seen her body naked and aroused, to only one man had she
willingly and, yes, almost wantonly exposed the full femaleness of herself,
glorying in her sexuality, in her response to him, her need for him, not
glorying in her sexuality, in her response to him, her need for him, not
fearing...not imagining that he would reject her.
Reject her!
Immediately Sylvie stiffened, her nails momentarily digging into Ran’s back
as she recognised with shocking abruptness just what she was doing and, even
worse, whom she was doing it with.
‘Let go of me...’ she demanded furiously, fiercely pushing him away, her face
bright with mortification and confusion as Ran immediately stepped back from
her and then, without taking his eyes off her face, casually unfastened his belt
and started to push his shirt back inside his jeans.
If her face had been pink with self-consciousness before, that was nothing to
the heat she could feel burning off it now, Sylvie recognised as she refused to
give in to the silent visual challenge Ran was giving her and forced herself to
keep her gaze locked on his as he slowly and tauntingly completed his task.
Why, oh, why should it be that when a woman disturbed a man’s clothing in
the heat of passion he could make her feel so self-conscious and femininely
vulnerable whilst he repaired the dishevelment she had caused, but when it had
been a man who had disturbed a woman’s clothing she was still the one to feel
shy and self-conscious when she re-dressed herself?
No wonder the Victorians had considered modesty to be a feminine virtue.
His shirt rearranged to his satisfaction, Ran re-fastened his belt and then,
without taking his eyes off her face, greeted her ironically.
‘Welcome to Haverton Hall...’
Sylvie would have given the earth to be able to make a suitably withering
response but she could think of none. The shaming fact was that, no matter how
she tried to convince herself otherwise, she had done exactly what she had
promised herself she would not do and allowed him to take the upper hand. And
worse than that...far worse...she had... Quickly she swallowed the frighteningly
familiar and painful lump of aching emptiness she could feel blocking the back
of her throat. No way... She was not going down that road again...not for a king’s
ransom. The arrogant, selfish, almost cruel way Ran had just behaved towards
her proved everything she had ever learned about him. She was under no
illusions about why he had kissed her like that... It was his way of reminding her
not just of the past, but also of his superiority...of telling her that, whilst she
might be the one who was in charge of the project they were going to be working
on together, he still had the power to control her...to control her and to hurt her.
Sylvie turned swiftly on her heel, not waiting for him to see the emotions she
knew were clouding her eyes.
knew were clouding her eyes.
‘The lake needs dredging,’ she commented crisply as she shuttered her eyes
and stared out towards the large ornamental lake several hundred yards away
from the house.
It was the wrong thing to say. She could hear the mocking amusement in
Ran’s voice as he drawled, ‘Well, yes, it does, but let’s hope this time you don’t
end up head-first in the mud. We’ll have to hose you down out here if you do.
There’s no way Mrs Elliott is going to let you into the Rectory smelling of
stagnant lake water and covered in mud and weed...’
Sylvie stiffened, for the moment ignoring his reference to the ignominious fate
which had overtaken her as an over-eager teenager when she had missed her
footing and fallen head-first into the pond they had been cleaning out on Alex’s
estate.
‘The Rectory?’ she questioned him with ominous calm.
She knew from the reports she had read before leaving New York that Ran
was presently living in the eighteenth-century Rectory which was part of the
estate and which, like the living which had originally gone with it, was in the gift
of the owner of the Hall. To judge from the plans and photographs which Sylvie
had seen, it was a very, very substantial and handsome property, surrounded by
particularly attractive grounds, and she had not been in the least bit surprised to
read that it had originally been built for a younger son of the family who had
chosen to go into holy orders.
‘Mmm...you won’t have seen it as you drove in. It’s on the other side of the
estate. I’m living there at the moment and I’ve arranged with Mrs Elliott, who
used to be my cousin’s housekeeper when he lived there, for a room to be
prepared for you. Lloyd mentioned that you’d probably be working here for a
number of months and he and I agreed that in view of Haverton’s distance from
the nearest town, and the fact that Lloyd has warned me that you like to keep a
very keen eye on the budgets, it makes sense for you to stay at the Rectory rather
than waste time and money hunting around for alternative accommodation.
Especially since it seems that there could be occasions when you might have to
travel abroad to check on work you’ve set in progress at other Trust properties.’
What he said made sense, but still—she wasn’t a child any longer; what she
did not need to have was Ran telling her what to do!
‘But you live at the Rectory,’ Sylvie commented quickly.
Immediately Ran’s eyebrows rose and he told her laconically, ‘It’s got ten
bedrooms, Sylvie, excluding the upper attics—more than enough space for both
of us, I should have thought.’
‘Does this Mrs Elliott live in?’ Sylvie asked him stiffly.
‘Does this Mrs Elliott live in?’ Sylvie asked him stiffly.
Ran stared at her for a moment and then burst out laughing.
‘No, she doesn’t,’ he told her coolly, ‘although I’m not sure why it should
make any difference. You and I have lived under the same roof before, after all,
Sylvie, and if it’s the thought of any unplanned nocturnal wanderings that’s
worrying you...’ He gave her a wolfish grin and to her fury actually reached out
and patted her tauntingly on the arm as he told her, still laughing, ‘Don’t worry.
I’ll make sure I get a lock put on my door so that you don’t come wandering
in...’
Sylvie was too speechless with anger to be able to respond.
‘What’s wrong now?’ Ran challenged her mock-innocently. ‘There’s no need
to be embarrassed at the fact that you occasionally sleepwalk... Of course, it
might be an idea to make sure you go to bed wearing something, but I’ll warn
Mrs Elliott and...’
He stopped as Sylvie made a female growl of frustration deep in her throat.
‘That was years ago, when I was a child,’ she told him defensively, ‘and it
only happened once... I don’t sleepwalk now...’
What was she doing? What was she saying? Why was she letting him do this
to her? Sylvie ground her teeth. Yes, once, when she had been initially
disoriented and upset at her mother marrying again, she had actually
sleepwalked, and might, in fact, have suffered a nasty accident if Ran hadn’t
happened to see her on his way up to bed. But it had happened once, that was all,
and, even after she had eventually developed a massive crush on him,
surreptitiously creeping into his bedroom had been the last thing on her mind
then. She had been far too unworldly, far too naive even to think of such a thing.
‘No! Then what are you worrying about?’ Ran challenged her, his expression
suddenly hardening as he demanded, ‘If it’s the fact that you’ll be living under
my roof whilst Lloyd is in New York—’
‘Your roof?’ Sylvie interrupted him quickly, suddenly recognising a way of
turning the tables on him and regaining control of the situation, of showing him
who was boss. She gave him an acid-sweet smile. ‘The Rectory may have been
yours, Ran, but as part of the estate it is now owned by the Trust and—’
‘Not so.’ Ran stopped her even faster than she had him. ‘I have retained
ownership of the Rectory and the land. I intend to farm it and to develop the
fishing and shooting rights.’
Sylvie was momentarily caught off guard. It was most unusual for Lloyd to
allow something like that. He normally insisted on buying whatever land went
with a property, if only to ensure that as much of its natural background and
with a property, if only to ensure that as much of its natural background and
surroundings as possible were retained.
‘If you’d like to follow me we can drive over to the Rectory now,’ Ran
offered coolly.
Immediately Sylvie shook her head. ‘No... I want to see over the house first,’
she told him crisply.
Ran stared at her and then looked at his watch before telling her softly, ‘That
will take at least two hours, possibly longer; it’s now five o’clock in the
afternoon.’
Sylvie raised her eyebrows. ‘So...?’ she challenged.
Ran shrugged.
‘I should have thought after a transatlantic flight and the drive here from the
airport that you’d have wanted a rest before touring the house, if only so that you
can view it with a fresh eye and a clear head.’
‘You’re out of touch, Ran,’ Sylvie told him with a small, superior smile.
‘These are the nineties. Crossing the Atlantic for a power breakfast and then recrossing it for another meeting is nothing,’ she boasted.
Ran shrugged again and then waved one hand in the direction of the main
doorway as he drawled laconically, ‘Very well...after you...’
As he walked towards the door behind her, Ran paused. The sight of her had
given him much more of a shock than he liked. He had prepared himself for the
fact that he would be meeting her as a woman, and not as the girl he had watched
boarding the flight for America, but womanhood came in many different guises
and took many different forms. However, none of them could possibly come
anywhere near causing the kind of devastating effect on his senses that Sylvie’s
was creating.
Her hair, long and thick, hung down to her shoulders in an immaculately
groomed swathe of molten honey-gold. Just looking at it, at her, made him ache
to run his fingers through it, to watch its silken weight sliding through his
hands...
His stomach muscles tensed. The brilliantly white T-shirt she was wearing
hugged the soft shape of her breasts before disappearing into her jeans. The Tshirts he remembered her wearing had been big and baggy and invariably
slightly grubby as she happily trotted after him whilst he worked.
Even to his male uneducated eyes, this T-shirt was plainly not the kind one
wore to work outdoors in.
And as for her jeans...!
Ran closed his eyes. What was it about the sight of a pair of plain blue jeans
lovingly hugging the soft, shapely contours of a woman’s behind that had such
lovingly hugging the soft, shapely contours of a woman’s behind that had such
an evocative, such a provocative effect on a man’s male instincts?
Unabashedly he acknowledged that had Sylvie been a complete stranger to
him, and had he been walking down the street behind her, he would have
instinctively increased his pace to walk past her so that he could see if she
looked as good from the front as she did from the rear.
But she wasn’t a stranger, she was Sylvie.
‘I’ve told Alex that if you don’t keep away from Sylvie he must make you,’
Sylvie’s mother had once warned him haughtily, shortly after her husband’s
death.
She had caught Ran at a bad moment and he had reacted instinctively and
immediately regretted it as he’d thrown back at her bluntly, ‘It’s Sylvie you
should be warning to keep away from me. She’s the one doing the chasing.
Teenage girls are like that,’ he had added unkindly, watching as Sylvie’s mother
pursed her lips in shock.
It had been then that he had seen Sylvie slipping past the open doorway of
Alex’s estate office. Had she overheard them? He’d hoped not. Difficult though
her unwanted crush on him sometimes had been, the last thing he’d wanted to do
was to hurt her. But now, as he watched her, Ran acknowledged that these days
if anyone was going to be hurt it was far more likely to be him! Why had she
taken as her lover and her intended partner for life a man more than old enough
to be her father? Ran couldn’t begin to understand. Unless it was because she
had lost her father at such a young and vulnerable age.
Sylvie had pulled open the house’s unlocked door and disappeared inside.
Sombrely Ran followed her.
CHAPTER THREE
THEY had covered the ground floor of the house, walked the length of the elegant
gallery, with its windows overlooking the parkland and the distant vista of the
Derbyshire hills, and were just inspecting the enormous ballroom which opened
off it when Sylvie acknowledged inwardly that Ran might have been right to
advise her to wait until after she had rested to inspect the house.
Haverton Hall’s rooms might not possess quite the vastness of the palazzo’s
marble-floored rooms, nor the fading grandeur of the Prague palace, but Sylvie
had already lost count of the number of salons and ante-chambers they had
walked through on the lower floor. The gallery felt as though it stretched for
miles, and as she studied the dusty wooden floor of the ballroom her heart sank
at the thought of inspecting its lofty plasterwork ceiling and its elegantly inlaid
panelling. And they still had the upper floors to go over! But she couldn’t afford
to show any weakness in front of Ran and have him crowing over her. No way.
And so, ignoring the warning beginnings of a throbbing headache, she took a
deep breath and began to inspect the panelling.
‘The first thing we’re going to need to do is to get a report on the extent of the
dry rot,’ she told Ran in a firmly businesslike voice.
He stopped her. ‘That won’t be necessary.’
Sylvie paused and turned to look angrily at him.
‘Ran, there’s something you have to understand,’ she told him pointedly. ‘I
am in charge here now. I wasn’t asking for your approval,’ she told him gently.
‘The house has dry rot. We need a specialist’s report on the extent of the
damage.’
‘I already have one.’
Sylvie started to frown.
‘When...?’ she began.
But before she could continue Ran told her coolly, ‘It was obvious that the
Trust would need to commission a full structural survey of the place to assess it,
so in order to save time I commissioned one. You should have had a copy. I had
one faxed to the Trust’s New York office last week when I received it.’
Sylvie could feel her heart starting to beat just a little bit too fast as the angry
colour burned her face.
‘You commissioned a survey?’ she questioned with dangerous calmness.
‘May I ask who gave you that authority?’
‘May I ask who gave you that authority?’
‘Lloyd,’ came back the prompt and stingingly dismissive reply.
Sylvie opened her mouth and then closed it again. It was quite typical of
Lloyd that he should have done such a thing and she knew it. He would only
have been thinking of saving time in getting his latest pet project under way; he
would not have seen, as she so clearly did, that what Ran was actually doing was
not trying to be helpful but deliberately trying to upstage her and challenge her
authority.
‘I take it you haven’t read the report,’ Ran was continuing, talking to her as
though she were some kind of errant pupil who had failed to turn in a piece of
homework, Sylvie decided as she silently ground her firm white teeth.
‘I haven’t received any report to read,’ she corrected him acidly.
Ran shrugged.
‘Well, I’ve got a copy here. Do you want to continue with your inspection or
would you prefer to wait until you’ve had a chance to read through it?’
Had the question been put by anyone else, Sylvie knew that she would have
gratefully seized on the excuse to defer her self-imposed task until after she had
had a rest and the opportunity to do something about the increasingly painful
pressure of her headache, but because it was Ran who asked her, Ran whom she
was fiercely determined not to allow to have any advantage over her, she shook
her head and told him aggressively, ‘When I want to change any of my plans,
Ran, I’ll let you know. But until I do I think you can safely take it that I don’t...’
She saw his eyebrows lift a little but he made no comment.
It had been a hot week and the air in the ballroom was stifling, the dust thick
and choking as it lay heavily all around them.
Sylvie sneezed and winced as the pounding in her head increased. The bright
early evening sunlight streaming in through the windows was making her feel
oddly dizzy and faintly nauseous... She tried to look away from it and gave a
small gasp of pain as the act of moving her head made the blood pound
agonisingly against her temples.
Only rarely did she suffer these enervating headaches. They were brought on
by stress and tension. Turning away so that Ran wouldn’t see her, she tried to
massage the pain away discreetly.
‘Careful...’ Ran warned her tersely.
‘What?’ Sylvie spun round, colour flaring up under her skin as Ran motioned
towards a piece of fallen plasterwork she had almost walked over.
She was feeling increasingly sick and dizzy in the sharp bright light.
Despairingly she closed her eyes and then wished she hadn’t as the room started
to spin dangerously around her.
to spin dangerously around her.
‘Sylvie...’
Quickly she opened her eyes.
‘You’re not well; what is it?’ she heard Ran demanding tersely.
‘Nothing,’ she denied angrily. ‘A headache, that’s all.’
‘A headache...?’ His eyebrows shot up as Ran studied her now far too pale
face and saw the tell-tale beading of sweat on her forehead.
‘That’s it,’ he told her forcefully. ‘We can finish this tomorrow. You need to
rest.’
‘I need to do my job,’ Sylvie protested shakily, but Ran quite obviously
wasn’t going to listen to her.
‘Can you make it back to the car?’ he was asking her. ‘Or shall I carry you?’
Carry her... Sylvie gave him a furiously outraged look.
‘Ran, there’s nothing wrong with me,’ she lied, and then gave a small gasp as
the quick movement of her head as she shook it in denial of his suggestion
caused nauseating arrows of pain to savage her aching head.
The next thing she knew, Ran was taking her very firmly by the arm and
propelling her towards the door, ignoring her protests to leave her alone.
At the top of the stairs, to her infuriated chagrin, he turned round and swung
her up into his arms, telling her through gritted teeth, ‘If you’re going to faint on
me, Sylvie, then here’s the best place to do it.’
She wanted to tell him that fainting was the last thing she intended to do, but
her face was pressed against the warm flesh of his throat and if she tried to speak
her lips would be touching his skin and then...
Swallowing hard, Sylvie tried to concentrate on banishing the agonising pain
in her head but it was something that she couldn’t just will away. As she knew
from past experience, the only way of getting rid of it was for her to go to bed
and sleep it off.
They were downstairs now and Ran was crossing the hallway, thrusting open
the door and carrying her out into the fresh air.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded as he walked past her Discovery
towards his own car.
‘I’m taking you home...to the Rectory,’ he told her promptly.
‘I can drive,’ Sylvie protested, but to her annoyance Ran simply gave a brief
derogatory laugh.
He told her dismissively, ‘No way...’ And then she was being bundled into the
passenger seat of a Land Rover nearly as ancient as the one she remembered him
driving around her stepbrother’s estate, and as she struggled to sit up Ran was
driving around her stepbrother’s estate, and as she struggled to sit up Ran was
jumping into the driver’s seat next to her and turning the key in the ignition.
‘Ran...my luggage...’ She was protesting, but he obviously had no intention of
listening to her. With the Land Rover’s engine noise making it virtually
impossible for her to speak over it, Sylvie gave up her attempt to stop him and
subsided weakly into her seat, hunching her shoulders as she deliberately turned
her head away and refused to look at him.
As he glanced at her hunched shoulders and averted profile, Ran’s frown
deepened. In that pose she looked so defenceless and vulnerable, so different
from the professional, high-powered businesswoman she had just shown herself
to be and much more like the girl he remembered.
The Land Rover kicked up a trail of dust as he turned off the drive and onto
the track that led to the Rectory.
Girl or woman, what did it matter so far as he was concerned? He cursed
under his breath, his attention suddenly caught by the sight of several deer
grazing placidly beside the track. They were supposed to be confined to the park
area surrounding the house and not cropping the grazing he needed for his sheep.
There must be a break in the fence somewhere—the new fence which he had just
severely depleted his carefully hoarded bank balance to buy—which meant...
There had been rumours about rustlers being in the area; other farmers had
reported break-ins and losses.
Once he had seen Sylvie settled at the house he would have to come back out
and check the fencing.
Sylvie winced as the Land Rover hit a rut in the road, sitting up and just about
managing to suppress a sharp cry of pain—or at least she thought she had
suppressed it until she heard Ran asking her curtly, ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing... I’ve got a headache, that’s all,’ she stressed offhandedly, but her
face flushed as she saw the look he was giving her and she realised that he
wasn’t deceived.
‘A headache?’ he queried dryly. ‘It looks more like a migraine to me. Have
you got some medication for it or...?’
‘It isn’t a migraine,’ Sylvie denied, adding reluctantly, ‘It’s... I... It’s a stress
headache,’ she admitted in an angry rush of words. ‘I...I get them occasionally.
The travel...flying...’
Ran’s mouth hardened as he listened to her.
‘What’s happened to you, Sylvie?’ he asked her quietly. ‘Why should it be so
difficult for you to admit to being vulnerable...human...? What is it that pushes
you, drives you, forces you to make such almost superhuman demands on
yourself? Anyone else, having flown across the Atlantic and driven close on fifty
miles without a break, would have chosen to rest and relax a little bit before
starting to work, but not you...’
‘That may be the British way, but it’s different in America,’ Sylvie told him
sharply. ‘There, people are rewarded, praised, for fulfilling their potential and
for—’
‘Driving themselves into such a state of exhaustion that they make themselves
ill?’ Ran challenged her. ‘I thought that Lloyd was supposed to...’ He stopped,
not wanting to put into words, to make a reality, the true relationship he knew
existed between Sylvie and her boss. ‘I thought he cared about you...valued
you...’ he finished carefully instead.
Sylvie was sitting upright now, ignoring the pounding pain in her head as she
glared belligerently at Ran.
‘Lloyd doesn’t...he isn’t...’
She stopped, shaking her head. How could she explain to Ran of all people
about the thing that drove her, the memories and the fears? As a teenager she had
done so many foolish things, and even let down the people who had loved and
supported her; her involvement with Wayne was something she knew she would
always regret.
She hadn’t known at the time, of course, just what he was. In her innocent
naiveté she had never guessed that he was anything other than someone who had
bought a handful of recreational drugs to pass on to people at rave parties.
When she had run away from university, though, to join Wayne and the band
of New Age travellers who had invaded her stepbrother’s lands, she had quickly
learned just what a mistake she had made, and she knew that she would always
be grateful to Alex and his wife Mollie, not just for the fact that they had helped
her to extricate herself from a situation she had very quickly grown to fear, but
also for the fact that they had supported her, believed in her, accepted her
acknowledgement that she had made a mistake and given her the opportunity to
get her life back on track.
She and Wayne had never actually been lovers, although she knew that very
few people would believe that, nor had she ever used drugs; but she had been
tainted by his lifestyle, had had her eyes opened painfully to certain harsh
realities of life, and after Alex had interceded for her with her mother and with
the university authorities, getting her a place at Vassar where she had been able
to complete her education, she had promised herself that she would pay him and
Mollie back for their kindness and their love and support by showing the world
and her detractors just how worthy of that support she was.
At Vassar she had gained a reputation as something of a recluse and a swot;
dates and parties had been strictly out of bounds so far as she was concerned and
her dedication had paid off with excellent exam results.
And now, just as she had once felt the need to prove herself to Alex and
Mollie, she felt a corresponding need to prove herself worthy of Lloyd’s trust in
her professional abilities. It was true that sometimes she did drive herself too
hard...but the scornful verbal sketch of herself that Ran had just drawn for her
quite illogically hurt.
Given that she had striven so hard to be considered wholly professional, to be
capable and strong, it was quite definitely illogical, she knew, to wish forlornly
that Ran might have adopted a more protective and less critical attitude towards
her, that he might have shown more concern, some tenderness, some...
‘Why the hell didn’t you say you weren’t feeling well?’
Ran’s curt demand broke into her thoughts, underlining their implausibility,
their stupidity, their dangerous vulnerability.
‘Why should I have done?’ Sylvie countered defensively, adding tersely, ‘I
hardly think that either the Trust or the owners of the properties it acquires
would thank me for wasting both time and consequently money by bringing up
the subject of my own health during business discussions. You and I may know
one another from the past, Ran, but so far as I am concerned the fact that we
have dealings with one another in the present is entirely down to the business
and professional relationship between us.’
It was several seconds before Ran bothered to respond to her unrehearsed but
determinedly distancing little speech, and for a moment Sylvie thought that he
was actually going to ignore what she had said, but then he turned towards her
and said, ‘So what you’re saying is that it’s to be purely business between us, is
that it?’
It took every ounce of courage that Sylvie possessed, and then some, for her to
be able to meet the look he was giving her full-on, but somehow or other she
managed to do so, even if the effort left her perilously short of breath and with
her heart pounding almost as painfully as her head, She agreed coolly, ‘Yes.’
Ran was the one to look away first, his face hardening as he glanced briefly at
her mouth before doing so.
‘Well, if that’s what you want, so be it,’ he told her crisply, returning his
attention to his driving.
His response, instead of making her feel relieved, left her feeling... What?
Disappointed that he hadn’t challenged her, hadn’t given her the opportunity
to...to what? Argue with him? Why should she want to? What was it she felt she
had to prove? What was it she wanted to be given the opportunity to prove?
Angry with herself, Sylvie shook her head. There was nothing, of course. She
had made her point, said what she wanted to say and now Ran knew exactly how
she viewed their working relationship and exactly how she viewed him. He
could be in no doubt that, were it not for the fact that he was the owner of a
property the Trust had decided to acquire, she would have no cause, nor any
wish, to be involved with him.
Up ahead of her she could see a grove, a small wooded area; Ran drove into it
and through it towards the mellow high red-brick wall and through its open
gates.
The house which lay beyond them took Sylvie’s
breath away.
She was used to grand and beautiful properties, to elegance of design, to
scenery and settings so spectacular that one had to blink and look again, but this
was something else.
This was a house as familiar to her as though she had already walked every
one of its floors, as though she knew each and every single one of its rooms, its
corners. This was a house, the house she had created for herself as a girlhood
fantasy. A house, the house, the home which would house and protect the family
she so much longed to be a part of.
Totally bemused, she couldn’t drag her gaze away from its red-brick walls,
her professional eye automatically noting the symmetrical perfection of its
Georgian windows and the delicacy of the pretty fanlight above the doorway. An
ancient wisteria clothed the facing wall, its trunk and branches silvery grey
against the rich warmth of the brick; its flowering season was now over but its
soft green tendrils of leaves were coolly restful to her aching eyes.
Prior to her mother’s second marriage to Alex’s father, they had lived in a
smart apartment in Belgravia—her mother had been a very social person,
involved, as she still was, in a good many charities and a keen bridge player, but
Sylvie had never really felt comfortable or at home in the elegant London flat.
Before his death her father had owned a large house in one of London’s squares
and Sylvie still missed the freedom that living there had given her.
To comfort herself she had created her perfect house and the perfect family to
go with it, mother, father, daughter—herself, plus a sister for her to play with
and a brother too, along with grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. It
had been the house that she had given most of her mental energy and
imagination to lovingly creating, though. A house for a family, a house that
wrapped itself lovingly and protectively around you...a house with enough land
for her to have a pony. A house... The house... This house...!
Ran had stopped the Land Rover. Shakily she got out, unable to take her eyes
off the house, barely aware of Ran’s expression as he watched her.
Just for a second, seeing that luminous bemused expression on her face, he
had been transported back in time...to a time when she had looked at him like
that, a time when...
Grimly he reminded himself of what Sylvie had just said, of the terms she had
just set between them. She had made it more than plain, if he had needed it
underlining, which he had not, that the only reason she was here in his life was
because of her job and that, given the choice, she would far rather be working
alongside someone else...anyone else.
The gravel crunched beneath Sylvie’s feet as she walked slowly, as if in a
dream, towards the Rectory’s front door.
Already she knew what would lie beyond it—the soft-toned walls of the
hallway with its highly polished antique furniture, its glowing wooden floors, its
rugs and bowls of country-garden flowers. In her mind’s eye she could see it all
as she herself had created it, smell the scent of the flowers...see the contented
look in the eyes of the cat who basked illegally on the rug, lying there sunning
himself in a warm beam of sunshine, ignoring the fact that his place and his
basket were not here but in the kitchen.
Automatically her hand reached out for the door handle and then she realised
what she was doing. Self-consciously she stepped back, turning her head away
so that she didn’t have to look at Ran as he stepped past her to unlock the door.
It was cruelly ironic that Ran, of all people, should own this house that so
closely epitomised all that she herself had longed for in a home as a young girl.
The front door was open. Ran paused to allow her to precede him inside but,
as she did so, Sylvie came to an abrupt halt. Faded, unattractive wallpaper and
chipped dark brown paint assaulted her disbelieving gaze. In place of the
polished mellow wooden floor she had expected was a carpet, so old and faded
that it was no longer possible to even guess at its original colour, but Sylvie
suspected with disgust that it must have been the same horrendous brown as the
paintwork.
True, there was some furniture, old rather than antique, dusted rather than
polished, but there were certainly no flowers, no perfumed scent, nor, not
surprisingly, was there any cat.
surprisingly, was there any cat.
‘What is it?’ Ran asked her.
Hard on the heels of the acute envy she had felt when she had first seen the
exterior of the house came a pang of sadness for its inner neglect. Oh, it was
clean enough, if you discounted the air possessing a sharp, almost chemical
smell that made her wrinkle her nose a little, but it was a long, long way from
the home she had so lovingly mentally created.
She heard Ran moving around in the hall behind her.
‘I’ll take you up to your room,’ he told her. ‘Have you got something for your
headache?’
‘Yes, but they’re in my luggage which is in my hire car,’ Sylvie told him
grimly.
In the excitement of seeing the house her headache had abated slightly, but
now the strong smell in the hallway had made it return and with interest. She
could no longer deny that lying down somewhere dark and quiet had become a
necessity.
‘It’s this way,’ Ran told her unnecessarily as he headed towards the stairs.
Once they might have been elegant, although now it was hard to know; the
original staircase no longer existed and the monstrosity which had replaced it
made Sylvie shudder in distaste.
The house had a sad, forlorn air about it, she recognised as she reached the
large rectangular landing, carpeted again in the same revolting dun-brown as the
hallway below.
‘Did your great-uncle live here?’ Sylvie asked him curiously.
‘No. It was let out to tenants. When my cousin inherited he moved in here,
and after his death... I thought about selling it, but it’s too far off the beaten track
to attract the interest of a buyer, and then once I’d made the decision to hang
onto the land and farm it seemed to make sense to move into the house myself. It
needs some work doing on it, of course...’
Sylvie said nothing but her expressive eyes gave her away and Ran continued
coldly, ‘Well, yes, I can see that to someone such as yourself, used to only the
very best that money can provide, it must be rather a come-down. I’m sorry if
the only accommodation I can offer you isn’t up to your usual standards...’ Ran’s
eyes darkened as he reflected on the elegance of Alex’s home and the luxury she
must have enjoyed with Lloyd, but to Sylvie, who was remembering how Ran
had once seen her living in the most basic and primitive conditions, when she
had been part of the group of New Age travellers who had set up camp on Alex’s
estate, the look he was giving her seemed to be one of taunting mockery.
‘You’re down here,’ Ran was saying as he led the way down a corridor with
doors off either side of it, pushing one of them open and then standing to one
side as he waited for her to enter.
The bedroom was large, with two long windows that let in the glowing
evening sunlight. The old-fashioned wooden furniture, like the tables in the
hallway, was spotlessly clean but lacked the warm lustre that it would once have
had from being lovingly polished by several generations of female hands. The
empty grate in the pretty fireplace, which she would have filled with a collection
of dried flowers or covered with an embroidered firescreen, was simply that—an
empty grate. The curtains and the bedding were modern and, she suspected,
newly purchased for her visit. The same depressing brown carpet as downstairs
covered the floor.
‘You’ve got your own bathroom,’ Ran told her as he crossed the floor to push
open another door. ‘It’s old-fashioned but it works.’
As she looked into the bathroom past him, Sylvie said wryly, ‘It may be oldfashioned to you, Ran, but this type of plain white Edwardian sanitaryware is
very much in vogue right now.’
‘There are wardrobes and cupboards on that wall,’ he told her unnecessarily,
indicating the bank of built-in furniture. ‘I haven’t had the chance yet, but
tomorrow I’ll bring up a desk from downstairs.’
‘I’ll certainly need somewhere to put my laptop,’ Sylvie agreed. ‘But I will
also need to have a room somewhere, I think preferably up at the Hall itself, to
work officially from. But that’s something we can discuss later.
‘Where’s your housekeeper?’ she asked him. ‘I’d like to meet her...’
‘Mrs Elliott... She’ll be here in the morning. I can introduce you then.
‘Look.’ He glanced at his watch and then told her, ‘I’m afraid I’m going to
have to leave you. I have to go out, but if you’d like something for that
headache...’
‘What I’d like is my own medication,’ Sylvie told him acidly, ‘but, since
that’s not available, thanks but no, thanks. I need my luggage,’ she added
pointedly.
‘If you give me the keys to your Discovery, I’ll go and get it for you,’ Ran
told her promptly. ‘Just give me ten minutes to make a couple of phone calls.’
As she handed over the keys to her car Sylvie wondered where it was he was
going to be spending the evening and with whom.
Ran was a very masculinely attractive man; even she had to admit that.
‘I doubt that Ran will ever marry,’ Alex had once commented.
‘Why not?’ Sylvie had questioned curiously, her adoring teenage heart
thumping frantically at the thought of being married to Ran, of being his wife, of
sharing his life, his bed... A delicious shiver of anticipatory pleasure had run
through her as she’d willed her stepbrother to say that there was a mysterious
someone in Ran’s life, far too young for him as yet, a special someone...herself...
But instead, disappointingly, prosaically, Alex had told her, ‘An estate
manager’s salary and tied accommodation in a small cottage are hardly up to the
standard or style of living that the women Ran dates are used to, and he’s far too
proud to want to live off his wife...’
‘The women...?’ Sylvie had flared unhappily, whilst her mother, who had
been listening to their conversation, had chipped in disparagingly.
‘Ran would be far better off marrying some farmer’s daughter, a girl who’s
been brought up for that kind of lifestyle...’
Sylvie remembered how Alex’s eyebrows had risen at this display of snobbery
from her mother. But now, of course, Ran’s prospects had changed. She knew
how much Lloyd had paid him for the house and the estate. There had been
death duties and other commitments to meet, of course, but even so he would
have been left with a sizeable sum, much larger than the inheritance she had
received from her father, which her over-anxious mother had been convinced
would make her a target for potential fortune-hunters.
Yes, with the money he had at his disposal, and the living he would no doubt
make out of the land, Ran would financially have a great deal to offer a woman.
Not that a man’s financial status had ever counted for anything with her. Love
in a cottage might be an ideal, a daydream, a fantasy now relegated to her
childhood, but secretly Sylvie still adhered to the belief ‘Better a humble home
where love is than a mansion without it’—and, of course, there had never been
any doubt in her mind whatsoever that when it came to the material things in life
what Ran had to offer the woman he loved...
The woman he loved.
She bit her lip as Ran started to walk away from her. Once he had gone she
stared out of the bedroom window. It overlooked the formal gardens to one side
of the house. Like the house, they had an air of neglect; of being unloved.
Sylvie’s vivid imagination soon filled the neglected borders with lush
herbaceous plants and restored the overgrown rose garden to what must have
been a haven of peace and perfume.
The air in the bedroom felt stale, but when she tried to open one of the sash
windows all she managed to do was to break one of her nails. Cursing herself
under her breath, she winced as the pain inside her head increased. Perhaps she
under her breath, she winced as the pain inside her head increased. Perhaps she
had been rash in refusing Ran’s offer of some headache tablets.
Quickly she opened the bedroom door and hurried back down the stairs.
She found Ran in a huge ill equipped kitchen at the back of the house. As she
pushed open the door he was heading towards it carrying a tray of tea.
‘Who’s that for?’ Sylvie demanded suspiciously.
‘You,’ Ran told her promptly. On the tray Sylvie could see a small packet of a
familiar brand of headache tablets. The temptation to tell him that she didn’t
want either his tea or his tablets was so strong that she had to fight hard to ignore
it. Where on earth had such perversity come from—and when she had come
downstairs especially to ask him for them?
‘I can manage it for myself,’ she told him ungraciously, and she held out her
hands for the tray. The look he gave her made her flush but doggedly she stood
her ground. Even so, she doubted that he would have handed the tray over to her
if the telephone in the hallway had not rung.
As he went to answer it Sylvie headed for the stairs.
‘Vicky...’ she heard him saying warmly, and then, ‘Yes...it’s still on... I’m
looking forward to it too,’ he confirmed, his voice dropping and deepening.
‘Look, I have to go...’
Sylvie was halfway up the stairs when she heard him replacing the telephone
receiver.
‘Sylvie—’ he began.
But she cut him short, turning round and telling him crisply, ‘Don’t let me
delay you if you’ve got a date, Ran. I’ve got plenty of work to read up on.’
‘You need to sleep off your headache,’ Ran told her curtly.
‘On the contrary. I need to work,’ Sylvie corrected him sharply as she
continued on her way upstairs.
Ran stood and watched her. God, but she got under his skin. Why did he let
her? Why hadn’t he simply told her that the only date he had this evening was
with a damaged fence?
Angrily he turned on his heel and strode towards the front door.
As he closed it behind him Sylvie’s body slumped slightly; tension had
invaded each and every one of her muscles and it wasn’t just her head that
pounded with stress now, it was her whole body. Wearily she made her way to
her bedroom, took two of the tablets, drank her tea and then, having removed her
outer clothes, crawled into bed in her underwear. It was only when she was on
the verge of sleep that she remembered that she had neglected to ask Ran to do
something about the window she had been unable to open.
CHAPTER FOUR
RAN grimaced as he studied the very obviously cut-through pieces of fencing
wire. No accident, that. Someone had quite definitely used wire cutters on them,
which meant...
The lambs which had been born early in the spring had all gone now, his
breeding stock the only flock that remained. It was an unpalatable thought
though, that the deer roaming the home park made a tempting target for rustlers,
all the more so because those animals were tame and not used to being hunted.
The last time he had seen Alex, the two of them had discussed the pros and
cons of tagging their deer. Like him, Alex had a small herd on his estate, but
since their marriage Mollie, his wife, had added a new strain to them in the
shape of the same miniature deer that the Duchess of Devonshire had bred so
successfully.
As Ran glanced towards the ha-ha which separated the parkland from the
main gardens to the Hall he could hear the peacocks screeching their warning
that someone was approaching the house.
Frowning, he got up, dusting the twigs and grass from his jeans as he headed
back to the Land Rover.
It was almost ten o’clock, hardly the time for anyone to be visiting the Hall for
any legitimate reason. Still frowning, he started the Land Rover’s engine.
*
Sylvie had woken up abruptly, wondering where on earth she was and why she
couldn’t breathe properly. The dying sun had heated the already stuffy air in her
bedroom to the point where she could actually taste its staleness in her mouth.
The sharp intensity of her earlier headache had, thankfully, eased, but she knew
there was no guarantee of its not returning if she continued to breathe such
unhealthy air.
What she needed was some fresh air. After sluicing her face with cold water
she pulled on her jeans and T-shirt, grimacing slightly as she did so. New York
had effected some changes in her, she reflected wryly. Once she would have
been quite happy in grubby clothes, but now...
Lloyd often teased her for the preppy look of loafers, jeans and white T-shirts
which had become her trademark, but, as she had loftily told him, they made
which had become her trademark, but, as she had loftily told him, they made
good sense for her job in that they always looked workmanlike and enabled her
to climb scaffolding and straddle platforms whilst at the same time looking smart
and businesslike enough to command the respect of the sometimes very
chauvinistic men she had to deal with. Women too, especially in Italy, the home
of style with a capital S, had been discreetly impressed with her working
‘uniform’, she had noticed. Now it was second nature to her always to wear
immaculate white T-shirts and equally immaculate jeans, and the act of putting
on clothes she had already been wearing all day was not one she enjoyed.
She had a spare set of car keys in her purse—another trick she had learned
from her work. Spare keys to anything and everything were a necessity, as she
had quickly discovered the first time she had allowed one of the workmen to
accidentally lock her out of a building and then go home with the keys—it would
be a simple enough matter for her to walk back to Haverton Hall and pick up her
Discovery. The last thing she wanted was to be dependent on Ran for a lift to the
place in the morning, and besides—a small triumphant smile curved her full
mouth—it would be good to be able to point out haughtily to him that whilst he
had been out enjoying himself with his girlfriend she had been working.
She had a well-developed sense of direction and the walk to the Hall, which
someone else might have found a daunting prospect, was nothing to her.
Humming happily to herself, Sylvie set out.
It was a warm summer’s evening, with just enough remaining light for her to
avoid the occasional cloud of midges hovering on the still air.
Being on foot gave her the opportunity to assess the land far better than she
had been able to do from inside Ran’s Land Rover. She had spent enough time
on Alex’s estate to appreciate that it was going to take a considerable amount of
good husbandry on Ran’s part to bring this land into the same productive state as
her stepbrother’s. Oddly, she envied him the challenge, but not so much as she
envied his wife the pleasure she would have in lovingly restoring the Rectory; in
making it the home that Sylvie knew it could be. Oh, yes, she envied her that.
Only that? Sylvie paused, shaking her thick hair back from her head. Of
course only that. She couldn’t possibly envy her Ran, could she—Ran and the
children he would give her? No, of course she couldn’t.
It was almost dark when Sylvie eventually reached the Hall, its bulk throwing
long shadows across the gravel, cloaking both her and the Discovery as she
walked towards it.
The sound of other feet on the gravel momentarily made her freeze until she
recognised the familiar shapes of half a dozen inquisitive peacocks and peahens.
The cocks were sending their shrill cries of warning up into the still night air.
The cocks were sending their shrill cries of warning up into the still night air.
Sylvie laughed as she heard them, relieved, and shook her head at them as she
told them cheerfully, ‘Yes, I may be an intruder now, but you’re going to have to
get used to me. You and I shall be seeing an awful lot of one another, you
know.’
She stayed with them for several minutes, watching them and talking to them.
Soon, no doubt, when it became fully dark, they would be roosting somewhere
out of the way of any predatory hunting foxes.
Turning her back on them, Sylvie stared thoughtfully at the house, trying to
visualise how it would look once the stone had been cleaned. That alone would
cost a small fortune and would, no doubt, take almost as long as it would take for
the interior to be renovated. She must ask Ran to give her any formal records
from when the hall had originally been built and the work done on it since then.
She wasn’t sure, but she suspected that the stairway she had seen had been, if not
the work of Grinling Gibbons, then certainly the work of one of his more
innovative apprentices.
The tiny sprays of coral, the seashells and unbelievably realistic fish carved
into the wood related, no doubt, to the fact that the money for the original house
had come from the very profitable overseas trading its owner had been involved
in. As a prominent member of King Charles II’s court, and one of his favourites,
he undoubtedly had had access to many money-making activities.
Idly Sylvie wondered what it would have been like to live in such a time and
in such a house. It was one of her indulgences that whenever she became
involved with a new property she couldn’t help daydreaming about its past, its
history, picturing herself as part of it...imagining how and what she would have
chosen had she been its chatelaine and then translating that into...
Ran parked his Land Rover out of sight and sound of the house. The peafowl,
on their way to their roosting place, saw him and started to flap their wings until
he threw down the grain he had brought with him to silence them. No point in
giving the intruders the same warning he himself had so helpfully received.
Abandoning her study of the Hall, Sylvie stepped back into the shadows and
made her way back towards her parked car. As he rounded the corner of the
building, for a moment Ran thought that its frontage was deserted, and then he
saw someone moving in the semi-darkness.
Immediately he acted, crouching down low and using the shadows to conceal
his presence as he ran light-footed and quietly towards Sylvie’s car and whoever
it was who was trying to break into it. There wasn’t any time to waste—the
Discovery’s driver’s door was already open. Launching himself towards the
Discovery’s driver’s door was already open. Launching himself towards the
figure about to climb into it, Ran brought the thief down in a rugby tackle,
pinning him down on the ground beneath him as he grunted, ‘Got you.’
Sylvie didn’t see her assailant spring out at her but she certainly felt him as
the speed of his attack carried her to the ground, his weight keeping her there as
his hands moved quickly and lightly over her body.
Frantically she tried to struggle, kicking out at him, clawing his back as he
pinned her legs, imprisoning her beneath his own, and then reached out to
imprison her hands. As she twisted and turned beneath him, trying to throw off
his weight, Sylvie felt too furiously angry to be afraid, but then, suddenly, as he
secured both her hands in one of his and ran his free one experimentally over her
body, she froze, all her feminine instincts and fears awakened.
‘Keep still,’ Ran warned his quarry abruptly. It had come as a shock to
discover that she was female. He had assumed that the attempted theft of the car
was being carried out by a young boy.
As she heard and recognised Ran’s voice, Sylvie’s fear immediately changed
to a mixture of relief and fury.
‘Let go of me,’ she demanded immediately.
‘Sylvie...?’ Ran stared at her in disbelief. ‘What the hell...?’
He had relaxed his grip on her hands but his weight was still holding her
pinned to the ground and Sylvie wriggled protestingly beneath him,
complaining.
‘Sylvie,’ Ran repeated, still obviously shocked by her presence. ‘I thought... I
heard the peafowl and thought someone was... I thought you were trying to steal
the car... I couldn’t tell who you were in the dark,’ Ran told her curtly as he read
the disbelief in her eyes, her expression revealed to him as the moon grew in
strength now that the dusk had given way to proper darkness.
‘What are you doing here anyway?’ he demanded sharply.
‘I needed some fresh air; the windows in my room won’t open and I...I
decided I might as well walk over here and collect my car... And what about
you? I thought you were supposed to be going on a date, not creeping around
frightening people to death,’ Sylvie accused him angrily.
She was becoming acutely and very uncomfortably conscious of the way he
was lying on top of her, her legs still entangled with his from when she had tried
to escape from him, but now...
Sylvie drew a sharp self-admonitory breath at the direction her thoughts were
taking. It was becoming increasingly difficult for her to breathe and not just
because of Ran’s weight on top of her. She was all too aware of how, when she
did breathe, her breasts were pressing against his chest and even more
did breathe, her breasts were pressing against his chest and even more
dangerously conscious of the way her pelvis was accommodating itself to the
shape of him. She could smell the warm summer night air on his skin and with it
the much, much more intimate musky male scent that was him. Somehow or
other during their struggle her T-shirt had become separated from her jeans and
she was hideously aware that it was too late to regret now the fact that in redressing herself she had not bothered to put back on the sensible white bra she
had discarded when she had gone to bed. Instinctively her free hand went to her
body to check just how far up her T-shirt had ridden.
‘What is it?’ Ran asked her, his attention caught by the movement of her hand.
‘You’re heavy, Ran, you’re hurting me,’ Sylvie told him, not entirely
truthfully, as she tried to bury herself in the night’s cloaking shadows, but it was
too late and she could see from the sudden narrowing of his gaze as it followed
the action of her hand that he realised, as she had just done herself, that her
wretched T-shirt had ridden up far enough to expose the lower curve of her
breasts.
The last thing, the very last thing she wanted was for Ran to study her body in
any way at all, so why...why, the moment his gaze fell to her breasts, did they
suddenly decide to react to his presence by swelling and firming, her nipples
sensually flaunting peaks of explicit womanhood?
‘You’re not wearing a bra...’
‘Thank you, Ran, but I am already aware of that fact,’ Sylvie snapped at him
through gritted teeth, her face hot with colour as she tried to reach the edge of
her T-shirt to tug it down. But before she could do so Ran forestalled her, his
own fingers curling round the thin white fabric.
Sylvie was in no doubt that Ran did intend to pull it down to cover her breasts.
She could read his intentions quite plainly in his eyes. So how on earth what
happened next did happen she was at a complete loss to know.
She moved, and so did Ran’s hand. Sylvie froze tensely as she felt his
knuckles brush the underside of her breasts; immediately she made an awkward
lunging movement away from his touch, forgetting that Ran had hold of the edge
of her T-shirt. As she moved Ran tugged and then Sylvie tugged back and Ran
let go.
Sylvie wasn’t sure which of them it was that made the small hissing sound,
expelling their breath as her T-shirt, Lycra added to the cotton to ensure its
smooth neat fit, reacted automatically to their tugging action and shot upwards,
fully exposing her naked breasts.
Sylvie heard Ran curse and then saw him go very still; motionless herself,
Sylvie waited. The sensation of Ran’s hand gently cupping her naked breast
made her close her eyes in self-defence as she tried to stem the rapture that
flooded through her. It wasn’t just what he was doing, it was the fact that she had
once longed for him to touch her, to hold her like this so very, very much, and it
was as though all that long-ago feeling and all that long-ago need had suddenly
risen up inside her.
‘Ran...’ She heard herself whisper his name, but the hands she put out to him
were there to hold him, not to push him away, and as she felt him lower himself
slowly against her again the shudder that ran through her was one of desire and
not rejection.
Very slowly and gently his fingertips stroked her breasts, shaping them,
exploring them. The night air felt velvet soft and sensual against them but
nowhere near as soft nor as sensual as Ran’s hands.
Carefully he caressed her and she could see the fierce gleam in his eyes as he
looked briefly into hers and then he was bending his head towards her, kissing
her with a fierce, passionate intensity that left her totally defenceless. Helplessly
she opened her mouth to the hungry demand of his, making a tiny soft keening
sound deep in her throat as she responded and matched his passion.
There was something earthy, primitive, inevitable and unstoppable about what
was happening. A soft breeze whispered through the trees bordering the gravel
and hypersensitively Sylvie heard it, felt its warmth against her skin. The rough
cloth of Ran’s shirt teased her breasts, making her ache for the feel of his hands
against them again. His hands...his mouth... She heard him groan, his fingers
biting into her skin as he drew her close, so close that she could feel the hard,
aroused pulse of his body. Instinctively her own rose up as though seeking even
closer contact with him. His mouth burned hotly against her throat as he kissed
it, his head moving lower and lower still until she could feel its demanding heat
against her breast.
Sylvie whispered in need, arching up towards him, almost sobbing in relief as
his mouth finally closed over her nipple, caressing it gently, his tongue laving it
and then flicking erotically against it before he started to suck on it with a
rhythmic urgency that echoed the pulsing heat of his arousal.
Once, long ago, she had dreamt of Ran wanting her like this, needing her like
this, all aching, fierce, demanding male passion. Tiny shock waves of desire
were flooding sensuously through her, she wanted him so badly; eagerly she
drew him closer and then froze as somewhere in the woods a fox screamed
noisily to the moon.
Ran too tensed, lifting his mouth from her body as he turned his head in the
direction of the noise.
Suddenly, abruptly, protected no longer by the heat of his passion nor the
warmth of his body, Sylvie realised what she was doing. The gravel of the drive
which previously she had not even noticed pressed sharply into her skin, and her
face flushed with mortification as she realised how she must look, how she must
seem to Ran, so pathetically eager for his kisses, for him, that she...
‘Don’t touch me,’ she warned him shakily as she yanked down her top and
struggled to her feet. ‘I feel sorry for your...for Vicky...if all it takes to make you
unfaithful to her is...’
‘You?’ Ran supplied tersely for her.
Sylvie’s flush deepened, pain filling her body as she turned away from him so
that he wouldn’t see how much he was hurting her.
‘We both know that what just happened had nothing to do with... That it
wasn’t me... I could have been anyone. My body could have been anyone’s. You
were...’
‘So turned on by the sight of your semi-naked breasts that I couldn’t resist
seeing if they felt and tasted as good as they looked,’ Ran told her softly. ‘You
forget, Sylvie... I’ve seen them before, and not just seen them but—’
‘Stop it, stop it,’ Sylvie begged him, instinctively placing her hands over her
ears to blot out the sound of his taunting words. That was the last thing she
wanted to be reminded about now...the very last... Tears blurred her vision.
Frantically she blinked them away; she wasn’t going to let Ran see her crying...
No way...
Shakily she made her way towards the Discovery whilst Ran watched her
broodingly. What the hell could he say to her? She had every right to be
furiously angry with him. That gibe about Vicky had been uncalled for, though.
Vicky wasn’t his love...he didn’t have a love... There was no relationship, no
commitment in his life...unlike her.
Did she respond to Lloyd the same way she had to him, with that aching,
intoxicating blend of female need and almost out-of-control hunger?
Ran closed his eyes as he heard Sylvie start the engine of her car.
He had made his fair share of mistakes in his life and had his due portion of
regrets, but there was nothing he regretted more than... He swallowed and looked
out into the darkness. He hadn’t needed what had happened tonight to tell him
that there was unfinished business between him and Sylvie.
As he started to walk towards where he had left his car the fierce male ache in
his body made him clench his teeth. Right now there was nothing, nothing, he
wanted more than to finish what they had started. Nothing he wanted more and
no one he could have less.
Sylvie’s body might still be responsive to him, but Sylvie herself hated him.
He knew that. She had told him so often enough.
‘Wayne’s the man I love,’ she had said, throwing the words at him like
weapons, and he, too furious, too jealous to respond, had simply walked away
without explaining to her that she was a wealthy man’s daughter and he might
have nothing, but at least, unlike her precious Wayne, he genuinely cared about
her, hadn’t just been using her!
He had spent the next two days searching Oxford from top to bottom for her,
but by then it was too late—she had disappeared. The next time he had seen her
she had been with the band of New Age travellers who had invaded Alex’s land,
quite plainly enjoying flaunting her relationship with its leader in front of him.
‘What’s wrong?’ she had taunted him. ‘You didn’t want me...you told me so
and you were right, Ran, you’re not the one for me...not very much of a man at
all compared with Wayne,’ she had purred with a sensuously knowing look that
had made him feel as if someone was ripping out his guts.
‘She and Wayne seem to be lovers,’ Alex had confided to him unhappily, and
now another man had taken over that role in her life, that place in her bed, and
he had no right...
Helplessly he stared at the stars. Why the hell had he done it, given in to the
temptation to resurrect for himself all the old ghosts, all the old pain? Hadn’t he
already spent enough nights lying alone in his bed, aching for her, wanting her?
Perhaps Alex was right; perhaps it was time that he looked around for a
woman to settle down with, and perhaps once this business was finished and
Sylvie was finally out of his life that was exactly what he would do... Perhaps...
CHAPTER FIVE
SYLVIE frowned as she started to double-check what she had just been reading.
In a detailed account for the work involved in treating both the wet and dry rot to
Haverton Hall, she had only just noticed that slipped in at the back was an
additional sheet reporting on some dry rot infestation in the Rectory, Ran’s
private property, and with it was a brief note confirming that the work on the
Rectory would be put in hand before the contractors started working on
Haverton Hall itself.
Sylvie could feel her heart starting to thump heavily with a mixture of anger
and pain as she re-read the sheet. It wasn’t unknown for the owners of the
properties the Trust took over to try to drive as hard a bargain as they possibly
could. It had fallen to Sylvie on more than one occasion to tactfully inform very
grand personages that odd pieces of furniture they had listed as antiques had
turned out, on further inspection, to be in fact extremely good copies and
therefore not worth the value which had originally been attributed to them. On
such occasions a very large supply of tact plus an even larger helping of erring
on the side of generosity was called for, but for some reason the possibility of
having caught Ran out in such a way evoked within her such strong and
confusing emotions that she had to get up from her makeshift desk in front of her
bedroom window to pace her bedroom floor whilst she mentally rehearsed
exactly how she was going to confront him with her discovery of what he had
done. The sum involved wasn’t particularly large—and, had Ran gone about
things in a different way, she knew perfectly well that the Trust would probably
have large-mindedly and generously offered to bear the cost of the work on the
Rectory. It was the fact that he had tried to cheat them...to deceive and trick
her...that Sylvie found so unacceptable, the fact that he probably thought he had
deceived her, the fact that he was probably secretly laughing at her behind her
back. Well, he wasn’t going to be laughing when she confronted him, she
decided angrily.
A knock on her bedroom door stopped her in her tracks, her body tensing as
she called out tersely, ‘Come in,’ whilst mentally deciding how to mount her
attack. But when the door opened it wasn’t Ran who walked into her room but
the housekeeper, Mrs Elliott.
‘Oh, Mrs Elliott,’ Sylvie faltered.
‘Ran asked me to check with you what you would like for dinner this
‘Ran asked me to check with you what you would like for dinner this
evening,’ the woman told her. ‘He landed a fine wild salmon this morning and
he said it was a particular favourite of yours...’
Sylvie closed her eyes.
Damn Ran. What was he trying to do to her reminding her, of things, of a past,
she would much rather forget?
‘That’s very kind of you, Mrs Elliott,’ she told the other woman crisply, ‘but I
shall be eating out this evening.’
Previously she had not given the least thought to where she might eat her
evening meal, and she knew that her behaviour in refusing Ran’s salmon was
both illogical and slightly childish, but she hadn’t been able to help herself.
Where was Ran anyway...strategically keeping out of her way? Well, he
couldn’t do that for ever, and she certainly intended to tell him what she had
discovered and to demand an explanation of his misuse of the Trust’s funds. No
doubt he had imagined that he could slip the bill for the work on his own
property through with the bill for the cost of the work on Haverton Hall without
anyone being any the wiser. Well, he was going to learn very quickly his error.
Which reminded her—she really ought to go up to the house and have a word
with whoever was in charge of the company he had hired to deal with the dry
rot. Sylvie pursed her lips. By rights the contract ought to have been put out to
tender, but she had to admit that by acting so promptly and getting both the
report compiled and the work started Ran had saved her a good deal of
groundwork—and enabled work to be done on the Rectory at the Trust’s
expense?
Ten minutes later Sylvie was on her way downstairs when she heard voices in
the hallway, and as she rounded the curve of the staircase she could see Mrs
Elliott talking with a tall, elegant woman in her late thirties.
‘So you’ll tell Ran that I called,’ she was saying to Mrs Elliott.
‘Yes, I will, Mrs Edwards,’ the other woman was responding respectfully.
Thoughtfully and discreetly Sylvie studied her. Tall, slender, expensively
dressed, immaculately made up, she was the type of woman whom Sylvie could
remember Ran favouring and she immediately guessed that she must be Ran’s
current woman-friend. There was certainly that very confident, almost
proprietorial air about her that suggested she was far more than simply a mere
visitor to the house. She turned away from Mrs Elliott and then saw Sylvie, her
expression changing slightly and becoming, if not challenging then certainly
assessing, Sylvie recognised as she continued on her way downstairs.
‘I’m just on my way to Haverton Hall, Mrs Elliott,’ she told Ran’s daily
calmly, adding with an impetuosity she later refused to examine or analyse,
calmly, adding with an impetuosity she later refused to examine or analyse,
‘Please thank Ran for his offer of dinner.’
Out of the corner of her eye she could see the way Ran’s woman-friend’s eyes
darkened as she watched her, and she had just reached the front door when Mrs
Elliott stopped her, announcing, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I almost forgot; Ran asked
me to tell you that if you wanted to finish going over the big house he’d be back
around three.’
‘Did he? That’s very thoughtful of him. How very obliging of him,’ Sylvie
responded acidly. ‘When he does return, Mrs Elliott, please tell him that there’s
no need for him to put himself to so much trouble. I have my own set of keys to
Haverton Hall.’
Without waiting for the older woman to make any further response, Sylvie
pulled open the front door. How dared he? she fumed as she hurried towards her
hire car. She had no need of either his company or his permission to view the
Hall. Furiously she started the Discovery, sending up an angry spray of gravel as
she reversed and then headed for the drive.
She was over halfway to Haverton Hall before she felt calm enough to slow
down a little, her face burning as hotly as her temper. It was not up to Ran to tell
her what she could and could not do—not any longer.
As she brought the Discovery to a halt outside the house she hastily averted
her eyes from the spot where last night... What had happened last night was
something she had no intention of dwelling on nor trying to analyse; it had been
a mistake, an error of judgement, a total and complete aberration and something
which had, no doubt, been brought on by some kind of jet lag, some kind of
inexplicable imbalance, and it really wasn’t worthy of having her waste any time
agonising over it.
Unlocking the huge door, she turned the handle and took a deep breath as she
pushed it open and stepped inside. Resolutely ignoring the echoing sound of her
own footsteps, she hurried to where she and Ran had left off their inspection the
previous day. In her bag she had an inventory and a plan of the house, but an
hour later she was forced to admit that it was proving far less interesting
inspecting the rooms on her own than it had been yesterday, with Ran’s
informative descriptions of the rooms and their original uses.
From previous experience she knew that in a very short space of time she
herself would be completely familiar with the house’s layout and its history, but
right now... She gave a small scream as a mouse scuttled across the floor right in
front of her. She had always had an irrational fear of them—they moved so fast
and so far, and she had never totally got over an unpleasant childhood
and so far, and she had never totally got over an unpleasant childhood
experience of having one jump towards her as it ran from one of the stable cats.
She was working her way along the upper floor when she suddenly heard Ran
calling her name. Stiffening, she stood where she was. Mrs Elliott must have told
him that he would find her here. In her bag she had the report and the costings he
had commissioned for treatment of the wet and dry rot. Firmly she walked
towards the door, opened it and called out, ‘I’m up here, Ran...’
‘You shouldn’t have come here on your own,’ he cautioned her as he came
down the corridor towards her.
‘Why not? The house isn’t haunted, is it?’ she mocked him sarcastically.
‘Not as far as I know,’ he agreed, ‘but the floors, especially on these upper
two floors, aren’t totally to be trusted, and if you should have had an accident—’
‘How very thoughtful of you to be concerned, Ran,’ Sylvie interrupted him.
‘Almost as thoughtful as it was of you to commission these reports.’
As she spoke she removed the reports from her bag and waved them under his
nose. ‘Or am I being naive and would “self-interested” be a much truer
description?’
Ran started to frown.
‘I don’t know what you’re trying to imply, Sylvie,’ he began, but she wouldn’t
let him go any further, challenging him immediately,
‘Don’t you, Ran? I read the reports from the surveyors this morning. Tucked
in at the back of the estimates you’d obtained was this...’
Coolly she handed him the costing for the work on the Rectory.
‘So?’ Ran shrugged after he had scanned the piece of paper she proffered.
‘This particular costing relates to work that needs to be carried out on the
Rectory, your own private house,’ Sylvie pointed out patiently.
‘And...?’ Ran demanded, frowning at her before telling her, ‘I’m sorry, Sylvie,
but I’m afraid I’m at a loss to understand exactly what it is you’re driving at. The
Rectory needed some work doing on it to put right the dry rot the surveyors
found, and—’
‘You decided to slip the bill for that work in amongst the bills for the work
that was needed on Haverton Hall, to lose it amongst the admittedly far greater
cost of the work needed here!’
‘What?’ Ran demanded ominously quietly, his expression as well as his voice
betraying his outrage.
‘I don’t like what you’re trying to suggest, Sylvie,’ he told her sharply.
She shook her head and told him thinly, ‘Neither do I, Ran. But the facts
speak for themselves.’
‘Do they?’ His mouth twisted bitterly. ‘I rather think it’s your overheated
‘Do they?’ His mouth twisted bitterly. ‘I rather think it’s your overheated
imagination that’s doing the “speaking” through your totally erroneous
interpretation of them,’ he told her through gritted teeth.
‘You can’t deny the evidence of this report,’ Sylvie reminded him sternly.
‘What evidence?’ Ran demanded. ‘This is a report and an estimate for work
on the Rectory—work which I have had carried out at my own expense; the only
reason the report and costing is there at all is because I omitted to remove it
when I had the documents copied for you...’
‘You’ve paid for the work on the Rectory yourself?’ Sylvie queried in
disbelief.
Ran’s mouth thinned.
‘Perhaps you’d like to see the receipts,’ he challenged her.
‘Yes, I would,’ Sylvie responded doggedly, refusing to let him cow her even
though she could feel her face starting to burn self-consciously and her stomach
beginning to churn as she contemplated just how foolish she was going to look if
Ran did produce such receipts.
‘Mrs Elliott tells me that you’re going out for dinner this evening.’
Sylvie stared at him, thrown by his abrupt change of subject.
‘Yes. Yes, I am,’ she agreed.
‘There isn’t a decent restaurant for miles,’ he told her, ‘and certainly not one
that offers fresh wild salmon; it’s always been one of your favourites...’
‘Perhaps my tastes have changed,’ Sylvie said a little loftily, adding robustly,
‘Unlike yours...’
As he started to frown she explained sweetly, ‘I saw your...friend. She called
at the Rectory just as I was leaving. I’m sure she’d be more than delighted to
share your salmon with you, Ran,’ she told him coolly. ‘Now, about those
receipts...’
Inwardly Sylvie shivered a bit as she saw the anger flare in his eyes but
outwardly she stood her ground. It was, after all, her job to make sure that the
Trust wasn’t cheated—by anyone.
‘Of course,’ Ran told her formally, inclining his head as though in defeat, but
then, just as Sylvie started to draw a relieved breath, he gave her a dangerously
vulpine smile and told her softly, ‘But I’m afraid it will have to be this evening
as I have a business meeting tomorrow morning and then I shall probably be
away for several days...’
‘With your...friend...?’
Later Sylvie could only despair over whatever it was that had led her to make
such a dangerously betraying and provocative remark, but inexplicably the
words were out before she could stop them, causing Ran, who had been on the
point of turning away from her, to turn back and slowly scrutinise her from head
to foot before asking her softly, ‘If you mean Vicky, is that really any of your
business...or the Trust’s...?’
He had caught her out and Sylvie knew it. It most certainly was not part of her
duty as the Trust’s representative to ask any questions about his personal life,
and she was mortified that she had done so.
‘If you want to see the receipts for the work on the Rectory then it will have to
be this evening, Sylvie,’ Ran was repeating briskly. ‘Shall we say about eightthirty?’
Before she could say anything else he had gone, striding across the dusty floor
and leaving her to watch his departing back.
It was a good ten minutes after she had heard the noise of his Land Rover
engine die away before Sylvie felt able to continue with her work. Her
intelligence told her that their antagonism was coming between her and the
normally wisely efficient way in which she dealt with even the most awkward of
the Trust’s clients, but her emotions refused to allow her to back down, to climb
down. If she was wary of him, suspicious of him, then she had every right to be.
And every right to as good as accuse him of trying to defraud the Trust?
She started to nibble anxiously at her bottom lip. If she was wrong about him
trying to get the Trust to cover the cost of work he had had done on his own
home, and if he chose to complain to Lloyd—Irritably Sylvie reminded herself
why she was here.
*
Although the house wasn’t any larger than others she had dealt with, it certainly
seemed to possess far more small interconnecting rooms here on its upper
storeys. She rubbed the dust from the window of one of them and peered out at
the countryside spread all around her. From here she could see the river where
Ran must have caught his fish. It wound lazily in a long half-loop through the
parkland which surrounded the house. Although the terrain here in Derbyshire
was very different from that which surrounded Alex’s home, it was disturbingly
easy, looking down towards the river, to remember the many happy hours she
had spent with Alex and Ran as a young girl, watching them as they worked
together, helping them fish and later learning from them their countryside skills.
One of the ways in which, hopefully, ultimately, Haverton Hall could generate
One of the ways in which, hopefully, ultimately, Haverton Hall could generate
its own income would be, as Ran had suggested in the initial approach he had
made to the Trust, for the house to be let out to large corporations and groups
along with its fishing and shooting rights. The Trust adopted a policy that no
game existing on its lands could be killed simply for sport—a very strict culling
programme was put in place where necessary and the art of tracking animals was
taught as a skill for its own sake rather than with a view to killing. That had been
a condition which she herself had insisted on persuading the trustees to adopt,
and it made her stop and frown slightly to herself now as she was forced to
remember how it had been Ran who had first shown her that it was not necessary
to kill to enjoy such traditional country sports.
*
Ran...
Sylvie was still thinking about him some time later when an exhausting drive
through the virtually uninhabited countryside which surrounded the house had
only produced three small villages, not one of which boasted a restaurant.
In the small pub in the third village the landlord shook his head when she
asked about food and apologised.
‘We don’t have the trade for it round here, although I could perhaps see if
there’s any sandwiches left over from lunchtime.’
Smiling wanly, Sylvie shook her head. She was hungry, very hungry in fact,
and had been looking forward to sitting down to a proper hot meal.
‘There’s a good place over Lintwell way,’ the pub manager was continuing
helpfully, ‘but that’s a good twenty-five miles from here.’
Twenty-five miles. Sylvie’s stomach was already starting to rumble. Against
her will she had a mental vision of Ran’s salmon, pink and poached, served with
delicious home-grown baby new potatoes and fresh vegetables and, of course, a
proper hollandaise sauce. Her mouth watered.
It was gone seven o’clock now, though, and if she were to drive to Lintwell
and back and eat as well that would mean she would be late for her meeting with
Ran and there was no way she was going to allow him the opportunity to accuse
her of being unprofessional.
Refusing the landlord’s offer of the afternoon’s leftover sandwiches, she made
her way back to her car. She would just have to go without a meal tonight, she
told herself firmly; after all, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. She was hardly
going to starve... But oh, that salmon and... Ran was quite right. It was her
favourite.
favourite.
It was almost eight when Sylvie pulled up outside the Rectory’s front door.
Her earlier hunger had turned into a gnawing irritation that was making her
head ache and her temper on edge. Low blood sugar, she told herself sternly. All
you need is a sweet drink.
All she needed maybe, but not all she wanted. What she wanted...
What on earth was the matter with her? she derided herself as she opened the
front door. Other women her age daydreamed and fantasised about having men,
not meals.
Eight o’clock. She just had time to get showered and changed before her
meeting with Ran. She wanted to run through her figures again, but if, as he said,
he had paid for the work himself and he had the receipts to prove it... Perhaps
she had been too quick to accuse him...
‘Sylvie...’
She froze at the bottom of the stairs as she heard Ran’s voice. When she
turned her head he was standing in an open doorway several feet away from her.
‘Mrs Elliott is going to serve dinner at eight-thirty so you’ve got half an hour
to get ready...’
A dozen questions and just as many denials and arguments sprang
immediately to Sylvie’s lips, but somehow she managed not to utter them and
she was at the top of the stairs before she managed to ask herself why she had
not simply told Ran that she had eaten already.
Why? The audible rumble of her stomach as she opened her bedroom door
gave its own answer. Even so, it galled her to know that Ran had guessed she
would have to return to the house without having found somewhere to eat. But
just let him try to make something of it, Sylvie decided fiercely as, having had
her shower, she changed into a long silky black jersey dress, brushing her hair
and quickly re-doing her make-up before checking the time.
Almost eight-thirty. Taking a deep breath, Sylvie checked her appearance in
the mirror and then, holding her head high, headed for the bedroom door.
Her jersey dress, plain black and unadorned, might not, to anyone but the
cognoscente, reveal the fact that it had cost her the best part of a month’s wages
and carried the label of one of New York’s top designers—the uninitiated might
be deceived by the simple design and the way the heavy fabric discreetly hinted
at rather than clung more obviously to Sylvie’s slender figure. But even the most
self-confessed sartorial ignoramus would have reacted to the way Ran looked
when Sylvie saw him waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs.
Used as she was to seeing him wearing casual work clothes, and perhaps
because that was the image she held engraved in her mind’s eye—jeans fitting
because that was the image she held engraved in her mind’s eye—jeans fitting
snugly against the hard muscle of his thighs, checked work shirt rolled up at the
sleeves and just open enough at the neck to reveal the silky dark expanse of body
hair which so temptingly and tormentingly made one’s fingers long to unfasten a
few more buttons and explore just how thick, just how silky that soft dark hair
actually was—Sylvie had forgotten how very male Ran could look in formal
clothes.
And although he hadn’t gone so far as to change into a dinner suit he was
wearing a pair of well-cut dark trousers and a crisp white shirt.
The fact that he was just shrugging on his jacket as she came down the stairs
afforded Sylvie an unwanted glimpse of the lethal maleness of the muscles in his
torso and made her hesitate betrayingly just for a second before continuing her
journey downwards.
He had changed his clothes simply to have dinner with her.
Why? Because he knew very well the effect his appearance would have on
any susceptible woman and because he intended to use that fact to distract her,
confuse her when she needed all her attention, all her concentration to ascertain
the truth about that invoice? Or was she letting her imagination run away with
her? Was the woman he had dressed so elegantly for not her but—?
Was he perhaps seeing the other woman after their meeting had finished?
‘We’ve just got time for a drink before dinner if you’d like one,’ Ran told her
calmly, but his glance, Sylvie was sure, had rested for just a betraying fraction of
a second on the soft thrust of her breasts before it had lifted to her face. Her heart
started to thump giddily.
‘No... No drink, thanks,’ she refused, giving him a thin smile as she added
deliberately, ‘I generally find that alcohol and business don’t mix.’
Giving a small shrug, Ran opened the dining-room door for her and waited for
her to precede him inside. As she did so, Sylvie caught the clean, sharp scent of
his freshly showered body and the giddying thump of her vulnerable heart
became a frighteningly heavy ache.
‘I...I’ve brought the estimates down with me,’ she told him quickly, lifting the
papers she was holding in front of him, but Ran shook his head.
‘After dinner,’ he told her dismissively, adding, ‘I generally find that good
food and poor communication don’t mix.’
Poor communication. Sylvie gave him a fulminating look before taking the
chair he had pulled out for her.
*
The salmon was every bit as delicious as Sylvie had imagined and so, too, was
the home-made summer pudding served with fresh cream that followed it. The
cheese they ate to finish the meal was made locally, Ran informed her, adding
that he had been wondering if he might not produce something similar himself,
but that he had decided the costs involved were prohibitive.
To have dinner alone with Ran like this would once have made her feel so
excited, so...so thrilled because she had been so besottedly in love with him. Of
course, she would hardly have been able to do justice to the meal because then
her fevered imagination would have been thrilling her with images of the two of
them together alone, after dinner, Ran taking her in his arms and...
‘I’ve asked Mrs Elliott to serve coffee in the library...’
The crisp, businesslike tone of Ran’s voice cut across her treacherous
thoughts. Guiltily, Sylvie pushed them away, reminding herself severely of just
why she was here.
*
‘Here is the separate estimate I asked for, for the work which needed doing here,
and here is the receipt I obtained for that work.’
Her facial muscles rigid, Sylvie willed her hand not to tremble betrayingly as
she took the papers from Ran and then looked at them. She was furious with
herself for giving him the opportunity to put her in the wrong.
Her eyes strayed to the date at the top of the receipted invoice. She wasn’t
going to give in yet. Standing up, she handed the papers back to Ran and told
him dismissively, ‘What I can see is a signed and dated receipt, Ran.’
‘Showing that the invoice was settled several weeks ago...’
‘Purporting to show that it was settled several weeks ago,’ Sylvie pointed out
stubbornly. ‘For all I know this date could have been written on the invoice last
week...or...’ She paused meaningfully before adding with a triumphant smile,
‘Or even today...’
She had started to walk away when Ran stopped her, grabbing hold of her arm
and swinging her round to face him as he exploded, ‘Are you really trying to
accuse me of falsifying this receipt? For God’s sake, Sylvie, what the hell kind
of man do you think I am?’
Pointedly Sylvie ignored his question and stared down at where he was still
holding onto her arm instead as she demanded icily, ‘Let go of me, Ran.’
‘Let go of you...? Do you realise what you’re saying, what you’re accusing
me of doing? You’re not a teenager any more, Sylvie, and if this is some kind of
petty attempt to—’
‘No, I’m not.’ Sylvie interrupted him furiously. ‘I’m the Trust’s representative
here at Haverton and as such it’s my job to protect the Trust’s interests and its
investments... If I think that someone, anyone, is trying to cheat the Trust or
misuse its funds, then it’s my job to—’
‘Your job...?’ Ran laughed savagely. ‘You sound very high-minded for
someone who’s slept her way into her “job” via her boss’s bed.’
There was a second’s pause and then a white heat, a zigzag of pure fury and
frustrated womanly pride, hit Sylvie like a bolt of lightning. Immediately she
reacted in the only way her outraged female instincts knew, lifting her hand and
slapping Ran’s face in furious rejection of his insult.
Sylvie didn’t know which of them was the more shocked—she who had
delivered the blow or Ran who had received it. For a single beat of time they
both stood completely still, staring at one another. Sylvie could feel her heart
racing, she could see the white, slowly reddening imprint of her hand against
Ran’s dark skin and she could see too the vengeful male fury darkening his eyes.
Too late to regret her behaviour, or to turn and run; Ran was still holding onto
her arm, and as she tried to pull away he dragged her towards him, his eyes
glittering with fevered rage.
Sylvie knew, even before it happened, just what he was going to do. She was
already closing her eyes and whispering helplessly, ‘No,’ as she felt the hard,
bruising pressure of his mouth against her own.
To be kissed like this, in fury, in punishment, and with a blind, searing male
desire to dominate, was something totally outside all her experience. Her body
had no defences against it, no knowledge of how to deal with it. Panic and anger
surged through her body. She was no helpless Victorian virgin, she was a
modern woman, able to give as good as she got. Fiercely she returned the anger
of Ran’s furious kiss. He was already prising apart her closed lips with his
tongue, demanding entry to the intimacy of her mouth, not with the tender touch
of a lover but with the forceful pressure of a warrior, a victor. Wildly Sylvie
tried to evade him, but he was holding onto her too strongly and all her attempts
to break free did was to bring her body into even closer contact with his. She still
fought to break free, pummelling his chest with her fists and then, when that did
no good and there was no longer any space between their bodies for her to do so,
angrily raking her nails down his back.
Somewhere, deep down, in the murkiest of murky waters of her subconscious,
Somewhere, deep down, in the murkiest of murky waters of her subconscious,
lay the knowledge that this wasn’t just about the insult he had given her, nor her
angry reaction to it; that this explosion of furious emotion this need to reach out
and hurt him, to damage and destroy what was left of the love she had once felt
for him, had its roots, its being, in something very, very different from mere
insulted female pride.
‘Little vixen,’ she heard Ran muttering thickly against her mouth as he caught
hold of her hand. ‘Your elderly lover might need the stimulus of having his back
scratched raw when you make love but I certainly don’t.’
Shocked into awareness of what she was doing by his words, Sylvie went still.
Lloyd might not be her lover, but that didn’t really matter; it was the impact of
what Ran had just said to her that hurt and wounded so badly, the fact that he
was comparing the anger and mutual hatred they were both expressing with an
act that, to Sylvie, was one which should be highlighted and hallmarked with
tenderness and true emotional love. Suddenly all the anger drained out of her.
She felt sickened, not just by Ran’s words but more importantly by what she
herself had done. A vixen, Ran had called her, but when animals mated they did
so for a specific purpose; their coming together was never an act of cruelty or
cynical disregard for everything that sharing the intimacy of one’s body with
another should be.
Sylvie could feel her eyes starting to fill with tears. Ran had pulled back from
her to look at her, and, taking advantage of his slackened grip, she pulled herself
free of him and started to walk quickly, if a little unsteadily, towards the library
door.
Startled, Ran called out to her, following her out into the hallway, watching as
she disappeared up the stairs. Should he go after her, apologise, explain...? That
look he had just seen in her eyes had shocked him. It was more the look of a hurt
child than a mature, experienced, worldly woman, and besides... There had been
no call for him to make that remark to her about Lloyd. Her relationship with the
other man was, after all, her own affair, even if he... God... For a moment there
the feeling, the sharp dig of her nails into his skin through the fabric of his shirt,
had made him ache so badly for the feel of her naked body beneath his own, the
feel, the scent, the taste of her. And if he could have his time again... But what
was the point in thinking about, reliving old memories, old mistakes?
He had done what he had thought was best at the time, the honourable thing to
do...
CHAPTER SIX
WEARILY Sylvie looked at the luminous face of her watch. Half past one in the
morning. She had been awake for the last hour, stubbornly courting sleep,
angrily refusing to allow her thoughts to take control, to force her to remember.
She was too hyped up for sleep, too afraid to sleep just in case she... She
what? Dreamed of Ran?
She looked across at the desk in front of the window. One of the small
pleasures of living in the depths of the country was that one did not need to close
the curtains at night. There was nothing Sylvie liked more than being able to see
the night sky.
When her mother had first married Alex’s father and they had gone to live in
his ancestral home, she had been overwhelmed at first by the darkness of the
huge house. It had been Ran who had guessed her fears and apprehensions after
he had found her sleepwalking that night. Ran who had been staying at the house
instead of his cottage one weekend, ‘babysitting’ her in the absence of her
mother, and who had taken her, not back to bed, but to his own room where he
had made her a hot drink and talked to her, showing her the telescope he used to
watch the night sky.
The binoculars beside it he had used for another, more mundane purpose. As
the estate manager one of his jobs had been to keep a sharp look-out for
poachers. The night had no fears for Ran, and through him she too had learned to
appreciate its special beauties. It had been Ran who had taken her to watch the
badger cubs at play, earning her mother’s anger. Sylvie quickly stopped that line
of thought. Since she couldn’t sleep she might as well try to do some work; that
at least would be a far more profitable way of spending her time than thinking
about Ran.
Her mouth still felt slightly swollen and sensitive from the way he had kissed
her earlier. Her face started to burn as she recalled again the comment he had
made to her about her being a vixen—and about Lloyd being her lover.
What would he say if he knew that she had only had one lover and that lover
had been a man who hadn’t really wanted her, a man she had had to coax and
beg to take her to bed, a man who had told her that he felt no love for her, that
what had happened between them had been a mistake, an error of judgement best
forgotten?
No. No. No. Angrily, Sylvie buried her face in her hands, but it was too late;
No. No. No. Angrily, Sylvie buried her face in her hands, but it was too late;
there was no pushing back the memories now, they were here, surrounding her,
flooding out any kind of denial or rational thought.
She had been at university by then; had, in fact, gone there unwillingly. So
intense and all-consuming had been the ferocity of her teenage love for Ran, so
burningly immediate and sharp-fanged her desire for him, that she had not been
able to bear the thought of putting any kind of distance between them. Every
spare minute she had, every excuse she could use, she had used—to be with
Ran. As Alex’s stepsister it had been easy enough for her to spend her free time
at the estate, joining the group of local teenagers who were helping Ran with
some of his environmental projects had given her even more opportunity to be
with him. Not that Ran himself had seemed to be aware of her feelings, even
though she had done everything she could to show him how she felt.
There had been that afternoon she had fallen into the muddy lake they had
been cleaning. Ran had pulled her out, grinning at her mud-covered clothes and
hair.
‘I need a bath,’ she had complained, grimacing.
‘A bath?’ Ran had laughed. ‘There’s no way Alex’s housekeeper is going to
let you into the house like that. I’d better take you back to the cottage with me
and hose you down outside before I let you go back, otherwise we’ll both be in
real trouble.’
His cottage... How she had trembled at the thought, imagining not the prosaic
cleaning-up operation Ran had so teasingly referred to but something far more
intimate, her body soaking in a tub of blissfully hot water whilst Ran lovingly
soaped her clean...
‘What’s wrong?’ he had asked her, frowning at her. ‘You’ve gone very red.
Are you feeling ill?’
Ill... Sick with love, with longing for him, would have been the appropriate
answer, but she had been too naive, too shy to make it. Instead she had shaken
her head and dutifully climbed into his battered Land Rover for the drive back to
his small estate cottage.
The sensual intimacy she had so dangerously imagined had proved to be just
that—a fantasy.
Ran had made her remove her clothes in his small back porch, sternly
admonishing her not to move off the old towel he had put down on the floor and
to give him a shout once she was undressed and wrapped in the towel he had left
her.
‘I’ll put your stuff in the washer—Alex’s housekeeper will kill me if she sees
it—and then you can have a quick shower upstairs. You’ll have to go home in
it—and then you can have a quick shower upstairs. You’ll have to go home in
my stuff but at least it will be clean.’
‘These towels are awfully thin,’ she had remarked critically once she was
standing wrapped in the protection of the largest of them, and Ran had returned
to scoop up her filthy clothes.
‘Mmm... I use them to dry the dogs,’ Ran had told her unromantically,
grinning at her when he saw her expression. ‘They’re the ones who should be
pulling a face,’ he said. ‘When they come back covered in mud they get hosed
down outside before they’re even allowed in.’
‘I’m not a dog, I’m a...’ A woman, she had been about to say, but then she had
stopped as Ran had stooped to pick up her white briefs from the stone floor, her
face turning an unsophisticated shade of pink when she saw how small they
looked held in his strongly masculine hand.
The wet had seeped right through her jeans to her briefs, but Ran’s eyebrows
had risen as he’d studied them and then her.
‘It’s all right... I can go home without them; it won’t matter under...my...your
jeans,’ Sylvie had told him helpfully, far too innocent and young then to
understand just how sensuously provocative it could be for a woman to go naked
beneath her clothes—and even more so when the clothes, the jeans she was
wearing, were his and not her own.
‘It’s okay; I think I’ve got something you can wear,’ Ran had told her
laconically.
She had been young and naive but not so young nor so naive as not to be able
to guess where the tiny pretty lacy briefs Ran had given her might have come
from, and the knowledge that they must have belonged to another woman had
cast a shadow not just over the whole day, but over everything.
She had once heard Alex joking with Ran about his taste for older women.
‘I’m not in the market for commitment or marriage,’ Ran had returned. ‘But
I’m not about to turn myself into a monk either,’ he had admitted frankly.
Neither of them had known that she was listening as she hesitated outside Alex’s
library door on her way past.
‘So a woman who knows what life’s all about, who’s been married and
decided that it isn’t for her, suits me fine.’
She hadn’t been able to hide her massive crush on Ran before she’d left for
university, in fact had openly offered her love to him, but he had determinedly
pushed it away—just as he had also determinedly pushed her away.
She had noticed it again at Alex’s annual Christmas party. Her mother had
been there, turning her nose up at such little country pursuits, but Sylvie hadn’t
been there, turning her nose up at such little country pursuits, but Sylvie hadn’t
cared. She’d been determined that Ran was going to dance with her and that she
was going to claim a Christmas kiss from him.
She had been wearing a new dress and high heels. She had put her hair up and
worn make-up. Alex had looked at her with tender amusement when she had
come downstairs, but there had been no tenderness in Ran’s eyes later that
evening when he had removed her arms from around his neck, refusing to give
her the kiss she had begged him for. It had taken three glasses of wine before she
had had the courage to approach him and, horrendously, she could feel her eyes
starting to fill with tears as he’d unlocked her arms from around his neck and
started to turn away from her.
‘Ran, please...’ she had pleaded, but he had ignored her, stony-faced and
blank-eyed, as he’d walked away from her.
And, as though that hadn’t been bad enough, to compound the evening’s
heartache and humiliation, she had seen him less than an hour later dancing with
the newly divorced wife of one of Alex’s tenants, holding her tightly against his
body as he caressed her under the dim lights, bending his head to kiss her with
heart-shaking passion before leading her outside.
She had been so jealous, so burned up with pain that even her skin had felt
raw and tender.
Later, naively, she’d told herself that Ran hadn’t meant to hurt her, that he
probably still thought of her as a child and not a woman, and so she had gone on
clinging to her self-created delusions.
All through her first year at university, as much as she had wanted to hate
Ran, she had also yearned for him, dreaming of him, longing for him, promising
herself that one day it would be different, one day he would look at her and love
her.
She had refused dates from the boys she met on her courses and only attended
the regulation student parties because the other girls had teased her into it.
Naturally gregarious, although no one could ever come to mean to her what Ran
meant, she had nevertheless made several platonic friendships with various boys
she had met at university. One of them she had particularly taken to; shy and
self-effacing, David had only come to university because of family pressure. As
the youngest of his family he’d been expected to follow in the footsteps of his
elder sisters and brothers, all of whom had graduated with honours.
‘What did you really want to do?’ Sylvie had asked him.
‘Paint,’ he had told her simply.
Sylvie’s discovery that he was taking drugs had saddened but not particularly
shocked her. They were, after all, a feature of university life, although she
shocked her. They were, after all, a feature of university life, although she
herself had stayed clear of them.
It had been David who had persuaded her to attend the rave party where he
had introduced her to Wayne. She had guessed that Wayne was his supplier but
had naively assumed then that Wayne was no more than a generous-minded
individual who had the contacts to supply his friends with drugs, and that it was
they who pressured him into obtaining them for them rather than the other way
around. Without directly saying so, Wayne had implied that they were two of a
kind, individuals who stood out from the crowd. His street-wise sophistication
had reminded her in some odd way of Ran. Perhaps because, like Ran, Wayne
was older than her and the friends she’d mixed with. She had listened half
enviously when he had told her of his plans to spend the summer with a group of
eco-warriors, travelling the country.
Sylvie had always been idealistic, and Wayne’s description of the way the
group were dedicated to preventing the destruction of the countryside by greedy
power barons had increased her sense of comradeship with him and with the
group he was joining.
Just as importantly, Wayne had seemed to understand the problems she was
having in convincing her mother that she was now an adult.
‘She’s such a snob,’ she had told Wayne ruefully, wrinkling her nose.
‘She wouldn’t much approve of me, then,’ he had countered, and although she
had shaken her head Sylvie had been forced to admit that he was right. She had
confided to Wayne how uncomfortable it often made her feel that she should be
so privileged. Alex gave her an allowance and her mother was constantly
visiting her and fussing over whether or not she was eating properly and wearing
the right kind of clothes. Her mother had never wanted her to go to university.
She had bemoaned the fact that girls like Sylvie no longer had the opportunity to
‘come out’ properly, as she had done as a girl. Alex had been the driving force
behind her moving off to university. Time, he said, for her to grow and find out
about herself.
It had not been long after her disclosure that she received an allowance that
Wayne had asked to borrow money from her. Of course she had given it to him.
He was a friend...
And then, after she had given Wayne the money he had asked for, she had
discovered that she needed to buy some new course books, and that stupidly she
had not realised that she had an advance rent bill due for the small flat she lived
in.
She had had to telephone Alex to ask him for an advance on her forthcoming
She had had to telephone Alex to ask him for an advance on her forthcoming
allowance. She had felt uncomfortable about doing so, but after a small pause,
when she had stammeringly explained that she had loaned some money to a
friend, he had said quietly that she could leave the matter with him.
Naively she had assumed that that meant that he would send her a cheque, and
suddenly she’d had more important things to worry about than money. David,
her friend, was dead. He had collapsed at a rave party and been rushed into
hospital, but it had been too late to save him.
His family had taken him home to bury him and they had also made it plain
that they did not want any of his university friends to attend his funeral.
‘They blame us for what happened to him,’ one of his other friends told Sylvie
angrily. ‘They’re the ones who are at fault. He never wanted to come here...’
Sylvie was too upset to make any comment when Wayne asked for another
loan, and he was moody and sharp-tempered with her, mocking her upbringing
and taunting her with her naiveté and innocence.
That hurt Sylvie but she said nothing. She knew that he would soon be leaving
the city to join the eco-warriors, who were beginning to drift away from the site
of their recent defeat over a large motorway extension and to make their way
south to meet up with another group, who were trying to persuade the
Government to give permission for some land previously owned by the Army to
be opened to the general public.
To Sylvie it sounded a good cause.
‘Come with us,’ Wayne suggested, and then he laughed sneeringly as he
added, ‘But no, of course you won’t... Mummy wouldn’t like it, would she?’
Sylvie said nothing. She was still too numbed by David’s death. University
life, which at first had seemed to promise so much freedom...which she had
hoped would be the passage which would carry her effortlessly into womanhood
and Ran’s love...was proving to be far more painful and difficult than she had
envisaged.
She had lost weight and hope, and now her work was beginning to suffer too.
The weather was hot and sticky, with the threat of thunder forever present in
the air. They needed a good storm, Sylvie reflected early one evening as she
returned to her small flat. She wasn’t hungry, and the prospect of an evening
spent over her books didn’t appeal in the least. She missed David and their
discussions and she missed Ran even more.
The day had been so hot and the flat was so airless that she showered in a vain
attempt to get cool, pulling over her naked body an old cotton shirt which had
once belonged to Alex, too drained and lethargic even to think of getting
properly dressed. Half an hour later Wayne arrived, carrying a bottle of wine
properly dressed. Half an hour later Wayne arrived, carrying a bottle of wine
which he insisted on opening even though she told him that she didn’t want
anything to drink. In the end it was easier to give in than to argue, but she stood
her ground over the drug he offered her, firmly shaking her head.
‘Please yourself,’ he told her easily, but Sylvie noticed that he didn’t have one
himself either.
‘Any chance of letting me have that money?’ he asked her a few minutes later
as he lounged on her small sofa, watching her as she tried to work. There was a
look in his eyes that made her feel uncomfortable, and not just because she
couldn’t give him the loan he wanted; no, it was more than that, and suddenly
she was acutely conscious of her nudity beneath Alex’s shirt.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t...not at the moment,’ she apologised. ‘I...I’m waiting for
Alex to send me a cheque. Wayne, I don’t want to be a bad host, but really I
have to work...’
‘You want me to leave...’
‘If you don’t mind,’ Sylvie agreed, waving her hand in the direction of the
books she had spread out on the small table in front of her.
For a moment she thought he was going to argue with her, but to her relief he
didn’t, walking instead towards the door. Eager to see him leave, Sylvie went
with him. As she opened the door for him she saw the Land Rover pulling to a
halt a little further down the road and her heart started to race with frantic
excitement. As though aware of her loss of attention, and angered by it, to her
shock Wayne suddenly reached for her, grabbing hold of her and forcing her
back against the open door, his mouth hot and wet on hers as he kissed her
roughly.
Immediately Sylvie pulled away, but not in time to stop Ran, who was
stepping out of the Land Rover and walking towards her, from seeing what had
happened, nor from witnessing how she was dressed, she saw uncomfortably as
she felt his glance scorch her shirt-clad body.
To her relief Wayne’s mobile phone had started to ring and he was already
heading for his car, his back towards her as he talked in a low voice into the
telephone.
As Ran’s long-legged, determined stride brought him closer to her door,
Sylvie could only stand and watch.
‘Ran!’ she exclaimed weakly when he reached her. ‘What a surprise. I didn’t
know... I didn’t expect...’
‘Obviously not,’ was Ran’s terse response as he stepped past her and into her
small hallway, firmly closing the door behind him as he told her sardonically,
small hallway, firmly closing the door behind him as he told her sardonically,
‘I’m sorry if my arrival is inopportune, although something tells me that it would
have been a lot less opportune had I arrived, say, half an hour ago.’
Sylvie’s face flamed as she saw the way he was looking at her and realised
what he meant. Ran thought that she and Wayne were lovers.
‘It’s not...we weren’t... Wayne is just a friend...’ she finally managed to tell
him defensively.
Ran’s eyebrows immediately shot up.
‘A friend! Tell me, Sylvie, do you normally receive your friends wearing just
one of their shirts...?’
‘This isn’t Wayne’s shirt; it’s one of Alex’s old ones,’ she protested, hotfaced.
What was Ran doing here? Why had he come to see her? Her heart started to
thump frantically.
‘Alex’s shirt?’ Ran was frowning at her as he studied her.
‘Yes... I...I like to wear it... It makes me think of home...of Alex and you. I
miss you both,’ she told him daringly, holding her breath as she waited for his
response.
There had to be some reason for his being here and his reaction to Wayne’s
presence... Was she daring to hope too much in thinking that beneath his anger
he might just be a little jealous? She was a woman now, she reminded herself,
not a child, and— ‘Home...?’ Ran cut across her increasingly buoyant thoughts.
‘I doubt your mother would enjoy hearing you describe Otel Place as your
home.’
Sylvie bit her lip. It was true that her mother did not approve of her
attachment to Otel Place and would have preferred it if, like her, Sylvie had been
a city person.
‘I’m an adult now,’ she told Ran bravely. ‘I make my own decisions, my own
choices...’
‘I see... And entertaining your friends wearing nothing but one of Alex’s shirts
is one of those choices, is it, Sylvie?’
Her face burned. There was no hint of jealousy in his voice now, only a
familiar older-brother note of censure.
‘I...I wasn’t expecting Wayne to come round. It was so hot. I had a shower
and...’
‘Wayne... This wouldn’t be the friend who’s borrowed half your last quarter’s
allowance from you, would it?’ Ran challenged her.
Sylvie blanched. Alex had obviously told him about that; she wished that he
hadn’t.
hadn’t.
‘I... He’ll pay me back.’ She defended both Wayne’s request and her own
acceptance of it.
‘Things have certainly changed since my time at university,’ Ran told her
cynically. ‘Then it was the man who did the chasing, the pursuing, not the
woman who had to secure the man’s attentions by offering him money.’
Sylvie stared at him, unable to keep either her shock or the pain his words had
caused her from showing in her eyes.
‘It isn’t like that... I haven’t been pursuing Wayne. I don’t...’
She stopped abruptly and looked away from him. How could she tell Ran of
all men...people...that she didn’t run after his sex, when he had good reason to
believe otherwise after the ways she had so blatantly revealed her feelings for
him? Now he was looking at her in that horribly cynical way, his mouth twisting
in mocking contempt.
‘Alex asked me to come,’ he told her as she remained silent. ‘He’s had to go
away on business but he asked me to come and give you this...’
As he spoke Ran was removing a cheque from his wallet which he handed to
her.
Swallowing hard, Sylvie took it from him.
‘You could have posted it to me,’ she told him in a small voice.
‘Alex wanted it delivered in person.’
‘It’s a long drive... I could... Would you like something to drink...to eat...?’
‘Coffee will be fine,’ Ran told her shortly, following her as she automatically
started to walk into her small living room.
The bottle of wine Wayne had brought with him was still on the table, her
own glass nearly empty, and Sylvie saw the hard look Ran gave it as he walked
past her work table.
A wooden divider separated the living room end of the room from the small
kitchenette, and Ran leaned against it as Sylvie bustled about making them both
a cup of coffee.
‘You’ve lost weight,’ Ran told her abruptly when she finally handed him his
mug. ‘It is just sex this friend of yours is dealing in, isn’t it, Sylvie...?’
As the meaning of his words sank in Sylvie put down her own mug of coffee,
her face burning with indignation.
‘I’m not taking drugs, if that’s what you’re suggesting,’ she told him angrily.
‘I’m not that stupid, Ran.’
She closed her eyes momentarily, thinking painfully of David and the waste of
his young life. No, drugs would never be something she would be tempted to
his young life. No, drugs would never be something she would be tempted to
use, and it hurt her that Ran thought she might.
The buoyancy and joy she had felt earlier had all gone, evaporated, burned
away in the raw heat of Ran’s anger and contempt. Suddenly she felt slightly
tired and sick—the combination of no food, alcohol and too much painful
emotion, she guessed miserably.
As tears filled her eyes she reached out impulsively, her fingers curling round
the soft fabric of his shirt as she pleaded despairingly, ‘Ran, why does it have to
be like this between us? Why...can’t we be friends...?’
‘Friends...?’
She shrank back as she heard the bitterness in his voice.
‘And what kind of friendship do you propose that we should have, Sylvie?
The same kind you share with your friend who’s just left? What’s wrong? Isn’t
he satisfying you in bed? Do you need someone to compare him with? Because
if so...’
Sylvie had had enough.
‘That’s not what I meant at all,’ she cried out. ‘I hate you, Ran... I hate you,’
she told him tearfully, the child surfacing over the adult she had wanted to
be...had wanted him to see...as she pummelled furiously at his chest, desperate to
break down the barrier he had thrown up between them.
‘Sylvie, stop it.’
As Ran caught hold of her small fists and held her away from him Sylvie
realised what she was doing. Shamefaced, she started to look away from him,
tensing in his hold when she heard him curse softly under his breath, and then
suddenly he was sliding one hand into her hair, holding her head still as he bent
his own towards hers, his breath fanning hotly against her face, her lips, his
mouth...
His mouth!
In the shock of feeling Ran’s mouth actually caressing her own, Sylvie
immediately forgot everything which had preceded it— their quarrel, his anger
and contempt—and remembered only her love for him!
Instinctively she moved closer to him, opening her mouth beneath his,
responding joyously and passionately to his kiss, naively believing that despite
everything that had happened he must care for her after all; he couldn’t be
kissing her like this and not do so, could he?
Innocently she pressed her body even closer to his, shivering in ecstatic
pleasure as she felt her own response to his nearness. Beneath Alex’s shirt, her
breasts swelled and hardened; blissfully she anticipated Ran touching them,
caressing them.
caressing them.
‘Ran.’
His name was a soft plea whispered against his lips, her tongue-tip delicately
touching them, exploring, tasting. She could feel him shuddering against her
and, greatly daring, she darted her tongue into his mouth, seeking and then
finding his, motivated, driven by instinct rather than knowledge; but the effect of
her innocent exploration on Ran was so explosive that initially it took her off
guard, half shocking and wholly exciting her. His hands started to move
possessively over her body, down her back, shaping her waist and then moving
lower to urge her lower body even closer to his as his tongue lunged repeatedly
into the soft moistness of her mouth, carrying her inexorably to the point where
she no longer had any control over either her emotions or her physical
responsiveness to him, teaching her just what a world of difference existed
between her own shyly tentative exploration of his mouth and his passionate
male possession of hers.
Against her body she could feel the hard outline of his, and her whole body
burned with virginal excitement as it registered and recognised the sensual heat
of his physical arousal; the reality of what was happening between them rolled
over her, engulfing and totally possessing her as she gave herself up willingly to
its domination. She wanted to see him, touch him, taste him, absorb the reality
of him with every single one of her senses. She wanted, needed, craved, to be
fully a part of him; to have her whole body melt in the heat of their mutual
passion so that she could be totally absorbed into him. She wanted...
With a small moan she wrenched herself away from him, her whole body
trembling as she looked into his eyes and told him, begged him, ‘Ran... Not
here... I want... Take me to bed...’ she whispered, her face flaming with the
directness of her own request. But there was pride in her eyes, not shame, as she
looked at him. Why should she feel ashamed of loving him so much? After all,
he was the one who had kissed her...held her...
‘Sylvie...’
The unexpected harshness in Ran’s voice unnerved her a little, but she refused
to pay any heed to it. Instead she walked up to him and, holding his eyes, very
deliberately reached out and touched his body, intimately, there, just where she
could see the way his arousal, his erection, was straining against his jeans.
She felt his reaction jolt right through him, as though her touch had burned
him, but the drift of her fingertips had been as light as the wings of a butterfly.
‘You want me, Ran,’ she whispered shakily, ‘and I want you...’
And then, without waiting for his response, she turned her back on him and
And then, without waiting for his response, she turned her back on him and
walked very slowly and very deliberately to her bedroom door.
Once there she turned round and looked at him gravely.
He was still standing where she had left him, his face unfamiliarly pale, his
eyes blazing with...
Quickly she looked away and then, before her courage could desert her, she
tugged open the buttons of her borrowed shirt and shrugged it off.
Standing still and naked in full view of Ran whilst he watched her in silence
was probably the hardest thing she had ever had to do, she acknowledged, but,
somehow, doing it made her feel strong and brave and very, very womanly.
There was an odd glittering brilliance in Ran’s eyes, and her stomach muscles
tensed as she saw the way his jaw tightened as he looked away from her.
‘Ran...’ she commanded softly.
‘Sylvie, for God’s sake...’
Ignoring the tough grimness in his voice, she turned her back and walked fully
into her small bedroom. Seconds later he had followed her there, slamming the
bedroom door shut as he bent to retrieve her discarded shirt.
‘Here. Put it back on,’ he ordered curtly.
Sylvie looked at him.
He was standing just over an arm’s length away from her and she could see
that despite the hardness of his jaw his body was still aroused.
Uncertainly she licked her lips, tiny flames of excited nervousness flicking
along her spine as she saw the way his glance followed her involuntary
movement.
‘You put it on for me, Ran,’ she whispered provocatively, taking a step
towards him, and then another, and then, before she could stop herself, she
discovered that she was the one looking at his mouth, and then at just where...
She heard him groan, saw out of the corner of her eye Alex’s shirt as he
hurled it away and then, blissfully, she was in his arms, her naked body pressed
close against his fully dressed one as he covered her face, her throat, her mouth
with hot, fevered kisses.
In his arms Sylvie shivered in mute delight. Every nerve-ending in her body
was singing in joy and triumph.
‘Oh Ran... Ran...’ She whispered his name ecstatically as she wrapped her
arms around him. ‘I want you so much... I love you so much...’ she told him, but
she doubted he heard the words because they were silenced before she could
properly form them as he continued to kiss her.
‘I want you to take your clothes off,’ she told him huskily when she finally
could speak. ‘I want to see all of you, Ran... I want...’
could speak. ‘I want to see all of you, Ran... I want...’
There was a hooded and unbelievably exciting look about his eyes as he
stepped back from her and started to comply with her shy demand, never
removing his glance from hers as he thrust off his clothes, his shirt first,
revealing the hard-muscled expanse of his chest with its male pattern of silky
dark hair. Sylvie caught her breath as she watched him. She had seen his bare
torso before, had seen him in fact wearing little more than a pair of swimming
shorts, but somehow this...this was different. Then his attitude towards his own
semi-nudity had been laid-back and totally sexless; now...
Sylvie licked her lips a second time as she caught the burning look he was
giving her.
His jeans followed his shirt and her stomach quivered, her heart leapt like a
spawning salmon. Against the stark whiteness of his boxer shorts his skin
gleamed, warmly tanned, and his body...his maleness...
Quickly she averted her eyes, suddenly conscious of her inexperience, her
naiveté, her virginity, but her self-consciousness was quickly forgotten, swept
away in a dizzying tide of longing and excitement. In another handful of
seconds, less, she would be free to do what she had longed to do for what felt
like for ever, free to look, to touch...to...
‘Ran...’
Helplessly she closed the distance between them, rubbing her face blissfully
against the soft warmth of his chest, breathing in the male scent of him in
bemused adoration before shyly pressing her closed lips to his skin.
He felt so good, smelled so good; tentatively she opened her eyes and then her
mouth, licking exploratively at his skin. In her ear she could feel the rapid
increase in Ran’s heartbeat. His arms tightened around her and then, suddenly,
he was picking her up, carrying her over to the bed, laying her on it, touching her
skin, stroking her body, kissing her in all the ways she had imagined and
showing her at the same time just how far short of the wondrous reality her
imagination had fallen.
In his hands her breasts swelled and ached, her nipples taut, begging to be
touched, kissed, sucked.
Unable to stop herself, Sylvie started to moan softly as his mouth tugged
gently on her breast, her body arching, twisting, filled, driven by such an
intensity of need that she herself was lost in it.
‘Ran... Ran...’
Frantically she moaned his name against his hot skin, touching, licking,
kissing as much of him as she could reach.
kissing as much of him as she could reach.
‘Ran...now...please...now,’ she heard herself demanding, even though part of
her mind wondered just why she felt so overwhelmed by her own sense of
urgency, by her own need to have the hot male strength of him buried deep
inside her. She just knew that she did.
She could feel him touching her intimately with his fingers as he kissed her
but she pushed them away. Everything that was female and intuitive within her
urged her to reject something that was only a substitute for what her body, her
nature, her essence, demanded, instinctively refusing a satisfaction which could
not give her what nature had designed her for.
No completion, no conception could take place through what he was offering
her and her body; her senses, her nature demanded what they believed was their
due.
Without any previous experience to guide her Sylvie responded to her own
instincts, lifting her hips, rubbing herself against him, moaning her urgent need
until she felt Ran’s hands move to her hips, holding her, lifting her as he finally
moved against her.
A small tremor of shock made her gasp out loud, her body tensing and her
eyes widening as she felt the reality of his body within hers. She had never really
thought about the practicalities of sex...and he felt so...so male...so...so big...
She felt him check slightly and saw him frown, saw the recognition of her
inexperience, her virginity, dawn in his eyes, but as he tried to draw back from
her Sylvie wrapped herself around him, holding him, and then it was too late;
then his body took over, demanding the satisfaction hers had been promising it.
It was everything and more that Sylvie had imagined—bliss,
heaven...perfection, even if afterwards, as she curled up happily next to Ran, she
did feel slightly sore... Slightly sore but oh, so deliciously pleased with herself.
She was a woman now. Ran’s woman... They would be married at Otel Place, of
course, and Alex would give her away... Happily she drifted off to sleep.
In the morning when she woke up she was in bed alone, and at first she
thought she must have dreamt the entire incident, but when she went padding
into her living room she found Ran standing there fully dressed, staring out of
the window. Overjoyed, she rushed over to him, flinging her arms around him,
but instead of responding as she had expected, instead of turning round and
holding her, kissing her, picking her up and carrying her back to bed, he firmly
disengaged her arms and pushed her sternly away.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ she demanded, not understanding. ‘Last night—’
‘Last night was a mistake,’ Ran interrupted her curtly. ‘It should never have
happened and I wish to God... Why didn’t you tell me you were still a virgin?’
‘I... I...’ Sylvie could feel her eyes starting to fill with tears.
This wasn’t how it should be—Ran aloof, cold and distant, almost accusing.
‘Ran, I love you,’ she told him shakily. ‘I want us to be together...married...’
‘Married? You’re a child still, Sylvie... Your mother...’
‘I’m not a child, I’m nearly twenty,’ she protested frantically.
‘You’re a child,’ Ran insisted, ‘and if I’d known... Why didn’t you tell me?
Why did you let me think that you and Wayne were lovers?’
‘I did tell you but you wouldn’t listen. I thought you’d be pleased...that you’d
want to be the first...the only one...’ she told him pathetically.
‘Pleased? Oh, my God.’ Ran started to laugh, a harshly bitter laugh. ‘The only
thing that could make this appalling situation any worse would be to discover
that you’re pregnant...’
Sylvie’s face went white. Last night, lost in the throes of her love and their
shared intimacy, she had craved the conception of his child, and to have to listen
to him now, telling her that that was the last thing he wanted, that she was the
last person he wanted, was the cruellest blow she had ever experienced.
‘I’m on the pill,’ she told him quietly, ducking her head as she explained,
‘There were... I had... My doctor recommended it for other reasons.’
It was the truth, and it made her blood run cold now to remember how
unwilling she had been to take it. Thank God she had. To have exposed a child,
her child, to the dislike, the bitterness she could see in Ran’s eyes and hear in his
voice would have been more than she could bear.
All her dreams and her hopes lay in ruins around her, destroyed by Ran’s
rejection of her.
‘Go and get dressed, please,’ she heard him demanding. ‘I have to leave soon,
but first we need to talk.’
Get dressed!
Suddenly she felt as acutely self-conscious, as guilty as the first Eve must
have done. As she tugged on her clothes in the privacy of her bedroom she knew
that she had paid a heavy price for the intimacy of Ran’s lovemaking—the loss
not just of her innocence, but the destruction of her love, her faith, her belief in
herself as a woman. She felt as though she never wanted to see Ran again, as
though she could never bear to face him again, as though someone had wrenched
away a protective curtain. She saw that last night could have been nothing more
to him than the mere satisfying of a sexual itch, that she had been nothing more
to him than someone, a body, to relieve his sexual frustration with.
As she walked back into the living room he handed her a mug of coffee.
Taking it from him, she was careful to make sure that not only did her fingers
not touch his but that they did not even touch the mug where his had done. She
felt scorched, besmirched, soiled from the experience of knowing just how little
he had actually wanted her. What she wanted more than anything else now was
to get him out of here, out of her flat, out of her life, out of her heart for ever.
‘Sylvie...’
‘I don’t want to talk about it, Ran,’ she told him proudly, turning her back to
him. ‘It happened. It was a mistake, we both know that, but a girl has to lose her
virginity some time...’ She gave a small painful shrug. ‘Wayne will be pleased.
Like you, he didn’t want to be the first...’
What on earth was she saying...implying...? Sylvie wondered sickly as her
pride demanded, commanded, forced her to retaliate, lie and to convince Ran
that he hadn’t hurt her, that he couldn’t possibly have the power to hurt her.
‘You begged me to make love to you so that you could have sex with
Wayne?’
She could hear disbelief and something else in the harsh fury of Ran’s voice,
but shakily she ignored it, holding up her head as she turned round to confront
him.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ she agreed.
‘I don’t believe you,’ Ran told her flatly, adding grimly, ‘You said you loved
me. You were even talking about marriage...’
Sylvie gave a small dismissive shrug.
‘Isn’t that what a virgin is supposed to do?’ She pulled an uncaring face.
‘How could I possibly love you, Ran? Why should I love you? All you ever do is
criticise me. I want you to leave...’
‘Sylvie, you can’t just—’
‘Wayne will be coming round soon,’ she fibbed, adding carelessly, ‘He’s been
telling me for ages to find someone to...to lose my virginity with. He’s very
experienced and he likes his lovers to know...to know what sex is all
about...Wayne’s the man I love.’
What was she saying? Sylvie could hardly believe the lies she was hearing
herself speak, but Ran seemed to have no difficulty in accepting them.
Slamming down his barely touched mug of coffee, he came towards her.
Immediately Sylvie backed away.
‘I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss,’ she told him, adding
flippantly, ‘It’s no big deal after all—’
‘No...maybe not to you,’ Ran interrupted her grimly.
‘No...maybe not to you,’ Ran interrupted her grimly.
‘Not to you either,’ Sylvie told him. Her phone started to ring and she hurried
towards it, telling him over her shoulder, ‘That will be Wayne...’
It wasn’t, and she knew that the poor double-glazing salesperson must have
been astonished and probably shocked by the tone of her conversation as she
overrode his sales pitch, telling him that she had done what he wanted and that
she couldn’t wait to see him, to be with him properly, if he knew what she
meant. Blowing noisy kisses into the receiver, she ended the call and then turned
to Ran, telling him coolly, ‘Wayne’s on his way, so unless you want to stand and
watch to see just how quick a learner I am...’
She was still smiling—the hurting, false, ridiculous smile she had pinned to
her face as she’d challenged him—when she heard the door slam behind him,
and then continued to wear it for several minutes after he had gone, despite the
fact that tears were flooding from her eyes.
It was later that morning that she actually bumped into Wayne, completely by
chance. In the two hours since Ran had left she had had more than enough time
to dwell on what had happened and what she had said, and by the time she saw
Wayne she had convinced herself that it was totally impossible for her ever to
see Ran again...ever to see anyone again who was even remotely connected with
him.
‘Hi there, doll,’ Wayne greeted her with a grin. ‘Looks like it’s time to say
goodbye. I’m meeting up with the eco-warriors this afternoon.’
Swiftly Sylvie made up her mind, seizing on the opportunity to make her
escape, not just from Ran but from everything that was associated with him—her
love, her shame, and her fear that he would somehow guess that she had lied to
him.
‘I’m coming with you,’ she told Wayne determinedly, adding before he could
argue, ‘My stepbrother has sent me some money so I can afford to support
myself.’
‘How much has he sent you?’ Wayne questioned her interestedly.
An hour later, having packed everything that she would need, Sylvie locked
the door of her flat behind her and went to join Wayne, who was waiting in his
car.
She was a new Sylvie now, a different Sylvie. Ran, her love for him, the life
she had once led—all were in the past and best forgotten.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A NOISE in the garden outside her window brought Sylvie out of her reverie.
Startled, she let her unfocused gaze sweep the moonlit darkness and then sweep
it again, her body stiffening as she saw Ran turn away and disappear into the
shadows.
How long had he been standing there watching her? She knew from his
clothes that he must have been working, probably checking for poachers who,
she guessed, were as much a potential threat here as they had often been on her
stepbrother’s estate.
Shivering, she headed back to her bed. It was gone three o’clock in the
morning and as she touched her face she realised that it was wet with her tears.
Why in heaven’s name did she have to be so pathetic...standing there with
tears pouring down her face whilst she relived the pain of the past? Oh, but she
envied Ran. Her mouth twisted into a bitter smile as she tried to imagine him
ever crying a single tear over her.
What had happened to her will-power, her strength; to the promise she had
made herself before coming here—that things were going to be different, that
never again would Ran be allowed to treat her with the same contempt he had
shown her when they had faced one another as foes, enemies, on opposite sides,
when she had allowed the eco-warriors to invade Alex’s land, to destroy the
pretty woodland glade that she had once worked so hard to help create...just as
Ran had destroyed her love and also destroyed her?
He had hated her for that almost as much as she had hated him. She had seen
it in his eyes when he’d insisted on joining the others to see her off to America.
‘Why are you here?’ she had taunted.
‘Why do you think?’ he had responded, and of course she had known. He
wanted to be sure that she really was leaving.
And now she was back—back to make the unwanted and agonisingly painful
discovery that some things didn’t change, that some loves didn’t die.
She wasn’t twenty any longer; it was impossible for her to run away now, to
take refuge in disappearing, as she’d tried to escape herself and her love. She had
a job to do, responsibilities, and besides, what had running away the first time
actually achieved? It hadn’t stopped her loving him, had it?
*
In the protective darkness of the moonlit garden Ran leaned back against the
trunk of a concealing tree and closed his eyes. The discovery that Sylvie was
going to be representing the Trust had reinforced all the irony he had felt when
he had first learnt of his unexpected inheritance. He might not be a millionaire,
but his lifestyle now and his prospects were certainly a far cry from what they
had been when Sylvie’s mother had insisted on Alex speaking to him about
Sylvie’s youthful crush on him.
He had been aware, of course, of her feelings, aware of them and aware too
that at seventeen she was far too young, far too emotionally immature for the
sort of relationship that he, as a man in his twenties, might have wanted.
‘What the hell does Sylvie’s mother think I’m going to do?’ he had demanded
angrily as he’d paced the floor of Alex’s library.
Sympathetically Alex had shaken his head as he’d told him quietly, ‘This isn’t
exactly easy for me, Ran. You’re my friend as well as—’
‘Your employee...’ Angrily Ran had grimaced. ‘No doubt as far as Sylvie’s
mother is concerned I’m only one step removed from being a servant,’ he had
expostulated scornfully.
Wisely, Alex had said nothing, allowing him to express his ire and distaste
instead.
‘You must share her concern,’ he had concluded, ‘otherwise you wouldn’t
have raised the subject.’
‘Yes, in some ways I do,’ Alex had agreed steadily. ‘Not, I hardly need say,
because I think you are in any way socially inferior to Sylvie. I know your
family background, Ran, and your lineage, and if there’s any shortfall of social
acceptability here it’s far more on Sylvie’s side than yours. But I hope you know
me well enough to know that that kind of attitude is totally abhorrent to me. No,
my concern lies in a rather different direction and, in all honesty, it’s Sylvie I
should more properly be speaking to and not you, but...well, she isn’t my sister,
there’s no blood tie between us, and teenage girls and their emotions are, I’m
afraid, somewhat outside my own limited experience. So...the truth is that Sylvie
believes herself in love with you with all the ferocity that teenagers do believe in
such things. For your sake as much as for hers I feel that such feelings are best
not...encouraged. She’s young and very vulnerable and I should hate to see her
hurt...to see either of you hurt,’ he had amended gently when he had seen Ran’s
expression.
‘What the hell do you think I’m going to do to her?’ Ran had exploded. ‘Take
‘What the hell do you think I’m going to do to her?’ Ran had exploded. ‘Take
her to bed and...?’
‘Is it really so impossible that you might be tempted to?’ Alex had asked him
quietly. ‘I’m not criticising or condemning, Ran; physically she’s mature and she
loves you—or believes she does—’
‘She’s got a crush on me that she’ll soon grow out of,’ Ran had interrupted
him grimly. ‘That’s what you want me to say, isn’t it? And I should keep my
hands off her until she does grow out of it...out of me... But what if I feel
differently, Alex? What if I want...?’ He had shaken his head, angry with himself
as well as with Alex. More angry with himself than he was with Alex who he
knew was only doing what he saw as his duty by his stepsister.
‘You’re right, she’s a child still, and the sooner she grows up and forgets all
about me the better,’ Ran had told him hardily. ‘And as for taking her to bed,’ he
had thrown at Alex as he turned to leave, ‘well, there’s always a cure for that.’
And so there had been, for a while at least, until he had grown sickened and
shamed by the emptiness of the sexual encounters he was sharing with women
who meant as little to him emotionally as he did to them. And, even with that
form of release, keeping the promise he had made to Alex and himself hadn’t
been easy. There had been times, far too many of them, when he had nearly
weakened, like when he had fished her out of the muddy lake and taken her back
to his cottage. Oh, God, the temptation then to take what she was so innocently
offering him, to take on the role not so much of seducer as sorcerer, transmuting
the frail strength of her youthful crush on him into the enduring bond of real
adult love.
But, despite the temptation which kissing her had presented, somehow he had
always managed to tell himself of the differences that lay between them in age,
experience and in prospects. He loved his job and wouldn’t have wanted to
change it for anything or anyone, but there was no denying that to expect a girl,
brought up as Sylvie had been with every conceivable luxury, to move into the
kind of accommodation estate managers normally occupied, to live the often
lonely lifestyle that would be hers when he was working... He just couldn’t do it.
Had she been older, wiser...poorer...it might have been different. And so he had
resisted the temptation to give in to her desire and his own love, and he had
praised himself for his selflessness, until the fateful day he had taken her Alex’s
cheque.
To see her there, outside her flat, dressed only in a man’s shirt—a shirt
through which, with the hot summer sunshine slanting down on her, he could see
quite plainly the shape and fullness of her breasts and even the dark aureoles of
her nipples—to watch her with another man, a man who he had immediately
her nipples—to watch her with another man, a man who he had immediately
assumed was her lover, had created within him an anger, a bitterness, a jealousy
that had rent wide apart his self-control.
To discover later, too late, that there had been no other lover, to realise what
he had done and why, had filled him with such self-loathing that he could hardly
endure the weight of his own guilt.
‘I love you,’ Sylvie had told him innocently. ‘I want us to be together...’
He had spent the previous week with Alex, discussing ways and means in
which they could reduce the cost of running the estate. Amongst them had been
his own suggestion that they rent out his cottage and that he move into rooms in
the main house. He knew that if Alex accepted his suggestion he wouldn’t even
have a proper home to offer her. He could just imagine how her mother would
react to that, to the idea of her daughter living in rooms above the stables of the
house where she had been brought up. And Sylvie was still so young, still so
naive...still at university with the whole of her life in front of her. What right had
he to use what had happened between them to tie her to him? No, better to let her
think that he didn’t want her than to have her turn to him five or even ten years
down the line to tell him that she had made a mistake; to accuse him of putting
his own emotions before her needs, of taking advantage of her youth and
inexperience.
And he’d been glad he had done so when she had dropped the bombshell
about her relationship with Wayne.
Somehow that was something he had just not expected, but he had seen from
the expression in her eyes and the vehemence in her voice that she meant every
word she was saying. And so he had walked away, telling himself that it was for
the best for her, best that somehow, some time, some way he should learn how to
forget her.
But, of course, he had never done so.
And now here she was, back in his life, a woman now and not a girl, and what
a woman, how much of a woman, the woman whom he loved—and who hated
him.
It had hurt him more than he could bear that she should think he would
actually try to cheat anyone... Did her precious Lloyd know how lucky he was or
how much he, Ran, would give simply to hold her in his arms and hear her
telling him that she loved him? He would give everything he had, everything he
was...
What a fool he was. She didn’t love him, she loathed him.
Watching her just now on his way back from checking on the fences, on the
look-out for potential poachers, he had ached so badly for her, so very, very
badly. There was no point in him going to bed; soon the false dawn would be
lightening the night sky, and besides, there was only one reason he wanted to be
in bed right now and it had nothing to do with sleeping or being alone.
Kissing her tonight had opened the floodgates on his love for her and his body
still ached with the longing it had evoked. How the hell he was going to get
through the next few months he had no idea. Grimly he turned away from the
house and the temptation of Sylvie’s bedroom, Sylvie’s bed, Sylvie herself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘HI, HON, it’s me, Lloyd.’
Sylvie smiled warmly as she recognised her boss’s voice.
‘Lloyd,’ she responded, ‘how are you?’
‘Fine, I guess. Listen, I’ve got to come over to England on some other
business and I thought whilst I was there I’d drive up to Derbyshire and see how
you’re getting on with Haverton Hall.’
Sylvie laughed. She wasn’t in the least deceived. Lloyd was like a child with a
new toy whenever he acquired a new property, saying every time that he wasn’t
going to visit it again until all the renovation work had been complete and then
being totally unable to resist checking on how things were going. Or not so
much checking on how things were going, but sneaking another look, like a
child sneaking a look at a hidden-away Christmas present just to check that it
was still there and that he was actually going to receive it. As Sylvie well knew,
no matter how many properties Lloyd acquired, he still continued to fall in love
with new ones, and Haverton Hall was well worth falling in love with.
This morning she had an appointment with the firm who were going to work
on the restoration of the carving and the plasterwork. Based in London, the
artisans the firm employed had all completed their training at the same Italian
firm that Sylvie had used when renovating the palazzo. She had seen samples
and photographs of their work and knew that no matter how expensive they
might be—and they would be—they were the right people to work on Haverton
Hall.
‘When are you arriving?’ she asked Lloyd, still smiling.
‘I’m booked on today’s Concorde,’ he told her.
Sylvie heard the door to the small office she had organised for herself at
Haverton Hall open behind her, but she didn’t turn round. She didn’t need to; she
knew from the reaction of her own body that it was Ran who had walked in.
Ever since the night he had kissed her and they had argued, they had treated one
another with cold distance. She had gone downstairs that morning to discover a
neat file of papers and bank statements awaiting her which proved conclusively
that Ran had paid for the work done on the Rectory himself.
She had apologised, very formally and very curtly, and then pointed out that
he wouldn’t have been the first client to take advantage of Lloyd’s generosity.
‘I haven’t taken advantage of it,’ he’d reminded her acidly, before walking
away from her.
Since then, the contact between them had been as minimal as both of them
could make it.
‘Oh, Lloyd, that’s wonderful,’ she told her employer truthfully. ‘I’ve missed
you.’ It was true. She had missed him and suddenly something occurred to her.
‘Look, I’ve got to come down to London to see some people. Why don’t we
drive back together? I’m going to have to stay overnight anyway... The
Annabelle?’ she responded, when he told her where he was planning to stay, and
then teased him, ‘Isn’t that a bit romantic...?’
‘I’ve heard some good things about its designer,’ Lloyd responded mocksternly. ‘My interest in the place is purely professional.’
By the time Sylvie had completed her telephone call Ran had gone. Good; the
less contact she had with him the better. She much preferred her solitary evening
meals to the trauma of spending any time with him, even if she did sometimes
wonder where he was eating and with whom and if he stayed with her all night.
It had to be Vicky, of course. The woman was forever telephoning him, purring
smugly down the line whenever Sylvie answered, demanding, ‘Tell Ran to ring
me; he’s got my number.’
She was sure he had, Sylvie had decided acidly, him and every other man who
was subjected to the divorcee’s high octane blend of sexuality.
*
The shop occupied by Messrs Phillips and Company, master gilders and
restorers, was down a narrow alley, a small courtyard of buildings that time
seemed to have forgotten.
Walking into the courtyard was like walking back in time, Sylvie decided as
she gasped in delight at the Elizabethan framework of the narrow buildings with
their outward-jutting upper storeys.
‘They belong to one of the royal estates,’ the chief partner in the business,
Stuart Phillips, informed Sylvie. ‘And they’re very strict, not just about the
maintenance of the building but about who they take as tenants as well. We got
our tenancy after we had been commissioned to work on one of the royal
palaces.’
An hour later, after Sylvie had discussed Haverton Hall and the work required
on it, he turned to her and told her, ‘We can do it, but it’s going to be very
costly.’
‘Very costly is fine,’ Sylvie assured him and then smiled at him as she added
softly, ‘Exorbitantly costly isn’t; there’s enough work here to keep you in
business for nearly twelve months...guaranteed work.’
‘Our order books are already full,’ he told her urbanely.
‘Not according to my contacts,’ Sylvie retaliated. ‘The way I heard it, one of
your biggest contracts has been withdrawn due to lack of funds.’
‘I don’t know who your informants are...’ Stuart Phillips began huffily, but
Sylvie stopped him.
‘Let’s be honest with one another, shall we?’ she suggested firmly. ‘We’re
both busy people with no time to waste on silly point-scoring. You’re the best in
the business in this country and I want the best for Haverton Hall, but...there are
other firms...’
‘We shall need a guarantee that the contract will be seen through to its end,’
he told her, frowning. ‘I don’t like carrying all my eggs in one basket...’
‘You shall have it,’ Sylvie assured him.
‘Mmm... From the records you’ve shown us the original workmanship was
done to a very high standard, especially the wood-carving.’
‘If not Grinling Gibbons himself, then certainly one of his most skilful pupils,’
Sylvie agreed.
‘The records you’ve got of the original designed decor are excellent; they
even list the furniture and each room’s colour scheme,’ he assessed.
She had Ran to thank for that, Sylvie acknowledged. Normally it fell to her lot
to search painstakingly through the records to put together a composite picture of
what a property had originally looked like. On this occasion Ran had done all
that spadework for her. Not that she had allowed him to see how impressed she
was. She wasn’t prepared to do anything that would allow him to think he had
some sort of advantage over her.
When the time came for her and Stuart Phillips to part company Sylvie had his
agreement to concentrate exclusively on the work on Haverton Hall, even though
she had had to agree to a substantial bonus payment to get him to do so. She
made sure she held tightly to budget where she could, but she would never take
the less expensive option when it came to employing the best craftsmen. It
would be worth it, she exulted as she left the courtyard. Haverton Hall was worth
it.
She had arranged to meet Lloyd at his hotel for afternoon tea. He loved that
type of tradition and, as he happily informed her an hour later when she was
shown up to his private suite, ‘No other country serves an afternoon tea quite
shown up to his private suite, ‘No other country serves an afternoon tea quite
like England...’
‘I should hope not,’ was Sylvie’s tongue-in-cheek response, then she started to
tell him about her visit to the gilders.
‘You’re sure they’ll be as good as the Italians?’ he asked her at one point,
suddenly very professional and alert.
‘Better,’ Sylvie told him simply. ‘You see, the original work on the house was
carried out by English workmen who had trained in Italy, rather like Messrs
Phillips, artisans, and my guess is that their workmanship, although Italian in
conception, would have had a decidedly English interpretation to it—where an
Italian craftsman might have carved cherubs and allegorical scenes from the
great masters, an English craftsman would have carved animals and birds, things
from nature.’
‘Why don’t you stay here tonight?’ Lloyd suggested once they had finished
talking about her visit to Messrs Phillips and Company. ‘I can ring down and
book you a room.’
Sylvie shook her head.
‘No, thanks; I’ve already arranged to stay overnight with my mother.’
Knowing that Lloyd had a business dinner organized, Sylvie left just after five
o’clock, having arranged to pick him up at ten in the morning.
She drove to her mother’s, suffering the latter’s perfumed embrace after her
mother’s maid had let her into the apartment.
‘Darling, it’s my bridge evening this evening. I could cancel it but...’
‘No, please don’t.’ Sylvie checked her mother with a smile.
‘Well, at least we can have dinner together and you can tell me all your news.
How is dear Ran? So exciting, his inheritance...the title...’
Sylvie’s smile faded.
‘Ran’s fine,’ she told her mother, adding dismissively, ‘We don’t see an awful
lot of one another; we’re both busy.’
‘Oh, darling, such a shame,’ her mother protested.
‘I...’ Sylvie gave her a direct look. ‘At one time you thoroughly disapproved
of him.’ And my feelings for him, Sylvie could have added, but she didn’t.
Her mother made a small moue. ‘But, darling, that was before...’
‘Before what?’ Sylvie challenged her wryly. ‘Before he inherited the title...’
‘Well, these things do make a difference.’ Her mother defended herself as
Sylvie gave her a quizzical look. ‘Ran is now an extremely eligible man.’
‘Mother! These days a woman doesn’t need an eligible man,’ Sylvie told her.
‘We can support ourselves.’
‘Every woman needs a man to love her, Sylvie,’ her mother told her sadly. ‘I
still miss your stepfather.’
Immediately Sylvie was contrite. Her mother was old-fashioned and out of
touch in her ideas, her thinking, but she had genuinely loved both Sylvie’s own
father and her second husband, Alex’s father, and Sylvie knew that despite the
business with which she filled her days she was sometimes lonely.
‘Have you seen Alex and Mollie recently?’ she questioned, wanting to turn
the conversation into happier channels.
‘Oh, yes,’ her mother responded immediately and warmly, ‘and they’ve
invited me to Otel Place for Christmas.’
Several hours later, as she prepared for an early night, Sylvie wondered what
Ran was doing. Not going to bed on his own if his recent behaviour pattern was
to be followed. Angrily, she closed her eyes. What did it matter to her who Ran
spent his nights with or how?
What did it matter?
All the world, that was how much it mattered, but no one but her must ever
know that.
Even before he had kissed her she had known the truth. Just the way her body,
her senses, her being, had reacted the moment she had set eyes on him again had
told her that what she had tried to dismiss as a mere childish crush had
somewhere, somehow, against all the odds and certainly against her own will,
turned into real adult love. She ached for Ran—to be at one with him, at peace
with him, to be loved by him, to share his life, to bear his children—with such an
intensity that sometimes she didn’t know quite how she was going to be able to
go on bearing it.
Live one day at a time, that was her present motto; just get through each
minute, each hour, just go on telling herself that ultimately it was going to get
better, that once the work on Haverton Hall was finished and she was out of
Ran’s orbit she would be able to rebuild her defences and, with them, her own
life. That was what she told herself, but deep down inside she wasn’t sure she
truly believed it.
*
‘We’ll have to call at the Rectory first,’ Sylvie warned Lloyd as she drove north.
‘I don’t have the keys to Haverton Hall with me.’
‘That’s fine by me,’ Lloyd assured her. ‘How are you and Ran getting along,
by the way?’
by the way?’
‘He’s a client of the Trust,’ Sylvie pointed out severely.
‘So you haven’t fallen in love with him, then,’ Lloyd teased her. Somehow
Sylvie managed to force a responsive smile. Lloyd meant no harm. He took a
paternal interest in her and often told her, only semi-jokingly, that it was time
she fell in love. He had no idea about the real state of affairs between her and
Ran, the real state of her heart, her emotions.
‘Say, this is really beautiful countryside,’ he commented as they drove
through Derbyshire.
‘But still not as beautiful as Haverton,’ Sylvie teased him.
Immediately he was off, enthusing about the house and its architecture.
Sylvie’s heart sank when she pulled up outside the Rectory and saw that Ran’s
Land Rover was there. There was another car outside as well and Sylvie’s heart
dropped even further when she recognised it. Perhaps with her away and the
opportunity to have the house to themselves, Ran and Vicky had decided on a
change of venue and had spent the night together here.
Ran had given her a set of keys to the Rectory, and rather than disturb him she
used them to unlock the door, but to her discomfort, as they walked through the
hall, Ran and Vicky were just coming downstairs.
‘Hi there,’ Lloyd began genially, but before Ran could say anything his
telephone began to ring.
‘Excuse me a moment, will you?’ he said apologetically, leaving the three of
them together as he hurried into the library to answer the telephone.
‘I don’t think we’ve met,’ Vicky began coyly, ignoring Sylvie to smile
provocatively at Lloyd.
‘Lloyd, Vicky Edwards.’ Sylvie introduced them mechanically. ‘Lloyd is my
boss and—’
‘So you work for the Trust as well, do you?’ Vicky commented.
‘Lloyd is the Trust,’ Sylvie told her, thoroughly exasperated by the other
woman’s manner.
‘Oh...how very interesting,’ she responded softly, immediately crossing the
hall to Lloyd’s side, turning her back on Sylvie. ‘You must tell me more...’
Quite how Vicky managed to invite herself to join them when they went to
Haverton Sylvie wasn’t quite sure, but invite herself she most certainly had.
Lloyd obviously didn’t share her own dislike of her, she recognised as she saw
the bemused male appreciation with which he was regarding the older woman.
By the time Ran rejoined them Vicky was purring seductively to Lloyd.
‘So you’re staying at the Annabelle. I’ve heard it’s the last word in luxury...’
‘It sure is,’ Lloyd agreed enthusiastically. ‘My suite is really something else,
‘It sure is,’ Lloyd agreed enthusiastically. ‘My suite is really something else,
isn’t it, Sylvie?’
‘Yes, it is,’ Sylvie agreed colourlessly. Out of the corner of her eye she could
see Ran switching his concentration from Lloyd and Vicky to her, frowning as
he did so.
It wasn’t her fault that his lady-friend, his lover, was showing an interest in
Lloyd... Sylvie had seen women expressing such an interest before, of course;
Lloyd was an extremely wealthy man and a very, very charming one. In the past
he had often made a joke of their pursuit of him, warning Sylvie that it was part
of her job to keep them at bay. For his age he was extremely fit and physically
he looked attractive. He still had a full head of silver hair and his eyes held a
warm twinkle, but to prefer him to Ran... Or was it perhaps his bank balance that
was attracting the other woman? Sylvie wondered unkindly.
In the end, all four of them drove over to Haverton Hall in Ran’s Land Rover,
with Vicky pulling a small face as she coaxed Lloyd to sit in the back with her.
‘This really is the most uncomfortable old thing, Ran,’ she complained,
adding to Lloyd in a sugary sweet voice, ‘I keep telling him he should buy
himself a decent four-wheel drive. In all the years I’ve known Ran, he’s never
owned a decent car. You Americans make such wonderful ones...so luxurious
and comfortable...’
‘Well, I guess we have the country for them,’ Lloyd agreed with a smile. ‘You
and Ran are old friends then?’
Vicky pouted.
‘Well, we certainly go back a long way—although I only moved to
Derbyshire a short time ago and, by coincidence, I discovered that Ran was one
of my new neighbours and we were able to renew old acquaintances.’
Some coincidence, Sylvie reflected ironically, irritated by Vicky’s behaviour.
What on earth did Ran see in her? Surely he could see what type of woman she
was—how unworthy of him she was?
When they arrived at Haverton Hall, Vicky made a big performance of
climbing out of the Land Rover, thanking Lloyd effusively for helping her,
leaning heavily on his arm as she complained about the uneven gravel on the
forecourt.
‘You should have worn flat shoes like Sylvie,’ Ran told her.
‘Flat shoes...? Ugh, no, never.’ She shuddered. ‘I always wear high heels,’ she
confided to Lloyd. ‘I think they’re so much more feminine.’ Lifting her foot, she
held out one slim, elegant ankle for his inspection.
‘Very pretty,’ Lloyd approved, ‘but you’d better hang onto me. We don’t want
‘Very pretty,’ Lloyd approved, ‘but you’d better hang onto me. We don’t want
you to hurt yourself.’
As they toured the house, Sylvie’s irritation with Vicky grew. Every time she
made a comment, Vicky had to chip in, diverting Lloyd’s attention from the
house to herself, accompanying each successful attempt to do so with a look of
acid triumph in Sylvie’s direction. Really, the woman was totally impossible.
They weren’t in competition for his approval...his affections, for goodness’ sake.
She was simply trying to do her job. If Ran’s lover wanted to flirt with Lloyd,
that was totally her business and Ran’s. All that Sylvie wished was that she had
chosen another time to do so.
‘The Annabelle sounds the most fabulous hotel. I’d love to see it... I’ve been
planning to go to London for some time... I need some new clothes and there’s
nowhere in Derbyshire.’ Vicky gave a small, fastidious shudder as they finally
headed back to the Land Rover.
‘You were? Say, why don’t you come back with me, then? Sylvie’s going to
drive me to Manchester airport and—’ Lloyd began politely.
‘Come to London and stay at the Annabelle as your guest...?’ Vicky pounced
immediately. ‘Oh, how wonderful and how kind of you. I’d love to...’ she
breathed huskily.
Sylvie, who guessed that Lloyd had simply been suggesting that they travel
together, could only marvel at the other woman’s sang-froid and her cheek. She
would never have dared to behave as Vicky had just done. But Lloyd, far from
looking displeased, was almost beaming from ear to ear.
Sylvie waited until they were back at the Rectory and Vicky had disappeared
to ‘tidy herself up’ before taking Lloyd to one side, out of Ran’s earshot, to warn
him discreetly, ‘Lloyd, Vicky is Ran’s girlfriend and I don’t think—’
‘So far as I am concerned, Vicky is a free agent. If she wants to go to London
with Lloyd then that’s up to her.’ Sylvie bit her lip as Ran interrupted her. He
had been on the other side of the hallway, but then his hearing had always been
extremely sharp. It went with his job.
‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to go home and collect a few things,’ Vicky
apologised gushingly to Lloyd as she came back downstairs. ‘I don’t want to
keep you waiting.’
Grimly Sylvie watched as she batted heavily mascaraed eyelashes in Lloyd’s
direction.
‘No problem,’ he assured her. ‘There are a few things Sylvie and I need to
discuss and I guess Ran too. You take all the time you need, my dear.’
‘I expect the Annabelle is very dressy,’ Vicky murmured appreciatively.
‘Charming woman,’ Lloyd commented warmly after she had gone.
‘Charming woman,’ Lloyd commented warmly after she had gone.
‘Yes, she is,’ Ran agreed.
‘About as charming as a piranha,’ Sylvie muttered between clenched teeth
behind their backs before reminding Lloyd curtly, ‘I’ve got preliminary
estimates for some of the work here if you want to see them. I have faxed copies
off to New York, but...’
‘Sylvie, you’re so efficient,’ Lloyd told her, smiling benignly at her. ‘I keep
telling her, Ran, that she needs to relax a bit more...have fun... When was the last
time you spent a day shopping for yourself?’ he challenged her before she could
say anything.
‘I shopped in Italy,’ she told him dismissively.
‘Yes, I know. I was there, remember...? I took her to Armani,’ he told Ran.
‘And what did she do? She told me that the clothes were far too expensive. What
do you do with a woman like that?’
‘They were too expensive,’ Sylvie told him defensively. Too expensive for
her at any rate, and although she knew that Lloyd would happily have offered to
buy an outfit for her he was still her employer and she had no intention of taking
advantage of his generosity. Even so, it hurt to know that he was comparing her
to Vicky Edwards and perhaps finding her less feminine, less womanly, and in
front of Ran. It was plain what both of them were thinking: that somehow she
was less fun than the other woman—less of a woman. Well, let them think what
they liked, she decided angrily. She was there to do a job, not to...to flirt and bat
her eyelashes.
‘She’s a wonderful girl,’ she heard Lloyd telling Ran as she went to get the
papers she wanted him to see. ‘But she works too hard, takes life too seriously.’
*
After she had dropped Lloyd and Vicky off at the airport, her head aching from
listening to the other woman’s flirtatious comments, instead of heading back to
Derbyshire, Sylvie drove on impulse to Manchester itself and parked the
Discovery outside the Emporio Armani boutique that a kindly taxi driver had
directed her to.
A pretty, dark-haired girl who could have been Italian but wasn’t brought her
the trouser suit she had seen in the window.
The diffusion range might be cheaper than the designer originals but it was
still expensive. Even so... As she turned and twisted in front of the mirror,
studying her reflection in the flatteringly cut suit, Sylvie admitted that she
couldn’t resist it. Neither could she resist the matching shirt that went with it.
couldn’t resist it. Neither could she resist the matching shirt that went with it.
So, she was dull and boring and unfeminine, was she? Well, she might not
wear three-inch heels, and she certainly didn’t flutter her eyelashes, but she was
still a woman...very much a woman...more than woman enough to ache with
longing for Ran. Oh, yes, she was more than woman enough for that!
CHAPTER NINE
‘YOU’VE been a long time. What happened?’
Guiltily Sylvie spun round, dropping her Armani carrier bag as she did so. She
had arrived back at the Rectory five minutes ago and had decided to go straight
to her room, but she had just reached the top of the stairs when Ran emerged
from his room, his curt comment coupled with her own guilt startling her.
‘You’ve been shopping,’ he said sharply in disbelief, answering his own
question as he saw the bag she had just dropped and the contents spilled out
from it onto the carpet.
‘What if I have?’ Sylvie retorted defensively, bending down to gather up her
purchases but not fast enough to match Ran, who had bent and got there before
her, scooping up the soft, expensive cloth and then, pausing, shocking her by
removing it completely from the carrier. He studied what she had bought and
then lifted his gaze to her flushed face.
‘New clothes. Now, then, I wonder what motivated you to do that?’ he asked
her softly.
‘What I choose to do with my time and my money is no business of yours,’
Sylvie snapped sharply at him.
But he ignored her, taunting her softly, ‘What exactly are you trying to do,
Sylvie? Compete with Vicky? You can’t. You don’t have the right type
of...assets.’
Furious with him, and with herself because his taunting remarks weren’t just
making her angry, they were hurting her badly as well, Sylvie exploded into
angry self-defence.
‘If by “the right type of assets” you mean I don’t use my womanhood, my
sexuality, as some kind of...of cheap means of attracting men, then I’m glad to
say that I don’t,’ she agreed.
‘Really? Then why go and buy this?’ Ran challenged her softly, indicating the
trouser suit.
‘I bought it on impulse,’ she told him quickly. Too quickly, she realised as she
saw the cynical look he was giving her. ‘Anyway,’ she added protectively, ‘it’s
hardly the kind of outfit a woman would buy to...to attract a man...’
‘No?’ Ran gave her a sardonic smile. ‘Oh, come on, Sylvie, we both know
better than that. There’s something powerfully alluring about the sight of a
woman wearing a trouser suit, something very, very sensual and appealing—
woman wearing a trouser suit, something very, very sensual and appealing—
much more so than an over-tight dress on an over-exposed body. You bought
this outfit because you’re jealous of Vicky. Because you—’
‘Me...jealous...of her?’ Sylvie virtually spat at him as she grabbed her new
purchase from him and stuffed it back into the bag. ‘No way,’ she told him,
shaking her head almost violently in denial. ‘Why should I be jealous?’ she
added dangerously, too upset to question the wisdom of inviting him to
humiliate her still further by revealing his awareness of just how she felt about
him. ‘Just because years ago I was stupid enough, adoring enough, vulnerable
enough to...to care too much about you, that doesn’t mean that I’m jealous of
your lover. In fact...’
‘My lover?’ Ran stopped her as they both stood up, frowning down at her as
he informed her curtly, ‘I was referring to the fact that you’re jealous because
you’re afraid of losing Lloyd to Vicky. He’s your lover and—’
‘My lover...? Lloyd?’ Sylvie stared at him in disbelief.
Suddenly Sylvie had had enough. There was no way that Ran could possibly,
genuinely, believe that she and Lloyd were lovers; he was just playing some kind
of peculiar and cruel game with her. Well, he was going to have to play it on his
own. Grabbing hold of her shopping, she darted past him, almost running into
her bedroom and slamming the door behind her, her heart thudding with angry
pain.
As she closed her eyes and leaned against the door she had just closed, she
could feel them starting to burn with the useless demeaning tears of her
unwanted love.
What was Ran doing now—laughing inwardly at her because he knew that her
jealousy, her pain, her love were all for him, or was he too wrapped up in what
he thought to spare any time to consider her feelings? Had he accused her of
being jealous out of his own feelings of jealousy against Lloyd?
This job, which she had taken on with such high hopes, such a surge of
determination and conviction that through it she would finally and for ever slay
the dragons of her tormented youthful love for him, had now turned into a hydraheaded monster which she could never hope to overcome. How on earth was she
going to be able to concentrate on what she had to do when she was forced to
work in such close proximity to Ran?
No. It was impossible, she acknowledged half an hour later as she sat at her
desk trying to concentrate on the work schedule she had in front of her. No
matter how hard she tried to visualise a situation where she and Ran could work
together in harmony, her emotions untouched by his presence, all she could
actually see was a situation that was going to get worse and worse as she became
actually see was a situation that was going to get worse and worse as she became
more and more helplessly trapped in her love and his lack of it. The best remedy,
the only remedy she could honestly see that would work would be for her to go
to Lloyd and ask him to find someone else to complete this project, she admitted
unhappily.
It wasn’t a course she wanted to take. She prided herself on her
professionalism and it would mean taking Lloyd into her confidence about her
feelings for Ran—she knew, of course, that he would respect them, but even so...
If she stayed on the possibility was—no, the probability was, she corrected
herself fiercely, that sooner or later she would make a mistake that could
prejudice the progress of the work on the house. This was a project that was
going to demand her total concentration and attention and how could she give it
when all the time she was thinking about Ran, when her feelings for him were
already dominating her mind and her emotions?
It wasn’t going to be easy. She hated letting Lloyd down; in fact, it felt as
though in asking him to find someone else to take over this particular project for
her she was letting herself down; but she feared that if she stayed the way in
which she could potentially let herself down, damage herself and her selfesteem, her very self, could be far more traumatic.
The anger and contempt which Ran had displayed towards her this evening
had shown how very little compassion he was likely to have for her. No, there
was no other way.
It was with a very heavy heart that Sylvie prepared for bed. There would be
other houses, other projects, and no one but her would ever know how much it
would hurt knowing that it was someone else who would have the pleasure of
restoring Ran’s ancestral home to what it must once have been, just as it would
be another woman who would ultimately stand beside Ran and their children in
love and pride as they went through their lives together.
*
Ran wasn’t sure just what had woken him up first—his training, his work, meant
that he was always alert to any sound that heralded some unfamiliarity, his
perceptions and senses so keenly attuned that he was aware of such changes
even in his sleep.
Alert and wide awake, he lay in the darkness listening. The illuminated face of
his alarm clock showed that it was just gone half past one in the morning. The
house had no alarm system. Lucy, his gun dog who slept downstairs, might be
house had no alarm system. Lucy, his gun dog who slept downstairs, might be
getting on in years now but she would have been barking if someone had been
trying to break into the house, and besides, the outside lights had not come on.
Through his open bedroom window he could hear an owl hooting as it flew
past. No alien sounds disturbed the natural busyness of the country night.
He started to relax and then he heard it—a door opening upstairs. Immediately
he was out of bed and, reaching for his robe, pulled it on—he slept nude—before
striding across to open his bedroom door quietly.
He saw her immediately, a slim white wraith who seemed to float rather than
walk down the corridor, but, ethereal though she looked, Sylvie was no ghost.
Even before he reached her he knew that she was sleepwalking; all the tell-tale
signs were there, and of course he knew from her girlhood exactly what to do.
So why was it so hard, then, to take her gently in his hold so that he could turn
her round and walk her back to her bedroom?
The best thing to do, they had all been told after the first frightening occasion
when she had been found wandering the long gallery at Otel Place, totally
oblivious to what she was doing, was to guide her gently back to bed, if possible
without waking her; but now, as he touched her, Ran could feel her start to
tremble violently, her face turning towards him, her body stiffening as he tried to
turn her round. Cursing under his breath, he glanced towards his own still open
bedroom door. Perhaps if he could get her in there... The old family doctor at
Otel Place had recommended that she be allowed to wake up naturally rather
than be abruptly woken from her sleepwalk and he had also informed them that
often these bouts of ‘walking’ could be attributed to some kind of disturbance or
trauma that the walker might have suffered. Ran did not need to look very far to
find the cause of tonight’s disturbance, and inwardly he cursed not just Vicky
but Lloyd as well.
Didn’t the man know just how lucky he was—what he, Ran, would give to
change places with him?
Sylvie was still trembling against his body, her eyes wide open and unseeing
as she stood stiffly beside him, almost transfixed. Not wanting to risk waking
her, Ran urged her gently towards his own bedroom, talking very quietly and
softly to her, just as though she were still the girl he remembered.
‘It’s all right, Sylvie,’ he assured her gently. ‘Everything’s all right... Come
on, now...’
Obediently she moved, leaning on him slightly. If he could get her into bed
without her waking up he could sit with her to check that she was going to sleep
on and then he could spend the rest of the night in one of the other rooms. In the
morning... He started to frown. Too late to regret now the jealousy which had
morning... He started to frown. Too late to regret now the jealousy which had
prompted him to speak so harshly to her earlier, but the sight of that suit, the
knowledge of just how it would look on her body, had filled him with such
furious jealousy that he had overreacted.
Tenderly Ran guided her into his bedroom and towards the bed. The light
gown she was wearing was plain and white, in soft cotton. In it she looked
almost like a girl...youthful...virginal...
He closed his eyes. The last thing he needed right now was to start thinking
about—to start remembering. Forcing himself to suppress the thoughts, the
memories and the emotions which were running riot inside him, he stopped to
pick her up, intending to lay her down on the bed, but as he did so a dog fox out
in the woodland beyond the garden howled to his mate; the sound carried into
the bedroom on the still night air, shocking him into immobility and Sylvie into
immediate wakefulness.
‘Ran...what...?’
He could hear the shocked anxiety in her voice as she stared round his moonlit
bedroom.
‘You were sleepwalking.’ He tried to reassure her. ‘I heard a noise...found you
on the landing...’
Sleepwalking. Sylvie focused distractedly on Ran’s face.
It had been years since she had last walked in her sleep, but she didn’t for one
moment doubt that Ran was telling the truth. After all, there was no reason why
he should have spirited her from her own bed and carried her here to his—was
there? If he had wanted to take her there, all he had to do... But even so... She
started to shiver.
She only walked in her sleep in times of intense personal stress...intense
personal distress...
‘It’s all right, Sylvie,’ she heard Ran saying gently. He was still holding onto
her. Sylvie could feel the warmth of his arms, his body through the robe he was
wearing and through her own fine cotton nightgown. Bemusedly she looked at
him, her eyes huge and shadowed in the small oval of her pale face.
Outside a peafowl, one of the small colony which had migrated from
Haverton Hall to the Rectory, its slumber no doubt disturbed by the mating call
of the fox, screamed loudly, causing Sylvie to go rigid with tension.
‘It’s all right, Sylvie,’ Ran repeated soothingly. ‘It’s only a peafowl.’
She knew that, of course—their noise was, after all, familiar to her—but for
once she felt too weak to bother arguing the point with Ran.
His bedroom was on the opposite side of the house from hers and furnished
His bedroom was on the opposite side of the house from hers and furnished
very differently, with heavy early Georgian furniture that looked imposingly
traditional and masculine. The room suited Ran, she thought abstractedly; it
suited his maleness, his completeness. A wave of longing swept over her.
Unable to stop herself, she turned in towards his body, lifting her hand towards
him.
Later she wasn’t even sure if she had actually meant to touch him or if the
gesture had simply been one of longing, but as he turned his head towards her
her fingertips grazed his mouth. She felt his breath against them, warm,
tormenting her with all that could never be. She started to look away and then, to
her shock, she felt Ran taking hold of her wrist, circling it with his thumb and
fingers, holding her hand where it was whilst he very deliberately pressed a kiss
to each of her fingertips in turn.
Wild-eyed, Sylvie watched him, almost forgetting to breathe in her shock.
‘Ran,’ she protested half-heartedly, but as she said the word she was already
moving closer to him, instinctively seeking the warmth and the comfort of his
body heat, his body.
If it felt like heaven to have his arms close around her, that was nothing
compared to what it felt like to have him lift his hands to her face and cup it
whilst he oh, so gently kissed her mouth, a slow, tender, lingering kiss...a lover’s
kiss. Silently Sylvie pressed even closer to him, lifting her own arms to hold
him, her mouth and then her whole body, trembling with the effort it took her
not to give in to what she was feeling.
She could feel her eyes fill with tears, feel them, too, starting to flood over and
roll down her face.
‘Sylvie.’ She could hear the emotion in Ran’s voice as he lifted one fingertip
to touch them. ‘Don’t cry...please don’t cry. No man is worth your tears...’
‘It just hurts so much,’ Sylvie told him, unable to hold back what she was
feeling any longer. Somehow the night and their seclusion had stripped away the
barriers she had fought so hard to erect against her love for him.
‘I hate feeling like this,’ she whispered. ‘I hate loving so much and
so...so...unwontedly... It’s so demeaning and it hurts so badly.’
She heard Ran groan as though something about her agonised and honest
admission touched him very deeply and then he was holding her, rocking her in
his arms as he told her huskily, ‘You mustn’t be hurt, Sylvie. Please, don’t be
hurt...’
And then, totally unexpectedly, he was kissing her, not with the gentle
tenderness he had shown her before, but with a fierce sensual passion that took
her breath away and with it all her resistance. Her body went weak, pliable,
her breath away and with it all her resistance. Her body went weak, pliable,
compliant, yearning towards his as his mouth moved demandingly on hers. She
could feel the fierce, heavy thud of his heart, the sudden swift betraying arousal
of his body.
He was and always had been a very male man, she reminded herself. He might
not love her, she might not be the woman he wanted, but she was here in his
arms, loving him, wanting him, and she could sense how little it would take to
overturn his self-control.
Swiftly, dangerously, stabbing right at the most intimate female heart of her,
came the thought that she might never have his love but she could have
tonight...her memories and perhaps even more. A woman alone need not feel
ashamed to give birth to a child these days...she need not even name its father...
A child...Ran’s child... Already she was responding to him, inviting him, inciting
him, her hands reaching out to move under his robe, shaping the hard muscles of
his shoulders, his arms.
This time when the peafowl cried neither of them paid any attention to it.
Beneath the insistent thrust of Ran’s tongue, Sylvie’s lips parted.
She just wanted comfort, that was all, Ran warned himself as he felt her
mouth tremble beneath his. She didn’t want him...love him...
But it was already too late. He wanted her, he loved her, and, God forgive
him, he couldn’t stop himself from giving in to his need to show her all that a
man’s love for a woman could and should be.
He kissed her face, her throat, her shoulders as he slid the soft whiteness of
her nightdress from her body, only partially managing to stifle his groan of
longing as he looked at her clad only in moonlight.
Beneath Ran’s heavy-lidded gaze, Sylvie felt her will-power melting. He
wanted her; she could see it in his eyes, feel it in the fierce tremble of his
fingertips as they traced the outline of her body. Even with her eyes closed, she
could feel how much he wanted her.
Shakily Sylvie mirrored his touch on his body, tracing the deep V left by the
open neckline of his robe. When she touched the knot which secured the robe
she lifted a love-dazed glance to his and commanded huskily, ‘Take it off.’
Silently Ran did so, never removing his gaze from hers as the robe slid to the
floor.
Before, the last time, the only time, she had been too caught up in the intensity
of what was happening and her own needs and emotions to do anything more
than register the fact that he was there, that his body was...his... But now, this
time...
Like a gourmet examining a banquet, a sumptuous repast which had been set
out before her, she studied every bit of him, feasting her eyes and her senses on
him. He was magnificent...he was perfect...he was Ran. Her love, her life, the
father of her child, their child... A fierce thrill ran through her.
‘Ran.’
She said his name urgently, almost harshly. As she stepped towards him he
stopped her, circling her wrists with his hands, holding her slightly away from
him whilst he looked at her in turn. She could see the fierce hunger in his eyes as
he focused on her breasts and an excited kick of pleasure gripped her.
There was something so dangerously erotic about standing there naked in
front of him, her hands virtually pinioned, that it fed her own senses, her own
need...to the point where she could feel her arousal beating a heavy pulse of
longing so strongly within her body that she was forced to surrender to it.
Her eyes, soft with emotion, echoed the need, the feeling that was pulsing
through her body, touching her, she felt, to her very soul as she looked deep into
Ran’s eyes. The huge wave of emotion that caught her up and rendered her
powerless to do anything to withstand it contained far, far more than just
physical desire or the immediacy of the moment. She felt a sense of fate, of
destiny almost, as though all the previous emotions, all the love she had known
for him had brought her here, to this moment. He might not share her love but he
was here with her; she could see in his eyes that somehow something within him
was aware of her and responsive to her, even if it was only man’s most basic
need for a woman that drove him, and against all logic and rational thinking
Sylvie knew that what happened between them tonight would be something
precious and almost sacred, that the child she now longed so deeply to conceive
would be special and loved, so very, very loved.
Odd to think how fate worked, and she could see as clearly as though she were
there the small pack of pills in the bathroom, still containing the ones she had
accidentally omitted to take since her arrival in Derbyshire, not by design or plan
and certainly not because she had had any intention, any pre-warning that this
was going to happen.
‘You’re beautiful, do you know that?’ she heard Ran declaring rawly as, still
holding her wrists, he leaned forward and slowly kissed her face, her eyelids, her
lips, each one in turn, with something that was almost reverence. Then he moved
on to her throat...her breasts...before releasing her wrists and scooping her up in
his arms as though he couldn’t bear not to have the full length of her held tightly
against his body any longer. He slid his hand into her hair and opened her mouth
against his body any longer. He slid his hand into her hair and opened her mouth
with a kiss so intense and passionate that Sylvie felt as though she was
dissolving into him, becoming a part of him.
Just how long they stood like that, how long they kissed, she had no idea; all
she did know was that when his mouth finally lifted from hers the room was full
of the charged sound of their breathing, the oxygen content of the air somehow
diminished so that she felt positively light-headed and dizzy, aching from head
to foot with need and longing.
But Ran was ignoring her body language, her silent plea for the intimacy of
his body weight lying heavily and sensuously against hers on the bed behind her.
Instead he was picking her up and gently placing her on the bed.
‘It’s all right,’ she heard him saying softly to her. ‘Everything’s all right.’ And
he was cupping her feet in his hands, slowly massaging them so that tingles of
sensation and heat shot through her veins like liquid fire. The feeling of his lips
brushing her toes, so unexpected and shockingly intimate, made her gasp in
shock, but when she instinctively tried to pull away he stopped her, his tongue
weaving a rainbow patter of sensation against her skin as he caressed her toes,
the narrow indentation of her fine-boned ankles, the exquisitely sensitive place
just behind her knees and then the soft, quivering flesh of her thighs. All of them
felt the slow, lingering touch of his mouth whilst the heat of an arousal so
intense that she could hardly endure it covered her body in a soft sheen of
reaction to what he was doing.
Only when she heard him groan as her thighs trembled in involuntary and
uncontrollable response to his touch did she feel him remove his mouth from
her, and only then did she realise too that the sound she could hear, had heard,
whilst he caressed her was the raw, sobbed sound of her own breathing.
‘Ran...’
Unable to stop herself, she moaned his name with all her pent-up need and
longing openly displayed, but although he raised his head and looked sombrely
at her, although she could see quite plainly as he moved the evidence of his own
need, his response to her wasn’t to cover her, to move over her and within her as
she so longed for him to do, but instead to slide his hands along her thighs,
holding, parting, lifting them and then moving round her. His thumbs traced the
V between her thighs, following the line of soft hair that grew there before he
buried his head against her, breathing in her scent, moaning her name over and
over again as he caressed her sex with his tongue and his lips.
The hot molten weight of her own need completely swamped her. The pulse
she had felt before had become a thunderous roar, an avalanche of frantic need
that gathered and tightened until it overwhelmed her completely, exploding
that gathered and tightened until it overwhelmed her completely, exploding
inside her in a series of sharp bursts of pleasure that left her trembling and
panting, dizzy and elated, and yet somehow not quite fully satisfied...not
complete. She was driven instead to reach for Ran, to cover him with kisses as
she drew him closer to her, his torso, where his body hair felt slick and damp
with his passion, his throat, where he groaned as she ran her tongue-tip hungrily
over his Adam’s apple, his jaw, his ears, his mouth.
Fiercely she wrapped herself around him. Her arms, her legs, holding him in
an embrace that went back to Eve, knowing instinctively that he would be unable
to resist it...or her...
The feeling of him moving against her was just as she remembered it only
more intense, like comparing a faded photograph to the sharp colours of reality.
Sylvie caught her breath on a cry of primal female pleasure as he moved within
her, her body urging him deeper, her eyes liquid with emotion as she whispered
to him how much she wanted him, how much she needed him.
‘Yes, Ran, yes,’ she said, twisting and turning, volubly as well as physically
inviting him to possess her as deeply and intimately as only a woman in love did
invite a man.
Instinctively she knew that what they were experiencing and sharing went far,
far beyond mere sex, that each thrust of his body within hers brought them both
ever closer to eternity, to creation itself.
As she felt her body open up completely to receive him, Sylvie gripped him
tightly, her eyes open wide, fixed intently on his as she begged him, ‘Now, Ran;
let it be now...’
And as he responded to her, as she felt the hot liquid pulse of his release
within her, her own cycle of rhythmic orgasmic contractions began again, only
this time they were so much deeper and stronger; this time they weren’t for mere
pleasure, she decided, half dazed with the intensity of what she was
experiencing. This time they were harvesting the gift he had given her, the
precious gift of life.
As his body subsided within hers, Ran still held her, stroking her hair,
brushing his lips against her forehead, whilst she breathed in the hot, satisfied
male scent of his skin.
‘It’s been a long time,’ she heard him saying unevenly as his heartbeat still
thundered against her body.
‘Yes,’ she agreed quietly. There was no need for her to lie, to pretend; even if
it was only temporarily, the barriers between them had been swept to one side by
what she had experienced. Oddly she almost felt proud of the truth, of loving
what she had experienced. Oddly she almost felt proud of the truth, of loving
him so intensely that she had never been able to share herself with anyone else.
‘I’m not... Sex for sex’s sake just isn’t for me...’
There was a brief silence. She lifted her head and looked uncertainly at Ran.
What was he thinking? Was he wishing she had been less open and honest, that
she had pretended that what they had just shared meant nothing, that he meant
nothing? But when she looked into his eyes they were too dark for her to be able
to read his expression properly. All she could see was his faintly twisted smile
before he touched her face gently and told her, ‘I meant that it had been as long a
time for me, Sylvie...that I hadn’t...couldn’t... I was trying to explain...to excuse
the fact that...that I wasn’t as controlled as I should have been.’
‘You were...you felt good to me,’ Sylvie told him simply and truthfully,
compelled to add, ‘But then, I don’t have...you have...’
‘Been less thankfully in control on either of the occasions we’ve been like
this...?’ Ran suggested ruefully. ‘You’re very kind, Sylvie, and...’ His body
suddenly tensed and when he moved she could see in his eyes something that
made her own stomach muscles lock in sensual expectation.
‘And I’m afraid I am likely to give you another demonstration of just how
lacking in self-control you make me,’ he told her with a soft groan as he took
hold of her hand and placed it on his body, commanding her huskily, ‘Feel.’
Instinctively Sylvie let her touch become a soft caress, her heart thudding as
she felt him grow and harden still further beneath her fingertips.
‘Oh, God, Sylvie, Sylvie,’ she heard him protest, and he took hold of her,
kissing her passionately as their bodies immediately and instinctively moved
closer together.
*
It was fully daylight when Sylvie eventually woke up, her face flushing with hot
colour as she opened her eyes to find Ran propped up on one elbow watching
her.
‘How long have you been awake?’ she asked him, nervously clutching hold of
the bedclothes, her colour deepening as she started to remember in full the
events of the previous night.
‘Long enough to know that you snore,’ Ran told her ungallantly.
‘Snore? I do no such thing,’ Sylvie protested indignantly, letting go of the
duvet in her ire.
‘No? Well, then, you growl...’ Ran teased her.
‘I do not growl! I don’t make any kind of noise at all,’ Sylvie protested.
‘Oh, yes, you do,’ Ran told her immediately, his manner completely changing,
the amusement in his eyes replaced by a look of shockingly burning intensity as
he leaned closer to her and half whispered against her mouth as his fingertips
brushed the tip of her breast.
‘When I touch you here you make a little sound deep in your throat, and...’
‘No. No, I don’t want to listen to any of this,’ Sylvie cried out frantically as
the full reality of her situation hit her.
Last night she and Ran had made love...last night she had ignored all the rules,
all the laws of dignity and common sense and self-preservation which she had
sworn she would adhere to, and...
And last night, lost in the fathomless deep waters of love and longing, she had
prayed that she might conceive Ran’s child, had prayed for it and ached for it. A
deep shudder racked through her. Logic told her that it was far too soon for her,
for anyone, to know that she had done so, but somehow she did; somehow she
sensed that already the seed that would be Ran’s child was growing there,
implanted deep within her.
Immediately tears filled her eyes, tears of love for the child she knew would
be her whole life, and tears also for the fact that he would never know the love of
his father, for already she had decided that this child must be her child, her
responsibility, that Ran must never know of its existence, that her child must not
be a child whose father only acknowledged him out of duty, a child who knew
that its mother was not and never had been loved by its father.
‘You’re crying.’ She could hear the accusation in Ran’s voice and
immediately tried to blink away her tears. ‘I’m sorry about last night,’ she heard
Ran telling her gruffly. ‘I do understand... It must be hard for you loving a man
who doesn’t...’
‘Love me back,’ Sylvie supplied chokily for him. If, in the past, she had
thought that his anger and contempt were hard to bear, they were nothing now
that she was faced with his pity and compassion. ‘Yes. It is,’ she agreed. ‘But
I’m a woman now, Ran, not a child, and if I choose to love the wrong person,
then that is my choice and my right. The last thing I want or need is your pity,’
she told him sharply, pride making her hold up her head.
‘Last night shouldn’t have happened,’ Ran told her quietly, ‘but I...’
‘Couldn’t help yourself,’ Sylvie finished lightly. ‘Yes, so you said at the time.
It’s obviously something we should both...forget...’
Sylvie looked away as she spoke, knowing quite well that she was lying, that
she would have the most important reason there could be for not forgetting it, for
not being able to forget it, but that wasn’t a piece of information she had any
intention of sharing with Ran.
‘I...I should like to go back to my own room to get dressed before Mrs Elliott
arrives,’ she told him with formal dignity, adding, when he continued to look at
her, ‘I want you to turn your back, Ran, so that I can get out of this bed...’
The look he gave her made her face burn.
‘Yes, I know that you’ve already seen...that... But that was last night,’ she
snapped self-consciously. ‘That was then...this...this is now; this is different...’
‘Yes, it is, isn’t it?’ Ran agreed heavily, and then, to her relief, he turned away
so that she could slip out of the bed and snatch up her nightdress which she
pulled on before heading for the door, opening it without pausing to look back
because she knew that if she did look back— Last night had been the most
perfect, the most wonderful night of her life, but now it was over and soon, too,
with Lloyd’s agreement, her time here would be over, and only she would know
that when she left Haverton Hall, when she left Ran, she would be carrying a
small and very precious piece of him with her.
CHAPTER TEN
‘I’M SORRY to disturb you but Ran said that he thought you might like coffee.’
Forcing a welcoming smile to her lips, Sylvie took the tray from Ran’s
housekeeper.
She had been working in the library all morning, painstakingly going through
the accounts and costings for the work she had already commissioned for
Haverton Hall.
But now, even though she hadn’t eaten any breakfast and she knew that she
ought to be hungry, the only hunger she had was the never-ending hunger for
Ran’s love. And, as he had made more than plain to her, that was something she
could never have.
Half an hour later she was just on her way downstairs, intending to drive over
to Haverton, when her mobile rang. Answering it, she was surprised to hear
Lloyd’s voice on the other end of the line.
‘Lloyd. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you today. I thought you’d
be...otherwise engaged,’ Sylvie told him tactfully.
‘Well, I guess I thought I would be too,’ she heard Lloyd responding with a
rueful note in his voice. ‘Like they say, though, there’s no fool like an old fool.
Still, it was fun while it lasted, and I guess I had my money’s worth.’
From the tone of his voice Sylvie immediately recognised that Lloyd had
quickly become disillusioned with Vicky.
‘I’m going to miss you, hon, when I’m back in New York,’ Lloyd told her
with the warm affection that was so much a part of his personality.
‘I’ll miss you as well,’ Sylvie told him gravely, and meant it. ‘Lloyd, I need to
talk to you,’ she added quietly. ‘There’s...there’s... I can’t stay here... I...I want
to come back to New York...’
Biting down hard on her bottom lip, Sylvie willed herself not to lose control.
Lloyd would wonder what on earth was the matter with her. She hadn’t intended
to blurt it all out like that. She had told herself that she would wait, assemble all
her arguments and then talk to him calmly and quietly, and yet here she was,
letting her emotions run away with her, giving in to the urgent need she felt to
protect herself from the pain that being so physically close to Ran was causing
her.
‘Say, honey, you sound upset. What’s wrong?’ she heard Lloyd asking her
anxiously.
anxiously.
‘I can’t discuss it over the phone,’ Sylvie told him. ‘I need to see you... Oh,
Lloyd, I’m so sorry...’ She gulped as she heard her voice thickening with tears.
‘Don’t be,’ she heard Lloyd telling her gently, and then, to her relief, he said,
‘I’ll be there with you just as soon as I can fix up everything down here and then
we can talk.’
‘Oh, Lloyd,’ Sylvie wept.
How typical it was of Lloyd that he should put everything else on hold to
come and see her, Sylvie acknowledged after their call had ended. He would
understand, she knew he would, but she still felt guilty about letting him down.
The door to Ran’s study was open and Ran himself entered the hallway just as
she was about to cross it. As he glanced at the mobile she was still holding in her
hand, Sylvie realised that he must have overheard her talking to Lloyd.
‘Lloyd’s coming back,’ she told him huskily.
‘Yes, so I gathered,’ she heard him responding flatly, with something that
almost sounded like anger hardening his voice. Sylvie couldn’t bring herself to
look at him. Already the tenderness they had shared last night felt as though it
was all something she herself had imagined, created out of her own need; it had
gone.
‘I...I have to go to Haverton,’ she told him shakily as she made to walk past
him.
Ran watched her go. It tore him apart to see the pain she was in. Last night she
had turned to him in need, in simple human need, driven by her longing, her love
for another man, a man who had left her to be with another woman.
Did Lloyd have any conception of what he had done, of what he was doing, or
did he simply think that his wealth gave him the right to ignore other people’s
feelings? Did he think that the damage he had done to Sylvie, the hurt he had
caused her, simply didn’t matter?
Yesterday he had left her to be with someone else and now, today, he was
coming back.
‘I need to see you,’ he had heard Sylvie whisper emotionally to him, and as he
had heard the betraying tremble in her voice he had closed his eyes. He knew all
about that need, had known about it from long before the night he had taken
Sylvie in his arms in a mixture of fury and longing, breaking every promise he
had ever made himself as he made love to her, with her, and discovered, with a
mixture of joy, pain and shame, that he was her first lover.
‘Wayne’s been telling me for ages to find someone to lose my virginity with,’
she had thrown tauntingly at him, and she had gone from him to Wayne,
abandoning everything and everyone to be with him—her family, her education,
abandoning everything and everyone to be with him—her family, her education,
even, it had seemed to Ran at times, her principles.
But then she had changed her mind, begged Alex for his help and support, to
help her get her life back on track.
He had seen her off at the airport with Alex and his new wife, an impulse
decision, giving in to a need for which he had berated and despised himself.
He had ended up going home afterwards and slowly getting drunk—not
something he was in any way proud to remember, but it had been the only way
he could find to anaesthetise himself against his pain.
Not even to Alex, his closest friend, had he been able to talk about how he
felt, about how much he loved her. Alex was, after all, her stepbrother.
He had thought that he was prepared for the reality of knowing that she would
spend her life with someone else, but that had been when that reality was at a
safe distance. Knowing she loved Lloyd was one thing; having to witness that
love, having to hold her whilst she cried for him, having to listen to her pleading
with him for his return—no amount of preparation could protect him from that
kind of pain.
And now Lloyd was on his way back to see her. Would she tell him about last
night, about the intimacy they had shared? Morally there was no reason why she
should do so but...
Last night, when he had held her, touched her, loved her, when he had felt her
body’s response to him, answered not just its sensuality but its deeper and far
more intensely urgent demand for something that went far beyond even the
physical, sexual satisfaction he had felt...known... He opened his eyes and
walked across to the window of his study to look out into the garden. Long-ago
ancestors of his had designed and planned this garden, lived in this building; his
title, his land, the great house which was now too big and too expensive for any
one family to run—all that tradition now rested on him and with him.
Once, long ago, it would have been considered his duty as the last male of his
line to produce a child, a son, a legitimate heir. But that was something he could
never do. He could not marry another woman when it was Sylvie he loved, not
for his own sake and not for any wife’s either, so there would be no legitimate
heir. The only child he would ever have was the one he knew already that he and
Sylvie had created between them last night. Their child. But he could not compel
Sylvie to allow him to be a part of that child’s life. Not when he knew that she
didn’t love him. Twice now she had turned to him for comfort when, in reality,
she had loved another man. There could not, must not ever be a third occasion.
Lloyd was more than likely to arrive before evening and Ran knew that he
Lloyd was more than likely to arrive before evening and Ran knew that he
simply could not endure being there to see him reunited with Sylvie.
He walked back to his desk and reached for the telephone.
*
In the pretty sitting room which his wife had made so much her own, Alex
grinned in appreciation as their son headed eagerly towards him, swinging him
up into his arms as Mollie looked on placidly. Alex looked lovingly at her. She
was in the early stages of pregnancy with their second child and suffering from
morning sickness.
‘I’ve just had a phone call from Ran,’ he told her.
‘Mmm... How is he—and Sylvie...?’
‘He wants to come down for a few days. Apparently he wants to pick my
brains for ideas on making the estate more self-sufficient.’
‘Do you think he and Sylvie will ever work things out?’ Mollie asked him
anxiously.
Alex raised his eyebrows.
‘Why ask me? You’re the one who thinks that they are madly in love with one
another.’
‘I don’t think, I know,’ Mollie corrected him sternly. ‘But the pair of them are
just so...so stubbornly determined not to admit to one another how they feel.’
‘Has it ever occurred to you that you might just be wrong?’ Alex asked her
tenderly.
‘No, because I’m not. You’re Sylvie’s brother, Alex, and Ran’s best friend;
you have a duty to do something to help them.’
‘Oh, no! No! No way...’ Alex denied, shaking his head and looking alarmed.
‘They are both adults.’
‘Maybe. But they’re both behaving like children. We have to do something,
Alex; you saw the way Sylvie was breaking her heart over Ran when we went to
see her in New York just after she went there... It was pitiful to see the look in
her eyes when she finally managed to ask after him... And Ran’s just as bad.’
‘Look, they’re at Haverton Hall together...alone,’ Alex stressed. ‘If that
doesn’t give them both the opportunity to sort themselves out...’
‘Maybe being alone isn’t what they need, maybe they need someone to talk to,
to show them...’ Mollie suggested meaningfully, giving him a coaxing smile.
‘No way,’ Alex told her firmly, but Mollie had made up her mind. One way or
another, something would have to be done, and if Alex couldn’t be persuaded to
do that something, well, then—Determinedly she started to think.
do that something, well, then—Determinedly she started to think.
*
It was later in the afternoon when Sylvie returned from Haverton Hall to learn
from Mrs Elliott that Ran had announced that he had to go away for several
days.
‘Did he say where he was going or when he would be back?’ Sylvie asked her
stiffly.
The older woman shook her head.
‘He just said that he would telephone,’ she informed her.
Had Ran genuinely gone away on business or had he gone because of her?
Sylvie wondered painfully. He had been kind towards her when he had talked
about the pain of unrequited love, kinder than she had ever known him be
before, but that didn’t alter the fact that he didn’t love her and that her presence
here in his home must be creating problems for him. Well, she wouldn’t be
creating those problems for very much longer, she decided, her determination to
convince Lloyd to hand over their Haverton Hall project to someone else even
stronger than it had already been.
Lloyd himself rang whilst she was upstairs updating her files, explaining that
he had been delayed a little longer than he had expected and that it would be late
evening before he arrived in Derbyshire.
Ran had instructed his housekeeper to prepare a room for Lloyd before he had
left—the room next to her own, Sylvie discovered, when Mrs Elliott, the
housekeeper, informed her of Ran’s instructions.
Her mobile rang and she answered it, expecting to hear Lloyd’s voice but
hearing instead that of her stepsister-in-law.
‘Mollie, how are you?’ she asked, genuinely pleased to recognise her caller.
‘Queasy,’ Mollie responded, but Sylvie could tell from the happiness in the
other woman’s voice just how pleased she was about her recently announced
pregnancy.
‘Just you wait until it’s your turn,’ Mollie warned her. ‘It’s no joke. We had
salmon for supper and it’s my favourite and I couldn’t touch a bite...’
Her turn! Sylvie gripped her mobile tightly. How would Mollie and Alex react
when she told them that she was pregnant? They would want to know who the
father of her child was, of course, although both of them were modern enough,
loving enough, to accept her decision to keep the father’s identity to herself and
to bring up her child alone.
‘How are things going up there?’ Mollie asked her. ‘How are you and Ran
‘How are things going up there?’ Mollie asked her. ‘How are you and Ran
getting on...?’
To Mollie’s intuitive ears the silence that hummed down the wire between
them before Sylvie answered her spoke volumes.
‘We aren’t,’ Sylvie told her shortly. ‘And in fact...’ She paused and then
decided there was little point in keeping her decision from Mollie who was, in
many ways, despite the distance which separated them, probably her closet
friend; not just a stepsister-in-law.
‘I...I’ve decided to ask Lloyd to take me off this project, Mollie. I can’t...it
isn’t... My being here just isn’t going to work... Ran and I...’ She stopped.
‘You still love him, don’t you?’ Mollie asked her gently.
For a moment Sylvie didn’t think she was going to be able to reply but almost
against her will she felt compelled to respond honestly to Mollie’s gentle
question.
‘Yes. Yes, I do,’ she admitted. ‘More than ever. He’s...he’s everything I’ve
ever wanted, Mollie. The only man I’ve ever loved, the only man I ever will
love...in every sense of the word,’ she admitted in a very low voice. ‘There
hasn’t... I haven’t... Isn’t it incredible in this day and age,’ she continued, her
voice full of angry despair, ‘that at my age the only man I’ve ever been intimate
with, the only man who’s ever touched me...made love to me...is Ran? And both
times... He doesn’t love me, Mollie. I know that. He never has, and that first time
he was angry, and his reactions were... Both of us were angry and what we
did...what we had... But this time it was so...so loving...so tender...so
meaningful. But in reality he was just comforting me... He—’
‘Did he tell you that?’ Mollie interrupted her softly.
‘Not in so many words. He talked about how painful it is to love someone
who can’t love you back, and...and about how there’s no need to...to feel
ashamed of having that love; of needing that person.
‘I can’t stay here, Mollie,’ she burst out passionately. ‘I’m afraid of what
might happen, of what I might say...do... Ran was so kind, so...gentle and
tender... I want to keep that memory... I don’t want...’
‘He must feel something for you if...’
‘If he took me to bed?’ Sylvie supplied dryly for her. ‘He wanted me, yes,
but... Lloyd was up here and he took Ran’s latest lady-friend back to London
with him. Oh, I don’t think their relationship was particularly serious, but
obviously Ran’s a man, and as such...’
‘He took you to bed because he wanted sex; is that what you’re saying?’
Mollie asked her shrewdly.
Mollie asked her shrewdly.
‘Well, I think that was a large part of it,’ Sylvie agreed.
‘But he must have felt something for you, Sylvie, to talk to you the way you
say he did. If he really didn’t care, didn’t want to get involved, then surely the
last thing he would do would be to allow that kind of intimacy to take place
between you.’
‘Yes... No... Oh, I don’t know. I just know... I just know that I’m afraid if I
stay here I’ll... I can’t cope with it, Mollie; it’s safer for me to put as much
distance as I can between us...’
‘Have you told him you’re leaving?’ Mollie asked her.
‘Not in so many words,’ Sylvie admitted. ‘He knows that I’ve asked... Lloyd’s
coming up to Derbyshire to see me, but Ran isn’t here at the moment. His
housekeeper says he told her that he’s had to go away for a few days, but he
hasn’t told her where or when he’ll be back... I suspect that he’s trying to avoid
me...’
‘Just like he was when he took you to bed,’ Mollie suggested wryly. ‘Have
you ever asked him how he feels about you, Sylvie?’
For a moment Sylvie was too shocked to answer.
‘No! No, of course not—I couldn’t. How could I? Would you have asked
Alex that?’
‘Perhaps not,’ Mollie acknowledged. ‘But Alex’s and my relationship is very
different to yours and Ran’s. We hadn’t known one another very long. Whilst
you and Ran...’
‘The difference is that you and Alex love one another, whilst Ran and I... I
have to go, Mollie. I just can’t talk about it any longer,’ Sylvie told her
emotionally.
As she ended the call she prayed that Lloyd would get here soon. God and
Lloyd willing, she could leave Derbyshire before Ran came back.
As though on cue she saw the lights of a car drawing up outside the house,
sweeping across her bedroom window. Lloyd at last...
Taking a deep breath, she went downstairs to meet him.
*
Half an hour later, after she had told Lloyd everything, he gravely handed her a
handkerchief and asked her, ‘You really love him that much?’
‘Too much. Stupid, aren’t I?’ Sylvie said shakily, reiterating urgently, ‘Lloyd,
I hate letting you down, but I can’t stay here—not now.’
‘You aren’t letting me down, honey. Your happiness means an awful lot to
‘You aren’t letting me down, honey. Your happiness means an awful lot to
me. I guess I kinda think of you as the daughter I’ve never had. If I didn’t have
this meeting I’d wait to take you back with me.’
‘No. No, you can’t do that. I’ll tie up all the loose ends I can whilst Ran’s
away. The least I can do is to leave everything in order for whoever takes over
from me here.’
‘See you in New York, then, hon,’ Lloyd told her before taking her in his arms
and hugging her.
A little later he had gone. Soon she would be gone too...
Her throat tight, Sylvie blinked away her tears.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘IT’S a beautiful spot here, isn’t it?’ Mollie commented as she walked across the
grass to join Ran where he stood studying the pool in the centre of the small treefilled glade.
Once, before her marriage to Alex, this glade had been the scene of disturbing
desecration when it had been taken over by a band of travellers, eco-warriors,
led by the drug dealer Wayne, who had convinced a then idealistic and innocent
Sylvie that his sole object in travelling was to assert the rights of the homeless.
It had been Sylvie who had brought them to this pretty glade on her
stepbrother’s land, and ultimately Sylvie who had played a major part in the
drama which had unfolded when she had realised just how dangerous and
unsavoury a character Wayne actually was.
It had taken months to restore the glade to what it had once been. Now it was
a favourite spot for local visitors. In the spring it was filled with the colour of
hundreds and hundreds of bluebells, but now they were over and the trees were
just beginning to show the beginnings of the turn of colour which heralded the
end of summer.
‘It’s hard to believe now just how much this place has been transformed,’
Mollie remarked as she stood at Ran’s side.
‘I wish I’d seen Sylvie the day she fell into the mud when you were cleaning
out the lake and you had to pull her out... How old was she then, Ran?’
‘Seventeen,’ he responded immediately, causing Mollie to give him a swift,
thoughtful look.
‘Mmm... When we were talking the last time Sylvie was home she mentioned
how upset she was when her mother insisted that she had to leave Otel Place.
She wanted to stay on here with Alex after his father’s death, but her mother
wouldn’t permit it.’
‘She was a young girl on the verge of womanhood. A bachelor household just
wasn’t the place for her.’
‘Even though one of those bachelors was someone she loved very deeply,
someone she has never stopped loving...someone she still loves very deeply?’
Mollie suggested.
‘Alex felt that it was best that she stayed with her mother,’ Ran told her
doggedly.
‘I wasn’t referring to Alex,’ Mollie returned gently. ‘It was because of her love
for you, Ran, that Sylvie wanted to stay here.’
‘She was a child,’ Ran told her angrily, turning away from her so that she
couldn’t see his face. ‘What did she know of...love? She was so young, Mollie,
and I was just her brother’s manager; I couldn’t afford...’
‘To let her see that you loved her back?’ Mollie suggested softly.
Ran turned round and looked angrily at her.
‘What I intended to say was that I couldn’t afford to give her the kind of
lifestyle she was used to, and even if I had been able to do so she was too young,
for God’s sake, a child still...’
‘She wasn’t a child at nineteen,’ Mollie reminded him, adding more
meaningfully, ‘And you didn’t treat her as one either, Ran. You and she were
lovers,’ she told him directly. ‘You were her first lover, but you left her, let her
—’
‘No! She was the one who left me,’ Ran told her fiercely. ‘She told me herself
that the only reason she’d given herself to me was because Wayne didn’t want a
virgin...and...’
‘And you believed her?’ Mollie derided him quietly.
Ran looked at her.
‘She was saying goodbye to him when I arrived and if you’d seen her with
him...’
‘Looks can be deceptive,’ Mollie pointed out. ‘People can go to extraordinary
lengths to conceal what they really feel if they believe that exposing those
feelings could lead to them being rejected and hurt.
‘After all,’ she added quietly, ‘you’ve concealed the fact that you love Sylvie
from her, haven’t you?’
Immediately Ran tensed, his jaw tightening.
‘Alex told you?’ he demanded. ‘That was supposed to be—’
‘Alex hasn’t told me anything,’ Mollie assured him. ‘He didn’t need to tell
me, Ran; I guessed.’
‘How?’
‘By knowing the kind of man you are and subtracting that from the way you
behave towards Sylvie, and coming up with a figure that just doesn’t add up, not
unless you add another ingredient to it,’ she told him with a small smile. ‘Why
don’t you tell her how you feel...?’
‘She knows,’ Ran told her shortly. ‘Look, Mollie, I appreciate your concern,’
he said. ‘Maybe once, as a child, a young woman, Sylvie did love me, but that’s
all changed now. She’s not a young girl any more, she’s an adult. There’ve been
all changed now. She’s not a young girl any more, she’s an adult. There’ve been
other men in her life, men who—’
‘What other men?’ Mollie challenged him, and then added boldly before he
could answer, ‘You are the only lover Sylvie has ever had, Ran, the only one
she’s ever wanted...’
‘No...that’s not true,’ Ran denied, but Mollie could see the way he changed
colour, his face paling beneath his outdoor tan. ‘She and Wayne were lovers and
now she has Lloyd.’
‘No,’ Mollie denied firmly, and then added more gently, ‘No, Ran. Wayne
and Sylvie were never lovers. She told me that at the time and I know it was the
truth. She’s said very much the same thing since, very recently.’
‘How recently?’ Ran pounced, and then shook his head. ‘This isn’t about
other men, other loves. I would still feel the same way about her no matter how
many other men there’d been in her life, but I can’t, won’t impose either myself
or my love on her. She loves Lloyd.’
‘Yes, she does,’ Mollie agreed, ‘but she loves him as a friend, Ran, not as a
man.’
‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d heard her talking to him on the phone as I did,
pleading with him to see her...’
Mollie took a deep breath. Before following Ran out here to talk with him
there had been certain limits she had imposed on her revelations, certain
boundaries she had told herself she must not and would not cross, certain
confidences she would not share, but now she knew that she was going to have
to break that self-imposed sanction.
‘Pleading with him to see her because she wants to be taken off the Haverton
Hall project,’ Mollie told him quietly. ‘She’s desperately afraid, Ran, afraid of
the way she feels about you and afraid of... She told me herself that she just
doesn’t think she can take any more. She said it was impossible for her to do her
work properly when all she could think about was you. She wants Lloyd to allow
her to work on something else, something that doesn’t involve her in any kind of
contact with you... It’s up to you, Ran,’ she told him simply, ‘If you love her...’
‘I saw the way she reacted when Lloyd left her to go to London with Vicky,’
Ran told her tersely.
‘Lloyd has never been her lover, Ran,’ Mollie reasserted. ‘She doesn’t love
him in that way, but if you doubt my word, if you really want to know the truth,
there’s only one person you need to talk with, isn’t there? If you don’t believe
me, Ran, then think about this: why should a woman, any woman, not just allow
but encourage a man to make love to her when she has been deliberately celibate
for years and when she believes that he cares nothing for her? Why, unless it’s
because her own emotions are so strong, so powerful, that they are outside her
own control? Very few human emotions come into that kind of category, Ran.
‘Oh, and by the way...’ Mollie paused and turned round as she started to walk
away from him. ‘I nearly forgot. Sylvie telephoned last night. She’s spoken to
Lloyd and he’s agreed that she can leave Haverton whenever she wishes. She’s
booked on a flight from London tomorrow.
‘Sometimes, for a woman, just being loved isn’t enough.
Sometimes we need more than an act of faith and sometimes we need to be
told, shown, to see it, to hear it, touch it, taste it.’
*
‘What’s the matter with Ran?’ Alex asked Mollie curiously half an hour later as
he walked into her sitting room. ‘I’ve just passed him on the lane; he said he was
going back to Haverton. He said something urgent had come up.’
‘Mmm...did he...?’
‘Mollie...’ Alex said perceptively. ‘What’s been going on? What have you—?’
‘Oh...’ Putting her hand to her mouth, Mollie got up and raced for the door.
Morning sickness—what a euphemism, Alex decided. Poor Mollie suffered
from it all day. Sympathetically he went to follow her.
*
Her bags were packed, a note left for Ran explaining that someone else was
going to take over her work, her files were all in order; there was nothing left for
her to do other than get into her hire car and drive it to the airport. Still Sylvie
couldn’t quite bring herself to go.
Irresolutely she made her way upstairs, pausing outside Ran’s bedroom. She
had the house to herself. Mrs Elliott had left for the day. Impulsively she opened
the door and went inside. The room was just as she remembered it from that
single night she had spent here. She went over to the bed, smoothing a trembling
hand over the pillow which had been Ran’s.
Tears burned behind her eyes but she refused to shed them. Instead she
walked determinedly towards the door and through it.
Outside the air was warm with the heat of the late summer sun. She could see
the lavender which grew in huge drifts alongside the drive.
Silently she turned to give one last look at the house. Where Haverton was a
mansion, this was a true home. Very gently she touched the warm mellow brick
mansion, this was a true home. Very gently she touched the warm mellow brick
before wheeling round and hurrying unsteadily towards her hire car. She had
booked herself into a London hotel overnight ready for her morning flight to
New York. It was time for her to leave. There was, after all, no reason for her to
stay.
*
All the way north as he drove, Ran told himself that he was a complete fool, that
Mollie was wrong.
‘If Sylvie does love me, there’s nothing to stop her saying so,’ he had told
Mollie sharply.
‘Nothing, apart from the fact that she believes you don’t love her,’ Mollie had
agreed.
Did she believe that? How could she? Only the other night, holding her in his
arms, he had indirectly referred to his feelings for her.
His body ached with tension and the sense of urgency which had driven him
north, not allowing him to pause or stop. The hills basked in the heat of the late
afternoon sunshine as he drove the last few miles home.
He saw the Discovery before he saw her, his heart giving a huge leap of relief
when he saw that it was still there, that she was still there. And then he saw her.
She was wearing the smart cut trouser suit and carrying her document case.
Instinctively he pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator.
Ran was travelling at such a speed that at first Sylvie couldn’t make out the
shape of the car, never mind the driver, for the clouds of dust that surrounded it,
but instinctively she knew it was Ran and immediately, for some idiotic reason,
her first impulse was to get away before he saw her. But as she tugged frantically
at the huge Discovery’s door Ran was already bringing his car to a swerving halt
in front of her, blocking her exit. He got out of the car and strode towards her,
his face grim and unreadable.
‘Ran... I...I was just leaving... I—’
‘Why?’ he demanded, cutting across her husky, nervous words.
‘Why?’
‘Why are you leaving, Sylvie? Is it because of Lloyd? Because he’s your lover
and you can’t bear to be away from him...?’
Sylvie was too shocked to prevaricate.
‘No!’ she exclaimed immediately. ‘Lloyd isn’t my lover.’
‘Then why the hell were you so upset when he took Vicky off to London with
him?’ Ran exploded.
him?’ Ran exploded.
‘I... She... It was obvious what she was doing, how mercenary she is, but you
defended her, you encouraged her to flirt...you praised her...you...’
‘I couldn’t wait for her to take Lloyd out of the way so that you could see just
how undeserving of you he is,’ Ran finished quietly for her.
Sylvie stared at him. The sun was shining down hotly on her head, which must
be the reason she was feeling so peculiar, she decided dizzily. There could be no
other explanation for the look she had just imagined she had seen in Ran’s eyes.
‘You can’t really have thought that Lloyd and I were lovers,’ she told him
shakily. ‘He’s my friend. I like him...love him, yes, as a person, but...’ She
stopped and wet her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue.
‘Don’t do that, Sylvie,’ she heard Ran demanding rawly. ‘Come with me,’ he
commanded, suddenly reaching out and taking hold of her hand before she could
stop him, hurrying her across the gravel and into a part of the garden she had not
explored as yet, down a yew-enclosed alleyway.
Through a doorway in the yew hedge Ran guided her into a small secluded
garden which was entirely planted with white roses, so many of them that their
scent made Sylvie feel light-headed.
‘My great-uncle planted these roses in memory of the only woman he loved.
She died of pneumonia shortly before they were due to be married and this
garden and his memories were all that he had left of her.
‘I don’t want memories to be all I ever have of you, Sylvie. I love you,’ he
told her rawly. ‘I have always loved you and will always love you. I haven’t told
you before because I didn’t feel I had the right... First you were too young, then
there was Wayne, and then...’
‘You love me...?’ Sylvie stared at him in disbelief. ‘But only the other night
you told me that you didn’t, couldn’t...’ she reminded him. ‘You said that you
knew how painful it was for me to love you but that—’
She stopped as she heard the sharp explosive sound he made.
‘No,’ he corrected her. ‘What I was trying to say was how painful it was for
me to love you knowing that you didn’t love me back.’
For a moment they stared at one another in silence and then, uncertainly, as
though she was afraid to believe what she was hearing, Sylvie lifted her hand to
his face, her fingers shaking as they touched his skin.
‘You love me, Ran? I didn’t... I can’t... I’m afraid to believe it just in case...’
She stopped and pressed her lips together, trying to stop them from trembling.
‘Oh, God, Sylvie, what have I done—what have we done?’ Ran demanded
hoarsely as he reached for her. ‘I loved you when you were sixteen, when I had
no right to have the kind of feelings I had for you; I loved you when you were
seventeen and you almost drove me crazy with what you were so innocently
offering me. I loved you when you were nineteen and you flung your virginity at
me like a gauntlet, giving me your body but denying me your love.’
‘I thought you hated me,’ Sylvie whispered. ‘You were so angry with me
when I came to Otel Place with Wayne and the travellers.’
‘That wasn’t anger, it was jealousy,’ Ran told her dryly. ‘You’ll never know
how many, many times the only thing that kept you out of my bed was that
“anger”. It was either alienate you or...’
‘Why didn’t you...? Why didn’t you take me to bed then? You must have
known how much I wanted it, how much I wanted you,’ Sylvie said.
‘No. No, I didn’t. Oh, yes, I knew you’d had a crush on me at one stage, but
when I saw you with Wayne, when you told me that you wanted him...’
‘I thought you were rejecting me. I had my pride, you know,’ Sylvie told him
ruefully. ‘You’d pushed me away so many times before—’
‘For your own sake,’ Ran interrupted her. ‘As your mother had already
pointed out to me, I had nothing to offer you.’
‘Nothing...?’ Sylvie protested emotionally, her eyes shining with suppressed
tears. ‘You had everything, Ran, were everything to me...still are everything.’
As he took her in his arms and kissed her, white petals from the roses drifted
down onto them both.
‘Like confetti,’ Ran said softly when he finally, reluctantly lifted his mouth
from hers. ‘Traditionally we should be married from the private chapel at
Haverton Hall, but it’s badly in need of restoration and I can’t wait that long.’ As
he kissed her again he whispered against her mouth, ‘Perhaps our first child can
be christened there.’
Immediately Sylvie opened her eyes.
‘You know...about that,’ she guessed. ‘You...you felt it too...’
‘Yes,’ Ran acknowledged. ‘How could we have been such fools, Sylvie, so
blind? Surely that alone should have told us both, shown us both. What we
shared that night, what we created, could only have come from mutual love.’
‘Yes,’ Sylvie admitted huskily. ‘I still can’t quite believe it...’ she added,
brushing white rose petals off his arms. ‘It’s...it’s still so... It’s less than an hour
since I thought that I’d be driving away from Haverton and you, for ever. What
made you come back? What—?’
‘You did,’ he told her promptly, and then relented when he saw her face.
‘Mollie talked to me...made me think...see...’
‘Mollie talked to me...made me think...see...’
‘Mollie? But she never said a word when she rang me—’ Sylvie began
indignantly, and then stopped. ‘Oh, Ran,’ she whispered, ‘I can’t bear to think
how close we came to...to not having this...not having one another.’
‘It wouldn’t have ended here,’ Ran comforted her.
‘I don’t know what Lloyd’s going to say when I tell him that I’ve changed my
mind and I want to stay at Haverton...’
‘For ever,’ Ran told her.
‘For ever,’ Sylvie agreed.
‘Let’s go inside,’ Ran said abruptly, ‘I want to hold you...make love with
you...show you how much I love you...how much I need you.’
Ten minutes later, as she lay in his arms on his bed, tracing the strong shape of
his nose, she told him huskily, ‘There’s only ever been you, Ran. I couldn’t
bear...didn’t want...’
‘Do you think it’s been any different for me?’ he demanded rawly.
Uncertainly Sylvie looked at him.
‘But you’re a man,’ she protested. ‘There was always someone...one of your
sophisticated women-friends...’
‘Friends, yes,’ Ran agreed, ‘but lovers, no. Oh, I had some meaningless
encounters in the early days, but I’ve not slept with anyone for a long time. It
isn’t so very much different for a man, Sylvie, not when he loves a woman the
way I love you. Perhaps that was part of the reason why... Will it be a boy or a
girl, do you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sylvie answered. ‘What I do know, though, is that he or she
will be a creation of our love.’
‘We shall have to marry quickly and quietly,’ Ran told her. ‘Your mother
won’t like that...’
‘I’d like to be married at Otel Place,’ Sylvie said softly. ‘Where we first met. I
do like this room, Ran,’ she added dreamily. ‘It’s very you.’
‘Do you? I’m very glad to hear that since from now on you’re going to be
seeing an awful lot of it,’ Ran told her mock-solemnly before drawing her down
against him and cupping her face so that he could kiss her.
*
They were married five weeks later at Otel Place with just their immediate
family in attendance and, of course, Lloyd, whom Sylvie had especially wanted
to be there.
Alex gave her away whilst her mother, who had been overjoyed to discover
Alex gave her away whilst her mother, who had been overjoyed to discover
that she was to marry Ran, sobbed into her handkerchief. Alex and Mollie’s
child was their only attendant, carrying the ring with solemn determination on a
velvet cushion embroidered with Ran’s family’s arms. Sylvie’s dress was cream
and gold.
‘White has never suited me,’ she had told Mollie, adding, tongue-in-cheek,
‘Besides, it wouldn’t be appropriate.’
‘I should hope not,’ Mollie had agreed. ‘After the years you and Ran have
been apart, I’m surprised he let you out of bed long enough to get married,’
she’d added forthrightly.
Sylvie had laughed and then asked demurely, ‘What makes you think that he’s
the one keeping me in bed? I love him so much, Mollie,’ she’d added seriously,
‘and it’s all thanks to you that we’re together.’
‘Well, don’t try to repay me by naming this after me,’ Mollie had warned her
as she’d gently patted Sylvie’s still flat stomach.
Sylvie had stared at her.
‘You know? But how...? I...’
‘I saw the colour you turned at breakfast the other morning,’ Mollie had told
her wryly. ‘And besides... Well, let’s just say that Ran has that certain look about
him. He loves you so much, Sylvie.’
Involuntarily Sylvie’s glance now went to her new husband, her heart starting
to thud heavily. Much as she loved her family, right now the only person she
wanted was Ran. Quietly she made her way towards where he was talking with
Alex, linking her arm through his as she suggested softly, ‘Let’s go home,
Ran...’
*
‘I really think that Haverton is my favourite of all our buildings,’ Lloyd
confessed to Sylvie as they both stood together in the ante-chamber to the small
family chapel where Sylvie and Ran’s baby son and Lloyd’s godson had just
been christened.
‘You say that about every one of them,’ Sylvie teased, but Lloyd shook his
head.
‘No, Haverton is special,’ he insisted. ‘You’ve done a fine job here, Sylvie.
Are you sure I can’t tempt you to come back to work for me? There’s a palace
I’ve seen in Spain...’
‘No.’ Laughing, Sylvie shook her head. ‘I have another project to occupy me
now,’ she reminded him, looking lovingly towards her son, who was being
now,’ she reminded him, looking lovingly towards her son, who was being
cradled by his father.
The work on Haverton had been finished just in time for Rory’s christening.
The official opening of the house to the public was scheduled for the end of the
month.
Ran hadn’t put any pressure on her to make her project on Haverton the last
one. She wanted to be with Rory and, of course, with Ran. Maybe in years to
come she might pick up her career again, although she doubted it. She was the
Trust’s official caretaker for Haverton, and looking after the house and its
grounds was going to prove more than stimulating enough.
Already, even before the house officially opened, she had bookings for a
string of weddings, carrying right through the coming year, never mind the
conferences and private parties who had expressed interest in hiring the house. It
was extremely satisfying to know that simply on the interest that had already
been shown in the house her costings indicated that it would earn enough to pay
for its own upkeep.
‘Even if you had managed to run away from me,’ Ran had told her only the
previous night, ‘sooner or later I would have seen Rory, and once I had I would
have known that he was mine and then...’
‘And then...?’ Sylvie had demanded challengingly.
‘And then I would have remembered how he came into being and then
somehow I’d have found a way to become a part of his life— and yours,’ Ran
had told her quietly.
‘Because he’s your son?’ she had asked him.
‘Because you’re my woman...my love...’ Ran had corrected her.
Sometimes, even now, she couldn’t believe how lucky she had been, how
wonderful her life was. Living at the Rectory was fulfilling part of her childhood
dream—the house so closely mirrored the secret home she’d used to create for
herself. But it wasn’t, of course, her home, wonderful though it was, that made
her feel that she had been so especially blessed... She looked tenderly at Ran.
If the Rectory was her dream home then Ran was certainly her dream man,
although to describe him as such in no way did either him or the depth and
intensity of the love they shared true justice.
Ran was her man, her mate, her soul and the real heart of her life... Without
him... Without him she wouldn’t have her beautiful kitchen floor covered in mud
as it had been the other morning when he had come in shouting triumphantly that
the poachers he had suspected of taking their stock had finally been caught
poaching from a neighbour’s property.
poaching from a neighbour’s property.
She smiled secretly to herself. Rory was six months old and she suspected that
well before he reached his second birthday he would have a sibling, a brother or
a sister.
‘What are you smiling for?’ Ran asked her as he came over to her with Rory
and kissed her lovingly on the mouth.
‘You know that avenue of limes we planted at Haverton to mark Rory’s
birth?’
‘Mmm...’
‘Well, do you remember you said that we’d plant a cross walkway to mark the
birth of our second child?’
‘Mmm...’
‘Well,’ Sylvie told him with a twinkle in her eyes, ‘I think you’d better think
about ordering saplings now...’
‘Sylvie...?’ Ran queried, but she was already turning away from him to speak
to someone else. ‘Just you wait until later,’ he mock-growled in her ear, but as
she answered the interested questions of one of his elderly aunts about the
restoration work on Haverton Ran looked down into the alert eyes of his son and
told him softly, ‘Something tells me you’re going to have to get used to the idea
of being a big brother, Rory.’
*
ONE INTIMATE NIGHT
Penny Jordan
I should like to dedicate this book to everyone at the Cheadle and Cheadle
Hulme Dog Club and,
of course, to Sheba and Kerry.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
‘GEORGIA...good... I’m sorry we’ve had to drag you in on your day off but
there’s a bit of a flap on.’
Georgia Evans’s smile turned to an anxious frown as she saw the concern
shadowing the eyes of the senior partner of the veterinary practice where she had
worked since becoming a fully qualified vet six months earlier.
‘I wasn’t doing anything special,’ she responded, ignoring the accusing mental
image she had of her half-painted flat walls—a task she had willingly abandoned
when she had received the telephone call from the surgery’s receptionist asking
if she could come in.
‘What’s—?’
Pre-empting her question, Philip Ross told her quickly, ‘It’s the mare out at
Barton Farm; she’s foaling and there are complications. Gary is with her but I
suspect we may have to operate. I’m on my way over to join him now. Jenny
will take over my morning’s ops and Helen will take Gary’s surgery, which will
leave you as our emergency on-call vet, and if you could take the morning’s
dog-training class as well...’
As he spoke Philip was on his way out of the room, and, aware of the
seriousness of the situation, Georgia made no attempt to delay him.
Once he had gone she walked into the main office and reception area of the
practice.
Although all the small pets due to have operations had already been delivered
by their owners, the main clinic of the day hadn’t started as yet and Georgia was
free to make herself a cup of coffee and check to see if she had any post, whilst
discussing what had happened with the other two more senior vets she worked
alongside.
‘I hope we don’t get any emergencies,’ she confided to Jenny. ‘I’m not sure...’
‘If I were you I’d worry more about the dog-training class than any
emergencies,’ Jenny advised her wryly. ‘Ben will be there...’
‘Ben? Mrs Latham’s Ben?’ Georgia questioned, groaning when Jenny nodded.
‘Oh, no!’
Mrs Latham’s Ben was an English setter. A beautiful dog without an ounce of
aggression in him, but unfortunately with more than his share of scattiness. To
make matters worse Ben was a rescue dog, with Mrs Latham his second owner.
Ben had been rescued from ending up in a dog’s home thanks to her decision to
Ben had been rescued from ending up in a dog’s home thanks to her decision to
give him a place to stay with her, and Georgia could well remember the first
time she had seen him.
She had been working at the surgery for less than a month when a harassed
young woman had turned up with Ben, who was just over a year old then and
physically fully grown. He was a handsome, lovable, charming and completely
dizzy dog, and Ben’s then owner had complained to Georgia, who had been the
vet on duty when she had brought him in, that with an elderly father to care for,
a husband whose work took him away for days at a time and two young children
she simply could not cope with a boisterous, energetic large dog.
As she’d looked from the woman’s anxious eyes to the dog’s trusting ones
Georgia’s heart had sunk. Ben was a beautiful dog, healthy, young, and as a fully
bred pedigree had no doubt cost his owner an awful lot of money, but here she
was telling Georgia defensively that there was simply no way she could keep
him.
It had been at that moment that Mrs Latham had walked in, and Georgia’s
heart had sunk even further.
Mrs Latham was the owner of a raffish ginger tom cat who had adopted her
when his previous owners had moved house. Ginger had cynically pounced on
Mrs Latham’s tender heart and the equally tender choice cuts of fish and meat
she supplied him with and had moved himself in to Number One Ormond
Gardens. But Ginger was, at heart, an independent warrior, and his night-time
clashes with other cats in the neighbourhood meant that he was a regular visitor
at the surgery.
Having reassured Mrs Latham that Ginger was recovering very well from the
small operation he had had to repair a tear in his ear, Georgia had left Mrs
Latham in the waiting room with Ben’s owner whilst she went to collect Ginger
from the cattery.
On her return she had discovered that Ben’s owner had left but that Ben was
still there, with a rather bemused Mrs Latham, who’d announced breathlessly to
her that she was now Ben’s new owner.
In vain had Georgia gently tried to dissuade her, pointing out all the problems
she was likely to encounter with such a big dog in her small, pretty town house.
Mrs Latham, however, had proved unexpectedly resistant to her arguments. Ben
was now hers.
And so Ben had gone to live with Mrs Latham and Ginger, and a more
indulged, pampered pair of pets, everyone at the surgery agreed, it would have
been hard to find.
Ben, despite all Mrs Latham’s attempts to ‘train’ him, was still regularly
Ben, despite all Mrs Latham’s attempts to ‘train’ him, was still regularly
disrupting the weekly training class the surgery organised for dog owners.
‘The problem is that Mrs Latham simply can’t bring herself to be firm with
Ben and show him who’s boss,’ Jenny had complained wryly after Ben had
totally disrupted her own training session.
‘He’s a lovely dog but he needs a firm hand. As a breed, setters are scatty for
the first two years. They need exercise and space and an owner who knows how
to handle them. Mrs Latham loves him but she’s sixty-two, and before Ben’s
eruption into her life she lived for her weekly bridge sessions.’
Helen had giggled. ‘Has she told you about when she took Ben with her and
apparently he was lying under the table and then got up at the wrong moment
and sent it and the cards flying? He’s banned from going now...’
Georgia, whose heart was just as tender as Mrs Latham’s, had sighed.
‘It’s a shame, because he’s such a lovely dog.’
‘Try telling yourself that after you’ve taken a class with him in it,’ Helen had
advised her.
‘I already have,’ Georgia had told her, ‘and I know just what you mean, but
there’s no malice in him; he’s just—’
‘He’s just not the dog for a woman with Mrs Latham’s lifestyle,’ Helen had
interrupted her.
It was true. Mrs Latham lived virtually in the centre of their small market
town which, although quiet by modern-day standards, and surrounded by the
farmland whose needs it serviced, was still no place for a dog who needed long,
long country walks and a physically energetic owner.
Predictably, perhaps, Ben’s original owner had proved impossible to trace—a
‘visitor’ unknown at the surgery. They had no record of either her or Ben.
They had all tried to suggest to Mrs Latham that a new owner ought to be
found for Ben, but still she’d refused to be swayed.
‘He’s already been abandoned once,’ she had told Helen firmly. ‘So traumatic
for him, poor boy. Why, when he first came to me he was so frightened of being
left that he insisted on sitting on my sofa right up next to me. So sweet...’
Helen had rolled her eyes at the others as she’d related this piece of canine
emotional manipulation.
‘So sweet,’ she had scoffed. ‘That dog knows when he’s on to a good thing.
Talk about spoiled...’
Smiling to herself now, Georgia picked up her post. A small, pretty girl with
dark red curls and huge violet-blue eyes wide-spaced in a creamy-skinned,
delicately small-boned face, she had wanted to be a vet ever since she could
delicately small-boned face, she had wanted to be a vet ever since she could
remember.
Getting this job in such a busy, prestigious practice and within a two-hour
drive of her parents’ home had been ideal, and she had soon settled down in the
small flat she’d bought and begun to make new friends amongst her colleagues.
There was no man in her life: the years she had spent studying to qualify as a
vet had meant that there had been neither the time nor the space for a permanent
relationship. She had good friends, though—of both sexes—and enjoyed
socialising. Ultimately she wanted to meet a special ‘someone’, fall in love,
commit herself to their relationship and raise a family, but she was not in any
hurry. Her warm personality and sensual good looks meant that she was never
short of admirers. But right now her career was her main priority. Her elder
brother often teased her that it was just as well that he was married with a young
family because, otherwise, their parents would have had to wait a long time for
their grandchildren.
Much as she loved her work, and the animals who featured in it, Georgia had
no pet of her own, mainly because of the long hours she worked.
Quickly she checked her watch. Ten minutes to go before the owners and their
dogs arrived for the week’s training class.
This was an extra service the practice provided along with access, should their
owners wish it, to a pet psychologist—every vet who took the class had to go on
a special course themselves to make sure their own training skills were up to the
mark. They ran two courses, one for adult dogs and one for younger puppies,
and it was Georgia who normally took the puppy classes, which was a duty she
loved.
The practice was very fortunate in that, having been established for many
years, and initially having been set up by the present senior partner’s
grandfather, it owned the large garden to the rear of the Edwardian house which
had been converted into its offices, operating theatre and surgeries. In addition to
the cattery and kennels, the practice also had a large indoor training area, which
was where the morning’s class was to be held. Picking up her box of rewards,
and making sure she had everything else she would need, Georgia opened the
door and walked into the passageway which led to the training room.
*
Piers Hathersage grimaced as he surveyed the back seat of his once immaculate
car, now covered in dog hairs and the papier mâché mess which had originally
been a magazine he had inadvertently left there.
been a magazine he had inadvertently left there.
‘Bad dog,’ he told the culprit sternly.
Ben responded by barking sharply and rearing up on his hind legs. He was a
powerful dog, and Piers wondered for the umpteenth time what on earth his
godmother had been thinking of when she had decided to give him a home.
It was true that he was a very handsome dog—his coat shone and his eyes
sparkled with humour, intelligence and mischief, whilst he bounded impatiently
on his lead, trying to pull away in the opposite direction from which Piers
intended to lead him.
Piers had arrived at his godmother’s last night intending only to pay her a
fleeting visit on his way back from his parents’, but on finding that she had
sprained her ankle whilst falling over her wretched dog, and that her main
concern about her incapacity was the fact that she would be unable to take him
to his weekly training class, he had felt obliged to offer to perform this chore for
her.
‘Oh, Piers, would you?’ she had breathed with such evident relief. ‘Do you
hear that, Ben?’ she had cooed at the miscreant.
‘Uncle Piers is going to take you to your training class.’
Uncle Piers! Piers had gritted his teeth and manfully resisted the temptation to
say what he was thinking.
Five months earlier, when his godmother had first got Ben, his parents had
told him how concerned they were about the wisdom of her acquiring such a
large, unruly dog.
‘Why on earth has she got him?’ Piers had asked them frowningly.
‘Well, she was a bit vague on the subject,’ his father had told him. ‘However,
it seems that he came to her via the veterinary practice where she takes that
dreadful cat she’s adopted.’
Piers’s parents were both slightly younger than Emily Latham, who had
befriended them as a young couple when they had first married.
Ten years ago, just after Piers had returned from a stint of working abroad, her
husband had died and, remembering all the small kindnesses she had done for
him as a boy and her generosity as a godmother, both with her time and her love
as well, Piers had made sure that he continued to visit her just as often as he
could.
She and her late husband had had no children, and Piers suspected it was
because of this that she was inclined to have such a rose-coloured and
sentimental view of children and animals.
Listening to his parents, Piers had well been able to imagine how easily she
had been prevailed upon to take in someone else’s abandoned dog, and he had
further gathered from a chance remark of his godmother’s that some young
woman at the practice had been responsible for ‘introducing’ her to Ben. To
encourage an elderly widow to take on a dog that was plainly quite unsuitable
for her was, in his opinion, a highly irresponsible thing for anyone to do, much
less someone who was supposed to be professionally involved with animals. But
despite all his carefully logical arguments his godmother had remained obdurate:
Ben was one of life’s victims, a poor, misunderstood canine who, far from
needing the strong hand of a firm disciplinarian, rather needed to have his
psychoses treated with tenderness, love and indulgence.
Surveying the carnage Ben had wrought in his godmother’s once immaculate
garden, Piers had been unconvinced. However, his visit to Emily Latham had a
dual purpose. Thanks to the increasing demand for the complex software
programs produced by the business Piers ran, he was having to look for larger
premises, and that had prompted him to consider moving away from the city,
where he currently lived and worked, back to the town where he had grown up
and where he knew that property was much less expensive.
He was, he reflected now, at the dangerous age of thirty-seven, not so very far
off the landmark birthday of forty, and ready to eschew the fast-paced city life
he had lived for the last decade for something a little gentler. He was also ready
to trade the single life he had enjoyed, for something more companionable and
cosy. A wife? Children? He wasn’t against marriage as such, but perhaps he was
too choosy because, as yet, he had not met ‘the right woman’, nor even come
close to doing so.
Now, thanks to Ben and his godmother’s painful ankle, he had had to put back
the appointments he had made to view several properties in the area in order
instead to take Ben to his training class.
‘How many has he been to?’ he had asked his godmother as she had tussled
with Ben and the dog’s reluctance to wear his collar, tenderly loosening it a
notch.
‘Oh, I’m not sure. I think this is his third. Of course, we did miss some of the
classes in the first set I took him to. He got dreadfully upset because there was a
dog there he didn’t like, and the teacher suggested that it might be as well if he
didn’t attend for a few weeks. He was so disappointed, poor dog, and I really felt
for him when all the other dogs graduated with good marks. He looked so
downcast.’
‘Oh, indeed,’ Piers had agreed dryly, surveying the troublemaker with
‘Oh, indeed,’ Piers had agreed dryly, surveying the troublemaker with
dispassionate eyes.
‘He’s a very sensitive animal,’ his godmother had persisted gently. ‘And so
clever. He always knows when the telephone’s going to ring and he comes to
find me to tell me.’
Piers, who had heard the sorry tale of how the dog had chewed through the
handset cord, had forborne to comment on this remarkable display of canine
intelligence. His godmother always had been a soft touch.
Now, as he crisply commanded Ben to sit, he turned to investigate the mess of
chewed paper on the rear seat and floor of the car, cursing under his breath as he
realised the dog had munched on a magazine he had been keeping because of an
article that contained some information he had wanted to reread.
Judging from the diverse array of cars in the practice’s car park, its dog
owners must span the full spectrum of human personalities, Piers acknowledged
as his glance moved from a gleaming brand-new top-of-the-range Mercedes to a
battered Land Rover and on to a pretty red and cream Citroën.
His own Jaguar was, he had to admit, a small piece of pure self-indulgence, a
sleek dark maroon sports model which he had bought in a moment of
uncharacteristic impulsiveness.
‘What happened to the eco-friendly estate car you said you were intending to
buy?’ Jason Sawyer, his partner, had asked him wryly when he had seen it.
Jason, with a wife and four children, often bemoaned the fact that the only really
suitable car for his lifestyle was the large people-carrier which his wife drove,
leaving him to use the family’s second car.
‘I’m not quite sure,’ Piers had admitted.
‘Enjoy it whilst you can,’ Jason had told him. ‘Belinda is making noises about
us buying a camper van. She says it will be ideal for touring holidays with the
kids!’
As Piers approached the entrance to the practice he saw a large notice pinned
to the door with an arrow on it, stating ‘Training Classes—this way.’
Following the direction of the arrow round the side of the building, he could
see a long, low range of outhouses in front of him which had obviously been
converted for a variety of uses. It was plain which one was his destination from
the small crowd of owners and dogs milling around outside it, all of them
surrounding a small red-headed girl dressed in a white tee shirt that lovingly
moulded itself to her softly rounded breasts and a pair of jeans which moulded
themselves equally tenderly to a femininely curved bottom.
Very sexy, was Piers’s first thought—his second was that it was no wonder
the majority of dog owners surrounding her were male.
the majority of dog owners surrounding her were male.
It was obvious that she was the class’s teacher, but Piers deliberately held off
from approaching her. It was his habit to assess everything carefully and
detachedly before allowing himself to become involved with anyone. A little
caution, in his view, was no bad thing, but Ben, it seemed, had other ideas. A
momentary lapse of attention, a small slackening of Piers’s firm hand on the
dog’s lead, and Ben seized his chance.
Georgia had seen Ben and his unfamiliar human attachment arrive out of the
corner of her eye, but she had been too busy welcoming her class with small
treats and warm words of welcome to pay too much attention—at least not
openly. Inwardly, though, there was nothing wrong with the speed of her
reactions, nor the lightning way that her senses registered the awesomely male
aspects of Ben’s handler. Tall, broad-shouldered, well muscled, if the way his
tee shirt was being flattened against his torso by the breeze was anything to go
by. Very thick short dark hair, a rather grim expression in those bitter-chocolatebrown eyes, it was true, and a certain very determined compression about the
folded line of his mouth, but otherwise quite staggeringly good-looking, and
more sexy in his jeans and tee shirt than any man except an actor as seen in a
chocolate-bar advert had any right to be.
Ben, meanwhile, for reasons which only a similarly attuned canine mind could
appreciate, had spotted the human who, so far as he was concerned, was
responsible for his present blissful lifestyle in doggie heaven with Mrs Latham.
He’d made a connection in his brain between Georgia’s brief appearance in the
waiting room at the vet’s and his re-homing with Mrs Latham and, being the
affectionate animal that he was, he quite naturally wanted to show his
appreciation.
Having convinced his besotted owner that a collar worn anything less than
loose enough for him to slip his head through and free himself from at will was
an instrument of torture highly likely to cause him death by strangulation, as
soon as he spotted Georgia he slipped his head from his collar with practised
ease and tore across the yard towards her, scattering pets and owners as he did
so, launching himself at Georgia and almost knocking her to the ground with the
force of his enthusiastic greeting.
‘Ben...down,’ Georgia instructed firmly.
Tongue lolling, Ben obligingly wagged his tail.
‘Ben,’ Georgia repeated, ‘down.’
Ben nuzzled her neck lovingly.
‘Dr Dolittle, I presume,’ Piers drawled sarcastically as he reached his escapee
‘Dr Dolittle, I presume,’ Piers drawled sarcastically as he reached his escapee
charge and unceremoniously yanked him off Georgia by the scruff of his neck,
instructing him in an ominously quiet voice, ‘Sit.’
Ben knew when a little diplomacy was called for. Obligingly he sat very
heavily on Piers’s feet, leaning lovingly against him and looking up into his
eyes.
Ignoring this touching appeal, Piers sternly refastened Ben’s collar—several
notches tighter.
Georgia knew that it was up to her to take charge, but for some reason her
thought processes seemed to have turned to gooey marshmallow. All she could
focus on was how wonderfully broad Piers’s chest was, how flat his belly, how
corded with male muscles his arms were, as Ben twisted and turned in his hold,
giving sharp, short barks of feigned distress.
‘I don’t know who was responsible for foisting this delinquent hound on my
godmother,’ Piers was saying through gritted teeth, ‘but if I ever find out...’
So he was Mrs Latham’s godson. Sternly reminding herself that she was a
trained professional, and that right now her attention ought to be focused on her
canine pupils and not on the six-foot hunk of hormone-level-raising male
gorgeousness standing in front of her, Georgia dipped her hand into the box of
rewards she had put down at her feet, proffering one to Ben.
‘Good boy, Ben. Sit...’ she cajoled him.
‘Don’t—’ Piers began sharply, and then stopped as Ben suddenly turned into
the most demure dog imaginable, giving Georgia a liquid-eyed look of love
before taking the titbit she was offering him.
‘Come on, everyone,’ Georgia instructed her small group. ‘Let’s go inside and
get started.’
*
Once inside the large, empty room it quickly became obvious to Piers that,
whilst the majority of the other dogs there were responding to Georgia’s careful
instructions to their owners, when it came to doggy obedience Ben was in a class
of his own.
When he had disrupted the class for the fifth time, by grinning wickedly at the
slightly nervous collie bitch to one side of him and standing, Piers was quite sure
deliberately, on the tail of the dog on the other side, Piers decided he had had
enough.
There was no doubt about it: Ben was a master manipulator and most
definitely not the dog for a woman as hopelessly incapable of disciplining him as
definitely not the dog for a woman as hopelessly incapable of disciplining him as
his godmother.
Several yards away Georgia tried to keep her mind on what she was doing.
Ben’s waywardness was communicating itself to the rest of the class, and
Georgia could see the sardonic look in Piers’s eyes as the dogs grew restless,
their concentration broken by Ben’s sabotage.
Ben’s trouble wasn’t that he wasn’t intelligent enough, Georgia reflected; it
was more that he was too intelligent. Too intelligent and far too energetic for his
current sedate lifestyle. Setters were gun dogs; they needed exercise and lots of
it, and equally large amounts of firm handling.
The class came to an end and, as was her custom, Georgia made a point of
going up to each dog to pet it before it and its owner left.
Ben she left till the last. Not, she assured herself, for any reason other than that
she was curious to know why Mrs Latham had not brought him to the class.
‘My godmother has hurt her ankle,’ Piers informed Georgia curtly after she
had introduced herself and asked him where Mrs Latham was.
Close up, Piers was even more excitingly masculine than she had imagined.
Stern, cold-eyed men were not normally her style, Georgia admitted; she
preferred good humour to good looks any day of the week. But something was
quite definitely causing that little quiver of female appreciation she could feel
disturbing her normal level-headed calmness.
However, it was plain that Piers was nowhere near as impressed by her as she
was by him, Georgia conceded ruefully as she heard him telling her curtly, ‘If
today’s evidence of the success of your dog-training classes is anything to go by,
I’m not surprised that Ben is proving so obdurate. Have you any professional
qualifications for this?’
Immediately Georgia’s hackles rose.
‘I’m a fully trained vet,’ she informed him shortly, ‘and, yes, I have been
trained to—’
‘You may be trained, but Ben most certainly isn’t,’ Piers cut across her coldly.
‘He’s too much of a handful for my godmother, and...’
As she listened to him Georgia’s heart began to sink. What he was saying was
quite true, of course, but in his short life Ben had already had two homes and,
despite his wilful determination to resist instruction, there was no doubt that in
his own way he was devoted to Mrs Latham. Heavens knew what would happen
to Ben if her godson were to persuade her to part with him.
Crossing her fingers mentally, Georgia told Piers semi-truthfully, ‘Setters can
initially be a bit wild, but once they get over that they calm down tremendously.’
initially be a bit wild, but once they get over that they calm down tremendously.’
‘I’m sure they do,’ Piers agreed, giving Georgia a narrow-eyed look,
‘provided they are living in the right environment, and the right environment for
Ben is not, in my opinion, the home of a sedentary woman who’ll not see sixty
again.’
‘Ben has already been re-homed once,’ Georgia told Piers protectively. ‘It’s a
traumatic experience for a dog to be parted from an owner it’s become attached
to.’
‘Indeed. However, I’m sure you’ll agree that it would be an equally traumatic
experience for my godmother if, as fortunately did not happen on this occasion,
Ben were to pull away from her again and, instead of merely causing her to
stumble and hurt her foot, dash out into the road with possible fatal
consequences for himself.’
Georgia bit her lip. He did have a point, but she still felt she had to defend
Ben.
‘Once Ben can walk properly on the lead that kind of thing won’t happen,’ she
informed Piers.
‘Once! Don’t you mean if, or more probably never?’ Piers asked.
He looked down at the dog sternly. Ben smiled back at him, and then tensed
as, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a cat strolling round the corner of the
building. Springing to his feet, he tugged hard on his lead, forgetting that Piers
had tightened his collar.
Piers gave an exclamation of irritation as Ben’s leap for freedom caught him
off guard and slightly off balance, and, instinctively knowing the dog’s strength,
Georgia reached out to grab hold of Piers’s arm to help steady him.
Afterwards, Piers told himself that it was the feel of Georgia’s soft breast
pressing against him, the scent of her clean perfume in his nostrils and the
softness of her hair brushing against his bare arm that had caused him
momentarily to slacken his grip on Ben’s lead. After all, Georgia was a
stunningly attractive woman, and the sight of those soft, oh so well rounded
breasts jiggling around inside her tee shirt whilst she had been running up and
down the room with the dogs had left a lasting impression on his brain—and his
body!
As Ben tore after the cat both Georgia and Piers shouted commands to him to
stop, but it was Philip who was actually responsible for him coming to an abrupt
halt as Ben turned the corner and ran full tilt into him.
Rushing across to take hold of Ben’s lead, Georgia apologised to her boss.
‘How is the mare?’ she asked him anxiously.
‘Fine. Both she and the foal are doing very well, although it was touch-and-go
‘Fine. Both she and the foal are doing very well, although it was touch-and-go
for a while.’ Philip frowned as he turned from Georgia to Piers and asked, ‘Isn’t
it Piers Hathersage?’ He explained, when Piers acknowledged his recognition of
him, ‘I thought I remembered you from school. What are you doing these days?’
Discreetly Georgia left them to renew old acquaintanceships, at the same time
making a mental note to ask Philip to have a word with Piers and hopefully
persuade him to see Ben in a much better light than he currently did.
‘He’s not a bad dog,’ she told Helen later, when she was relating to her what
had happened.
‘Not bad, no,’ Helen replied, ‘but you’ve got to admit that he is too much for
Mrs Latham.’
‘Mmm,’ Georgia agreed. ‘It’s such a shame, though, because she’s devoted to
him and Ben thinks the world of her.’
‘Oh, he’s told you that, has he?’ Helen teased her, adding, ‘I think you’re
quite smitten with him yourself. Or is it someone else who has aroused your
interest?’
Refusing to rise to Helen’s bait, Georgia shook her head and exclaimed, ‘Is
that the time? I must go otherwise I shall be late for this afternoon’s clinic.’
CHAPTER TWO
BY THE time he had driven Ben back to his godmother’s, Piers had made up his
mind. The dog had to go. However, when he let himself into the house he found
Emily Latham in a state of some agitation. Her sister, it transpired, had
telephoned her in Piers’s absence asking her if she would like to take the place
of her friend who had had to drop out of a three-week cruise of the
Mediterranean at the last minute.
‘Everything’s paid for,’ she told Piers. ‘All I would have to do is pack and
take the train to Mary’s...’
‘So what’s stopping you?’ Piers asked her with a smile.
Poignantly she looked at Ben.
‘I just can’t leave him,’ she told Piers solemnly.
‘You could put him in kennels,’ Piers suggested.
Immediately his godmother shook her head.
‘Oh, no, he’d hate that,’ she told him, adding simply, ‘Who would give him
his chocolate at night and make sure he has everything he wants? No, he
wouldn’t be comfortable in kennels. He sleeps upstairs in my room at night
and...’
Piers closed his eyes. It was getting worse and worse. No wonder the dog
thought he was the boss.
‘It’s no good. I’ll have to ring Mary and tell her I can’t go,’ Emily said
dispiritedly.
Piers frowned and came to a quick decision. He had planned to spend only a
few days with his godmother, looking at local properties, but, in reality, there
was nothing to stop him from staying longer, nor from working from her house
whilst he did so, and besides... He looked at the dog lying sprawled out on the
rug in front of the fireplace, a whole array of semi-chewed toys spread around
him.
With his godmother safely out of the way he could look around for another
home for Ben.
‘Yes, you can,’ he told his godmother firmly. ‘I’ll stay here with Ben.’
‘For three weeks? Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that,’ Emily Latham demurred,
but Piers could see the gleam of hope in her eyes.
‘You aren’t asking me,’ he told her prosaically, ‘I’m volunteering. And
besides, it will give me more time to look around for somewhere to live and
besides, it will give me more time to look around for somewhere to live and
work.’
‘Well, if you’re sure...’
‘I’m sure,’ Piers confirmed. ‘You go and ring Mary.’
As his godmother headed for the door she paused and stopped, saying, ‘Oh, I
nearly forgot. How did the training class go?’
Piers grimaced. ‘It didn’t. In fact the whole thing was shambolic. The young
woman who took it was very easy on the eye and equally easy on the dogs. I
always thought red hair was supposed to signify temper in a woman, but she—’
‘Red hair... Oh, it must have been Georgia who took the class. She’s lovely,
isn’t she? She’s only been with the practice a few months. In fact it’s really
thanks to her that I got Ben...’
Piers tensed. ‘Thanks to her? You mean she was responsible for that...that...?’
He stopped as the telephone started to ring and his godmother went to answer
it. He might have known, he fumed. No wonder the wretched woman had been
so keen to protect Ben, if she was the one who was responsible for his
godmother having the dog in the first place. Of all the irresponsible...
Wrathfully he remembered the chaos of what had purported to be this
morning’s dog-training class. Philip must have used his eyes rather than his
brain the day he had decided to employ her. She certainly was very eye-catching,
with that mass of thick, dark red hair and that delicate face, those lusciously
dark-lashed eyes and that body that was so curvy that it was just made for a
man’s hands to caress...
Abruptly Piers frowned; this was no way for him to be thinking. His
godmother had more than likely committed the same folly of being instantly
attracted to her crafty canine, for no one could deny that Ben was an extremely
good-looking dog.
He, Piers, attracted to Georgia? Impossible... He liked cool, intellectual
brunettes, tall and slim, fully up-to-speed independent women who would have
shuddered in distaste at the mere thought of an animal’s hair anywhere near their
immaculately presented persons.
A short, curvy redhead with tousled curls who thought nothing of cuddling
one of her furry friends was quite definitely not his cup of tea... No way...no way
at all...
‘That was Mary on the phone,’ his godmother announced happily as she came
back into the room. ‘I’ve told her that I’m going to be able to join her after all.’
Her face clouded slightly. ‘Are you sure you really want to do this, Piers? I
know that Ben can be rather a naughty boy at times, but his heart’s in the right
place...’ She beamed adoringly at the dog, who had followed her into the room
and was looking approvingly up at her.
‘His heart may be, but unfortunately the rest of him does not appear to want to
follow suit,’ Piers murmured dryly, giving the dog a quelling look. Ben
scratched vigorously behind his ear, causing Emily Latham to give Piers a
horrified look of concern.
‘Oh, Piers, you don’t think he’s caught something, do you?’ she exclaimed
worriedly.
‘If he has I’m sure his friend at the vet’s will be more than happy to relieve
him of it,’ Piers assured her grimly.
‘Oh, dear, I’d better give them a ring, and then I must pack and you’ll need
food...and...’
‘I’ll ring them—in the morning. You go and pack by all means, but as for
food I can shop for that myself tomorrow. This evening we’ll eat out...my treat.’
‘Oh, no...we can’t do that,’ his godmother protested. ‘Not on my last evening
at home. It wouldn’t be fair to Ben.’
‘No, of course not,’ Piers agreed sardonically. ‘I wasn’t thinking. Do forgive
me, Ben!’
‘We could have a take-away,’ Emily suggested. ‘There’s a very good pizza
place in town that delivers. Ben loves them, don’t you, Benny? He likes the
anchovy ones best...’
Defeatedly Piers closed his eyes whilst Ben’s tail thumped enthusiastically on
the floor.
*
‘Thanks for taking this afternoon’s cases,’ Philip told Georgia as she emerged
from their second surgery. ‘Oh, and by the way, if I could just have a word with
you before you leave...?’
Despite Philip’s smile and his thanks Georgia was conscious of a small frisson
of unease. However, the afternoon’s patients had all turned out to be fairly
straightforward, and any who had needed minor treatment had all responded
well.
*
‘Ah Georgia.’ Philip smiled as she popped her head round the door to his office
a few minutes later. ‘Yes...come on in...
‘Well, the good news is that you can take your missed day off tomorrow, if
‘Well, the good news is that you can take your missed day off tomorrow, if
that suits you.’
‘Yes, thank you, that will be fine,’ Georgia accepted. ‘The good news’, he had
said; that meant that there was some bad.
‘Sit down,’ Philip invited her, indicating the chair in front of his desk. ‘I
appreciate that you were somewhat thrown in at the deep end, so to speak, today,
and I’m sure that, like all of us here, there are some aspects of the work you
prefer to others. For instance I’ve always enjoyed operating and large-animal
work, whilst Helen, as you know, prefers dealing with the smaller domestic
pets...’
Georgia frowned, wondering where exactly Philip’s conversation was leading.
In another few seconds she knew.
‘I understand that this morning’s dog-training class wasn’t entirely
successful.’
Georgia’s heart started to thump a little uncomfortably. Had someone
complained?
‘There were one or two problems,’ she admitted huskily. ‘Ben...’
‘It does require a certain type of very strong personality to control a group of
over-excited dogs,’ Philip continued before she could explain. ‘I know. I’ve been
having a look at your file and I see that you had an excellent report from the
intensive dog-training course we sent you on, but sometimes translating what has
been learned in that kind of protected, cocooning environment into real life can
be more difficult than we envisage.’
‘Someone’s complained.’ Georgia couldn’t help pre-empting him flatly. ‘I
know that things did get a bit out of hand this morning, but...’
‘A bit!’ Philip’s eyebrows rose. ‘According to Piers, the dogs were totally out
of control.’
‘Piers...’ Georgia’s heart thumped even harder. Oh, she might have known
that he would be the one.
‘The reason they were out of control,’ she defended herself hotly, ‘was
because he had brought Ben.’
‘Ben.’ Philip sighed. ‘Yes, I’m afraid Ben is proving to be rather a problem,
and not just at the dog-training classes, according to Piers. I understand that he’s
recently been the cause of Mrs Latham hurting her ankle—fortunately not
seriously—this time. But so far as Piers is concerned I suspect that Ben is very
much on parole.’
Was that Philip’s way of saying that so was she? Georgia wondered a little
later as she drove home. Philip was a kind employer, and Georgia had thought
later as she drove home. Philip was a kind employer, and Georgia had thought
she had found if not the idyllic then certainly an ideal job for herself, but Philip’s
gentle little homily this afternoon was making her wonder if the partners were as
happy with her as she was with them.
Philip’s last words to her had been a hint that maybe she might think it
worthwhile doing a further intensive course in dog training. Only by reminding
herself that the blame for her carpeting lay not with Philip, nor even with Ben,
but with his irascible and unpleasant handler, had she been able to bite back the
impulsive retort that had sprung to her lips that the one who needed the intensive
course was not so much her but Ben.
He was a friendly and highly intelligent dog, but Mrs Latham spoiled him
dreadfully.
*
With another three months to go before her nine-month probation period was
fully up, Georgia now felt uncomfortably aware that her job might not be as
secure as she had imagined. There were other veterinary practices, of course, but
she liked this one, and besides, how was it going to look on her CV if the
practice didn’t give her a full-time contract? Not good—not good at all.
This was all down to Piers Hathersage, she reflected angrily.
*
The following day Georgia drove to Mrs Latham’s home in the centre of the
town.
It was late afternoon, and the early summer sunshine was throwing soft
dappled shadows over the warm sandstone in which the local houses were built.
Wrexford was a charming place, a sturdily built and solidly settled market
town which took a pride in itself and its history. The River Wrex, from which
the town got its name, ran virtually through the town centre; originally the place
had been the only spot where local people could ford the breadth of the river,
and although modern-day traffic crossed it by bridge the local council had made
an attractive park area along the river banks through the town centre for people
to enjoy.
Mrs Latham’s Queen Anne town house was one of a pretty terrace built
originally by a local landowner and let out to the town’s prosperous burghers.
The street leading to the houses was not open to general traffic; its modern
tarmac covering had been stripped back to reveal the original cobblestones and
tarmac covering had been stripped back to reveal the original cobblestones and
traditional street lighting had been installed, complete with hanging baskets of
pastel-coloured trailing plants. In front of the houses themselves the cobbled area
opened out into a wider rectangle of ground reaching to the river, with a mature
beech tree in its centre.
Residents and their visitors were allowed to park on the cobbles, although all
the houses had long gardens and garages to their rear, and it was on these
cobbles that Georgia parked her own small estate car, facing the river. Water had
always fascinated her, and the River Wrex was a particularly attractive one,
especially here in the town, where the very stringent conservation rules of the
area meant that the water was blissfully clear and home to a wide variety of
wildlife. During Georgia’s first month at the practice someone had brought in an
otter with a damaged paw which had been found on the river path. Thankfully a
small operation had repaired the damage and the otter had been successfully
returned to its home.
Upstream from the town, on the site of what had originally been the area’s
corn mill, the original buildings had been turned into a tourist attraction—the
millpond cleaned out and its weir restored to its original glory. It was a popular
site for picnickers and walkers and Georgia, who loved the countryside, couldn’t
help thinking how fortunate she was to live and work in such a beautiful
environment.
She felt completely at home here, and had even begun to daydream of the
admittedly at the moment remote possibility that she might one day be able to
afford to buy into the partnership as a junior partner.
Under Philip’s traditional management the practice had a slightly oldfashioned air to it, so Georgia had been thrilled when the response to her pleas to
be allowed to introduce a pet-visiting scheme to a nearby old people’s home had
met with overwhelming success.
The pets, carefully chosen and nominated by their vets and accompanied by
their enthusiastic owners, visited the home on a regular basis to see their human
‘friends’.
One elderly man, who had always had a dog throughout his adult life before
entering the home, had cried emotional tears to see the chocolate-brown
Labrador who had visited him.
‘He’s just like my Brownie was,’ he had told the dog’s owner in a choked
voice as he’d stroked the obliging dog.
Georgia had several other similar schemes she wanted to introduce as and
when the opportunity arose. But with a black mark hovering over her, thanks to
Piers, how could she do so?
It was pointless, of course, blaming Ben or Mrs Latham. Even so, she was
hoping that the opportunity might arise to suggest tactfully to the older woman
that both she and Ben would benefit from Ben undergoing a complete retraining
course at the hands of someone with the expertise to teach the dog properly on a
one-to-one basis.
Opening her car door, Georgia got out and walked determinedly towards Mrs
Latham’s house.
*
Piers was in the kitchen when Georgia rang the bell—and feeling rather out of
temper. He had driven his godmother to the nearest mainline station earlier in the
day and then gone on from there to do some essential food shopping. The diet of
an old lady who, whilst not totally vegetarian nevertheless seemed to prefer a
very light menu, was not one that he, as a six-foot, twelve-and-a-half-stone
mature adult man felt happy with. Not that he didn’t believe in healthy eating—
he did—but he liked substantially more on his plate than his godmother enjoyed.
He had returned to her house via the estate agent’s, where he had had an indepth talk with the representative he had seen, outlining his requirements, and
had come away with half a dozen promising property details to look over,
feeling more than ready for the lunch of locally grown new potatoes
accompanied by Scottish salmon, fresh vegetables and a hollandaise sauce he
had promised himself.
His first intimation that this was to be a delayed pleasure had occurred when
he’d opened the front door and seen the soft drift of feathers floating innocently
down the stairs and into the hallway.
Feathers...!
He’d studied them frowningly as the draught of air from the open kitchen door
drew them outside.
Feathers?
An unpleasant suspicion had gathered as ominously as the frown corrugating
his forehead.
Putting down his shopping, he’d called out sternly, ‘Ben?’
Silence...
Nothing...!
Closing the back door, Piers had hurried upstairs. The door to his godmother’s
bedroom was open, and as he’d looked into the room his heart had sunk. There
bedroom was open, and as he’d looked into the room his heart had sunk. There
was Ben, lying fast asleep on his godmother’s bed, surrounded by feathers; a
torn pillow on the floor had pointed to their origins and Piers had taken a deep
breath before saying firmly, ‘Ben!’
In his sleep the dog had breathed deeply, and then wrinkled his nose as a
feather landed softly on it.
Grimly Piers had surveyed him. No way could the dog be asleep, and, as
though to prove him correct, Ben had suddenly lifted one eyelid just the merest
fraction and then closed it again.
Wrathfully Piers had taken action, marching over to the bed and getting hold
of Ben’s collar and yanking him firmly onto the floor.
*
Four hours later, having made do with a sandwich for his lunch, he had finally
cleared away the last of the feathers, walked Ben, given him his meal and
responded to his godmother’s anxious phone call that, yes, he and Ben were
getting on fine, albeit through fiercely gritted teeth.
Now, just as he was about to sit down and study the estate agent’s properties,
someone was at the door. No doubt some crony of his godmother’s, who would
want to have the full story of where she was and who he was.
Irritably Piers walked towards the hall door.
Immediately Ben got up to follow him. He was a sociable dog, and in his
experience visitors to the house meant an hour or so of entertainment and the
added attraction of some of Mrs Latham’s home-made cake—plus, if he was
really in her good books, his own special mug of tea. Ben liked tea.
Barking excitedly, his tail wagging furiously, he rushed past Piers, determined
to get to the front door ahead of him. Well, after all, he was the main male of the
household. That chancy cat didn’t count. It had a home of its own several streets
away, as Ben well knew, and only came here for extra meals.
As Ben made to barge past him Piers reacted immediately, grabbing hold of
his collar and stopping him and then using it to half push and half drag the dog
back into the kitchen, hauling him towards his bed and sternly telling him,
‘Quiet... Stay.’
Unused to such cavalier treatment, Ben did exactly that for just as long as it
took Piers to get on the other side of the door and close it, and the sound that
greeted Georgia as Piers opened the door to her was one of heart-rending distress
as Ben, recovering from Piers’s assault to his household supremacy, started to
howl with a piteous and searing intensity.
howl with a piteous and searing intensity.
‘What’s happened? What’s wrong with Ben? What have you done to him?’
Georgia demanded immediately, her glance going anxiously to the closed
kitchen door, behind which the dog’s agonised wails were increasing in volume.
‘I haven’t done anything to him,’ Piers denied sharply. ‘What—?’
‘Yes, you have. You’ve hurt him,’ Georgia insisted, ignoring Piers to hurry to
the kitchen door and push it open.
As soon as he saw her Ben’s eyes lit up. This was more like it—a human who
understood! Whining pitifully, he lay in his basket, his eyes half closed whilst he
breathed arduously.
Whilst Piers looked on grimly from the doorway, Georgia rushed over to Ben,
getting down on her knees in front of him, quickly checking his pulse and then
the rest of him.
To her relief nothing seemed to be wrong, and then, disconcertingly, just as
she was about to demand an explanation for his piteous cries from Piers, Ben
opened one eye and started to nuzzle hopefully at the pocket where she kept her
dog treats.
From behind her Georgia heard Piers saying sardonically, ‘It seems that
diagnosis is even less your forte than training... There’s nothing wrong with
him.’
‘Where’s Mrs Latham?’ Georgia demanded, hot-faced with chagrin. Piers, it
seemed, was quite right—there was nothing wrong with Ben, but there was no
way she was going to admit as much.
‘Not here, I’m afraid. Nor will she be here for the next few weeks; she’s
having a much needed holiday with her sister, and whilst she’s away I’m going
to be staying in loco parentis, so to speak.’
‘She’s left Ben with you? You’re looking after him?’ Georgia queried, unable
to hide her feelings.
‘There wasn’t really much alternative. It seems that the kennels
weren’t...er...able to take him...’
Georgia’s flush deepened a little as she saw the way Piers was looking at her.
‘You’re staying here, looking after Ben?’ she repeated, swallowing tensely, as
though she found the words uncomfortably unpalatable.
‘I’m staying here looking after Ben,’ Piers agreed grimly. ‘And whilst I’m
here I am going to look round for a more suitable home for him.’
‘No!’ Georgia protested. ‘You can’t do that. Mrs Latham would never part
with him.’
‘My godmother is besotted with the animal, I agree,’ Piers replied acidly. ‘But
that does not make theirs in any way a suitable alliance. Far from it...’
that does not make theirs in any way a suitable alliance. Far from it...’
‘It isn’t Ben’s fault he’s so...so...so disruptive,’ Georgia defended. ‘If he was
properly trained—’
‘If he was properly trained. But that’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it? He is
most certainly not in any way trained at all, and in my view—’
‘Setters are scatty when they’re young...but...’
Georgia had no idea why she was defending the dog so fiercely. After all, she
had said herself that Ben wasn’t really a suitable dog for Mrs Latham, but
something about the way Ben was looking at her, something about the obvious
love and the doggy treats and toys which surrounded him touched her heart in a
way she could hardly explain to herself, never mind to the tough,
uncompromisingly unemotional man standing in front of her.
‘Look, I appreciate that you have a vested interest in him staying here. After
all, you were the one who foisted him on my godmother in the first place,
weren’t you?’ Piers told her grimly.
Georgia stared at him.
‘No. I...’
‘Don’t bother trying to deny it,’ Piers warned her. ‘My godmother told me
herself that you were responsible for her getting Ben.’
Georgia’s heart sank. Mrs Latham had on more than one occasion mentioned
how large a part she believed Georgia’s unavoidable absence from the waiting
room had played in her becoming Ben’s new owner. But for Piers to claim that
she had either actively solicited such a situation or even encouraged it was way
beyond the truth. Not that she was going to attempt to tell him so. Why should
she? Let him think badly of her if he wished. She didn’t care; why should she?
Just because he had the kind of sexy good looks that made her heart thud and
her temperature rise, that did not mean that she was foolish enough to want to
solicit his good opinion and ignore her own principles in doing so. Besides, he
really wasn’t her type. No, not at all. She liked men with kind, open, honest
faces and ready smiles, men who liked animals and understood them. The kind
of man she liked would have immediately seen that Ben was as much a victim of
the situation as his owner.
Georgia frowned as she looked down at Ben. She had no doubt that Piers
would carry out his threat to find him a new home. And if he couldn’t... A
horrible mental picture of Ben being dragged into the surgery to face... Georgia
swallowed hard. The practice had a rule about not destroying healthy dogs
simply because their owners no longer wanted them. But there were other
practices... Tears filmed her eyes. Quickly she ducked her head and blinked them
away. There was no way anything like that was going to happen to Ben. Not
whilst she was around to prevent it.
‘All Ben needs is someone with the skill and the patience to treat him
properly. He’s a strong-willed dog but there’s no malice or unkindness in him.’
‘Someone.’ Piers raised his eyebrows. ‘And have you any suggestions where I
might find this paragon?’
Both his voice and his expression implied that he already knew that such a
task was way beyond her capabilities, and, remembering the chaos of
yesterday’s training class, Georgia could understand why.
‘He’s a very intelligent dog,’ she persisted. ‘He could be trained.’
‘But not by you, apparently,’ Piers told her derisively.
Georgia felt her face burn with discomfort. When she had finished her training
course the instructor had told her that he had been impressed with her ability to
handle the dogs. ‘But you could be a little bit firmer,’ he had added.
‘If I had him on a one-to-one basis then, yes, I could train him,’ Georgia
insisted recklessly.
There was a long silence, and then, to her consternation, Piers said coolly,
‘Very well, then, prove it. You’ve got three weeks to persuade me that you’re
right.’
Three weeks. Georgia swallowed nervously. What on earth had she done?
What on earth had she committed herself to? There were places, she knew,
where dogs underwent two-week intensive training courses, guaranteed to have
them obeying all the basic commands and walking to heel, but the dogs were
boarded at the training school and the trainers spent all day, every day, teaching
them. There was no way she could achieve anything like the same effect with a
couple of training sessions twice a week for three weeks.
‘It isn’t quite that easy,’ Georgia protested. ‘To train him properly I’d have to
have him living with me, and I’m not allowed to have a pet in my flat.’
‘Admit it. You can’t train him,’ Piers challenged her.
Georgia’s eyes darkened to deep purple with the passion of her emotions. ‘I
could if I had him living with me,’ she repeated. ‘But, as I’ve just told you, that
isn’t possible.’
‘Maybe not, but it is possible for you to come and live with him.’
‘Live with him...?’ Georgia stared at Piers.
‘My godmother has another guest bedroom, and I’m sure, under the
circumstances, she wouldn’t have any objection to your moving in here for the
duration.’
duration.’
‘Me...move in here...with you?’ Georgia squeaked.
‘No,’ Piers corrected her gently. ‘You move in here to train Ben.’ And then,
even more gently, he explained, ‘If I was inviting you to move in anywhere with
me, I promise you the necessity for a spare guest bedroom would not exist!’
Her face scarlet with mortification, Georgia scrambled to her feet.
‘I can’t move in here,’ she said—but then her glance fell to Ben, who was
lying peacefully at her feet. He really was the most handsome dog, and his
nature was so devoid of any kind of meanness that he deserved a loving owner
and a good home. And there was no doubt about the rapport which existed
between him and Mrs Latham, even if he did take atrocious advantage of her.
The thought of him being passed on to yet another owner or ending up
unwanted in a dogs’ home was just too much for Georgia’s tender heart to bear.
‘I’ll do it,’ she heard herself saying recklessly. ‘I’ll move in and I’ll prove to
you just how well-trained a dog Ben can be...’
The derisive look Piers was giving her warned Georgia that he had scant faith
in her claim, but that only made her feel all the more determined to prove herself
and Ben to him.
Mentally she started to make plans. Coincidentally she had some holiday
leave due. If she took it that would give her some extra time with Ben. The
practice was within walking distance of Mrs Latham’s house, so she would be
able to dash home during her break when she was working to be with him, and
then there were her off-duty hours. Three weeks. She could feel the anxiety
starting to clutch at the pit of her stomach.
‘Second thoughts?’ she heard Piers asking her sardonically.
‘No,’ she denied firmly. ‘But you will have—once Ben’s trained.’
‘I shan’t hold my breath,’ Piers advised her dryly.
CHAPTER THREE
‘YOU’RE doing what?’ Helen asked Georgia in startled amazement the next day,
when Georgia told her what had happened.
‘Not doing, have already done,’ Georgia corrected her wryly. ‘I moved into
Mrs Latham’s house yesterday afternoon.’
‘So you’re living with Piers? Mmm...lucky you,’ Helen teased her, rolling her
eyes expressively. ‘If I didn’t love David so much...’
‘I am not living with anyone,’ Georgia contradicted her swiftly. ‘I’m simply
staying there so that I can train Ben. He’s such a lovely dog, really, Helen, but
Piers is determined to put pressure on his godmother to make her get rid of him;
I can tell. It will be a strictly business relationship.’
‘I just hope you know what you’re doing,’ Helen told her warningly. ‘You
know how keen Philip is on maintaining the right image for the practice, and he
does tend to be a little bit old-fashioned. He won’t take it very well if you don’t
succeed—your failure reflecting on the reputation and good name of the practice
et cetera, et cetera—even more so, I feel, since Piers has put it on a business
footing.’
‘Well, I’m under a cloud in Philip’s books already, thanks to Piers,’ Georgia
admitted. ‘But I can’t just let him cold-bloodedly send Ben away. Which
reminds me, I’m going to have to skip lunch today; I want to go back to the
house and do some work with Ben. I took him for a good long walk before I
came out this morning.’
‘You did?’ Helen raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, that has to be an achievement
all by itself. According to Mrs Latham he hates wearing a collar and pulls like
mad on a lead.
‘You did use a lead, didn’t you?’ she demanded when she saw the way
Georgia was avoiding looking at her.
‘It was very early in the morning. No one else was about on the river path and
I managed to bribe him to come back with some treats,’ Georgia told her
defensively. ‘He needed the exercise, Helen; that’s part of the trouble. He isn’t
using enough energy.’
‘Mmm...’ was all Helen would allow herself to say.
Piers had been equally unimpressed by the fact that she had walked Ben off
his lead. It had been unfortunate that he should have been in the kitchen when
she had arrived back with the dog and had seen her coaxing him back into the
she had arrived back with the dog and had seen her coaxing him back into the
house with treats.
‘I think my godmother has already taught him that particular message,’ Piers
had told her grimly as Ben had refused to come more than a few feet at a time
without extra treats. ‘If this is your idea of training him, then—’
‘He needed a walk,’ had been all Georgia would permit herself to say as she’d
prepared Ben’s food.
When she had returned to the house the previous day, Piers had been waiting
for her and had shown her upstairs to a delightful bedroom complete with its
own bathroom.
‘I’m up on the next floor,’ he had informed her, lifting his head in the
direction of the ceiling, ‘so we shouldn’t be under one another’s feet too much.
Tomorrow, once you’ve had time to settle in, I suggest we draw up a timetable
which will allow us both to use the kitchen in privacy, although most evenings I
shall probably be eating out.’
Georgia hadn’t said anything for the simple reason that she’d desperately been
trying to assimilate the import of the strong surge of disappointment his words
had brought her. What was the matter with her? Surely she didn’t want to share
her meals with him? Surely she didn’t want to share anything with him? How
could she after the antagonism and, yes, dislike, he had shown towards her?
He had also outlined to her the reason why he was staying in his godmother’s
house, underlining the fact that when he was working he preferred to do so
without any kind of interruption.
‘I wouldn’t dream of interrupting you,’ Georgia began stiffly, but fell silent
with fury when he continued as though she hadn’t spoken.
‘Naturally I have no desire to pry into your...private life, but suffice it to say
that I also feel it is something that should be conducted in your own home.’
‘If you’re suggesting that I would...that I have—’ she began, and then
stopped, contenting herself with a curt, ‘I don’t happen to have the kind of
“private life” I suspect you mean, but if there was someone...special...in my
life...I can assure you that there is no way I would want to see him or be with
him, with you...’ She stopped again as her words threatened to choke her.
‘Anywhere other than...somewhere I could be completely private with him,’ she
told Piers shakily.
How dared he suggest that she would indulge in...that she would want to...?
The very thought...
Piers watched her with a small frown. There was no mistaking either her
sincerity or her vehemence, just as there was equally no mistaking the fierce
surge of male pleasure it gave him to know that not only was there no man in her
surge of male pleasure it gave him to know that not only was there no man in her
life but also that her attitude betrayed the fact that her sexual experience was
probably limited to little more than one relationship—a youthful affair with a
fellow student, which she had begun as a virgin and left, though technically a
‘woman’, with very little real experience of true sensuality.
Georgia would have been shocked and chagrined to know what he was
thinking, mainly because his thoughts were so accurate. Losing her virginity to
her boyfriend at university had seemed to be the right thing to do. She had liked
Mark, had trusted him, and had even persuaded herself that she loved him. And
for a while perhaps she had, but her sexual intimacy with him had left her feeling
that there must be something lacking in her that she should have found it so
pedestrian an experience, almost totally lacking in the fireworks and intensity
she had imagined. They had parted amicably after just over a year together—
Georgia had no regrets about the fact that they had been lovers, only about her
own failure to experience the sensations, to feel the ecstasy others seemed so
capable of achieving.
Piers had given her her own key to the house and had passed on to her the
detailed verbal instructions his godmother had given him as to Ben’s routine and
care.
‘He has what?’ Georgia had demanded in bemusement at one point.
‘Bakewell tart on Mondays, cream sponge on Wednesdays and chocolate
éclairs on Fridays. Apparently they are his favourite,’ Piers had told her
sardonically. ‘Oh, and he likes to wash them down with a mug of tea...’
‘Tea. Well, yes, some dogs do like it,’ Georgia had agreed.
What she couldn’t understand was how Ben managed to stay so healthylooking and fit on such a patently unhealthy diet and with so little exercise, but
when she’d said as much to Piers he’d told her grimly, ‘Oh, but he does have
plenty of exercise. Nearly every day, according to my godmother, he manages to
escape from the garden, often not returning for close on an hour...’
Which was why she had recently had installed a new dog-proof fence made of
strong netting. Georgia had recommended to Mrs Latham that she wire in an
underground electric fence, operated via a special unit attached to Ben’s collar,
but Mrs Latham had considered it too dangerous for the darling animal!
Georgia had closed her eyes. She really hadn’t wanted to hear any more!
Now she glanced at her watch. It was time for her break.
Ben greeted her with a welcome bark when she let herself into the house,
launching himself at her and trying to lick her enthusiastically.
‘Down, Ben,’ she commanded. ‘Down...’
‘Down, Ben,’ she commanded. ‘Down...’
Predictably Ben ignored her. Suppressing a sigh, Georgia went to open the
back door. Obligingly Ben followed her.
‘Sit, Ben,’ she commanded once they were outside. Obediently Ben did so.
Amazed, as well as pleased, Georgia went to praise him and give him a treat,
but as she reached him Ben nimbly sidestepped her and, with startling speed,
raced towards the other end of the garden.
‘Patience and perseverance,’ Georgia repeated determinedly to herself under
her breath half an hour later as Ben, having thoroughly enjoyed the game of
racing up and down the garden whilst Georgia tried to get him to sit still, stood
two feet away from her, tongue lolling, grinning widely.
Georgia closed her eyes and took a deep breath before commanding firmly,
‘Sit, Ben. Sit.’ She grasped his collar with one hand and placed her other firmly
on his back.
Ben was a strong dog, though, and from the start it was equally plain to both
of them that he was going to win the undignified tussle which ensued. Well, at
least Piers wasn’t here to witness Ben’s triumph over her, she told herself as Ben
finally grew tired of the game and, with a strong tug, almost pulled her off her
feet, causing her to tumble and end up sprawling on the grass.
Her break was over, and so far she had made absolutely no progress
whatsoever. Tonight after work she would try a different tack, she promised
herself as she managed to coax Ben back into the kitchen before quickly tidying
herself up. A long, long walk to burn off some of his energy followed by some
walking-to-heel training, and whilst she had him on his lead they could practise
some sitting on command as well.
‘How did it go?’ Helen asked her when she was back at work.
‘Don’t ask,’ Georgia responded wearily.
‘Mmm...well, I looked out a couple of animal psychology books for you,’
Helen told her. ‘Perhaps they might help.’
‘If Ben continues to behave the way he did this lunchtime I’m going to be the
one needing the psychologist,’ Georgia told her feebly.
‘Remember, per—’
‘Perseverance and patience, I know,’ Georgia agreed. ‘Only Ben already has
them both.’
Before leaving work that evening Georgia made a few necessary purchases: a
short choke chain to replace Ben’s collar and lead, and some more treats.
Since her training session with Ben had not left her enough time for lunch she
was feeling extremely hungry. She had made some chilli the previous day and
she was looking forward to eating it along with some of the delicious fresh bread
she was looking forward to eating it along with some of the delicious fresh bread
she had bought from the local bakery. However, the first thing that hit her as she
walked into the house was the delicious, mouth-watering smell of cooking food.
Her stomach started to rumble. Piers was obviously back before her. For some
reason she had expected to return before him, and besides, hadn’t he said that he
normally ate out?
As she pushed open the kitchen door the first thing she saw was Ben’s empty
bed, the second Piers himself, who was standing beside the open oven door
stirring something inside it.
‘What have you done with Ben?’ she demanded anxiously, her glance
swivelling back to the empty bed.
‘I’ve put him outside until after I’ve had my supper,’ Piers informed her
grimly.
‘What...? Why...? That’s...’ Georgia stopped as her stomach rumbled
protestingly again, and so loudly that she knew Piers must have heard it.
‘Didn’t you eat lunch?’ Piers asked her, his eyebrows raised.
‘I...I didn’t have time... I...I was training Ben...’
‘Ah...’ The look Piers was giving her spoke volumes, and Georgia could feel
her face starting to burn.
‘Yes, quite successfully actually,’ she fibbed defiantly, tossing her head.
‘Mmm...I saw you,’ Piers told her, to her consternation.
‘Y-you saw me?’ Georgia stammered. ‘But you couldn’t have done; you were
out...’
Calmly Piers shook his head. ‘No,’ he corrected her. ‘I was upstairs working...
Tell me...just where in the training manual does it encourage allowing the dog to
get you to sit...or were you simply demonstrating to him what you required him
to do?’ he asked sarcastically.
Angrily Georgia gritted her teeth. There was nothing she could say—not right
now. Let him taunt her—it would only make her all the more determined to
prove him wrong.
‘You mentioned something about drawing up a rota for using the kitchen,’ she
told him stiffly. ‘Perhaps when you’ve finished your meal...’
She’d seen the look he gave her as she’d stressed the word ‘you’, but, instead
of retaliating, to her astonishment he simply said, ‘I think on this occasion it
might facilitate matters if we ate together. There’s enough for two.’
She was going to refuse. Georgia knew that she had even opened her mouth to
do so. But, for some unexplainable reason, the words that actually came out
turned out to be a husky acceptance of Piers’s unexpected offer.
turned out to be a husky acceptance of Piers’s unexpected offer.
‘It’s chicken in white wine sauce with new potatoes and salad,’ he informed
her. ‘But if you don’t—’
‘It sounds delicious,’ Georgia assured him quickly.
Ten minutes later she was able to confirm that the chicken tasted as delicious
as it had sounded.
She had a good healthy appetite, something very rare in her sex in Piers’s
experience, and he watched her enjoy her meal with a relish that was totally
innocently sensual. Everything about her glowed with good health, from the
shine of her curls to the peachy gleam of her skin. Naked, her body would be
firm and warm-fleshed, her breasts high and full, her waist so narrow he could
span it with his hands, her hips flaring into the feminine curves of her thighs.
Would the silky curls protecting her sex be as richly coloured as those on her
head? Piers realised with a sharp jolt just where his thoughts were taking him
and got up from the table, asking Georgia tersely, ‘Coffee?’
A little uncertainly Georgia nodded in acceptance, wondering what it was she
had done that had caused him to frown so fiercely—and why she should care.
‘The chicken was delicious. Thank you,’ she told him formally as she too got
up and carried her plate over to the sink, to rinse it before placing it in the
dishwasher. Once she had finished this chore she added, as she heard Ben
scratching furiously at the back door, ‘I’d better let him in.’
Piers made no comment, merely pouring boiling water on to the coffee and
then waiting until Georgia had opened the door to admit Ben before asking her,
‘Milk?’
‘Mmm...please...’ Georgia began, her back to the dog as she turned to respond
to Piers’s question, her answer turning to a startled gasp as Ben rushed full tilt
into her, knocking her completely off balance.
Immediately Piers swung round, reaching out to grab hold of her, and
instinctively Georgia steadied herself by grasping his arms, her head bumping
against the solid wall of his chest with the force of Ben’s enthusiastic response to
being allowed inside.
It was only the way Piers had braced himself to catch her as she fell that was
responsible for the fact that she was virtually lying full-length against him, her
body pressed so close to the hard strength of his that it would have been
impossible to pass a piece of paper between them. That was all, Georgia warned
herself sternly. Just as it was only to support her that his arms were now wrapped
tightly round her, almost as though he was cradling her tenderly within them.
There was no doubt even a practical reason for that fierce, accelerated thud she
could feel as his heartbeat picked up.
But her body seemed waywardly determined to interpret all these things in a
very different way altogether. Cerebrally it might be implausible to believe that
Piers was holding her like a lover, but her body was reacting to him as though he
was. Embarrassingly so, Georgia realised as she felt her nipples become rigid,
and the hot wave of shame washing down her body from her pink-cheeked face
crashed into the even more intense surge of sensual awareness that was sweeping
upwards over her skin.
‘Oh, thank you,’ was all she could find to say as she lifted her head from its
resting place against Piers’s deliciously solid chest and forced herself to look up
into his face. After all, she had to say something to him for saving her from a
nasty fall.
Her glance wavered treacherously on its upward journey, for some dangerous
reason deciding to linger over his mouth, which for once was curled into a smile
and not tightening into his customary frown. And what a smile! Feathers of
delicious but oh, so dangerous sensations drifted through Georgia’s stomach—
tiny, barely perceptible tendrils of delicate pleasure that were somehow still
strong enough to trap and enmesh her, making her feel light-headed and dizzy as
well as a whole host of other things she didn’t dare allow herself to name.
‘Georgia...’
Piers’s voice seemed to reach her from a long way away, a husky resonance
that vibrated thrillingly through her whole body.
‘Yes—’ Her lips parted in her acknowledgement, starting to form the word
but never finishing it because, impossibly, Piers’s mouth was brushing softly
against hers. It was the merest tantalising movement, the tiniest suggestion that it
could turn into something far more intense and intimate, but her body seemed to
be decoding its message with an instinct, an insistence, and immediately it sent
her heart rate into triple speed, her breath catching in her lungs as her own lips
seemed to cling provocatively to Piers’s.
Now she knew why it was that Victorian women had swooned so often when
their lovers had kissed them, Georgia decided dizzily as she looked bemusedly
up at Piers through half-closed eyes.
‘Mmm...’
Was that soft purr of appreciation really coming from her own throat? Were
those really her own arms that had wound themselves so tightly around Piers?
Was that really her body that was reacting to him...to him...with all the ardency,
all the excitement, all the expectancy she had so longed to feel with Mark but
which, in reality, she had never come anywhere near experiencing?
And, most importantly of all, was she really going to waste time on foolish
mental conundrums when there were far more rewarding and pleasurable things
to do? When the increasingly determined exploration of Piers’s mouth was
teaching hers a whole new world of sensual discovery? Slowly his lips caressed
hers, and even more slowly his tongue explored their shape and softness. One of
the hands which had saved her from her fall was now supporting the back of her
neck, stroking through her soft curls, cupping the delicate line of her jaw. His
mouth, then momentarily lifted from hers as his thumb pressed gently against the
fullness of her bottom lip, exposing its velvety, sensitive inner flesh.
Shakily Georgia closed her eyes completely as she felt her body’s response to
what he was doing. How could such a simple gesture, such a simple touch, be
capable of making her feel like this, want like this?
Piers’s mouth had replaced his thumb, his tongue probing the softness it had
just exposed and then going beyond it with a devastating intimacy that shocked
through her body like an electric current.
‘Oh-h-h!’
With a small startled protest Georgia realised that Piers was releasing her.
‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ she told him unsteadily as she realised what
she had done.
‘No,’ Piers drawled, giving her a narrow-eyed look that encompassed not just
her well-kissed, swollen mouth but her equally swollen breasts as they pressed
against the soft fabric of her tee shirt. ‘Perhaps I wouldn’t have done if you
hadn’t...invited me... It takes two, you know, and...’
Her invite him! Georgia made an angry, protesting sound of denial deep in her
throat.
‘I did not—’ she began, and then stopped as Ben started to bark impatiently. ‘I
have to walk Ben,’ she told him stiffly.
‘Well, I shall probably be out when you return,’ Piers told her dismissively.
‘I’ve got a couple of properties I want to see this evening. Which reminds me, I
shall be away all day tomorrow.’
‘Good, I’m glad to hear it,’ Georgia muttered grimly in what she had thought
was a voice too low for him to hear.
But, to her chagrin, he had heard her, and in retaliation he told her silkily,
‘Really? That wasn’t the message I was getting a few minutes ago... In fact—’
‘You were the one who kissed me,’ Georgia told him hotly, immediately on
the defensive.
Piers was silent for so long that at first she thought she had got away with it
Piers was silent for so long that at first she thought she had got away with it
and that he wasn’t going to say anything, but when he did she realised how much
she had underestimated him.
He told her softly, ‘A woman doesn’t have to instigate a kiss to let a man
know she wants one, and the way you looked at me...’
Without waiting to hear any more Georgia hurried to the back door, calling
quickly to Ben as she did so.
Shamingly she knew that he did have a point. She had, albeit unintentionally,
looked at his mouth for just that little bit too long, but she had never for one
minute had any preconceived notion of doing so to provoke him into kissing her.
Never for one single minute. No, the thought had never even crossed her mind.
Why should it? They were antagonists...on opposite sides—she for Ben, Piers
against him.
*
Through the kitchen window Piers watched Georgia coaxing Ben into his choke
lead and then rewarding the dog with an affectionate pat and some kind of treat
when he complied.
She would never succeed in training him in three months, never mind three
weeks, Piers decided. She was far too soft. Ben was a dog used to having his
own way, used to ruling the roost and dominating the household and his owner.
What Ben needed was another, more determined male presence in his life.
Almost absently Piers noted the way Georgia’s jeans hugged the slim length
of her legs and the rounded curve of her bottom. She had felt every bit as good in
his arms as he had imagined, but not quite as good as she would have done had
they been naked together in bed. Her skin had smelt of fresh air and peaches, and
as he’d kissed her he had had a fierce surge of male desire to taste more of her,
to strip that neat, high-necked tee shirt from her body and expose the delicious
fullness of her breasts to his gaze...his hands...his mouth...
There was a decidedly potent male ache in his lower body, a decidedly
testosterone-driven urge to take what had happened between them further—a
whole lot further—threatening his normal cool control. When he had gone
upstairs earlier, as he’d crossed the landing heading for the stairs which led up a
further flight to his own quarters, there had been a very tantalisingly feminine
scent in the air, a provocative, delicate woman smell that had sent his hormones
into overdrive.
And she wasn’t even his type. That red hair, that curvy body, that obvious
inexperience in those bewitching dark pansy eyes—they weren’t for him. No
inexperience in those bewitching dark pansy eyes—they weren’t for him. No
way...no way at all; and even if they had been there was one insurmountable
barrier between them in the shape of that idiotic dog. The very barrier which had
propelled her into his life...and into his arms...in the first place.
Emptying the cup containing Georgia’s now cold cup of coffee, he grimaced
over the unappetising taste of his own, pouring that away as well.
After one had tasted nectar, coffee had no appeal at all.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘SO...?’ Helen asked Georgia three days later. ‘Are you making any progress
with Ben?’
‘Some,’ Georgia told her cautiously. ‘He definitely understands the
commands—he’s a very intelligent dog—but getting him to respond to them is
still something of a hit-and-miss affair. He walked beautifully on his lead last
night, and sat on command.’
‘Sounds good,’ Helen approved, ‘and I’ve got some more good news for you
as well.’
Listening to her, Georgia acknowledged ruefully that Ben had somewhat
spoiled his good performance the previous day by slipping free of his collar and
chasing after a squirrel which had promptly run up a tree and bombarded him
with prickly unripened chestnuts.
‘The local paper has got wind of your dog visits to the old people’s home and
they want to run an article about it. Philip’s keen for you to let them interview
you and take some photographs of the owners with their dogs, kind of thing. It
would be good publicity for us as well as a good public relations exercise. I’ll
leave it to you to nominate and contact the owners, and the reporter from the
Community News will be in touch with you direct.’
Things were beginning to look up a bit, Georgia decided a little later as she
walked back to her temporary new home, even more so since she hadn’t seen
Piers since that embarrassing incident in the kitchen. He had telephoned her
from the city to say that he wasn’t going to be able to return for a further couple
of days, and Georgia had sturdily assured herself that the feeling she had had of
a sharp sense of disappointment was nothing of the sort, that the problem owed
its existence to the fact that she had gone without lunch—again!
She had quickly made use of the opportunity he had given her by
concentrating Ben’s training sessions in and around the house—much easier to
do without Piers’s critical presence and even more critical eye on what she was
doing. Ben was an intelligent dog—certainly intelligent enough to sneak himself
upstairs the first night she had been in the house alone and to hide himself under
his mistress’s bed whilst Georgia searched the house and then the garden for
him!
The only reason she had finally realised what he had done had been that the
sound of something falling to the floor upstairs with a muffled soft thud had
sound of something falling to the floor upstairs with a muffled soft thud had
caused her to go and investigate its cause, only to find Ben contentedly spread
out on Emily Latham’s bed, the noise she had heard caused by him accidentally
dislodging a bedside lamp as he had jumped up. Fortunately the lamp hadn’t
been damaged, but Ben hadn’t been too pleased about being removed from his
self-chosen comfortable bed and returned to his legitimate quarters in his basket
in the kitchen.
When she finished work today she intended to take Ben for a good long walk
along the river before returning to the house for an intensive training session
with him.
They were having a busy week at the practice, with a rush of new patients,
kittens and puppies in the main, needing their protective injections.
To Georgia’s distress, though, one elderly dog they had been treating for
cancer was found to have developed another tumour, and his owner had to be
gently informed that for the animal’s own sake it would be kinder to have him
put to sleep.
The owner, a widower, who had only taken the dog in at the insistence of his
late wife, had, as he confided to Georgia, become far more attached to the dog
than he had ever expected.
‘We didn’t have any children,’ he told Georgia sadly, ‘and Rex here is really
my last living contact with my late wife. We were teenage sweethearts and
married for fifty-four years. It’s been two years now since I lost her, but I still
miss her...’
Georgia’s tender heart ached for him, but she had seen the dog Rex’s X-rays
and knew that there was no way the dog could survive.
It was always hard telling an owner that they were going to lose a much loved
pet, all the more so because they always tried to take it so bravely, insisting that
their pet’s needs must come before their own desire to prolong its life.
Sometimes, though, they did see the other side of pet ownership—people who
abused or neglected their animals. People like Ben’s original owner, who
acquired a puppy or a kitten and then blithely announced that it wasn’t what they
wanted after all and it would have to go.
Ben had been lucky in finding a second home, a second owner like Mrs
Latham, but had she been similarly fortunate in acquiring Ben? Georgia doubted
that her godson would have said so.
Piers. There she was thinking about him again. In fact, she was spending far
too much time thinking about him altogether, and not just thinking about him in
terms of the threat he represented to Ben’s future. Georgia had to admit that she
wouldn’t have liked to have been keeping a list of just how many times her
wouldn’t have liked to have been keeping a list of just how many times her
thoughts had drifted to those disconcerting moments she had spent in Piers’s
arms.
She was thinking about it—and Piers—two hours later as she made her way
back to Mrs Latham’s. Piers was due to return this evening. Would he be there
when she got back from work or would he return later?
One thing she did know was that when he did come back he would be
watching both her and Ben to see how much progress Ben had made.
When he arrived home would Piers go straight upstairs to his own room, or
would he linger in the kitchen, perhaps even telling her something about his
work? Although she was loath to admit it, Georgia had actually missed him in
his absence. On more occasions than were reasonable she had caught herself
looking upwards to the top-storey windows when she was out in the garden
working with Ben, as though she was hoping she might catch a glimpse of Piers
standing there.
It was just because the house was so large and she was on her own that she
felt a little anxious about being there, she reassured herself as she drove home.
That was all!
*
‘I’m off now,’ Piers told his partner, briefly popping his head round Jason’s
office door.
‘Mmm... Thanks for sorting out that problem for me,’ Jason told him. ‘Sorry
to drag you away from your house-hunting. Have you found anything suitable
yet, by the way?’
‘I’ve got the details of a couple of hopefuls,’ Piers told him cautiously.
He had, in fact, made appointments to discuss both properties later in the
afternoon with the agents, prior to making appointments to view them, which
was why he was so anxious to leave the city and drive back to Wrexford. Both
properties were large and set in extensive grounds. One of them was a modern
home, purpose-built by an architect for contemporary living, whilst the other
was a large Georgian farmhouse set in several acres of land and badly in need of
restoration.
Common sense suggested that the modern property would be the one to go
for, but Piers couldn’t get out of his mind a mental image of Georgia’s face if
she were asked to choose between the two properties. There was no doubt which
one she would go for. The farmhouse just cried out to be filled with a happy
one she would go for. The farmhouse just cried out to be filled with a happy
tumble of children and pets, and there was certainly enough scope within the
existing muddle of neglected rooms to convert one of them into a large,
welcoming, family-sized kitchen, complete with flagged floors and a heartwarming Aga.
Flagged floors! Agas! Children! Pets! Since when had any of those been on
his particular priority list?
What was happening to him? Why should one kiss shared with a woman
whom logic told him he had absolutely nothing whatsoever in common with
suddenly contaminate his plans for the future in much the same way that a bug
could contaminate a computer system?
It had initially irritated him and then bemused him just how often Georgia had
stolen her way into his thoughts over the last few days, appearing in them when
she had no right to do so, when there was no logical or rational purpose in her
being there.
On several occasions he had been on the point of telephoning her—just to
check that that irresponsible hound hadn’t totally wrecked his godmother’s
home, of course. There had been nothing personal in the impulse wilfully
whispering to him that he needed to speak with her. It was just his sense of
responsibility, his duty that had urged him to do so.
Just as it was his sense of responsibility that had urged him to return to
Wrexford earlier than he had planned and to view a property which rationally he
knew was totally unsuitable for his purposes.
Older property always sold well, though, he argued with himself. Prospective
buyers fell in love with the notion of a traditional country farmhouse and a
traditional country lifestyle. And so, mentally, Piers rationalised his decision to
view a property which intellectually he knew filled none of the criteria he had
drawn up for his house purchase.
By rights Georgia had no place in his thoughts at all other than as the
scheming young woman who had palmed Ben off on his unsuspecting
godmother. By rights he had every reason to feel suspicious and wary of her, and
that, of course, was really why he had cut short his time in the city to return to
Wrexford. His decision was in no way whatsoever connected with those vivid
mental flashes he had had of Georgia’s tousled curls and her violet-blue eyes,
nor with the innocent sensuality of the arousal he had seen so openly expressed
in the shocked darkness of those eyes after he had kissed her. No way at all...
Not one tiny little bit...
The very idea of repeating that unplanned kiss was a complete anathema to
him, and as for those other and far more intimate thoughts and desires which had
him, and as for those other and far more intimate thoughts and desires which had
somehow or other wormed their way into his subconscious—well, they were
most definitely not anything he had any wish whatsoever to pursue—ever—
either in the mental privacy of his own thoughts or the physical privacy of his
bedroom.
*
‘Good boy...oh, good dog, Ben,’ Georgia praised enthusiastically as Ben
obligingly sat on command.
They were on their way back from a long walk along the river and then
through some fields, following the well-marked footpath. Now, though, it was
time to get down to some serious work, and as they got within sight of Mrs
Latham’s Georgia told herself happily that Ben was quite definitely showing
signs of improvement.
Next week she had actually booked herself off some days’ leave so that she
could spend even more time working with him, and now, as she paused to bend
down and stroke him and praise him a third time, she was beginning to feel
increasingly optimistic about the outcome of the challenge she had accepted.
Happily anticipating the moment when Piers would have to eat humble pie
and Ben would reveal himself to be a perfectly trained and obedient dog,
Georgia was unaware of the geese who had decided to land on the large pool the
river formed in front of the house, just as she was also unaware of the sleek dark
maroon Jaguar that belonged to Piers, or the fact that Piers was driving towards
her.
The first intimation she had of impending disaster was when Ben suddenly
took off, jerking so hard on his lead that she was tugged with him, completely
missing her footing as she tried to pull him back, mistaking the boggy edges of
the river bank for solid ground and then gasping out loud in shock as the earth
gave way beneath her and she tumbled into the river after Ben.
The geese who had unwittingly precipitated Ben’s flight took off in a flurry of
wings and noisy honks whilst Georgia, standing almost knee-deep in the water,
made an anxious grab for Ben’s lead as he attempted to swim after the geese, but
missed it and had to resort to paddling into the river after him. To her relief, once
he realised the geese had actually gone he stopped, giving Georgia a
commiserating doggy smile as she caught up with him, as though he assumed
that she was as disappointed that the fowl had escaped as he was himself.
‘Oh, Ben,’ Georgia protested ruefully.
Both of them were soaking wet, but she expected that Ben looked far better
Both of them were soaking wet, but she expected that Ben looked far better
than she did.
Wearily she fished for his lead, and then, having found it, firmly marched him
towards the bank.
As Ben scrambled on to dry land and she followed suit the first thing to catch
Georgia’s eye was the immaculate car parked only yards away.
A horrible sense of doom sat unpleasantly in her stomach. That car was
Piers’s and there was Piers himself, getting out of the driver’s seat and walking
determinedly towards them.
‘Ben,’ Georgia called out frantically, but it was too late. Ben too had seen
Piers, and recognised him.
Georgia winced as she saw the wet dog launch himself enthusiastically
towards Piers. She couldn’t bear to look—couldn’t bear to see the effect of so
many pounds of wet, muddy dog on Piers’s immaculate person. Despairingly she
waited for Piers’s vocal fury, but then when she heard nothing other than a very
stern, ‘Sit,’ she opened her eyes warily and saw, to her astonishment, that Ben
was sitting obediently a yard away from Piers, watching him. Georgia had to
admit that Piers was made of stern stuff as he didn’t hesitate to take hold of the
wet, slimy lead, his mouth hardening to a wry grimace as he studied the even
wetter dog, but the expression in his eyes was nothing to the one she could see
there when he finally turned his head in her direction.
For a moment Georgia almost expected him to repeat the command to her that
he had just given to the dog. Then the nippy little wind that seemed to have
sprung up out of nowhere brushed her water-chilled body and she gave a small
convulsive shudder, her teeth starting to chatter, and Piers said abruptly,
‘Inside...’
‘It wasn’t Ben’s fault...’ Georgia started to tell him in between shivers as she
had to half run to catch up with his long strides as they headed for the house.
‘He’d been behaving beautifully, and—’
‘Beautifully?’ Piers swung round as he started to unlock the door and stated
grimly, ‘He damn nearly drowned you and—’
‘No! It was an accident; he just caught me off guard...’ Georgia protested.
‘And if it had been my godmother he had caught off guard?’ Piers demanded
flatly as he pushed open the door.
Georgia bit her lip. Piers did have a point.
‘Upstairs and into a hot bath,’ Piers told her curtly.
‘I don’t...’ Georgia began, fully intending to tell him that she wasn’t a child
and that she didn’t need him to tell her what she ought to do, but then she had to
and that she didn’t need him to tell her what she ought to do, but then she had to
stop as she felt a huge sneeze overwhelming her, and she could see from the
expression in Piers’s eyes that he wasn’t going to listen to any arguments.
Besides, the thought of a delicious warm bath chasing the icy chills from her
cold body was too tempting to resist. Even so...
‘Ben needs drying...’ she said, but Piers shook his head.
‘I’ll deal with Ben,’ he told her grimly.
For a moment Georgia hesitated. Ben was soaking wet and needed rubbing
dry, and he hadn’t had his evening meal as yet, but then another huge sneeze
overwhelmed her, at the same time as Piers took what almost looked like a
small, threatening step towards her, and instinct took over. She was in the
hallway and halfway up the stairs before she knew it.
In the kitchen Piers found the towels that his godmother used for just such a
purpose to briskly rub Ben dry. The dog quite happily stood still whilst Piers
dried him, even, a little to Piers’s surprise, obligingly lifting his paws so that
they too could have the river mud removed from them.
In fact, as Piers was forced to admit, Ben’s manners whilst Piers performed
these unplanned chores was nothing short of exemplary, even to the extent of
going immediately and obediently to his bed when Piers commanded him to and
waiting there patiently whilst Piers prepared his food.
Was it a coincidence or had Georgia made far more progress with the dog’s
training than Piers had anticipated?
Georgia! Piers’s mouth tightened into a stern line as he recollected the
moment when he had seen her being dragged into the river. Despite the fact that
he knew perfectly well that it was safely shallow at that point, Piers had had to
resist a serious urge to go in after her, but whether or not that urge had been
caused by a desire to rescue her or a strong temptation to drown her, he didn’t
know. More likely drown her, Piers told himself irritably. He had never known
anyone cause such havoc in his life before. It was becoming increasingly
obvious to him that wherever Georgia and Ben went trouble automatically
seemed to follow, but that didn’t mean that he had to be on hand to rescue them
or protect them. Why should he?
Ben was his godmother’s dog, he reminded himself immediately. He had
promised her that he would look after him for her, and if looking after him meant
that he also had to look after the irritating young woman who had dared to
challenge his determination to remove Ben from his godmother’s life, then so be
it. And it was absolutely totally impossible for him to have any kind of hidden
motivation or secret subconscious agenda for his decision to bring Georgia
closer into his own orbit.
closer into his own orbit.
Having her living here in the house with him had been a totally logical
decision—given all the circumstances. True, it might have been a little foolish of
him to allow her to provoke him into giving her the opportunity to prove him
wrong about Ben—not that there was any possibility that she could do so. It was
obvious to anyone that the dog was a totally unsuitable pet for his godmother.
No, it had simply been his fair-mindedness that had forced him to at least give
her the opportunity to prove him wrong. That was all. That was totally and
completely all, and, of course, it wouldn’t have made any difference whatsoever
to his decision had she been a different type of woman...
Piers frowned as he realised how long Georgia had been upstairs and how
quiet it was. She had been shivering when they’d come inside, quite plainly
suffering from cold and shock. Frowning even more fiercely Piers filled the
kettle.
It wasn’t his duty to look after her. She wasn’t his responsibility. The kettle
was starting to boil; swiftly he spooned coffee into a mug and added a generous
spoonful of sugar.
*
Never had a bath felt so welcome and restorative, Georgia felt sure as she lay
floating blissfully in the piping-hot water. She had washed her hair under the
shower and also rinsed off the worst of the river water, but the temptation to
soothe her chilly body in the warm water of a deep-filled bath had proved too
tempting to resist—as had her impulse to add a few drops of her favourite
relaxing aromatherapy oil.
Now its heavenly scent mingled with the warm, steamy atmosphere of the
bathroom, totally releasing all the tension from her body...her body, but not her
thoughts, she acknowledged as she reflected ruefully on the unwelcome outcome
to her evening’s training session with Ben. And he had been doing so well too. If
it hadn’t been for those wretched geese...
Georgia sighed and closed her eyes, trying to recapture her earlier mood of
delicious relaxation, but it was no use. Sooner or later she was going to have to
go downstairs to face Piers. What a sight she must have looked as she’d dragged
herself out of the river. No wonder he had looked so angrily at her, his eyes, she
was sure, filled with an expression of contemptuous disdain.
Reluctantly she stepped out of the bath and reached for the towel, wrapping it
sarong-wise around her body. Then she realised she had neglected to bring her
robe into the bathroom with her.
robe into the bathroom with her.
Securing her damp curls on top of her head with a tortoiseshell clip, she
opened the bathroom door and stepped into the bedroom just at the same time as
Piers, unable to get any response to either his brief knock on her bedroom door
or to calling her name, anxiously pushed open the door and walked into the
room.
As she stared at Piers Georgia wasn’t aware of the way she instinctively
crossed her hands over her towel-covered breasts, but Piers was, his mouth
twisting a little sardonically as he wondered what she would say if he told her
that, far from protecting her, her action had actually done more to focus his
attention on her body and communicate to him—as though he hadn’t already
been aware of it—the fact that her insecurely wrapped towel was the only thing
covering her naked body...
‘I’ve brought you a cup of coffee,’ he told her shortly, disliking the direction
his own thoughts were taking almost as much as, he told himself, he disliked
Georgia herself.
‘Er...thank you...’ Georgia husked, looking round frantically for somewhere to
put it which would keep a seriously safe distance between them. Not that she
actually felt she had anything to fear from him. Of course she didn’t. She knew
that, and she was certainly not going to fling herself headlong into his arms—
was she? So why had it become so overwhelmingly necessary not to allow
herself to get too close to him? Just because there had been that shockingly
sensual moment between them when he had kissed her and she had
reacted...wanted... Well, that didn’t mean that she was automatically going
to...that she wanted him to...that anything like that was ever going to happen
between them again, Georgia reassured herself quickly.
Even so, she couldn’t prevent the sharp shiver of sensation that memory
evoked, causing a delicious and dangerous quiver of excitement to run through
her body. She trembled openly in the grip of it, and a small soft sound of protest
strangled beneath her breath as her face flushed with guilty colour at what she
was thinking.
Piers, completely unaware of what was running through her mind, saw the
shudder and the flush and totally misinterpreted them as signs that Georgia had
suffered much more than a mere wetting and an embarrassing loss of face during
her unplanned ‘paddle’ in the river. Quickly looking for somewhere to put down
her coffee so that he could insist, physically if necessary, that she get straight
into bed and stay there until he could find some means of checking her
temperature, he realised that the only place for it was on the bedside table, just a
temperature, he realised that the only place for it was on the bedside table, just a
few inches from where Georgia herself was standing.
Transfixed, Georgia stood there, her arms still wrapped around her body, as
Piers came towards her, putting down the coffee mug before commanding,
‘Bed...now...’
‘Bed...?’ Georgia’s mobile features betrayed her, illuminating what she was
thinking, shock turning her already pink face crimson and driving a warm tide of
colour up over her body, her eyes widening and darkening as she looked
helplessly from Piers’s determined face to the bed and then back to him again.
She had heard stories from other young women of men who were sexually
masterful, but to be ordered into bed like that...as though...
As he saw the expression in her eyes, and realised just what she was thinking,
Piers cursed silently under his breath.
‘You’re shivering; you might have caught a chill. I just wanted...’ he began,
but as he spoke he involuntarily moved closer to her.
Georgia immediately stepped back from him, protesting shakily, ‘No, don’t
come any closer.’ But as she lifted her hand from her body to ward him off she
inadvertently stepped back on to the hem of her big towel.
Only loosely secured around her body, and without the added security of her
crossed hands, and aided in loosening further by being trapped by her foot, the
towel unwrapped itself from her body.
Immediately Georgia made a despairing grab for it, and just as immediately
Piers launched himself across the gap that separated them, every instinct
propelling him to do the gentlemanly thing and protect her modesty. The towel,
though, and perhaps fate, too, had other ideas, so that all Georgia’s hands
encountered was empty air whilst Piers’s were unexpectedly and explosively
filled with warm, silky, damp-fleshed woman.
‘Oh!’ Georgia’s little squeak of protest somehow or other became a soft gasp
that sounded much more like an invitation as she felt Piers’s hands grazing her
arms and then her breasts, both her towel and her initial rejection of him
forgotten as her body reacted to his as though it had suddenly been filled with
liquid pleasure.
As he heard her ‘Oh!’ change to a soft ‘Mmm...’ Piers reacted instinctively,
wrapping his arms around her.
‘I’m wet...your clothes...’ Georgia managed to protest, but to tell the truth the
dampening effect of her naked skin against Piers’s clothes was really the last
thing on her mind as her body, apparently of its own accord, nestled itself
alluringly into the deliciously warm protection of Piers’s embrace.
‘Mmm...’ she repeated on an even more breathless note as Piers’s mouth came
‘Mmm...’ she repeated on an even more breathless note as Piers’s mouth came
down over her own. Perhaps, she decided dizzily, he thought she needed a little
extra help with her breathing, and obligingly she opened her mouth beneath his
in order to assist him.
‘Mmm...’
This time when he felt the shiver run through her body Piers did not make the
error of mistaking it for a shiver of cold, but he still tightened his hold on her,
wrapping her even more closely against his own body—no doubt trying to warm
her, Georgia assured herself. And since he was being so helpful and such a good
Samaritan the least she could do was to facilitate all that he was doing to assist
her.
Obviously it would be much easier for him to keep her warm with his own
body heat if she wrapped her arms around him, and she could quite understand
why it was necessary for him to run his hands up and down the length of her
naked back. Their touch was deliciously warm—and the things it did to her spine
and her nerve-endings...! Heavens, she had had no idea that her flesh could be so
extraordinarily sensitive, and if the way he was kissing that small, pulsing cord
in the side of her neck was perhaps just a little unorthodox, well, it was still
having the most deliciously pleasurable effect on her senses, which surely was
far more restorative than had he adopted a more traditional means of warming
her—such as proffering a hot-water bottle or a heated blanket.
Thinking of hot-water bottles and heated blankets inexplicably reminded
Georgia of the fact that the bed was right there, only inches away from them, and
inexplicably she had the oddest need to lie down on it. Probably because she was
feeling so light-headed and weak, she told herself.
Through the fine softness of Piers’s shirt Georgia could feel the heavenly
warmth of his chest, and when she opened her eyes she could see the soft
darkness of his body hair. A thrill of sensation ran right through her, a shocking
female awareness of Piers’s maleness; her fingers itched to stroke their way
through that inviting silkiness and to explore the flesh that lay beneath it. A
hundred unfamiliar and highly erotic impulses flashed their tantalising messages
to Georgia’s senses, flattening immediately the tentative and semi-shocked
resistance her brain put up to the wantonness of such thoughts.
Weakly Georgia told herself that it was the very unfamiliarity of such
thoughts that made her feel so vulnerable towards them, so unable to deny or
reject their provocative allure. The temptation to unfasten just one of the buttons
on Piers’s shirt, just to see if actually touching him would prove to be as
deliciously erotic as she imagined, was proving impossible to resist. Just one
deliciously erotic as she imagined, was proving impossible to resist. Just one
button, she promised herself, that was all, but as her mouth meshed with Piers’s
responding to and returning the increasing passion of his kiss, ‘just one’ became
two, and then three, and then, before she knew it, Piers was murmuring to her
that he wanted her to take his shirt off completely. What was more, he was
helping her to do so. And then, blissfully, the hard, naked warmth of his upper
body was hers to touch and explore.
Vaguely Georgia was aware of how odd it was that she should want to touch
Piers like this when she had never once felt even remotely tempted to explore or
caress her first lover in the same almost frenziedly hungry way, but she
dismissed the thought as an unnecessary and unwanted distraction from what she
was doing. The silky arrowing of Piers’s hair ran right down the centre of his
chest—and lower—and Georgia’s fingertips followed it all the way to where his
belt obstructed her progress.
She heard Piers catch his breath as she stopped, lifting his mouth from hers
whilst he looked deep into her eyes.
Georgia held her breath, conscious of the solemnity of the moment, and then,
as Piers lifted his hand to touch her face, she saw his gaze drop to her naked
breasts and stay there.
Very gently he reached out and touched her, his fingertips just stroking the
merest feathering of touches along the outer curve of her breast.
Immediately Georgia gave an involuntary shiver of sensual reaction, her
nipples thrusting eagerly into dark, excited peaks. Just the thought of Piers’s
hands cupping her naked breasts made her shudder voluptuously, but when he
did so the pleasure she had imagined came nowhere near matching the real thing,
and Georgia made a small soft sound of pleasure as he started to caress her.
When he picked her up and laid her gently on the bed she watched him,
liquid-eyed, whilst he leaned over her, silently spanning her small waist with his
hands before lifting his head to look into her eyes.
He wanted to touch and memorise every delicious curve of her, Piers decided
as he felt the tiny responsive nerves jumping beneath Georgia’s skin. Just the
sight and scent of her aroused him to the point where... And as for that soft,
liquid, melting look he could see in her eyes...
Reaching for her hand, he took hold of it in his and lifted it palm upwards to
his mouth, slowly kissing the sensitive flesh of her palm and watching her
reaction darken her eyes at the same time as he felt the responsive shudder go
though her. And then, still holding her hand, he placed it on the fastening of his
belt, holding it there as he leaned over and slowly kissed first her mouth, and
then the dark points of each breast in turn, once, and then a second time and then
then the dark points of each breast in turn, once, and then a second time and then
a third.
As she felt Piers’s mouth caressing her nipples Georgia cried out softly,
unable to control her response, her fingers curling into the buckle of his belt. His
hand was caressing the bare flesh of her hip and Georgia could feel the tiny
quivers of sensation running like quicksilver inside her body, starting to gather,
to coalesce, into a torrent which she knew instinctively would totally sweep her
away.
Piers was drawing her nipple deeper into his mouth, and the shivers of
pleasure his caress was causing her were turning into deep, fierce shudders of
female reaction.
As Piers released her nipple from the sensual captivity of his mouth and
tongue, feeding its hunger with the pliant caress of his fingertips, he whispered
thickly to her, ‘Undress me, Georgia. I want—’
‘Woof!’
Both of them froze as Ben suddenly came into the room and gave one firm
bark.
Ben!
Guiltily Georgia pushed Piers away. How on earth could she have forgotten
not just the dog but her entire sense of reality as well?
Equally swiftly Piers moved back from Georgia. Just what the hell was he
doing? Every instinct he possessed told him that Georgia was quite definitely a
serious commitment type of woman. Georgia had already managed to worm not
just her way, but also that of that wretched dog as well, into his godmother’s
affections, and now here she was, performing an equally dangerous trick on his
own emotions.
‘Ben!’ Georgia exclaimed at the same time as Piers instructed sharply,
‘Downstairs...now...’
Placidly Ben wagged his tail and headed towards the open bedroom door, but
once there he simply sat down and looked at Piers.
Angrily Piers glowered at him as he got up off the bed and picked up his shirt,
pulling it on before walking towards Ben. If he hadn’t been far too sensible to
think anything so foolish he might almost have imagined that the dog had come
upstairs with the deliberate intention of interrupting them, and that he was
making it equally plain that there was no way he was going to go back
downstairs and leave Piers alone with Georgia.
Georgia, meanwhile, as soon as Piers had got up off the bed, had reached for
her robe and pulled it on.
her robe and pulled it on.
What on earth had come over her? There was no rational explanation for what
she had done—or for what she had wanted to do.
*
Some hours later, on his way to bed, having checked that all the doors and
windows were locked and the alarm was on, Piers paused outside Georgia’s
bedroom door. It was all very well for her to have claimed earlier that she wasn’t
suffering any after-effects from her wetting; he still...
His hand was on the door handle when Ben suddenly came padding upstairs
and very determinedly lay down outside Georgia’s bedroom door. Was it just his
imagination or was the dog really looking at him, not just reproachfully but
almost a little reprovingly? It was his imagination, of course, Piers assured
himself, just as the only logical reason that Ben had come upstairs was not really
to guard Georgia but simply to try and get a more comfortable bed to sleep on
than the one he was officially allocated downstairs in the kitchen.
Nevertheless, Piers didn’t make any attempt to return Ben to the kitchen—or
to open Georgia’s bedroom door.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘BEN!’
Georgia tensed as she heard the wrathful warning in Piers’s voice as he called
Ben’s name.
She had spent the whole of the previous day, her first day’s leave, working
with the English setter, and she had been very pleased with the results.
Ben wanted to learn, to please, but he was an energetic dog who got easily
bored. Now, as she saw the way his ears went down and he looked anxiously at
her before going under the table to hide as he, like her, recognised the anger in
Piers’s voice, all Georgia’s protective instincts came to the fore.
She had been keeping as much distance as she could between her and Piers
since the night of her ignominious fall into the river. After Ben had interrupted
them and Piers had gone to take him downstairs Georgia had forced herself to
look closely and analytically at what had happened between them, and she
hadn’t liked the conclusions she had had to reach.
Piers was a man, and men thought about, felt about, reacted differently to
sexual intimacy than women did. Men’s sexual responses did not need to be
touched, coloured or enhanced by their emotions. Men, by their very natures,
tended to seize the sexual moment. Who knew what interpretation Piers had put
on her own behaviour? Heavens, he might even have thought that she had
deliberately allowed her towel to slip from her grasp—he was cynical enough,
worldly enough; Georgia was sure of that.
It wasn’t that she felt that he had deliberately set out to seduce her; she wasn’t
so naive nor so melodramatic. No, she felt sure his primary intention had simply
been to bring her a hot drink and to check that she was all right. Maybe, too, he
had welcomed the opportunity to reinforce to her his views on Ben’s behaviour;
but that was all.
No, she couldn’t blame him. Not entirely. She could have resisted, protested,
withdrawn from him, but instead she had—It had taken every ounce of courage
she possessed for her to say to him the next day, ‘About last night... I...it... It was
a mistake,’ she had told him firmly, unable to lift her gaze to meet his, as she’d
walked into the kitchen and found him engaged in making his breakfast. ‘It
shouldn’t have happened and I don’t—’
‘I couldn’t agree more.’ Piers had cut her off in a clipped voice.
As he’d leant across the table Georgia had been able to see where the sunlight
As he’d leant across the table Georgia had been able to see where the sunlight
left a soft gold trail on his bare forearm, and she’d had the most ridiculous urge
to reach out and touch him there.
Speedily she had looked away from him, uncomfortably aware of how fast her
heart was beating.
Nothing further had been said about the incident in her bedroom by either of
them, and Georgia had told herself that she was glad. And certainly she was
equally glad that Piers had neither said nor done anything that in any way
remotely suggested it was an experience he wished to repeat.
Since then, though, she had taken great care to keep away from the kitchen
when she knew that Piers was using it, and she suspected that he was doing the
same thing. This morning, however, she had woken up earlier and had taken Ben
for a short walk before returning to make her breakfast, only to find that Piers
was in the kitchen making himself a cup of coffee, wearing only a towelling
robe, his face unshaven and his hair ruffled. For some odd reason the knowledge
that he had only just got out of bed had had a dangerous emotional effect on her.
She hadn’t realised how much her expression was giving away until she’d
heard him saying ruefully as he stroked his hand across his unshaven jaw, ‘Yes, I
do need a shave, but I was up half the night working.’
‘Mmm...I suppose if you were married you’d have to shave at night,’ she
began absently, and then stopped as she realised the direction her thoughts were
taking. But it was too late because Piers had already picked up on what she was
thinking.
‘At night—and in the morning,’ he told her meaningfully, his gaze sliding
from her eyes to her mouth and then back to her eyes again, so that he could
enjoy the confusion he could see so clearly registered there. What was it about
her, he wondered, that made it so impossible for him not to give in to the
temptation to underline his male sexuality to her and to watch her own female
reaction to his provocation?
‘Stop looking at me like that,’ Georgia was unable to stop herself from
begging him huskily.
‘Like what?’ Piers teased, his gaze deliberately dropping from her mouth to
her body.
‘Like...like that!’ Georgia protested, immediately refocusing Piers’s attention
on her softly parted lips.
What would she do, he wondered, if he went to her now and took her in his
arms? If he kissed her? She’d probably complain that his unshaven beard was
scratching her tender skin, Piers told himself grittily, deliberately turning away
from the temptation she represented and heading for the hallway.
from the temptation she represented and heading for the hallway.
That had been when Georgia had heard him call out angrily for Ben.
‘What’s wrong?’ she enquired now, following Piers into the hall and then
stopping as she saw the shredded copy of his morning paper.
‘Oh!’
‘Oh, indeed,’ Piers agreed grimly.
‘It’s only a newspaper.’ Georgia defended the dog. ‘It won’t take two minutes
for me to go out and get you another one.’
‘That’s not the point,’ Piers told her sharply. ‘Don’t think I don’t know why
you’re so determined to keep him here,’ he told Georgia grimly. ‘After all, you
were the one who pressurised my godmother into having him in the first place.’
‘I did no such thing,’ Georgia immediately retorted indignantly.
‘No? That’s not the way my godmother tells it,’ Piers contradicted her flatly.
‘According to her, it’s you she has to thank for having Ben.’
‘Oh, but that’s...’ Georgia began, intending to tell him that it was because of
her absence from the waiting room that his previous owner had managed to
persuade his godmother into becoming Ben’s new owner.
But Piers was in no mood to listen, overruling her before she had any chance
to finish what she was saying, telling her curtly, ‘I should have thought that your
professionalism alone would have made you think twice about putting emotional
pressure on my godmother to take Ben on. Suggesting that he might have to be
put to sleep if she didn’t have him was, in my view, a serious breach of
professional conduct, and—’
‘I never told Mrs Latham any such thing,’ Georgia gasped.
‘Perhaps not in so many words,’ Piers allowed. ‘But you certainly gave her
the impression that that’s what would have happened to him.’
As the sound of their raised voices reached Ben through the half-open kitchen
door he put his nose on his paws and listened anxiously to them. Human beings!
They could be so hard to understand at times.
*
Piers frowned as he pulled up in front of the house he had come to view. From
the details he had received on it he had decided that it sounded ideal for his
purposes. Modern, architect-designed, spacious, with a good-sized garden to
ensure his privacy—it even had a room specifically designed to house computer
equipment.
The selling agent who was due to meet him here had extolled its virtues to
The selling agent who was due to meet him here had extolled its virtues to
Piers when he had initially expressed an interest in it, adding helpfully that
because the property was already empty Piers could move into it virtually as
soon as he wished.
Yes, this property was almost perfectly suited to his needs, unlike the
farmhouse which was the only other remotely suitable property the agent had
had on his books.
As he had pondered before, there was no doubt whatsoever in his mind that
Georgia would go for the farmhouse. She would probably insist on raising a
brood of chickens, which she would want to have wandering about in the
farmyard, and no doubt she would want to turn at least one of the outbuildings
into temporary accommodation for all the animal waifs and strays she would
insist on adopting. He would be lucky if he didn’t find himself financing a
donkey sanctuary, as well as providing a refuge for wild, untrainable dogs, and
their children would probably grow up to be as animal-mad as their mother, so
that his would be the only lone voice of sanity and restraint in the entire
household.
Not that both she and their children wouldn’t do their very best to subvert his
desire to keep their lives as animal-free as possible. He could see it now: the lone
school hamster who was brought home ‘for the holidays’ and who never went
back; the stray cat who made her home with them and unexpectedly produced a
litter of kittens; the pony his daughter would insist on having—and he would, of
course, give in.
‘But she’ll have to clean it and feed it herself, I’m not getting up at the crack
of dawn every day to do it...’
To his consternation Piers realised that he had not only spoken his thoughts
out loud but that, for one moment, his imagination had produced such an
intensely real mental picture for him that it was as though his imaginary
daughter was actually here, standing in front of him, her mother’s dark red curls
bouncing with determination as she besieged him with pleas and entreaties.
Her mother’s red hair... Georgia’s red hair... But he wasn’t...he didn’t... The
clanking of the automatic wrought-iron gates opening alerted him to the estate
agent’s arrival, bringing a thankful end to his disturbing thoughts.
*
‘It would be the perfect property for a man in your position,’ the agent enthused
as they finished viewing the house and he locked the front door. ‘It fulfils all the
criteria you gave us.’
criteria you gave us.’
‘Yes,’ Piers agreed unenthusiastically.
‘It’s got vacant possession, and I know that the owner is prepared to negotiate
on price,’ the agent persevered.
‘Mmm... What time is my appointment to view the farmhouse?’ Piers asked
him briefly.
‘The farmhouse?’ The agent’s smile turned to a small frown. ‘I have made an
appointment for you to view it,’ he began cautiously, ‘but I must warn you, it is
in need of some quite serious renovation.’
‘I imagine it must be,’ Piers agreed urbanely. ‘It is over two hundred years
old.’
‘Well, yes, and if you were wanting a period family house then...’ He paused
and shrugged. ‘I have to warn you, though, that we already have at least one
seriously interested buyer, despite the fact that its survey showed the house
could be subject to serious flooding if the river was ever to rise above its
banks...and...’
‘Has it ever done so?’ Piers asked him quietly.
‘Well, no...at least not in the last hundred years,’ the agent conceded. ‘But, as
I’m sure you’ll agree once you’ve viewed it, it comes nowhere as near to
fulfilling your specifications in the way that this property does.’
It was quite plain to Piers that the agent was trying to push him into buying
the house he had just viewed, and on the face of it he knew that he had to agree
with everything that the other man was saying. After all, he hadn’t raised any
points that Piers hadn’t already seen for himself. The farmhouse was a family
home, and, to judge from the carefully worded estate agent’s blurb, in need of
having a considerable amount of money spent on it, whereas the one he had just
looked at needed nothing other than his own furniture. Even the floors were
polished wood and didn’t need carpeting. It cried out for the kind of minimalistic
décor that went perfectly with the kind of business image he ought to want to
portray.
Crumbling plasterwork and an Aga were not the right backdrop for someone
who was selling himself and his skills as an expert in the writing of the most
technologically advanced computer software in the marketplace. He would have
to have one of the outbuildings virtually rebuilt to house all his equipment, and
even then...
Abruptly Piers dragged himself back to reality. In a bygone age a man
suffering from what he was suffering from might genuinely have believed that
Georgia had cast some kind of spell over him. But to think that was to believe
that Georgia wanted him in her life, and she had made it more than evident that
that Georgia wanted him in her life, and she had made it more than evident that
she had no such desire at all.
But she did desire him. Or at least she had done so when...
A small, discreet cough from the estate agent reminded Piers of where he was.
He wasn’t going to put in an offer for the farmhouse—of course he wasn’t, he
assured himself as he got into his car. It just made sense to view the only
property locally that could provide him with a yardstick to measure the
suitability of the house he had just viewed; that was all. Of course it was.
*
Georgia was feeling very pleased with herself, and with Ben. Shortly after Piers
had left she had received a telephone call from the local paper asking if they
could interview her that morning about the scheme she had originated for pets
and their owners to visit the old people’s home. Even though Georgia had told
the reporter that the idea wasn’t original, and that she was simply copying a
scheme already in force in several other parts of the country, she had
nevertheless agreed to be interviewed.
The reporter had arrived promptly half an hour later and the interview had
gone very well. Rick Siddington was quite obviously an animal lover himself,
and he had quickly endeared himself, to the owners whom he was also
interviewing by making a big fuss of their pets.
Georgia had diplomatically left Ben behind on this occasion, sensing that he
was all too likely to try to steal the other dogs’ thunder. Philip had actually come
out of his office to speak with the reporter himself, and Georgia had been able to
tell from the way he had smiled at her and patted her paternally on the arm that
she had been forgiven her transgressions over the training class which Ben had
disrupted—for the time being at least! Now, back home and having just finished
grooming Ben, she sat back on her heels and surveyed his silky coat admiringly.
‘Good dog, Ben,’ she praised him repeatedly before giving him a small doggy
treat for his good behaviour whilst she had been brushing him.
As Ben went to the door and asked to go out Georgia reflected modestly as
she opened it for him that he really was making good progress, thanks just as
much to his own canine intelligence as to her training skills—skills which,
according to Piers, she simply did not possess. That jibe still had the power to
hurt her, but nowhere near as much as the accusation he had thrown at her that
she had deliberately encouraged his godmother to give Ben a home whilst
knowing that he was a totally unsuitable dog for her. Those words had stung, all
the more so because they simply weren’t true.
the more so because they simply weren’t true.
How could he be so hateful to her so soon after he had...after they had...? But
hadn’t she already warned herself that the intimacy which had left her so
helplessly incapable of denying the sweetly heady sensual desire he had aroused
in her, had meant nothing emotionally to him? He had probably kissed a dozen
women as passionately as he had kissed her, probably more—whilst she...
A self-conscious pink wash of colour stained her skin as she remembered how
she had lain there on the bed, totally naked, practically basking in the look she
had seen in his eyes. That kind of behaviour was totally out of character for her,
but she would be foolish to imagine that what had happened meant anything to
him. If it had—She could hear a loud angry roar through the open kitchen
window. Someone was shouting at Ben.
‘Come here, you—’
Anxiously Georgia ran to the kitchen door.
A smartly dressed elderly gentleman was marching up the garden path, his
face red with temper.
‘Is this your dog?’ he demanded angrily.
From his bearing and his clipped voice, Georgia guessed that he was an exserviceman.
‘Er...in a manner of speaking,’ she agreed hesitantly as she studied Ben’s soilencrusted nose and paws.
‘What do you mean? Either he is or he isn’t,’ the man snapped impatiently.
‘Damn hound! Caught him digging up my vegetable garden.’
‘Oh, no, I’m so sorry,’ Georgia apologised immediately.
“‘Sorry” won’t undo the damage he’s caused,’ she was told acidly. ‘If you
own a dog you should keep him under control... He deserves to be shot.’
‘Oh, no!’ Georgia protested, her face paling whilst she tried frantically to
work out how on earth Ben had managed to escape from the garden, which she
knew Mrs Latham had had surrounded by a special ‘dog-proof’ fence at
considerable expense.
‘I’ll pay for whatever damage he’s caused,’ Georgia offered, inwardly hoping
it wouldn’t prove to be too much. She could understand the man’s anger. Her
own father was a very keen gardener and she knew how he would have felt if
someone’s dog had dug up his prize vegetable patch.
‘Hmm... The estate agent told me when I bought my house that this was a
quiet area, with most of the properties owned by older people...’
‘Well, I don’t actually own this house,’ Georgia felt bound to explain.
‘But you do own this...this dog?’ he insisted grimly.
‘I... No, Ben, no,’ Georgia commanded sharply as Ben, growing bored,
playfully crept up to the man and made to jump up at him, leaving a set of
muddy paw-prints on his immaculate grey trousers.
‘Oh, I really am sorry,’ she apologised again. ‘He’s...he’s only a young dog
and he—’
‘He’s a menace, that’s what he is. He ought to be chained up,’ the man
growled acerbically at her. ‘And if I find him in my garden again he’s going to
wish that he was. There’s a law in this country now about allowing dogs to
roam.’
Guiltily Georgia listened to his tirade, knowing there was nothing she could
reasonably say or do to make amends.
‘Six months of hard work gone completely to waste,’ the man was telling her
furiously. ‘You should see what he’s done to my prize dahlias... I was growing
them for the County Show and—’
‘What’s going on here?’
Neither of them had heard Piers walking into the garden, and Georgia’s face
went as pale as the man’s was flushed as she saw him standing there.
How much had he overheard?
Just as she was about to launch into an edited explanation of what had
happened the man beat her to it, turning to him and demanding furiously, ‘That
damn dog of yours has just ruined my garden. Caught him down by the young
lettuces, digging the whole of them up. Your wife’s offered to pay for the
damage but that isn’t the point. That dog—’
‘I’m not—’
‘She isn’t—’
As they both spoke at once Georgia clenched one hand and stopped. Let Piers
explain the situation to his godmother’s angry neighbour. He would probably do
a far better job of doing so than she could. But to her consternation, as Piers
continued to explain to him that they were not actually married, the man jumped
to the wrong conclusion and exclaimed bitingly, ‘Hah! I suppose I should have
known. It’s all of a piece—no standards...no morals... That’s what’s wrong with
you modern young people. In my day a young man took his responsibilities
seriously, whether they were to a woman or to a dog, and he had to buy a licence
for both, just to prove his good faith and his intentions to honour his
responsibility to them and to the community at large. But of course it’s all
different now—no respect for anything or anyone...’
‘Just a moment!’
‘Just a moment!’
Piers’s voice cracked like a whip as he spoke sharply to the other man,
commanding his attention and his silence.
‘Whether or not a couple choose to marry is their business and no one else’s.
A man proves his respect and his love for the woman he commits himself to by
the way he treats her and their relationship. And I can promise you that my
responsibilities are something I take very seriously indeed.’
Piers moved closer to Georgia—so close to her in fact that for one wild,
illogical moment she almost felt as though he had done so out of a desire to
defend and protect her.
‘I’m sorry.’ The other man began to stutter, suddenly looking older and very
much more frail than he had done when he had first arrived. He was elderly, and
a little out of step with modern life, and probably, because of that, a little
intimidated by it, Georgia guessed. And she could well understand how angry
Ben’s destruction of his garden must have made him feel.
‘Look, why don’t you come in and have a cup of tea?’ she suggested gently to
him. ‘Then we can discuss what can be done to put matters right.’
Georgia could see the look of surprise on Piers’s face, but suddenly she felt
almost sorry for the older man, sensing intuitively that he was probably rather
lonely.
‘I...er...’
‘Yes, that’s an excellent idea,’ Piers agreed, smiling as he added, ‘Only
instead of tea perhaps a strong G and T might be more in order.’
‘Well...now you’re talking,’ the older man agreed heartily.
In the end their unexpected visitor stayed for over an hour, and they learned
that he was a retired colonel whose wife had died two years earlier, and that his
decision to move to the area had been prompted by a visit he and his wife had
made to the town many years earlier.
‘No family, you see. Both of us only ones, so no family to speak of. Felt that it
would have been what Ethel would have liked...’
‘Well, I’m sure when my godmother returns she’ll be very keen to introduce
you to her bridge cronies,’ Piers informed him.
‘Bridge?’ The colonel’s eyes gleamed with interest. ‘Haven’t had much time
to get involved socially as yet. The vicar called round, of course, but I’m not a
church-going man, never have been. Ethel liked a good sermon...’
By the time he got up to go it was agreed that Ben’s destruction of his garden
was to be forgotten just so long as there wasn’t a repeat performance. However,
the harmonious end to the day was somewhat marred for Georgia as, when he
stood on the front doorstep, the colonel turned to them both and confided,
stood on the front doorstep, the colonel turned to them both and confided,
‘Shouldn’t say so, perhaps, but it seems to me that a dog like that is too much of
a handful for a mature lady... A little house dog would be much better...’
After he had gone Georgia waited tensely for the stinging condemnation she
was sure that Piers was going to utter, but, to her surprise, as she carefully
washed the heavy crystal glasses he had used for their drinks, he came up to her
and told her quietly, ‘That was very well done of you; he’s obviously very
lonely, poor chap, although I admit for a moment when he... In your shoes I
doubt that I’d have had the compassion to offer him a cup of tea.’
‘He was very angry,’ Georgia responded, dipping her head over the hot
washing-up water to conceal the shock his praise had given her.
‘With good reason,’ Piers told her dryly, adding, ‘How did Ben get out, by the
way?’
‘I’m not sure. We’ll have to check the fence and make sure any holes are
safely mended.’
She gave a small sigh. ‘I’ll go round tomorrow to see the colonel. My father’s
a keen gardener and I know how he’d feel in the same circumstances. Perhaps
something can be salvaged.’
‘Now I think I begin to understand just what motivated you to persuade my
godmother to take Ben on,’ Piers said wryly. ‘You’re far too soft-hearted...’
‘No, I’m not at all,’ Georgia protested, turning towards him defensively. ‘I can
be very determined when I need to be.’
‘Very determined to be a soft touch,’ Piers scoffed, and then, to Georgia’s
astonishment, he added huskily, ‘Have you any idea how much, right now, I
want to kiss you?’
‘To...to kiss me...?’ Georgia stammered, her face flushing guiltily as she
recognised how much she actually wanted him to put his words into action.
Veiling her expression from him with downcast eyelashes, just in case he should
see what she was feeling, she began huskily, ‘I...I don’t think that that would be
a good idea...’
‘You don’t?’
‘I...I don’t know why you should. After all...’
‘You don’t?’ Piers repeated, his voice becoming even more throaty and sexy.
‘Does this make it any easier for you to see why?’ he asked her softly as he
moved towards her, the bulk of his body cutting off her escape as he placed his
hands at either side of her on the worktop. The white tee shirt he was wearing
revealed most of his arms, and, as she had been before, Georgia was
overwhelmed by a desire to reach out and stroke her fingertips down their
length. They looked so strong, so masculine...so...so sexy...so...so him.
She gave a small ecstatic sigh of feminine bliss and closed her eyes, opening
them again in breathless shock as she felt the warm pressure of Piers’s mouth
probing the softness of her own.
‘Piers...no...’ she started to say, but for some reason her firm denial was
voiced as a husky, ‘Mmm...’
‘Mmm...’ Piers echoed, in a much deeper and more possessive masculine
tone. ‘It would be so easy to make love to you,’ he told her rawly, the words
pouring hotly into her ear as his hand caressed the narrow curve of her waist. ‘I
could take you here...now...’
‘In the kitchen?’ Georgia squeaked breathlessly. She wasn’t used to strong gin
and tonics, especially when she had only managed to eat a snacky sandwich. The
liquor must have gone to her head, loosening her tongue as well as her
inhibitions, she reflected as Piers seemed to interpret what she had intended to be
a statement of rejection and distaste as one of curiosity and encouragement.
‘Mmm...shall I show you how?’ Piers asked her, and then, without waiting for
her response, he was picking her up, lifting her off her feet, holding her
powerfully against his body. He whispered wickedly to her, ‘We could use the
table. I could lay you on it and unfasten your shirt...’
Georgia could feel the heat of his gaze scorching her skin right through her
clothes as he looked at her breasts, and she could feel, too, the little prickle of
excitement that puckered her nipples into tight, eager points.
‘And then...?’ Georgia heard herself gasping huskily.
‘And then I’d hold your breasts in my hands and I’d stroke and tease your
nipples until you were begging for me to take them into my mouth, just as I’d be
begging for you to touch and taste me,’ Piers told her in a raw growl.
‘And then I’d touch you here...’ he told her, his hand just lightly skimming the
junction of her thighs, the lightest, briefest touch imaginable, but it was enough
to make her melt with longing, to burn with need and to show every bit of what
she was feeling in her eyes.
‘And you’d look at me...just the way you’re looking at me right now,’ Piers
told her thickly, ‘and I’d want you so much that I’d almost be afraid of hurting
you, knowing that the way I wanted to have you would be hot and passionate,
and it wouldn’t be over for a long, long time; that I’d want to explore every inch
of you... touch you...stroke you...know you...eat you...’
‘Piers...’ Georgia managed to protest chokily.
‘Piers what?’ he asked her, his fingers already sliding inside the fastening of
‘Piers what?’ he asked her, his fingers already sliding inside the fastening of
her shirt and hooking round the buttons. ‘Do you want me as much as I want
you, sweet Georgia?’ Piers asked her, his fingertips tantalising her as they slid
sensually against her skin.
Her breasts ached so for his touch...his mouth... Georgia shivered in mute
pleasure as she heard him whispering to her, ‘Do you lie in bed at night thinking
of me the way I think of you...imagining the soft silkiness of your skin, the sweet
taste of you...that sexy little purr you make when you’re aroused...?’
In another second he would be touching her nipple, and once he did... He was
just toying with her, amusing himself, that was all; he didn’t really feel anything
for her. Right now he might say he wanted her, but tomorrow he would be
behaving horribly to her again; she knew it. Frantically Georgia clung to what
she knew to be reality.
‘We can’t,’ she protested thickly. ‘We don’t... We’re enemies, Piers,’ she
reminded him.
‘Enemies?’
His fingers stilled on their sensual journey across her skin. Slowly he
withdrew them from her body as he stood up, releasing her.
‘Enemies? Is that how you see us? Yes, I suppose you’re right,’ he agreed
curtly, and then he walked away from her, opening the kitchen door and then
very quietly closing it behind him.
Georgia ached to call him back, but somehow she managed to prevent herself
from doing so. As though he sensed what she was feeling, Ben climbed out of
his basket and came across to lean against her. Automatically Georgia stroked
his fur, wondering why it should suddenly feel so damp and then realising that
she was actually crying. Crying? Over Piers? What a fool she was being. The
next thing she knew she would be thinking she had fallen in love with him! And
she was far too sensible to allow anything like that to happen. Far too sensible!
CHAPTER SIX
IT HAD never been destined to be recorded as one of the best days of his life right
from the start, Piers was to acknowledge grimly, twenty-four hours after the
event which was to change his life for ever.
For a start he did something he could never remember having done before. He
overslept. He never overslept. Never. But this morning he had done, waking up
abruptly with the beginnings of what promised to be a bad headache and an even
worse mood.
And it didn’t make him feel any better to be forced to acknowledge that at
least part of the cause of his mood was the fact that in his dreams his desire for
Georgia had given him such an ache of longing for her that on waking he’d
actually felt as though she had physically been there in bed with him,
deliberately arousing him and then withdrawing from him, teasing him,
tormenting him with the alluring promise of her softly naked body whilst, at the
same time, refusing to allow him to touch her.
Angrily he pushed back the bedcovers. Lying in bed mentally going over his
dreams wasn’t going to do anything to change them, or the message they were
no doubt trying to give him.
Scowling, he headed for his bathroom.
*
Georgia wasn’t having a much better day. During his walk Ben had run off,
dancing around her just out of her reach whilst she alternately tried to coax and
order him back to her. In the end it had only been with the aid of a fellow walker
whose pretty sheltie bitch Ben had taken a shine to that she had managed to get
his lead back on him.
Back at the house she had fed him, and answered a telephone call from work
concerning the disappearance of some papers she knew for a fact she had given
to the office manager to be filed.
Now, as she concluded her telephone call, she realised that Ben was nowhere
in sight—just like Piers, who presumably had got up early and left the house
before she had come down.
His comments, his behaviour towards her had left her not just aching with
longing for him but having to confront as well the reasons why she was reacting
longing for him but having to confront as well the reasons why she was reacting
to him the way she was, the reasons she wanted him the way she did.
She was just reassuring herself for the hundred and somethingth time that she
most certainly was not in love with him when she heard his furious shout,
followed, as she rushed to open the kitchen door, by a far less noisy but far more
ominous deeply angry call of, ‘Ben’. This shouting after Ben was coming to be a
habit.
As she rushed to the stairs, her heart pounding nervously, Georgia stopped
dead.
Ben was on his way downstairs, and in his mouth...
She swallowed and closed her eyes in dismay, praying that the shoe—that
very mangled and chewed shoe Ben was so proudly bringing to her, his whole
body wriggling with happy excitement—did not belong to Piers, even though
she could see quite clearly that it was most definitely a man’s shoe, and the only
man in the house was Piers.
As Ben dutifully dropped the shoe at her feet and then stood back, waiting for
her to praise him, Georgia’s heart sank even further. She had been throwing
sticks for him when she’d walked him, praising him for returning to her with
them, and now...
As she looked up the stairs she could see Piers walking slowly down,
watching them both.
‘This is your handiwork, I suppose,’ he accused her menacingly.
‘I... He...’ Georgia fell silent, then shook her head as she told Ben sorrowfully,
‘Bad dog, Ben.’
The dog’s tail dropped, and so did his nose, his eyes losing their expectant
shine. Georgia could feel a huge lump forming in her throat as she forgot what
an arch-manipulator Ben could be and remembered only that the dog was
probably simply carrying out a ritual she herself had taught him.
‘That dog—’ Piers began, but Georgia, fearing what he might say,
immediately leapt to Ben’s defence.
She told him quickly, ‘He wasn’t being deliberately destructive. He’s simply
following his instincts of retrieval.’
‘With my shoe?’ Piers asked her sarcastically.
‘It’s because he relates to you as a member of his pack.’ Georgia defended the
dog. ‘And he—’
‘Those shoes are—were—leather and handmade,’ Piers overrode her coldly.
Handmade leather shoes. Georgia’s heart sank even further. She could just
imagine how much they would cost to replace, and, of course, she would have to
offer to replace them, although technically Ben wasn’t her dog.
offer to replace them, although technically Ben wasn’t her dog.
‘I’ll pay to replace them, of course,’ she offered quickly.
‘They’re handmade,’ Piers repeated. ‘That means they take time to be made.
One can’t simply go out and just buy a pair...’
He really was enjoying making her squirm, Georgia decided, anger starting to
replace her initial feelings of dismay and guilt.
‘Ben obviously shares your expensive tastes,’ she told him lightly. ‘But I’m
sure they can’t be the only pair of shoes you possess.’
The dull ache in his head which Piers had woken up with had turned with
unpleasant speed into the kind of headache he knew, from past experience,
would quickly reach a raging crescendo of pain unless he took something for
it...and soon. It infuriated him that instead of castigating the dog Georgia
actually seemed to be defending him, and even implying that he, Piers, deserved
to have his shoes destroyed. He hadn’t missed either that faintly scornful look in
her eyes when he had pointed out to her that the shoes were handmade and
expensive. Perhaps he had sounded like the worst kind of successful
entrepreneur, but he hadn’t intended to be boastful—simply to make her
understand the gravity of Ben’s crime.
‘No,’ he agreed, now suddenly as defensive over his choice of footwear as
Georgia had been over Ben’s enjoyment of it. ‘They aren’t the only pair I have
to wear, but right at this moment they are the only pair I wanted to wear, the pair
I had chosen to wear. Not that it matters. The real issue here is—’
Ben, not getting the reaction he had hoped for from Georgia, darted forward
and picked up the shoe, proudly carrying it right to Georgia’s feet and sitting
down waiting for her to praise him. Helplessly Georgia looked from the dog’s
expectant eyes to Piers’s condemning ones.
‘He isn’t being deliberately destructive,’ she repeated to Piers helplessly. ‘He
thinks...he believes...’ She stopped as she saw the way Piers’s mouth was curling
with biting anger.
‘Perhaps you were right after all... Perhaps he is far more intelligent, far easier
to train than I believed,’ Piers told her with deliberation, sharply biting off each
word as he delivered them to her almost like condemnatory blows.
‘I haven’t taught him to do that,’ Georgia retorted hotly as the meaning of
what Piers had said sank in. ‘I throw sticks for him to retrieve...like any other
dog owner, but as to shoes...’
She stopped, unable to hold the silent contempt of the look he was giving her,
his eyes smouldering darkly with the dislike he so obviously felt for her in the
angry whiteness of his face.
angry whiteness of his face.
The pain in his head had reached a crashing crescendo, Piers recognised. It
infuriated him more than he wanted to admit, even to himself, that Georgia
should choose the dog above him; that she should defend Ben so determinedly,
so tenderly and lovingly, even though she must know that he was right. And
what made it worse was that he suspected that had the shoe Ben had chewed
belonged to anyone else other than him she would have taken a completely
different stance.
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ he accused her furiously.
‘Enjoying it!’ The unjustness of his accusation caused Georgia to retaliate
immediately. ‘No, I am not.’
‘Well, you’d better make the most of it,’ Piers advised her as waves of
nauseating pain began to lash the inside of his head. ‘Because you’re not going
to find the situation anything like so funny when I present you with the bill for
my shoes, and even less so when you explain to my godmother how your claims
to be able to train her dog have resulted in him displaying the kind of antisocial
behaviour that just confirms that he needs to be found a new owner—preferably
one who doesn’t wear shoes,’ he finished savagely.
Now Georgia’s face was as white as Piers’s and her pain nearly as great as
well, although hers was located in her heart rather than in her head.
‘It isn’t up to you to say whether Ben stays or goes,’ she reminded him
protectively.
‘No,’ Piers said softly, with such a vitriolic look that Georgia caught her
breath in alarm, immediately moving closer to Ben and putting her hand
protectively on his collar.
‘If you try to do anything to hurt or harm Ben...’ she began warningly, and
then stopped as she saw the look that zigzagged briefly through Piers’s eyes, her
breath catching in her throat. Pain... Piers had felt pain, had looked betrayed.
Pain! But how could that be? Surely that meant...? But before she could follow
up her intriguing line of thought Piers was turning away from her and heading
back up the stairs to his own part of the house.
*
As he took the tablets he knew would help the pain of his headache to subside,
Piers cursed himself for his lack of self-control. Jealous of a dog... What the hell
was happening to him? He closed his eyes and tried to breathe slowly and
deeply, telling himself he was doing so simply to speed up the progress of the
drug through his system, but in reality he knew there was more to it than
drug through his system, but in reality he knew there was more to it than
that...much more...
To his intense irritation, behind his closed eyelids all he could see was
Georgia’s anguished face as she looked protectively towards Ben. Perhaps he
had overreacted a little—but what man in love could calmly or rationally accept
that the woman he loved cared more about a dog than she did about him?
A man in love!
Since when had he been that? He wasn’t inhuman. He had nothing against
people falling in love. Love was a very wonderful and special thing. It was just
that, for some reason, he hadn’t imagined it happening to him. Or, rather, he
hadn’t imagined it happening to him in quite the fashion that it had. He had
assumed that when love finally entered his life it—she would enter it calmly, in
a dignified mature fashion. Not sweep in in a whirlwind of complex, volatile,
challenging emotions that went from one extreme to the other and then back
again in the space of a heartbeat. And certainly never, ever had he imagined that
he would be competing for his beloved’s affections with a dog!
The tablets he had taken were starting to do their work, easing the pain out of
his head. A glance at his watch revealed the unwelcome fact that it was halfway
through the morning and he had things he needed to do.
*
Downstairs in the kitchen Georgia was nursing a mug of hot coffee whilst telling
Ben severely, ‘You shouldn’t have taken his shoe, Ben.’
Soulfully he looked back at her. Previously, whilst she had known that Piers
did not approve of Ben as a pet for his godmother, she had assumed that that was
his main objection to the dog, but now...
Her heart missed a small beat as she remembered the look of bitter resentment
Piers had given poor Ben. A look almost of hatred, and... And what? Georgia
closed her eyes, not wanting to give a name to the look she thought she had seen
in Piers’s eyes, and then opened them again as she heard Piers opening the
kitchen door. He was dressed in a snug-fitting pair of faded jeans and a soft
cotton shirt, and his shoes... She exhaled her breath in a sigh as she saw the
casual footwear he had on.
As he followed the direction of her gaze Piers gave Ben a hard look.
‘It wasn’t his fault.’ Georgia quickly defended the dog, seeing it. ‘I...I should
have kept an eye on him.’
She tensed as she saw the way Piers’s mouth was curling with contempt and
derision, but he made no comment, simply sitting down and starting to look
derision, but he made no comment, simply sitting down and starting to look
through the letters he had in his hand.
One of them was from the estate agent, and Piers frowned as he read it. The
agents were pressing him to make a decision on the farmhouse he had viewed,
reminding him that another would-be purchaser had expressed an interest in it.
Piers discovered that he had suddenly lost interest in acquiring any kind of
large potential family house... What need did he have for one after all? A
modern apartment would surely be far more convenient, and, if necessary, he
could rent separate office accommodation.
He was glad that he had come to his senses before he had done anything so
foolish as being tempted to put in an offer for the farmhouse, he told himself
grimly.
*
After a couple of hours during which Piers and Georgia occupied themselves in
different parts of the house—Piers doing some work whilst Georgia had an
intensive training session with Ben—they accidentally found themselves in the
kitchen together, having lunch. Little was said as they ate their respective meals.
As the silence between them stretched into a tautness that made Georgia’s
nerve-endings tingle with apprehension, she wondered unhappily how much of
Piers’s obvious antipathy towards her was actually caused by Ben’s crime of
destroying his shoe and how much by Piers’s own regret about what he had said
to her the previous evening. Well, if he thought she was silly enough to have
taken any of what he had implied seriously...
Her head lifted proudly and, standing up, she called quietly to Ben, ‘Come on,
boy, time for our walk.’
‘No...’ Piers’s sharp denial cut through the hostile atmosphere of the kitchen
like a gunshot.
‘No,’ he repeated, ignoring the way Georgia’s hand crept protectively towards
the dog’s collar. ‘I’ll take him. Let’s just see how much improvement you have
been able to make with this so-called training you’ve been giving him. Not very
much at all, if the events of the last few days are anything to go by,’ he added
sardonically.
Georgia’s heart started to beat uncomfortably fast.
It was true that Ben was responding to what she was teaching him, but it was
also true that he was a very independently minded dog, a free spirit of the canine
world, so to speak, who, regrettably, had been used to being the pack leader for
so long that he was reluctant to give up his role without something of a tussle.
so long that he was reluctant to give up his role without something of a tussle.
Human beings, as he had made more than plain to Georgia over the last few
days, were there to feed him and be protected by him; he had a very male and
macho attitude towards that part of his canine heritage, as Georgia had noticed
on their walks; for whenever a strange man happened to walk past them Ben
immediately became very much the protective male dog guarding one of his
pack. But it had to be admitted that human beings were not, in Ben’s considered
opinion, his superiors in the pack pecking order, an assumption which Georgia
had been doing her best to alter skilfully. However, she was becoming
increasingly aware that Ben needed rather more than mere training. What Ben
actually needed was a visit to a pet psychologist. However, she could well
imagine Piers’s reaction were she to put this suggestion to him.
‘I...I don’t think he’s quite ready for that yet,’ she said instead, only to have
Piers openly jeer at her as he asked her silkily,
‘What exactly are you trying to say? That I was right all along and that the
dog is untrainable?’
‘No dog is untrainable,’ Georgia defended swiftly. ‘And Ben is a very
intelligent animal.’
‘An intelligent animal who needs a new home,’ Piers agreed.
Fear and anger flashed through Georgia’s eyes.
‘You’re determined to get rid of him, aren’t you? You won’t even give him a
fair chance. Have you any idea what it could do to him emotionally to be rehomed? Have you no feelings, no compassion...no perception? Have you no—?’
‘I’ve got a pair of ruined handmade shoes and a list of complaints that—’
Piers began sardonically, but Georgia cut through them all, her protective female
urges coming to the fore as she sensed Ben’s growing danger.
‘Is that all that matters to you?’ she demanded heatedly. ‘Material
possessions, other people’s opinions? Your godmother loves Ben; she—’
‘She only took him on because of you,’ Piers interrupted her furiously, ‘so
don’t talk to me about feelings, because that was a piece of deliberate and coldblooded manipulation and—’
‘It was no such thing. I had nothing to do with your godmother’s decision to
give Ben a home,’ Georgia denied defensively.
‘You mean you aren’t going to admit to having anything to do with it,’ Piers
countered coldly, ‘but you do have to admit that there is no way that that dog is a
suitable pet for my godmother...’
‘You really hate Ben, don’t you?’ Georgia accused him. ‘If you want my
opinion, you don’t just not like him, you’re jealous of him as well.’
opinion, you don’t just not like him, you’re jealous of him as well.’
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than Georgia wished passionately
that she had not uttered them; but it was too late. Piers was looking at her with
an expression that made her quake in her shoes.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Piers told her curtly, getting off his chair and walking
determinedly towards Ben whilst Georgia looked on helplessly.
‘I really don’t think this is a good idea,’ she said quickly.
‘Why?’ Piers challenged her. ‘Or do I already know the answer? You’re afraid
that I’ll discover that far from improving Ben’s behaviour—’
‘It is improving,’ Georgia insisted fiercely. ‘It’s just that my training
programme is at a very delicate stage,’ she improvised, ‘and I’m concerned that
it will confuse Ben having two different people giving him commands.’
The thin smile Piers gave her warned Georgia how easily he had seen through
her desperate subterfuge.
‘Really? Then how on earth is my godmother going to control him if the only
person he’s going to respond to is you, and the only commands he’s going to
respond to are yours?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ Georgia protested. ‘It’s just that, right now...’
‘Why not let me be my own judge of just how much progress he’s making?’
Piers challenged her softly, then snapped his fingers and said firmly, ‘Ben,
here...’
To Georgia’s relief Ben immediately got up and trotted over to Piers’s side.
Perhaps she was worrying too much, she tried to comfort herself five minutes
later as Piers and Ben left the house, Ben walking perfectly to heel on his lead.
Perhaps Ben might, with some canine perception, sense that he was being
judged, and why, and might behave as she had been training him to do. Crossing
her fingers, Georgia prayed inwardly that he would.
Thank goodness she had been sensible enough to realise in time just what a
fatal mistake it would be for her to allow herself to fall in love with Piers. Just
imagine the heartache she would have to suffer if she did so. It was obvious what
a low opinion he had of her, even if physically he had...
But no, she wasn’t going to allow herself to think about that, she told herself
firmly. No, not for one minute...one second... Just because when Piers had
touched her, when he’d kissed her, she had felt...wanted...had dreamed...
*
Two miles down the river footpath Piers had to concede that Ben was behaving
with perfect canine manners, not pulling on his lead, walking quietly to heel,
with perfect canine manners, not pulling on his lead, walking quietly to heel,
sitting on command and even sharing a disapproving look with Piers when
another less well behaved canine chased after a passing cat.
‘Very clever,’ Piers told the dog dryly, ‘but that doesn’t alter the fact that you
dug up the colonel’s prize plants or the fact that you chewed my shoe.’
Happily Ben wagged his tail.
Nor did it alter the fact that, so far as Georgia was concerned, there was no
contest about who came first in her affections, and it certainly wasn’t him, Piers
acknowledged grimly. It had hurt him to be accused of hating Ben so unjustly;
he didn’t hate the dog at all; he simply felt that he wasn’t a suitable pet for his
godmother.
‘You’re a man’s dog,’ he told Ben severely. ‘You need to know who’s boss.’
He would be a wonderful family pet, though, Piers acknowledged as Ben paused
to let a woman walking in the opposite direction with two young children admire
and stroke him.
As Piers put Ben through his paces he was forced to concede that Georgia was
doing an excellent job. Ben behaved perfectly, responding immediately to every
command but, at the same time, exhibiting a kind of dignity that made it plain
that his obedience came on his own terms and because it was what he wanted to
do. As he praised him for his good behaviour and Ben wagged his tail, enjoying
the fuss being made of him, Piers acknowledged that, under different
circumstances, he could have become very fond of the dog.
‘Come on, boy,’ he instructed. ‘Time to go home.’
Home! Ben’s ears pricked up. Home meant food and Georgia.
They were almost back when Piers suddenly remembered that he needed to
get in touch with the estate agent. It would be as easy to get in his car and drive
into town and see the man as telephone him, he decided, and that way he could
tell him that he had changed his mind about both properties and intended to look
for something smaller.
He had his car keys with him, but he also had Ben. Frowning a little, he
looked from the dog to the car and then, shrugging his shoulders, unlocked the
car door and opened the rear door for the dog.
Immediately Ben hopped in and settled himself on the rear seat happily—
Piers already knew that he was quite comfortable about travelling in the car.
Closing the door, he got into the driver’s seat and then activated the electric
windows to make sure that the dog had enough fresh air. It was a warm day, not
too hot for a human being, but Ben was a dog with a thick coat and Piers was
mindful of the fact that he needed a cooler environment.
The car park opposite the town square on to which the estate agent’s office
The car park opposite the town square on to which the estate agent’s office
fronted had a couple of empty parking spaces, but neither of them offered the
kind of shade he felt that Ben needed so, instead, he turned down a small side
street, parking his car on the shady side of the road and leaving the rear windows
and the sun roof open enough to allow Ben plenty of fresh air.
He wouldn’t be gone long.
‘Good boy,’ he told Ben as he walked away. Ben thumped his tail and settled
happily on the seat. He liked travelling in cars, and it was very pleasant lying
here in the shade where he could watch the world go by.
There were several cars parked on the narrow side street, but only one of them
interested the two youths who slid deftly in and out of the shadows, trying every
car door they passed, more out of habit than any real interest as they headed for
Piers’s car. They had been watching as Piers parked the large, gleaming Jaguar,
their boredom momentarily lifting as they studied the car’s sleek lines.
‘No good for ram-raiding,’ one of them said to the other, shaking his head.
‘Nah,’ the other agreed. ‘Cool for speed, though. We could really give the
cops a run for their money in that.’
Now, whilst one of them watched the street, the other quickly forced the lock
on the driver’s door. He knew exactly how to do so, and how to deactivate the
car’s alarm system and start the engine. After all, he had had plenty of practice,
most of it whilst he was still under the legal age to drive.
As the two youths slid into the car, Ben gave a low growl, but as they turned
up the sound of the radio and searched for a preferred station neither of them
heard it.
On the pedestrian crossing a young mother with a small child and an elderly
man both shot indignant, frightened looks after the departing speeding car,
making its two occupants laugh, but to their disappointment, as they raced past
the town’s police station, there was no one there to witness their provocative
behaviour, no striped police car to pursue them and give chase, adding to the
excitement and exhilaration of their afternoon.
They knew the town and its environs even better than any cop could possibly
do, they were fond of boasting, and they had safe places where they could hide
out, garages they could drive into whilst the police searched for them.
This car, like all the others they had stolen, would end up either wrecked or
broken up for ‘spares’.
As they shot across a roundabout, causing other drivers to brake and swerve,
they both laughed, whilst in the back Ben growled.
*
Piers was longer in the estate agent’s than he had expected, his original decision
to tell the agent that he had decided against both the properties he had viewed
oddly overturned by the sight of a photograph in the window of the farmhouse.
Looking at it, Piers had undergone an unfamiliar wavering and a totally
unexpected and unwanted change of heart.
‘The farmhouse?’ the agent queried, frowning. ‘But I thought...’
‘I’m prepared to offer them the full asking price,’ Piers heard himself telling
the agent, ‘on the condition that they move out almost immediately.’
The agent’s frown deepened.
‘But I thought you said that you wanted...’ His voice tailed off as he saw the
look in Piers’s eyes. ‘I’ll telephone the vendors now and put your offer to them,’
he offered instead.
Ten minutes later, as he walked out of the estate agent’s office, Piers had
committed himself to buying the farmhouse. Was he totally and completely
mad?
He started to walk a little faster, unwilling to pursue his own thoughts, and
then came to an abrupt halt as he turned into the street where he had left his car
and saw someone else had parked where he had expected to find his Jaguar—
and Ben! A quick check of the street confirmed that there were no signs
anywhere warning against parking and threatening clamping and removal of
vehicles should anyone do so, convincing Piers that his car had not been
removed by some righteous corporation official.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a police patrol car turning into the street
and immediately he hailed the driver, quickly explaining to him that his car
appeared to have gone missing.
‘And the registration number of the vehicle, sir?’ the police officer asked him
politely.
Tersely Piers gave it to him.
‘There was a dog in the car,’ Piers told the officer, ‘and to be honest I’m more
concerned about him than I am about the vehicle.’
As he spoke Piers realised, a little to his own astonishment, that it was the
truth. His first thought when he had realised that his car had gone had been for
Ben.
‘A dog, you say?’ The policeman frowned.
Ten minutes later Piers was at the police station reporting the theft of his car
—and Ben—in more detail.
—and Ben—in more detail.
‘Look,’ he told the police officer taking his statement. ‘If it will help I’m fully
prepared to offer a financial reward...’
The police officer pursed his lips.
‘I doubt it will do any good, sir,’ he told Piers politely. ‘It’s more than likely
that the car—’
‘It’s not the return of the car that concerns me,’ Piers interrupted him. ‘The
reward would be for the safe return of Ben, the dog...’
‘We’ll do our best, sir,’ was the police officer’s courteous response as Piers
signed his statement and got up to leave.
*
Georgia looked anxiously at the kitchen clock. She had been expecting Piers
back with Ben ages ago. Where was he? Where were they? Had Ben
misbehaved, perhaps even run off, refusing to come back? She closed her eyes.
She could just imagine how Piers would react to that. ‘Oh, Ben,’ she pleaded
under her breath, ‘please, please be good.’ In championing the dog she knew that
she had destroyed whatever slim chance there might have been of Piers changing
his opinion about her, and...
And what? Falling in love with her, feeling something much, much more than
mere unemotional sexual desire for her? How could she have deserted Ben,
though? How could she possibly have wanted a love that came with that kind of
price tag? And besides, she didn’t want Piers’s love, did she?
She started up as she heard the front door being opened. The front door. A
small feather of alarm curled through her stomach. Piers would never bring Ben
in through the front door after a long walk, risking the dog’s muddy paws on his
godmother’s elegant carpets.
When Piers opened the kitchen door Georgia was standing with her back to
the kitchen table, the same table on which he had threatened so sensuously, so
temptingly, to make love to her. Her body tensed.
‘Where’s Ben?’ she demanded as soon as Piers walked in.
As he heard the accusatory note in her voice and saw the look in her eyes,
Piers felt his heart sink.
It was going to be so hard to tell her what had happened... The fear he could
see in her eyes only mirrored his own feelings of concern for the dog. He was a
man who was used to being in control of things, and to have to acknowledge not
just to himself but to Georgia as well that he had no control over what was
happening, no way of guaranteeing Ben’s safety, of promising her that all would
happening, no way of guaranteeing Ben’s safety, of promising her that all would
be well, was dealing a very hard blow to his in-built male sense of self. And
because of that he responded in a way which he later was forced to admit was a
world away from the gentle care with which he had been planning to break the
news to her all the way back to the house.
‘Is that all you can think about?’ he demanded shortly instead. ‘The dog?
Well...’
As she heard the anger in his voice and her senses picked up the guilt that
underlined it Georgia immediately accused him, ‘Something’s happened to him,
hasn’t it? You’ve done something to him. If he’s been hurt... If you’ve hurt
him...’
If he’d hurt him? Piers opened his mouth to defend himself and then closed it
again. What, after all, could he say? He was responsible for Ben being put in a
position where he could be hurt, even if he had done so by accident rather than
by design.
Too anxious about Ben’s absence to interpret correctly the look in Piers’s
eyes, Georgia only knew that his silence totally condemned him.
‘Where is he? What have you done with him?’ she demanded, her voice
breaking on a small sob of anguished despair as she mentally visualised poor
Ben locked up in a cage, waiting to be found a new owner, not understanding
what had happened to him.
There was no way she was going to allow Ben to be hurt like that. If she spoke
to her parents, explained the situation, she knew full well that they would
generously help her to fund the purchase of her own small property, somewhere
where she could have a dog. Yes, if necessary she would give Ben a home
herself rather than...
‘Where is he?’ she repeated fiercely. ‘Where?’
‘I don’t know,’ Piers told her gruffly. The sight of the tears she was trying
valiantly to hide had brought a lump of emotion to his own throat.
‘You’re lying,’ Georgia accused him wildly. ‘You’ve taken him somewhere—
a kennels or somewhere—and you’ve left him there...just because he’s...he’s a
bit...independent and—Have you any idea what it does to an animal to be
abandoned like that?’ she asked him in a choked voice. ‘Have you any idea of
how your godmother will feel? Have you given any thought to the feelings of—?
But you don’t care, do you? You don’t care about anyone else’s feelings. All you
care about is your precious shoes,’ she denounced him scathingly.
‘For heaven’s sake, will you just listen?’ Piers said sharply. ‘I have not taken
Ben to a kennels. Nor have I abandoned him. I...’
‘Then where is he?’ Georgia demanded, her face flushing with emotion and
her eyes brilliant with a mixture of tears and passion as she deliberately held his
gaze, daring him to lie to her.
‘I...I wish to God I knew,’ Piers groaned, with such feeling that Georgia
shivered, a cold finger of dread icing down her spine.
‘What...what happened?’ she asked him shakily. ‘If he slipped his lead and ran
off, refusing to come back, it’s just a game he likes to play. If you’d waited...
Tell me where it happened; I’ll go out and look for him...’
‘No, it...isn’t as simple as that,’ Piers told her, catching hold of her arm as she
made to hurry past him to the back door, her mind already mentally visualising
the familiar river walk she took Ben on every day and the potential spots where
he liked to break free of her to investigate rabbit scents.
‘Ben was in my car,’ Piers told her heavily, ‘and the car has been stolen.’
‘What?’ Georgia stared at him. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she told him furiously,
her face burning with a mixture of anger and scorn. Did he really think she was
so stupid as to fall for something like that?
‘You were taking Ben for a walk. You never said anything about driving him
anywhere in your car,’ she added suspiciously. ‘You...’
‘I decided to call round and see the estate agent,’ Piers told her wearily.
‘No! I don’t believe you,’ Georgia repeated stubbornly. ‘You’re lying.’
Her heart, she had discovered, was beginning to beat frighteningly fast as she
tried to grapple with the implications of what Piers was telling her. It wasn’t
true, of course; he was simply lying to her to cover himself for what he had
really done. After all, he had threatened often enough to have Ben re-homed, but
now that he had taken active steps to do so he was refusing to admit it, covering
his cruel behaviour with a cowardly lie.
Her face burning with anger and indignation, she told him fiercely, shakily, ‘I
think you’ve now insulted me in just about every way there is. Professionally
and...and sexually...and now mentally by...by making up a story that no one
could possibly believe. You’ve been determined to get rid of Ben right from the
start. I realise now that it wouldn’t have made any difference how obedient I’d
taught him to be, would it?’ she said, biting down hard on her bottom lip to
control the tears threatening to fill her eyes.
She continued painfully, ‘You wanted me to fail. You wanted Ben to fail so
that you could have an excuse for getting rid of him. In fact it wouldn’t surprise
me now to discover that you deliberately encouraged him to chew your shoes—
your handmade leather shoes,’ she emphasised angrily. ‘But you’re simply not
man enough to tell your godmother outright that you intended to get rid of her
dog, are you? So you had to do it in an underhanded way, using poor Ben’s
naughtiness...blaming him...blaming me...’
Georgia could feel her mouth trembling wildly as her emotions threatened to
betray her completely. It wasn’t just Ben she was defending...fighting for...it was
herself too. Her own integrity, her own emotions...her own love... Love!
Shock stabbed through her, stopping her breath, her face going white with the
pain of it as right at the heart of her anger she discovered the reason why Piers’s
duplicity and cowardliness hurt so much.
She couldn’t love him. It just wasn’t possible. She hated him, despised him.
She...
Now she was crying—dry, desperate tears that shook her body and tore at
Piers’s heart.
Despite everything she had said, all the accusations she had thrown at him, all
the passionate loyalty she had shown to Ben—or perhaps because of it—he
couldn’t sustain the righteous anger he knew he should feel. All he wanted to do,
all he ached to do, was to take her in his arms and comfort her, to reassure her
that he would search the length and breadth of the country—of the world if need
be—to find Ben and prove to her just how wrong she was.
Impulsively Piers took a step towards her, stopping dead, a muscle twitching
in his jaw, as he saw the way Georgia was looking at him, her expression, her
whole body tight and frozen with rejection.
Georgia shivered. Just for a moment she had thought that Piers was going to
reach out and touch her... comfort her... That just showed the state she was in—
the vulnerability of her emotions. But what was even worse was that for a small
space of time she had actually felt impelled to go towards him, to betray by her
body language just how much she longed for and needed the comfort of his arms
around her, the reassurance of his voice telling her that everything was going to
be all right, that Ben was safe, that she had misunderstood.
Both of them tensed as they heard someone ringing the front doorbell.
Predictably, or so it seemed to Georgia, Piers got to the front door before she
did, opening it and then demanding quickly as he gestured to the police officer
standing outside to come in, ‘Have you found him? Is he...?’
The officer, briefed by his colleagues, had heard how the owner of the
expensive car which had been stolen from the town was far more concerned
about the fate of the dog which had been in the car than the vehicle itself. He
sympathised. He had a dog himself, and two children who would be distraught if
anything similar should happen to it.
anything similar should happen to it.
‘No, I’m afraid we haven’t, sir; however, there is some news on the car.
Apparently a lorry driver reported seeing a car that matches the description of
yours being driven erratically on the motorway going north. We’ve alerted all
the motorway units, but so far none of them have seen anything.
‘You mentioned in your statement that the car had an almost full tank of
petrol,’ he added with a faint sigh that fell just short of being gently reproving.
‘Unfortunately, yes,’ Piers agreed, whilst Georgia, who had overheard
everything the police officer had said, stood rigidly in the hallway, her face
white and her heart thumping.
Piers hadn’t lied to her after all. He had told her the truth. His car had been
stolen with Ben in it. She swallowed hard. She obviously owed him an apology.
‘We think we’ve got a pretty good idea of the identity of the pair who’ve
taken the car,’ the police officer was continuing. ‘The lorry driver reported two
occupants, both of them young males, and we established that two local youths
who have a record for taking cars without the owners’ permission and using
them for joyriding are missing from their usual haunts in the town. It’s a pity the
car had a full tank of petrol; however, on the plus side, the fact that they’ve
driven it on to the motorway suggests that they will simply use it for joyriding
and then, once the tank is empty, dump it somewhere.’
‘Never mind about the car,’ Piers told him. ‘What about Ben, the dog? Did the
lorry driver...?’
The policeman shook his head.
‘No. There was no report about any dog, but...’ He paused and looked
uncertainly at Georgia, whose pale, set face gave away her anxiety. ‘The fact
that there hasn’t been any sighting suggests...er...that the dog must still be in the
car...’
He meant that the youths hadn’t opened the door and pushed Ben out onto the
motorway, Georgia guessed, correctly interpreting his coded words. She was a
vet, after all, and she had had experience of dogs being thus treated, sometimes
by their owners, but that didn’t stop her eyes filling with panicky tears or her
hand going up to her mouth to stifle the small sound of pain she could feel rising
in her throat.
‘He’s a large, heavy dog,’ Piers said quickly. ‘I doubt he could be easily
ejected from the car if he didn’t want to be.’
‘Try not to worry,’ the police officer told Georgia gruffly. ‘Sometimes these
joyriders have radios that allow them to listen in to police frequencies, so we’re
broadcasting a message that there’ll be a substantial reward for the return of the
dog—just as you asked us to,’ he told Piers.
dog—just as you asked us to,’ he told Piers.
Piers had offered a reward for Ben’s safe return. Georgia could feel her face
going scarlet with mortification.
‘You’ll let us know just as soon as you hear anything?’ Piers was requesting
the police officer as he turned to leave.
Confirming that he would, he stepped out of the front door, leaving Piers to
close it behind him.
As they stood together in the hallway Georgia took a deep breath and closed
her eyes, opening them almost immediately as she tried to draw on her rapidly
depleting store of inner strength.
‘I’m very sorry about what I said about you...about you hurting Ben and lying
about what had happened to him,’ she said, starting her apologies with the words
carefully spaced apart, but then rushing over them so that one virtually ran into
the other as she finished quickly, ‘I owe you an apology and I...I shouldn’t have
said what I did,’ she concluded huskily.
I only said it because it hurt so much that I loved you and that you didn’t love
me back and that you couldn’t be the man I wanted you to be, Georgia could
have further explained to him, but what was the point when to do so would only
expose her to further pain? What mattered most right now was not her own
feelings, her own anguished awareness of how much she loved Piers and how
impossible it was that her love could ever be returned, but Ben.
‘No doubt you had your reasons for thinking as you did,’ Piers told her curtly.
It still hurt that she could have thought him capable of something so cruel and
cowardly. His pride still smarted from the blows she had dealt it, but what hurt
him far more was knowing how low an opinion she had of him. He had been
jealous of Ben, yes—jealous of the way she had taken the dog’s side against
him, so to speak, when Ben had chewed his shoe. And, yes, perhaps it had been
wrong of him to resent the love she seemed to lavish so tenderly on the dog,
whilst treating him with such contempt and scorn, but...
‘I really am sorry,’ Georgia repeated dully, unable to bring herself to look into
his eyes, already knowing the indifference she would no doubt see there. Why
should Piers care how dreadful she felt? Her feelings were of no concern to him
whatsoever!
CHAPTER SEVEN
CAUTIOUSLY Ben poked his nose up towards the half-open rear window of the
car, carefully sniffing the air. Country air, he could tell, but not the type of
country air that was familiar to him. This air had a different scent about it.
He had been deliberately keeping a low profile under the rug in the rear of the
car where he had been asleep when the car had been stolen, controlling his initial
reaction to bark warningly at the strangers who had driven off in Piers’s car—the
car it was his duty to protect! Intuition had quickly told him that the two men
were dangerous and should be left alone. Ben was no coward, but...!
Even more cautiously he looked towards the front of the car, where the two
strangers who had driven him off were lolling, half asleep, in a drunken stupor.
They had stopped several miles away, having chased a small sports car driven by
a pretty girl off the motorway and down a series of narrow, twisting country
lanes, hurling taunting comments to her as they did so. She had finally escaped
them by driving in through some electronic gates to a large house where the two
youths had appeared to decide not to follow.
They had then driven on until they had reached a small village, where they
had driven on to the pavement outside a small store, leaving the car engine
running whilst they went inside and threatened the shopkeeper, laughing at his
distress whilst they took what they wanted from his shelves.
Drinking and swearing at any other unfortunate motorists they’d chanced to
come across—fortunately only a few in this remote country area of the
Yorkshire Dales—they had finally brought the car to a halt.
‘Better stop,’ one had told the other. ‘Not much petrol left. Need to find a
garage...’
‘Won’t find one up here...’ the other had replied, before emptying the can he
had been drinking from and throwing it out of the car window.
It was a warm night and they had opened all the electric windows. In the front
seat the one doing the driving woke up now and said to the other, ‘Come on, we
need petrol.’ He was just starting up the car engine when Ben saw his chance
and seized it, jumping quickly through the open window.
‘What’s that?’ the other youth demanded, suddenly alert as he swivelled round
in his seat, staring at where Ben was streaking away into the dusk-shrouded
countryside.
‘Dunno; I didn’t see anything.’
‘Dunno; I didn’t see anything.’
‘It was a dog...there was a dog here in the car...’
‘No way,’ the driver scoffed. ‘You’ve had too much to drink...and I haven’t
had enough. Come on, let’s go and find some more booze...’
‘And some girls...’ his companion suggested.
Booze, girls and petrol... ‘Yeah, cool,’ the driver agreed.
Ben watched from a safe distance as they turned the car round and drove off.
The evening air was different from the air at home. There was no river smell for
one thing. But he could smell something... On the hillside he heard the baaing of
sheep followed by the cry of a fox. Foxes Ben knew...sheep he did not!
*
Georgia woke up abruptly. It had been gone midnight before she and Piers had
acknowledged that there was no useful purpose to be served in either of them
staying up any longer. Neither of them had been able to eat the supper which
Piers had insisted on preparing—heaping coals of fire indeed on her guilty head,
Georgia had acknowledged later in bed. Anxiety for Ben had given Piers’s face a
rather distant and stern expression which had prevented her from trying to make
conversation with him. Besides, what was the point? She had already said
enough, hadn’t she? More than enough!
Wide awake now, she flung back the bedclothes and, reaching for her cotton
robe, pulled it on. Her throat ached with suppressed tears and her mouth felt dry.
Perhaps if she went downstairs and made herself a cup of tea it might help to
soothe her back to sleep.
Where was Ben now? Was he still in the car or...? As she reached the kitchen
she came to an abrupt halt. Piers was already there, standing in front of the
window, watching the slow fingers of the false dawn stroking across the sky.
As she switched on the light he turned round, his mouth hardening when he
saw her. Quite plainly her company wasn’t welcome to him, Georgia
acknowledged, and she tried not to betray the fact that her senses were telling
her that beneath the robe he had pulled on he was probably completely naked.
What on earth was she doing, thinking about something like that at such a
time? The inappropriateness of her thoughts coupled with their sensuality made
her face burn with shamed self-consciousness.
There was poor Ben, dognapped and in heaven alone knew what kind of
danger and fear, and here she was thinking...longing...fantasising...
‘I just came down for a cup of tea,’ she told Piers jerkily. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’
Involuntarily both of them looked towards Ben’s empty bed.
Involuntarily both of them looked towards Ben’s empty bed.
Piers could feel a raw, tight feeling at the back of his throat. This afternoon
when he had been walking Ben they had chanced to cross the path of a very
attractive brunette walking her dog. Ben had turned to Piers, and Piers could
have sworn the look the dog gave him was totally that of one heterosexual male
to another. Stupid, of course. A dog was just a dog, and there was no way he,
Piers, had ever allowed himself to be sentimental about animals and certainly no
way he had ever fallen into the trap of imbuing them with human characteristics.
Georgia could feel her eyes filling with tears.
‘Do you think the police will find him?’ she asked Piers eagerly, unable to
keep the longing for reassurance out of her voice.
Piers swallowed and responded far too heartily.
‘Oh, yes, I’m sure they will. Sooner or later whoever has taken the car is
either going to abandon it or drive into a garage to fill it with petrol, and when
they do...’
Almost as though on cue the telephone suddenly rang, but for a moment
neither of them made to answer it.
Piers didn’t believe a word of what he had just told her; Georgia could see it
in his eyes. He was afraid of answering the phone, of hearing what might be
said, as she was herself, but just as she thought he was going to let it ring
without answering it Piers strode across the room and picked up the receiver.
‘Yes. I see,’ Georgia heard him saying grimly. ‘Well, yes, I’m sure it is, but
right now I’m not so concerned about that. What about...?’
‘No...he wasn’t there; the garage owner didn’t see any sign of him,’ the police
officer on the other end of the line told Piers.
‘Have you questioned the lads?’
‘No. Both of them are too drunk to question, but they’re in custody and once
they’ve sobered up...’
As Piers hung up and turned to Georgia she guessed what he was going to say.
‘They’ve found the car,’ he told her gruffly. ‘They tried to fill it with petrol
and then drive off without paying, but the garage owner called the police, who
managed to catch up with them.’
‘Ben?’ Georgia asked anxiously, but she already knew the answer before she
saw Piers shaking his head.
‘No sign of him,’ he told her heavily, avoiding looking at her as he advised
her, ‘The police aren’t going to question the two youths who took the car until
they’ve sobered up, so why don’t you go back to bed for what’s left of the night
and try to get some sleep? You won’t be doing yourself any good, nor Ben
and try to get some sleep? You won’t be doing yourself any good, nor Ben
either, by staying down here worrying,’ he pointed out gently.
And no doubt he didn’t want to have to cope with her misery or endure her
company, Georgia guessed as she dutifully headed towards the stairs.
Five minutes later, though, back in her bed, she knew that sleep was going to
be impossible. Ben... Where was he? What had happened to him? Just the
thought of him being exposed to the busy traffic of a motorway made her heart
stand still. She had taught him to sit and wait before they crossed any road, but...
But a motorway wasn’t a road...
Only by gripping her bottom lip between her teeth was Georgia able to hold
back the small cry of anguish bubbling in her throat, and she was still biting into
it, trying to suppress her fear, when Piers rapped briefly on her bedroom door
seconds later and then came in carrying a cup of tea.
‘Somehow I didn’t think you’d be asleep,’ he told her wryly as he indicated
the tea he was carrying and told her, ‘Tea, the universal British panacea—so
they say...’
Georgia released her bottom lip and tried to smile.
‘It’s kind of you to take the trouble—’ she began stiltedly, and then had to
stop as a betraying sob choked off her voice and shook her body.
‘Oh, Georgia,’ she heard Piers groaning, and then he was sitting on the bed
next to her, wrapping her comfortingly in his arms.
‘I keep thinking about poor Ben trying to cross the motorway,’ Georgia
sobbed. ‘He doesn’t...he won’t...’
‘Don’t,’ Piers groaned. ‘If only I hadn’t put him in the car.’
‘You weren’t to know that it was going to be stolen,’ Georgia tried to protest,
and then, as she saw the look of desolation in his eyes, her heart was rocked with
tender compassion for him and she told him softly, ‘You mustn’t blame yourself;
it isn’t your fault...’
‘Yes, it is,’ Piers insisted, ‘but I promise you, Georgia, I never meant him any
harm. I was jealous of him when you insisted on defending him...protecting him
from my anger,’ he admitted gruffly, drawing Georgia’s head down against his
shoulder and leaning his chin on it so that she couldn’t see in his eyes the real
reason for his jealousy, and so that he couldn’t see in hers her compassion and
the knowledge that she didn’t return his love.
‘It seemed as though everything he did was right and everything I did was
wrong. I could see in your eyes how much you despised me for complaining
because he had chewed my shoe...’
‘No!’ Georgia protested quickly, lifting her head to look into his eyes before
he could stop her. ‘I never despised you; I was just afraid...afraid that you might
insist on sending Ben away.’ She bit her lip again. ‘You see, I knew...know,
really...that you were—are right when you say that he isn’t really a suitable pet
for your godmother. What he really needs is—’
She stopped as Piers supplied for her, ‘A family.’
Georgia swallowed hard as she nodded.
‘But your godmother loves him, and he’s already been rejected once.’
‘And your tender heart can’t bear to think of him being hurt again.’
‘I hate hurting anything...or...or anyone,’ Georgia admitted in a low voice.
‘Right now, I’m badly in need of some of that TLC of yours,’ Piers told her
huskily, bending his head closer to hers.
Georgia took a deep breath and tried to keep still. If she so much as moved an
inch...a centimetre...her lips would almost be touching Piers’s. Had what he had
just said to her been the invitation it seemed, or did he just mean that he wanted
her understanding? The cotton nightdress she was wearing was only thin with
tiny shoestring straps but she felt unbearably hot in it, as though her whole body
was on fire. Whatever she did, though, she must not give in to the temptation to
look at Piers’s mouth, because if she did...
‘Nothing to say?’ Piers whispered, his words so faint that she had to lean
closer just to catch them.
But leaning closer was a fatal mistake, and her glance was drawn helplessly
from the deep open V of Piers’s robe all the way up the bronzed expanse of his
naked chest, with its soft sprinkling of richly silky body hair, up past his Adam’s
apple, so tautly masculine in a throat that just begged to be touched and kissed,
right to his mouth.
His mouth!
Georgia swallowed helplessly, totally unable to drag her transfixed gaze away
from the tormenting temptation it was feasting on. Just looking at Piers’s mouth
made her want to reach out and touch it, to trace its shape with her fingertip,
memorising its shape and texture so that she could then re-draw it, sketching its
every angle with soft butterfly kisses, before...
As though he was reading her thoughts as they formed, she heard Piers telling
her urgently, ‘Do it, Georgia. Oh, God, yes...’ he breathed thickly as her wideeyed, bemused gaze met the sensual intimacy of his. ‘Yes,’ he repeated rawly.
‘Kiss me...’
But as his mouth fastened over hers he was the one doing the kissing, his lips
hungrily devouring hers, his arms tightening around her as he drew her closer.
Delicious tremors of excitement shivered down Georgia’s spine as her mouth,
her body responded helplessly to him.
‘Piers... Piers...’ She could hear herself moaning his name against his mouth
as she clung to him, her hands gripping the edges of his robe and then releasing
it as her fingertips accidentally brushed against his hot skin and fiery darts of
pleasure acted like magnets, fusing her fingertips and then the whole of her
hands to his body as she slid them beneath his robe, exploring the hard breadth
of his chest. Her whole body was burning with arousal and longing now, aching
to be touched...caressed...possessed...
‘Piers!’ As she gasped his name, helpless to defend herself from what she was
feeling, he seemed to sense her confusion, gentling his kiss.
He told her fiercely, ‘It’s all right...it’s all right. I feel the same way. I want
you so much it hurts,’ he added, groaning out loud as he ran his hand down her
nightdress-clad back and closed his eyes.
‘Let me take this off, Georgia,’ he begged her. ‘Let me see you...all of you...’
Just for a moment Georgia hesitated. She was by nature very modest—too
much so, she sometimes thought—but as though he guessed what she was
thinking Piers whispered to her gently, ‘You want to see me too, don’t you? You
want to touch me...hold me...’
Her breath catching in her throat, Georgia gave a soft, panting gasp of assent.
What he was suggesting, offering, was too alluring, too tempting for her to
refuse, her eyes already glistening with emotion at the thought of the sensual
riches he was promising her.
‘Let me take this off, then,’ he told her, carefully sliding the straps of her
nightdress free of her shoulders. Even that light touch of his fingertips against
her naked skin was enough to bring her out in a mass of sensually aroused
goosebumps, and Georgia knew before her nightdress slid free of her naked
body, to reveal them in all their darkly pink, feminine glory, that her nipples
were as eagerly aroused as two rosebuds, just waiting for the hot, silky warmth
of the morning sun to coax them into full flower.
Only what her nipples yearned for was not the touch of the summer sun, but
the stroke of Piers’s fingers; the moist heat of his mouth. The intimacy of her
own thoughts was enough to make her shudder visibly.
He had never seen a woman betray her arousal, her need, so innocently nor so
proudly, Piers acknowledged, and he had certainly never felt so awed, so
humbled, so blessed in knowing he was the reason for that arousal.
She might not love him but Georgia wanted him, and somehow he knew
instinctively that this level of desire was as unfamiliar to her as loving her so
instinctively that this level of desire was as unfamiliar to her as loving her so
intensely was unfamiliar to him.
Very carefully he reached out and cupped her naked breasts, looking first into
her eyes and then down to the silken globes he was cherishing with his hands
and his gaze, before telling her thickly, ‘You are so beautiful...so perfect...’
‘No...’ Georgia began to deny, but before she could finish he was kissing her,
gently at first, and then with increasing passion as he slid his hands around her
back, bringing her naked breasts into direct contact with the warm, silky
abrasion of his chest. Georgia thought the sensation of his body pressed so close
to hers, his heart pumping so strongly that it could have been beating for both of
them, was going to make her faint.
‘No one else has ever done this with you before, have they?’ Piers asked her
insistently, his emotions overruling his natural caution as the instinctive
knowledge that she was giving herself to him with an intimacy she had never
shared with anyone else hit him like a jolt of adrenaline released into his
bloodstream.
As he spoke Piers’s hand was returning to cover her naked breast with an open
possessiveness that made Georgia’s heart turn over inside her chest. Just for a
moment, with that look in his eyes, she could almost convince herself that he
loved her.
‘If just my caressing your breast makes you feel like this,’ Piers breathed hotly
as he felt the mute shudders of delight run through her body, betraying
everything that she was feeling to him, ‘just think how it’s going to feel when we
do something more intimate.’
Something more intimate! Georgia’s eyes started to widen with a mixture of
excitement and alarm. She was already quivering so intensely with the extent of
the arousal and longing coursing through her that she didn’t think she could
actually bear to endure any more pleasure. But Piers was already bending his
head, whispering such things against her mouth and into her ears that her whole
body burned to hear them—and burned even hotter to know them.
And then, somewhere in the town, a dog barked.
Immediately Georgia froze. Ben... Ben was stolen, lost, in danger, and here
she was lying in Piers’s arms, indulging herself selfishly, not even thinking
about him.
‘No,’ she told Piers sharply, pushing him away, her eyes widening with
distress at her own selfishness.
‘No?’ Piers tensed. Another few seconds and he would have been unable to
stop himself from telling her how much he loved her, unable to stop himself
from showing her how much he loved her. He ought to be grateful that she had
stopped him and brought him to his senses. He was glad. There was no point in
him making the situation between them even worse by declaring a love for her
that she quite plainly did not want.
‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised distantly, averting his eyes as she scrabbled to
retrieve her nightdress. ‘That was...’
‘It’s all right,’ Georgia told him breathlessly, praying inwardly that she could
stop him before he explained to her that he had momentarily been overwhelmed
by his male sexual drive; that his reaction to her had simply been that of a
normal healthy male to the presence of a semi-naked woman. ‘I understand.
We’re both upset about Ben... I know you just intended to comfort me... I...’
As he viewed her downbent head Piers’s mouth twisted wryly.
‘It wasn’t exactly comfort that was uppermost in my mind just now when I—’
he began.
But Georgia interrupted him in a choked voice, begging him, ‘Please don’t say
any more. I’m not... I don’t...’
She didn’t love him; that was what she was finding so hard to say, Piers
guessed.
‘I guess you’re right,’ he agreed heavily. ‘We’re both acting somewhat out of
character.’
Well, that was true enough in his case. He had certainly never come anywhere
near telling any other woman that he loved her, but then he had never loved any
other woman, had never felt about anyone else the way he felt about Georgia.
His feelings for her were out of character...or, at least, outside his experience.
Outside, dawn proper was now peaching the sky. If Ben had survived the
night, once the police had been able to interview the youths who had taken his
car, perhaps they might be able to narrow down an area where they could begin
searching for him. If he had survived the night. If he hadn’t... If he hadn’t,
Georgia would never forgive him, and neither would he ever forgive himself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
KEEPING his body low to the ground, Ben followed the sound of the bleating
sheep. He could see them now—white dots breaking up the darkness of the
night-cloaked hills. They were high-country sheep, still with not yet fully grown
lambs, and with his sharp senses Ben could see and smell the vixen shadowing
an isolated group of three ewes, all with lambs, on the outskirts of the flock, her
cubs at her heels.
As he watched the vixen carefully marking out her prey Ben growled deep in
his throat. He wasn’t a country dog, but both Mrs Latham and Georgia had
strong views about such things, and Ben, who loved a good brisk run after a
rabbit, knew much better than to try and catch one.
Ben did his best to growl a warning to the ewe, but he was too far away to
prevent the inevitable. Even so... Cautiously he made his way towards the flock,
but when he got there it was too late. Where there had been triplets now there
were only two small lambs, both of them being hurried anxiously away by the
ewe. Cautiously Ben dipped his head fastidiously, sniffing the scent of fresh
blood.
The farmer, alerted to the intrusion by the sound of the farm dogs barking,
was already halfway up the hill, gun at the ready, when he saw Ben.
Immediately he took aim...
*
‘Lost another lamb last night,’ Harry Bowles complained to his brother-in-law
grumpily as his wife poured both her husband and her brother a cup of strong
Yorkshire tea. Her brother was in the police force and often called round to have
breakfast with them at the end of his shift if he was working in the area.
‘Fox?’ Brian Jessop asked him sympathetically as he took his tea from his
sister.
Harry Bowles shook his head.
‘No,’ he told him shortly. ‘Dog. Saw him as plain as day. Incomer’s dog, by
the looks of him. Some fancy breed that—’
‘What exactly did he look like?’ Brian Jessop asked him sharply, putting
down his tea.
Briefly Harry described Ben.
Briefly Harry described Ben.
‘You didn’t shoot him, did you?’ Brian asked him. ‘Only it sounds to me like
he’s this dog that’s been reported as being stolen, and there’s a reward being
offered for his safe return.’
‘Tried, but I missed him, Brian,’ Harry told him grimly.
‘Come on; let’s go and see if he’s still around,’ Brian Jessop suggested. ‘If
he’s still about perhaps we can coax him down to the farm and get a proper look
at him.’
*
Ben saw the two men from the small safe place he had found for himself in the
shelter of an outcrop of rock overgrown with ferns and other vegetation. Warily
he watched them. He recognised the farmer and stiffened anxiously. They were
calling his name but he didn’t know them, and in the last twenty-four hours Ben
had learned that not all human beings were like his owners.
Cautiously he watched the two men, only relaxing when, nearly half an hour
later, they turned their backs on him and started to walk back in the direction
they had come.
‘I’ll put a report in, then, just in case the dog you saw was this missing
English setter,’ Brian told his brother-in-law. ‘And remember if you see him
again to try and coax him down here to the farm...’
‘If I see him worrying my sheep again it won’t be coaxing him anywhere that
I’ll be wanting to do,’ Harry told him grimly. It was bad enough being a farmer
without having city folks’ dogs worrying his sheep.
*
It was much later on in the day when Ben, driven by tiredness and hunger,
finally succumbed to the temptation the farm represented. From his vantage
point on the hillside he could see down into the farmyard, where Mary Bowles
was feeding her husband’s working dog accompanied by the elderly ‘no breed’
dog, Jack, who was her own pet.
Ben’s mouth watered as he watched them eating their food. He was hungry.
Very hungry.
Stealthily he started to make his way down the hill.
The collie sensed his presence first, setting up a sharp volley of barks which
Jack quickly joined in. Mary Bowles heard them from the kitchen and hurried
out into the yard. Harry was in town on business, and she wasn’t expecting any
visitors, but the sight of the one she saw sliding round the corner of the field wall
visitors, but the sight of the one she saw sliding round the corner of the field wall
made her gasp and call softly, ‘Ben... Ben... Here, good dog...’
A woman’s voice... Ben liked women. Eagerly he hurried into the yard,
allowing Mary to fuss him and gratefully accepting the food she brought him,
but when she tried to grab his collar Ben sensed danger and immediately darted
out of her reach, heading swiftly back up the hill.
*
‘Are you sure it was him?’ Brian Jessop questioned his sister when she rang him.
‘It was definitely the dog you described to us this morning,’ Mary Bowles
confirmed.
‘Right. I’ll tell them at the station, then. Pity you couldn’t catch him.’
*
It was Piers who took the call from the police whilst Georgia was outside in the
garden hanging up the cover from Ben’s bed, which she had washed more to
give herself something to do than anything else.
‘That was the police,’ Piers told her as she came back into the kitchen just as
he was replacing the receiver. ‘They’ve had a report of a sighting of Ben...’
‘Where?’ Georgia demanded immediately.
‘In the Yorkshire Dales. A farmer’s wife saw him in the farmyard and fed
him, apparently, and—’
‘He’s safe...’ Georgia breathed in relief, tears filling her eyes. ‘Oh, thank
God.’
‘Don’t get your hopes up too high,’ Piers told her gently. ‘Ben—if it was Ben
—ran off as soon as she’d fed him. It seems that the farmer had taken a shot at
Ben earlier in the day. It’s sheep country up there, and—’
‘Where is this farm?’ Georgia asked him urgently. ‘I want to go up there. If
Ben is there—’
‘If he is there...’ Piers agreed, and then stopped. He could tell from Georgia’s
expression that she intended to go and hunt for Ben and that there was nothing
he could do to stop her.
‘Look, I’ve got the farm’s telephone number. Let me give them a ring to ask
them if they’d mind if we drove up and looked for Ben.’
Briefly Georgia hesitated. Her immediate instinct was to jump in her car and
drive north just as fast as she could, but what Piers was suggesting made sense.
‘Very well,’ she agreed reluctantly.
‘Very well,’ she agreed reluctantly.
It seemed to her that, by some unspoken mutual pact, both of them had
decided to put their own feelings and the intense complex issues which made up
their personal relationship to one side, to concentrate on Ben’s plight. The
intimate events of the night had not been referred to by either of them during the
long hours of the day whilst they’d waited for news of Ben, and now, even
though she was not going to allow herself to admit it, secretly Georgia knew that
she was glad to have Piers with her to share the anxiety and the wait. Not that
she would ever admit as much to him, nor was she going to admit how relieved
she was to have a respite from the hostility between them.
Piers’s manner towards her now was one of almost gentle concern, one of
almost protective care, one of almost loving maleness.
Now, that she knew she had to be imagining, because Piers most certainly did
not love her. But she loved him.
As she waited for Piers to ring the Bowleses Georgia tried not to let her
emotions swamp her. She was still, she suspected, a little bit in shock. To have
gone so swiftly from believing that Piers had deliberately abandoned Ben to
finding out the truth had left her feeling not just wrong-footed and guilty, but
emotionally far too vulnerable and susceptible. Last night in Piers’s arms...
But she must not think about that, or about any of the other
things...pleasures...hopes...she had felt in the dark intimacy of the night. No.
What she must think about right now was Ben and his safety.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ she heard Piers saying warmly into the telephone
receiver. ‘Yes, we’ll be leaving almost straight away, so it shouldn’t be too long
before we’re with you.
‘That was Mary Bowles,’ he told Georgia when he had concluded his call.
‘She was the one who saw Ben and fed him. She’s convinced that it is Ben. She
says that we’re more than welcome to drive up there and stay with them whilst
we look for him.’
‘Oh, Piers.’ Sharply painful tears filled Georgia’s eyes and instinctively she
started to move closer to him.
Just as instinctively Piers recognised her need, closing the gap between them
and opening his arms to her, holding her tightly and rocking her gently against
his body as he comforted her, gruffly telling her, ‘At least we know he’s alive...’
‘For now,’ Georgia agreed with a small shiver. ‘If another farmer—’
‘Don’t worry,’ Piers reassured her. ‘The police are arranging to put out a
bulletin on the local radio network about Ben.’
As Georgia moved in his arms, lifting her face up to his so that she could
listen to him, the temptation to cup it in his hands and kiss the tremble from her
mouth was so strong that he had to avert his head and look away from her to stop
himself from giving in to it. Ben’s plight had united them, locking them together
in an enclosed and intimate circle of mutual concern for the dog, but he must not
deceive himself. Once the situation had been resolved Georgia would, no doubt,
return to her uncompromising stand of antipathy towards him. Just because last
night she had seemed to welcome him, to want him...
‘How soon can we leave? How long will it take us to get there?’ he heard her
asking him anxiously.
‘Well, it could be a three-or four-hour drive, depending on road conditions.
We’ll have to take my godmother’s car and—’
‘We could take mine,’ Georgia offered.
Piers shook his head, reminding her truthfully, ‘My godmother’s Volvo has
more room for Ben.’
‘If we find him...’ Georgia couldn’t prevent herself from pointing out.
‘If we find him,’ Piers agreed. ‘By the way,’ he added, ‘it might be as well to
pack an overnight bag. We shan’t get to the farm until early evening, and even
with the benefit of the light summer nights we could—’
‘If Ben is up there I’m not coming back without him,’ Georgia told Piers
determinedly. ‘No matter how long I have to stay. Oh, Piers, what on earth will
we tell your godmother?’ she asked him unhappily.
‘Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it,’ Piers told her quietly. ‘Whilst
you’re getting ready I’ll go and fill the Volvo with petrol.’
As he started to release her Georgia turned away from him, but then, as all her
doubts and fears swept over her, she turned back.
‘Piers...’
The husky, anxious note of her voice made Piers jerk his head round to look at
her. Her mouth was within easy kissing distance of his own. Recklessly he
ignored the stern voice admonishing him not to give in to his longing, sliding his
hand along her jaw and then bending his head to take her mouth in a swift, hard
kiss.
As he felt her lips tremble and then part beneath his, momentarily Piers forgot
Ben and everything else that lay between them, keeping them apart. Very gently
his tonguetip probed Georgia’s soft lips even further apart, the tremble that ran
through her body echoed by the deep shudder of arousal racking his own.
Dizzily Georgia clung to Piers as his tongue explored the deep sweetness of
her mouth, taking possession of it with a determined sensuality that both
her mouth, taking possession of it with a determined sensuality that both
shocked and thrilled her.
She loved him so much. If only there weren’t all these barriers between them.
If only his desire for her was motivated by love and not merely male physical
hunger.
Pain tore through her, causing her to give a small, anguished sob. Immediately
Piers released her, and, his voice gruff and deep, his glance fixed somewhere in
the distance, told her almost curtly, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t—’
‘I’ll go and pack my bag,’ Georgia interrupted him.
Highly emotive situations often resulted in people behaving in a way that was
out of character. Piers felt guilty about Ben and that was why he was behaving as
he was towards her, she told herself sternly as she made her way upstairs.
*
Mrs Latham’s sturdy Volvo might be nowhere as luxurious as Piers’s Jaguar,
with its leather upholstery and elegant interior, but it was way superior to her
own runabout, Georgia acknowledged.
They had made good time on the motorway; Piers was an excellent driver and
Georgia knew that, had the circumstances been different, right now she would
have been awed and thrilled by the views outside the car windows as they drove
through the Yorkshire Dales, with their vast sweeps of hillside and sky. The last
village they had driven through had been small and pretty, with its stone cottages
clinging to the banks of a crystal-clear river.
Piers had offered to stop, suggesting that Georgia might want to have
something to eat and stretch her legs, but she had shaken her head, despite the
fact that the only food she had had all day had been the piece of toast she had
managed to force down at breakfast. She just wasn’t hungry. Anxiety gnawed at
her stomach with sharply painful teeth, and the rolling hills of the Dales, bare
apart from their flocks of sheep, which at any other time would have excited her
admiration, right now only reinforced how empty and vast the area was, and how
ill equipped a town-reared, pampered dog like Ben was to survive in such rugged
terrain.
Despite Piers’s skilled driving it was almost four hours after they had left
before they were bumping down the narrow lane that led to the Bowleses’ farm.
Anxiously Georgia scanned the skyline, hoping against hope to see Ben, and
her first words as Piers stopped his godmother’s car in the yard and Mrs Bowles
came hurrying out to greet them were, ‘Has Ben—? Have you—?’
‘No sight of him, I’m afraid,’ Mary Bowles told Georgia, adding to Piers, ‘If
‘No sight of him, I’m afraid,’ Mary Bowles told Georgia, adding to Piers, ‘If
you wouldn’t mind parking your car in the empty barn at the bottom of the yard?
That will leave room for Harry to turn the tractor when he comes in.
‘Come on inside,’ she invited Georgia, who had stopped to talk to the farm
collie, who, much to Mary Bowles’s surprise, had actually allowed Georgia to
stroke her.
‘You’re honoured,’ she told Georgia as she ushered her into the kitchen. ‘Meg
doesn’t normally take to strangers.’
Jack, the mixed breed, extricated himself from his basket beside the oldfashioned Aga as they walked in. He was stiff and rheumatic and Georgia
automatically checked his swollen joints as she stroked him.
‘Habit,’ she told Mary Bowles, who was watching her, and explained how she
earned her living.
‘Best not tell Harry that,’ Mary counselled her with a laugh. ‘He’ll have you
out on the hill looking at his precious sheep before you can turn round if you
do!’
‘The police said that your husband thought Ben had been worrying his flock,’
Georgia responded unhappily.
‘Well, something has been at the lambs. It might have been the dog, but it
could as easily have been a fox,’ Mary told her calmly.
‘He won’t... He wouldn’t...’ Georgia began huskily, unable to put into words
her dread that Ben might be shot as a sheep-worrier before they could find him.
But before she could vocalise her fears Piers came into the kitchen.
‘We thought, with your husband’s permission, that we’d go out ourselves and
look for Ben,’ Piers informed Mary Bowles after he had accepted her offer of a
cup of tea. ‘He’ll recognise both our voices, but especially Georgia’s, and if he is
here the sound of a familiar voice might persuade him to come out of hiding.’
‘Oh, he certainly was here,’ Mary insisted. ‘I saw him myself...fed him...
Nice-looking dog...
‘Yes, that’s definitely the dog I saw,’ she confirmed as Piers produced a
photograph of Ben which Georgia realised he must have found amongst his
godmother’s belongings.
‘Well, you won’t be the only ones looking for him,’ she told Georgia and
Piers with a chuckle. ‘They’ve been giving it out on the radio all day that there’s
a reward for his safe return.’
‘Good. The more people looking for him the better,’ Piers replied.
‘I thought he might have come down off the hill when I fed Meg and Jack
again,’ Mary Bowles admitted. ‘I even left an extra bowl of food out just in case,
again,’ Mary Bowles admitted. ‘I even left an extra bowl of food out just in case,
but there was no sign of him.’
They had to wait half an hour for Harry Bowles to come in so that he could
take them up on to the hill to show them just where he had seen Ben.
Cupping her hands together, Georgia called his name, the sound bouncing
back to her and sending some nearby sheep scurrying fleet-footedly away. A
narrow sheep track wound up across the hill, disappearing into the distance.
‘Perhaps if we follow the track calling his name?’ Piers suggested.
Nodding in acquiescence, Georgia fell into step beside him, leaving Harry
Bowles to return to his farming duties.
‘Why didn’t he just stay at the farm?’ Georgia almost wept an hour later as
she crested yet another hill without any sight of Ben.
‘Ben...’ she shouted. ‘Ben...’
‘We’ll have to start making tracks back to the farm,’ Piers warned her. ‘The
light’s already starting to fade.’
Georgia wanted to protest, but her common sense warned her that he was
right.
Back in the farmhouse kitchen Georgia wearily accepted the fresh cup of tea
Mary Bowles offered her. She was beginning to feel the effects of the previous
night’s loss of sleep, her body heavy and tired, but her thoughts, her mind, were
almost too alert, as though they had gone into overdrive. Over and over again
she kept visualising Ben on his own on the hillside and all the dangers he would
be exposed to. Her eyelids felt so heavy; perhaps if she just closed her eyes for a
moment...
‘We’re going to need to stay overnight,’ Piers told Mary Bowles softly. ‘Is
there somewhere locally you could recommend?’
‘As I mentioned over the phone earlier, you’re more than welcome to stay
here,’ Mary returned promptly.
She shook her head when Piers protested that they didn’t want to cause her
any trouble, informing him firmly, ‘It will be no trouble at all. We sometimes get
walkers asking for a room, and there’s a spare bed already made up. You and
your wife would be more than welcome to it.’
You and your wife! Piers opened his mouth to inform Mary that he and
Georgia weren’t even a couple, never mind man and wife, and that there was no
way Georgia would want to share a bed with him, but before he could say
anything Mary was looking indulgently towards Georgia, who had fallen asleep
in her chair.
She said softly, ‘Poor girl, she’s worn out. I’ll take you up and show you the
room. We don’t keep late hours as Harry likes to be up at dawn.’
room. We don’t keep late hours as Harry likes to be up at dawn.’
As Piers followed Mary Bowles up the narrow, winding flight of stairs that led
to the farm’s upper storey, he told himself that there was no point in
complicating the issue at this stage by informing her that he and Georgia weren’t
married. It was gone ten in the evening, and by the time he had woken Georgia
up and they had driven back to the small market town they had passed on the
way to the farm it would be close on midnight before they found anywhere to
stay—if they could find anywhere! Far easier simply to accept Mary’s offer.
The room Mary showed him wasn’t particularly large, but it was spotlessly
clean and comfortably furnished and it had its own shower room.
‘We had that put in when our daughter was growing up. Teenage girls like to
spend a lot of time in the bathroom, and her dad got that impatient with her.
She’s at university now.’ She gave a small sigh, and Piers could see from her
face that she missed her daughter.
As they walked back into the kitchen Georgia woke up and said anxiously to
Piers, ‘We need to sort out somewhere to stay.’
‘It’s all arranged,’ Piers told her. ‘Mrs Bowles has offered to put us up here.’
Georgia’s expression betrayed her relief, and Piers suspected that she was as
loath as he had been himself to drive back into the nearest town to find
somewhere to stay. He would have to wait until they were on their own to
explain Mary Bowles’s incorrect assumption that they were married, and to
assure Georgia that the fact that they were having to share a room and a bed did
not mean that she need have any fear that he would attempt to take advantage of
their imaginary status.
‘Oh, that is kind of you,’ Georgia told the farmer’s wife, confirming Piers’s
thought as she continued, ‘I must admit I wasn’t looking forward to having to
get back in the car. I thought I was a good walker, but these hills have really
tired me out.’
‘They’re steeper than they look,’ Mary Bowles agreed with a smile,
continuing, ‘I’ll make us all a spot of supper, and then Harry and I will be off to
our bed.
‘Try not to worry about the dog,’ she told Georgia gently. ‘Brian—that’s my
brother—is in the police, and he’s promised to let us know the moment they hear
anything.’
*
‘We’ll say goodnight, then,’ Mary Bowles told Georgia after the two of them
had finished clearing up from the hearty supper she had given them.
had finished clearing up from the hearty supper she had given them.
As they heard the couple’s footsteps on the stairs Georgia smothered a yawn
and looked tiredly at Piers.
‘I think I’ll go up as well,’ she told him. ‘Which room?’
‘I’ll come with you and show you,’ Piers offered.
Nodding, Georgia followed him as he led the way towards the stairs.
Piers waited until they were both in the room with the door safely closed
before breaking the news to her.
‘We’re what?’ Georgia demanded, shaking her head as she told him fiercely,
‘Oh, no; no way am I sharing a room, never mind a bed with you.’
‘Shush. Keep your voice down,’ Piers warned her. ‘Mary Bowles thinks we’re
a married couple. That’s why she’s put us both in here.’
‘Why didn’t you tell her that we aren’t?’ Georgia demanded angrily.
‘I intended to at first, but then I realised she probably only had one room
ready for guests. She’s a farmer’s wife, Georgia; I doubt she’s got enough spare
time to start making up another guest bedroom. You heard her this evening when
she was talking about her life; when she isn’t rearing orphan lambs and feeding
hens and ducks, she’s working in her vegetable garden or making jams and
chutneys. By the sound of it she never has a second to spare. What was I
supposed to do—wake you up and drag you on a long drive into the nearest town
and then trail you round its streets whilst we searched for somewhere to stay?’
Georgia grimaced, a fresh wave of tiredness hitting her.
‘Look, if it makes you feel any better, I’ll sleep in the chair or on the floor,’
Piers offered grimly.
Georgia looked at the small nursing chair and then at the floor. There was no
way she would have wanted to sleep on either of them.
‘You should have told her,’ was all she could bring herself to say as she
looked away from Piers. The stress of the last twenty-four hours was beginning
to take its toll; her eyes felt gritty with exhaustion. She was too tired to argue
with Piers. All she wanted to do was go to bed and sleep. No, she corrected
herself wearily, all she really wanted to do was to find Ben. At least if they
stayed here at the farm they would be on the spot to make a fresh search for him
first thing in the morning.
‘There’s a shower room through there,’ Piers told her, sensing her mood. ‘You
can use it first.’
‘My bag with my overnight things is still in the car,’ Georgia reminded him.
‘Yes, so’s mine,’ Piers agreed. ‘I’ll go down and get them.’
Whilst he was gone Georgia showered quickly, wrapping her damp body in
Whilst he was gone Georgia showered quickly, wrapping her damp body in
one of the plain clean towels Mary Bowles had provided.
From the bedroom window she could look down into the farmyard, and she
paused in the act of closing the curtains. Where was Ben? Could he see the
farm...could he see the yard...had he heard them calling but perhaps been too
afraid to show himself to them?
Anxiously she stared out into the darkness, not hearing and unaware of Piers’s
return until his brief touch on her arm made her spin round in shock.
‘Sorry,’ he apologised as he saw her startled expression. ‘I thought you’d
heard me come in.’
‘I was thinking about Ben,’ Georgia told him in a stifled voice. He was
standing far too close to her—so close that she almost felt imprisoned between
him and the wall—but it wasn’t fear of that imprisonment that was making her
heart start to pound so heavily and her body start to tremble, nor were the
thoughts or the images which were filling her mind now of the dog. The
heaviness which was filling her body now had nothing whatsoever to do with
tiredness or a need for sleep. Far from it. The need pounding through her as
swiftly as sand in a timer sprang from a far more dangerous source.
Piers could feel his body reacting to Georgia’s closeness. She looked so
unbearably desirable, so heart-wrenchingly lovable, he wanted to take her in his
arms right there and...
Unable to stem the words, he began urgently, ‘Georgia, about last night...’
This was it; Piers was going to tell her not to read the wrong message into
what had happened between them last night.
Frantically she shook her head. There were some things she just didn’t want to
hear, some truths she couldn’t bear to endure. Not now.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she told Piers fiercely. ‘Where have you put my
things?’
‘Your bag is over there,’ Piers told her, gesturing towards the foot of the bed.
As he turned his head Georgia squeezed past him, scarcely daring to breathe in
case in doing so she inadvertently allowed her body to touch his; her starving
loving senses could only endure so much!
Seeing the look of intensity on her face as she squeezed past him, as though
loathing the very thought of touching him, Piers felt the pain of her rejection as
sharply as though she had knifed him through his heart. In bed last night he had
warned himself against reading anything into her responsiveness to him, but it
seemed he had not listened to his own advice. Not daring to allow himself to
look at her again, he strode towards the shower room.
Even with her back to him Georgia was acutely aware of him, waiting until
Even with her back to him Georgia was acutely aware of him, waiting until
she had heard the shower-room door close behind him before reaching into her
holdall and hastily removing her damp towel to scramble into the cotton
nightdress she had brought with her whilst Piers was safely out of the way.
That done, she clambered quickly into the old-fashioned high-framed bed,
determinedly closing her eyes and pulling the covers up high around her ears,
willing herself to fall asleep before Piers came back into the bedroom.
She almost was, and in fact she was sure that she would have been if Piers
hadn’t lingered so long in the shower room that she grew tense and wakeful
listening for him.
*
Surely Georgia must be asleep by now? Piers decided as he cautiously opened
the shower-room door and walked towards the bed. Georgia was lying facing
away from the centre of the bed, her body completely still.
A little ruefully Piers looked at her, and then at his own robe-clad body. He
hadn’t worn pyjamas since he had left home to go to university and didn’t, in
fact, possess a pair, but he could well imagine Georgia’s likely reaction if he
were to go to bed nude, which meant that he would have to sleep in his robe or
risk her condemnation. The bedroom was low-ceilinged and warm, even with the
window open, but, tempted though he was to dispense with the unwanted
insulation of his heavy towelling robe, he judged that it would not be a good idea
to do so.
Sighing faintly, he pushed back the bedclothes and got into bed.
*
Piers was in bed with her. A delicious shiver ran right through Georgia’s body,
bringing her out in a rash of sensually sensitive goosebumps.
A delicious shiver? Sternly she warned her thoughts not to even think about
tempting her or tormenting her with the silken web of alluring sensuality they
were attempting to weave around her, shadowy images of Piers, his body
nakedly warm and welcoming, enticing her fingers to explore its every line and
plane, his arms wrapping tightly around her, his throat stretching with the
urgency of the low groan he made as his need for her overwhelmed him.
Frantically Georgia squeezed her eyes as tightly closed as she could,
reminding herself of just how tired she was and of exactly why they were here. It
was Ben that she ought to be concentrating on. Where was he? How was he?
Ben... Determinedly she forced herself to visualise the dog. Ben...
*
Ben sniffed the night air. Out there in the small, protected valley enclosed by the
hills he could smell his evening meal. He licked his lips, anticipating the rich
taste of fresh meat. A river ran through the valley, which was why he had come
here in the first place, thirsty after his day spent searching for food.
He had been watching his quarry for several hours now. Had seen them arrive
and had known that he would have to be patient, waiting until he could do what
he knew he had to do under the cover of darkness.
It was dark now, his quarry merely unmoving shapes against the darkness of
the hillside.
Stealthily Ben made his way down towards them, crouching on his belly, ears
and eyes stretched for any sound that would warn him that they had sensed him
coming.
But nothing moved.
Ben knew exactly where he had to go. He had not spent the afternoon
watching the Cub Scouts making camp for nothing. He knew exactly which tent
housed those delicious-looking and even more delicious-smelling sausages he
had seen being unpacked. Ben loved sausages. Mrs Latham’s butcher made his
own, and she often allowed Ben one for a Sunday morning treat.
‘This is our secret, Ben,’ she’d often told him. Sausages! Ben could smell
them now. Breathing deeply, he sniffed the air appreciatively.
Until he had seen the Cubs making camp he had thought that he would have to
go back to the farm and run the gauntlet not just of the farmer’s gun but of the
collie’s hostility into the bargain. The bark and growl she had given him had
made it perfectly clear that she did not consider him to be a welcome visitor.
Glancing over his shoulder, Ben checked that nothing and no one was
watching him before sneaking into the tent where the scout master had carefully
stored his troop’s food. This was an annual trip to this secluded camping spot,
and one which the younger boys always thoroughly enjoyed.
The sausages were in the Calor gas fridge, but the fridge was no deterrent to
Ben, who had long ago worked out how such things could be opened. Deftly he
opened this one...
CHAPTER NINE
PIERS was dreaming about Ben. He had taken the dog for a walk and Ben had
brought a stick for Piers to throw, dropping it at his feet. As Piers picked up the
stick and threw it across what he had thought to be a vast open expanse of empty
countryside, the countryside transformed itself into a hideously busy six-lane
motorway.
Piers opened his mouth to warn Ben not to run after the stick, but it was too
late: the dog was already racing towards the motorway and certain destruction.
Despairingly Piers called the dog’s name.
*
At first when she heard Piers calling out Ben’s name, Georgia, still half asleep,
imagined that he must have somehow spotted the dog, but when she looked
automatically towards the bedroom window Piers wasn’t standing there and the
curtains were closed.
Fully awake now, she sat up in bed, switching on the bedside lamp.
Piers was lying in bed beside her, obviously in the grip of a nightmare, his
forehead beaded with sweat as he lunged to the other side of the bed as though
trying to catch hold of something or someone.
‘Piers...’ Instinctively Georgia reached over to him, reaching for his shoulder
and shaking him.
‘Piers,’ she repeated a little more anxiously as she heard him whispering
brokenly,
‘Ben... No... Please, no...’ His voice was raw with pain and guilt.
As she shook him a little harder his eyes opened, and she could see quite
clearly in them his anguish and guilt.
‘Georgia?’ He looked at her in confusion, frowning as he turned his head and
stared round the farmhouse bedroom.
‘It’s all right,’ Georgia reassured him gently. ‘You were having a dream.’
‘A nightmare,’ Piers corrected her tersely, sitting up in the bed and pushing
his hand through his hair as he came fully awake.
‘You called out Ben’s name,’ Georgia told him sombrely. ‘At first I thought
you must have seen him, but then I realised that you were still asleep.’
As he had sat up in bed Georgia had seen that he was wearing a thick
As he had sat up in bed Georgia had seen that he was wearing a thick
towelling robe, but he must have left it unfastened, she recognised, because as he
turned towards her it gaped open, revealing the bronze breadth of his chest.
Was it really only last night that she had...? The sudden surge of heat that hit
her made her look away from him, biting sharply on her bottom lip as she tried
to suppress her reaction to him.
‘Don’t do that,’ she heard Piers begging her huskily.
‘What?’ she asked him in confusion, releasing her lip and looking
automatically back at him.
‘That,’ Piers told her, touching the spot on her lip where the impact of her
teeth had left a small, tender swelling.
The unexpected sensuality of his fingertip brushing against her lip was heartstoppingly intimate.
‘Why...why shouldn’t I do it?’ she managed to ask him shakily as she felt his
burning gaze slide over her skin.
‘Because it makes me want to do this,’ Piers told her in a thick voice that had
the same effect on her senses as if she were being licked by the rough tongue of
a tiger.
Her body completely still, Georgia watched the descent of Piers’s mouth,
knowing what was going to happen even before she felt the velvety, hot stroke
of his mouth caressing her own. Helplessly she closed her eyes, and then opened
them again in deprivation as Piers lifted his mouth from hers.
‘I would never have hurt Ben,’ he told her rawly. ‘I want you to believe that,
Georgia. I may not have thought he was a suitable pet for my godmother but I
never...’ He stopped and shook his head. ‘I should never have put him in the car.
I should have brought him back to you before going to see the estate agent. I
wish to God I had,’ he told her vehemently. ‘Because then he would have been
safe.’
‘As I’ve tried to reassure you before, it isn’t your fault,’ Georgia said, but
Piers shook his head.
‘Neither of us believes that,’ he told her grimly.
To her own surprise Georgia heard herself not just saying but meaning as
well, ‘I believe it, Piers.’
‘You’re so sweet,’ she heard him telling her thickly. ‘So sweet and so...’
Georgia shuddered in delight as his mouth opened over hers in a kiss of fierce
passion and promise. She wanted to tell Piers that he must stop what he was
doing, that he mustn’t encourage her to betray herself and her love to him by
kissing her the way he was doing, but somehow the words were never uttered.
Instead, she was clinging to him, wrapping her arms around his neck as she
Instead, she was clinging to him, wrapping her arms around his neck as she
opened her mouth to his kiss, seeking, finding and claiming the hot thrust of his
tongue with a female urgency that made Piers stiffen and then shudder.
Wrenching his mouth away from hers, he told her rawly, ‘If you keep on
kissing me like that there’s no way I’m going to be able to stay here in this bed
with you and not give you with my body what you’re asking me for with your
mouth.’
For a moment Georgia was too shocked to say anything, heat scalding her skin
as she took in the full meaning of what he was saying. In the lamplight she could
see the hot sheen of his torso.
‘I...I wasn’t asking for anything,’ she denied huskily, but she couldn’t quite
bring herself to look into Piers’s eyes, and she knew that the little tremors of
sensation thrilling through her body were making a mockery of her verbal
denial.
‘Weren’t you?’ Piers countered swiftly. ‘Come here and prove it to me, then,
Georgia; come here and lie next to me, skin against skin, heartbeat against
heartbeat, and tell me again that you don’t want me. That this...’ he paused as his
fingertip delicately touched the place where the frantic betraying pulse thudded
at the base of her throat ‘...doesn’t mean what we both know it does...’
Very deliberately he slipped the straps of her nightdress down off her
shoulders so that it fell free of her immobile body, revealing the full curves of
her breasts. Even more delicately he touched her nipples—so tautly erect and
sensitive to him that Georgia shuddered visibly in reaction as he did so.
‘Oh, God, you don’t know what it does to me to see you reacting to me like
that,’ she heard Piers telling her thickly. ‘You want me to touch you, Georgia...to
hold you...taste you...’ His voice was so thickly muffled that Georgia could
barely hear what he was saying—or was it because her own heart was beating so
loudly and so fast that she wasn’t sure whether or not he had said that final, fatal
‘You want me to love you’ or not?
And anyway, what did it matter what he had said, or what he had guessed?
What did anything matter now other than the aching need that filled her? A
woman’s need, driven by a woman’s love; her body was so ready for him, so
longing for him, so empty for him.
Proudly Georgia arched her back as his hands held and shaped her breasts, her
eyes heavy-lidded with passion as she watched his head bend towards her body.
A tiny shocked gasp of pleasure quivered past her lips as he began to explore
one taut nipple delicately with his mouth. The most exquisitely arousing
sensation shot through her, quicksilver, mercurial rivulets of pleasure that had
sensation shot through her, quicksilver, mercurial rivulets of pleasure that had
her writhing in sensual torment against him.
Just for one brief second reality slipped through the rainbow-coloured delight
she was experiencing.
‘No!’ she protested muzzily as Piers pushed the bedclothes aside and slid her
nightdress completely free of her body at the same time as he removed his own
robe. The reality of him was so much more than she had imagined, so
powerfully, awesomely male.
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘We shouldn’t...we mustn’t... Without love...’
‘You mustn’t be ashamed of wanting me,’ Piers whispered back. ‘Desire isn’t
wrong, Georgia, it’s a normal, natural human need.’
Perhaps for him it was, Georgia recognised, but for her...
‘Love matters,’ she protested fiercely. ‘I should... I need—’
‘You need this; you need me...’ Piers interrupted her softly.
The touch of his hands against her skin was enticing her into a world she
couldn’t bear to resist, luring her there with a hundred—no, a thousand sensual
promises she knew he could fulfil. Just the sweep of his hand against her naked
flesh as he caressed the length of her spine, just the warmth of his breath against
her mouth as he lifted her to his own body and started to kiss her were enough to
vanquish all the arguments her inner voice of caution could muster.
And instead of repudiating him she heard herself saying helplessly as he
touched her, ‘Oh, yes...yes...’
And then she closed her eyes and let him lead her into such an unfamiliar
country that to name it merely ‘pleasure’ was like calling the sun ‘warm’.
‘Hasn’t anyone ever done this for you before?’ Piers asked her tenderly at one
moment when she was so unable to conceal from him what she was feeling that
her eyes actually started to fill with tears, so unbearably intense was her
pleasure.
‘Wait until I love you there with my mouth,’ he whispered slowly to her,
watching as the expressions chased one another across her face, wondering if she
had any idea how close she brought him to the edge of completion just by the
way she was reacting to his words and his touch.
He wanted her more than he had the words to tell her, but out of love for her
he wanted to prolong every precious second of this special time with her, not to
enhance his own pleasure but to give him enough memories of her to last him
through all the long, dark times when she wasn’t going to be there.
Her honesty when she had as good as told him that she couldn’t love him and
when she had struggled to admit her physical need for him had brought him the
closest he had ever come to tears in all his adult life. Without her love this act of
closest he had ever come to tears in all his adult life. Without her love this act of
intimacy between them should have been shallow and meaningless, but with
every breath she took, every look she gave him, every small shudder and sigh
what she was doing was deepening his love and his longing for her. She was so
natural, so giving, so loving even without loving him, that his self-control
reached the point of no return sooner than he would have wished.
Quickly he reached for her, sliding her the length of his body and then
kneeling over her as he kissed first her mouth and then her breasts.
He looked, Georgia thought dizzily, like some Greek god of old, and she felt
much as she imagined her mythological female counterpart must have done, her
body quivering with longing and awe, her emotions bonding her to the
magnificent male she knew, in her heart, she could never hold and with whom
she could never have more than this one precious, intimate night—a night that
would stay in her memory for ever.
Tremulously Georgia reached out and touched him, running her fingertips
along his collarbone and then down the length of his body.
‘Yes,’ Piers urged her thickly when her fingers came to rest in the soft pubic
hair that enclosed his maleness. ‘Yes,’ he repeated rawly. ‘Touch me, know me,
Georgia. I want...’ And then, almost before her hesitant fingers had had time to
do more than merely sketch the shape and feel of him, he was removing them to
ease himself very slowly and carefully inside her.
Each careful movement, each deliberately controlled thrust made her gasp in
shocked delight, her body convulsing around him, laying claim to him and
welcoming him.
Georgia cried out loud as she felt him reach fulfilment deep within her, the hot
burst of his release triggering her own white-lightning explosion of pleasure,
starburst after starburst of it until she was shuddering in Piers’s arms, crying out
his name in between her indrawn gulps of air.
‘Piers,’ she whispered as the grateful tears of release cooled her heated face.
‘Hush,’ he soothed her, drawing her as close to his body as he could and
holding her there as he stroked her tear-damp face and kissed her mouth gently.
‘Don’t say anything, Georgia. That was so perfect...so beautiful...so right.’
So right? When he didn’t love her? Despite her physical satisfaction Georgia
could feel the sharpness of her own pain. But he was right about one thing: what
was the point in her saying anything? Piers obviously thought her desire for him
had been motivated by the same physical need which had driven him, and what
was the point in adding to her own misery by telling him the truth?
Hungrily she snuggled closer to him. She needed this intimate contact, this
Hungrily she snuggled closer to him. She needed this intimate contact, this
intimate closeness with him so much. Her starved senses ached for it so much.
Wearily she closed her eyes.
*
When she opened her eyes again it was morning. The sun was shining out of an
impossibly clear blue sky and Piers was lying in bed next to her. As she looked
uncertainly at him, trying not to betray just how potent an effect the sight of his
naked torso was having on her, or of the sensual memories it evoked, he moved
to her and said softly, ‘Hello, you...’
Hello, you! Two very simple words but, oh, what a sense of intimacy, sharing
and belonging they conveyed—what a false sense of intimacy, sharing and
belonging they conveyed, Georgia’s aching heart warned her.
Piers felt nothing for her emotionally. She knew that. But she could see he
was waiting for her to make some kind of response. Gravely she gave it,
returning his greeting with a rather more formal and quiet, ‘Hello.’
‘Georgia...’
Liquid heat suffused her as her body reacted to the sensual urgency she could
hear in Piers’s voice when he started to reach for her.
‘We ought to get up and start searching for Ben,’ Georgia reminded him
breathlessly. ‘It’s a wonderful day...’
‘Wonderful,’ Piers agreed, showing no sign of doing anything other than
tightening his hold on her. ‘Wonderful,’ he repeated as he feathered the lightest
of kisses against her mouth. ‘Just like you...’
*
At the campsite the boys were already awake and clamouring for their breakfast.
On the far side of the river Ben waited expectantly as the scent of frying food
filled the air. Last night’s stolen sausages had tasted very good, but now he was
hungry again.
Where the boys were camping the river formed a natural pool, quite deep in
places, fed at one end where the hillside fell away to create a natural waterfall,
and, as Ben had already discovered, the river was quite fast moving, and only
really safe to cross at the furthest end of the small valley.
He headed this way now. Under normal circumstances he would have
disdained to touch scraps, his preferred diet being the special food Mrs Latham
bought for him plus his extra ‘luxury treats’. But right now his mouth was
already watering at the thought of the boys’ leftover bits of bacon and sausage.
already watering at the thought of the boys’ leftover bits of bacon and sausage.
As he padded down towards the shallowest part of the river Ben paused when
he heard the boys being summoned for their breakfast. Two of them, either not
having heard or deliberately ignoring the summons, were standing on an outcrop
of rocks beside one of the deepest parts of the pool, skimming stones across its
surface. Ben watched them, and as he did so one of the boys grabbed hold of the
other’s shirt, shaking him as though warning him that it was time to go, but the
other boy shook him off, stepping back from him as he told him that he wasn’t
ready to go yet.
‘We’ve got to,’ his companion protested, trying to take hold of his arm a
second time, but as his friend laughed and evaded his grasp tragedy struck and
he lost his footing, falling backwards into the deep water.
‘Alex!’
As Ben heard the anxiety in the now solitary boy’s voice he leapt into
immediate action. He wasn’t a dog bred specifically to retrieve game from water,
but he innately knew what had to be done. Quickly he swam strongly towards
the spot where the boy had disappeared beneath the water, quickly finding his
inert body.
It wasn’t easy getting underneath him and lifting him to the surface, rolling
him over on to his back so that he could fasten his teeth into his clothes and tug
him back to dry land, but, to Ben’s relief, as he stalwartly doggy-paddled to the
river bank, determinedly taking his human find with him, other help was at hand.
The other boy had run back to the camp to alert them to what had happened,
and now there were many pairs of willing hands to help Ben and to relieve him
of the boy.
‘Good dog... Oh, good dog,’ someone was praising him, and on the dry sandy
ground beside the river bank the boy was coughing up water and protesting that
he was all right.
Shaking the water from his coat, Ben happily accompanied the children, who
were coaxing him back to the campsite, even more happily accepting the food
they offered him and the praise they heaped on him.
A team of paramedics came to take the now recovered victim of the accident
to hospital, ‘just as a precaution’, and Ben’s heroism was again extolled for their
benefit.
As he accompanied them to the waiting ambulance the leader of the troop
confided to one of the ambulancemen his belief that, without Ben’s timely
intervention, the outcome of the accident could have been very different and far
more grave.
more grave.
‘A setter did you say?’ the man questioned the Scout leader, frowning a little
as he waited for the man’s response.
‘Yes, that’s right. He’s with the children now. A nice dog...friendly...’
‘Hmm... Well, there’s been a setter reported missing on the local news. Seems
like someone must be very anxious to get him back because there’s a reward
offered for his safe return.’
‘And do you think this might be the same dog?’
‘Could be. If it is he answers to the name of Ben, and he’s got one of those
implanted microchip identity tags.’
*
‘Mmm...’ Georgia quivered in mute delight as she heard the male pleasure in
Piers’s voice as his mouth caressed hers. Beneath the bedclothes his hand had
found the soft mound of her breast and her nipple was already hardening into
excited eagerness at his touch.
‘Hello...? I’m sorry to wake you, but...’
‘It’s Mrs Bowles,’ Georgia hissed frantically to Piers as she pulled
uncomfortably away from him.
But Piers was already getting out of bed, reaching quickly for his robe, as
unfazed by the farmer’s wife’s urgent knock on the door as she was agitated by
it.
‘Hang on a sec,’ he called out, turning his head to smile reassuringly at
Georgia and to check that she was completely composed before going to open
the door.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ Mary Bowles apologised again, ‘but there’s been a
phone call from my brother about your dog. Seems like—’
‘Ben? Someone’s seen Ben?’ Georgia interrupted her excitedly, forgetting her
earlier embarrassment and her self-consciousness as she sat up in the bed,
hugging the bedclothes around her naked body. ‘What? Where?’ she questioned
eagerly.
But Piers shook his head to silence her, saying encouragingly to the farmer’s
wife, ‘You say Ben’s been found?’
‘Seems so,’ she agreed, and quickly explained to them both what had
happened. ‘Anyway, they’ve got him at the police station in the town now, and
you’re to go down just as soon as you’re ready to identify him. Seems like your
dog’s a bit of a hero,’ she added with a smile. ‘I expect the parents of the little
boy he saved will certainly think so. Now, if you want me to bring you both up a
boy he saved will certainly think so. Now, if you want me to bring you both up a
cup of tea...’
He turned his head to look at Georgia, who, now that her initial relief and
excitement were subsiding, was beginning to realise that she was going to have
to get out of bed in front of Piers without any clothes on. The fact that he had
seen, touched, caressed every part of her the previous night, and would have
done so again this morning, in the full light of day, and not just with her
agreement but with her encouragement, in no way allayed the sense of
discomfort she felt now.
As though somehow Piers sensed what she was feeling, to Georgia’s relief she
heard him saying to Mary Bowles, ‘No. There’s no need for you to go to so
much trouble. I’ll come down with you and make us both a drink.’
Georgia barely waited until Piers had closed the door before leaping out of
bed and making a dash for the shower room.
Ten minutes later she was just zipping up her jeans when Piers walked back
in, carrying a tray with two mugs of hot tea on it and some delicious-smelling
pieces of freshly cooked toast.
‘Is it really true? Have they really found Ben?’ Georgia questioned him
anxiously as he handed her one of the mugs of tea and offered her the toast.
‘It certainly sounds like it. I rang the local police station whilst I was
downstairs and spoke to the sergeant in charge, and he’s confirmed that the dog
they’ve got there answers Ben’s description.’
‘Oh, I hope it is,’ Georgia told him shakily. ‘I’ve been dreading having to tell
your godmother that—’
‘How do you think I’ve been feeling?’ Piers interrupted her wryly. ‘Give me
five minutes,’ he told her, ‘and then we’ll go.’
Since he had been tactful enough to remove himself from the room to allow
her the privacy in which to get showered and dressed, it seemed only good
manners that she should return the favour, but, for some reason, Georgia
discovered that she was oddly reluctant to do so, almost as though she couldn’t
bear the thought of being apart from him.
Well, she was going to have to learn to do so, she warned herself sternly.
Once they were home...once Mrs Latham was back from holiday...there would
be no reason whatsoever for her and Piers to have any kind of contact with one
another. And, since she was going to have to learn to live without him, despite
her love for him, the best thing she could do was to start right now by sensibly
going downstairs to wait for him.
So why wasn’t she acting on this eminently sensible advice? Why was she
So why wasn’t she acting on this eminently sensible advice? Why was she
staying where she was, making a long job of drinking her tea and eating her toast
whilst she wandered over to the window and stared out of it?
She could hear Piers moving about behind her, and then the shower-room
door opened and closed again. Now she really should go downstairs. As she
knew from her own experience, the shower room was not large enough for one
to get dressed in. Once Piers had showered, when he re-emerged into the
bedroom he would not be dressed. He would be... She tensed as the showerroom door opened and she heard Piers asking her casually, ‘Georgia, could you
just pass me my bag? I left it over there by the window last night and my
shaving stuff is in it.’
A little nervously Georgia went to pick up the bag she could see lying only a
couple of feet away, carrying it to where Piers stood by the open shower-room
door. He had a towel draped round his hips, but that didn’t do anything to stop
Georgia recognising that beneath it he was naked. His torso and his arms were
sleek and slick with moisture, and she knew that beneath the towel his lower
body would be the same.
She was aware that her breathing had become audibly erratic, and she could
feel hot, self-conscious colour staining her skin as Piers looked at her in
amusement and teased, ‘What’s wrong? Anyone would think you hadn’t seen me
before...’
‘It’s not that,’ Georgia denied immediately, and then stopped; but it was too
late.
‘No. I know,’ Piers agreed softly, the amusement dying from his eyes to be
replaced by something that made her pulse race, her heart beat in triple time with
nervous excitement.
‘Come here,’ he commanded her huskily.
Unable to drag her gaze from his, Georgia did so. Something about the heat,
the desire, the need in his eyes was mesmerising her.
When she reached him he took the bag from her and put it down, taking hold
of her, his hands on her arms, his thumbs caressing her skin through the fabric of
her top. It felt as though he couldn’t bear not to touch her, as though he felt
compelled to touch her as she felt compelled to be with him.
‘What we can both feel, what we both know exists between us, isn’t
something to be ashamed of, you know,’ he told her in a deep voice. ‘Me
wanting you...you wanting me...’
Another minute and she’d be in his arms, and once she was there... Georgia
closed her eyes. Her lips ached to press tiny, possessive kisses against his skin,
her fingers itched to stroke and explore him, her heart yearned lovingly for him,
her fingers itched to stroke and explore him, her heart yearned lovingly for him,
and every time he touched her it grew harder for her to keep herself from telling
him just how she felt...just how much she loved him...
‘They’ll be waiting for us at the police station,’ she reminded him in a stilted
voice.
Immediately his hands dropped from her arms.
‘Yes. Of course,’ he agreed quietly. ‘I’d better finish getting dressed.’
‘I’ll wait for you downstairs,’ Georgia told him. This time there was going to
be no way she could be tempted to forget the reality of the situation between
them. This time she was most definitely going to go downstairs and wait at a
safe distance from him.
*
As Piers heard the bedroom door closing behind Georgia he closed his eyes and
thumped his fist against the bedroom wall in self-recrimination. Why on earth
had he done that? Why hadn’t he just left things as they were instead of trying to
force on her emotions that she just didn’t want? It was obvious how
uncomfortable she felt every time he started to talk about his feelings. He knew
enough about women to know that her reaction to him physically wasn’t
something she was at all familiar with, and he sensed that in the aftermath of
their lovemaking she was even a little uncomfortable about the intimacy they
had shared.
He wasn’t a vain man, but he couldn’t deny how much he had enjoyed
knowing, seeing, feeling how completely she was giving herself to him, how
totally aroused she was, and how fulfilled their lovemaking had left her. But it
still made him ache inside with loss and loneliness to know that she didn’t
reciprocate his feelings.
Reminding himself that he had only himself to blame for her rejection of him
just now, he shaved and dressed quickly. Had Mrs Bowles not interrupted them
when she had with the news about Ben, no doubt right this minute he would be
lying in bed with Georgia, her body relaxed and love-sated as she lay next to
him. Grimly he closed his eyes, reminding himself of the folly of such thoughts.
CHAPTER TEN
GEORGIA looked a little uncertainly at Piers as they pulled up in the car park
adjacent to the police station. He had barely spoken to her throughout the drive,
and when he had done so his voice had been clipped and curt.
Because he had begun to suspect that her reaction to him in bed might have
been caused by something more than mere physical need and he wanted to make
it totally plain to her that her love for him was not something he wanted?
Did he think she was so lacking in intelligence, in awareness, that she didn’t
know that already?
Ignoring the helping hand he was offering her, she got out of the car, thanking
him stiffly for opening the door for her.
Side by side and in total silence they walked into the police station, but as
Georgia saw Ben lying happily at the side of a large police dog her promise to
herself to keep Piers at arm’s length was forgotten. Beaming with relief she
turned to him and exclaimed, ‘It’s him! It’s Ben!’
As he saw them and recognised them Ben bounded over to them both, his tail
wagging as he greeted them.
‘Oh, Ben...’ Georgia said tearfully, burying her face in his coat to hide her
emotional tears.
‘No need to ask if this is the missing dog,’ the desk sergeant chuckled to Piers,
who had also, unfathomably, had to reach into his pocket for a handkerchief so
that he could blow his nose.
‘No,’ he agreed huskily, allowing Georgia to finish fussing over Ben before he
too bent down to stroke the dog.
‘Hello, boy,’ he greeted him, and a little to Georgia’s chagrin Ben
immediately ignored her to make a fuss of Piers, almost as though Piers were
actually his master.
‘I have to tell you that he’s going to be something of a hero,’ the sergeant told
them both once the formalities had been completed. ‘The Cub troop have
decided that if they are to be allowed to claim the reward you were offering for
the dog’s return they intend to donate it to local charities, but they also want to
nominate Ben for an award for what he did. The parents of the boy he saved
have specifically asked us to pass on their thanks to both of you. Without Ben’s
intervention they feel sure that their son would have been in danger of drowning.
‘He’s a bit of a character, though, isn’t he?’ The sergeant laughed. ‘We were
keeping him in the restroom, but he picked up one of the lad’s sandwiches and
made off with another’s trainer, so Titus here has been set to watch over him.’
At the mention of his name the police dog pricked up his ears but remained
solidly where he was—on duty!
Georgia gave a faint sigh. She doubted that, no matter how much she tried,
Ben could ever be trained to that pitch of immaculate obedience.
‘Come on, boy, time to go home,’ Piers instructed Ben.
Before they could return, though, they had to call at the farm to thank the
Bowleses for their hospitality, and Georgia was amazed when Piers, who had
insisted on stopping at a new bookshop on the way back, produced the latest
copy of a novel by a well-known writer which he gave to Mrs Bowles as a
thank-you.
‘Oh, she’s one of my favourites, and I haven’t got this one!’ The farmer’s wife
beamed as she looked at the cover.
‘Yes, I noticed you were a fan of hers,’ Piers said, whilst Georgia marvelled
both at his powers of observation and his sensitivity. She had been going to
suggest that they send Mrs Bowles some flowers.
‘It was very thoughtful of you to buy Mrs Bowles a book,’ she told him ten
minutes later when they were in the Volvo with Ben safely in the back.
‘I just happened to notice that she had several of the author’s books.’ Piers
dismissed her praise with a small shrug.
‘You’re very observant,’ Georgia told him colourlessly, and Piers gave her a
long, thoughtful look as she turned her head away from him.
‘Mmm...well, I’m certainly observant enough to see that there’s something
wrong. What is it? We’ve got Ben and—’
‘I’m just a bit tired,’ Georgia fibbed quickly. How could she tell him that the
reason for her misery was the knowledge that in a very few hours’ time they
would be back at home, and once they were they would be back to their previous
relationship? Tonight she wouldn’t be spending the night in bed with him.
Tomorrow morning he wouldn’t be bringing her tea and toast in bed whilst
walking semi-naked around the bedroom, tantalising and tormenting her.
‘Tired...?’ Piers repeated, and then checked as Georgia’s face burned a slow,
betraying, mortified shade of pink.
The words ‘I didn’t get much sleep last night’ had been trembling on her lips,
but thankfully she had not actually uttered them, even though she could tell what
he was thinking even without bringing herself to look directly at him. But to her
relief, instead of making any comment, he merely responded, ‘Why don’t you
relief, instead of making any comment, he merely responded, ‘Why don’t you
try to get some sleep whilst I drive back?’
Well, no doubt he would prefer to have her asleep than awake—that way he
wouldn’t have to bother talking to her. And she imagined that having her asleep
was the next best alternative to not having her in the car at all!
Very coolly she told him, ‘Yes, I think I will,’ and promptly turned her back
on him and closed her eyes.
*
‘And the couple whose little boy Ben rescued have nominated him for a “brave
dog” award...’
Sipping her tea, Georgia listened patiently whilst Emily Latham talked
excitedly about Ben’s nomination for the Brave Dog of the Year award.
Emily had returned the previous weekend, leaving Georgia free to return to
her own home, and she had not been sorry to do so.
In the remaining time between their own return to Emily Latham’s home and
her arrival back from her cruise, Georgia doubted that she and Piers had spent
more than a handful of minutes together. Not that she was remotely unhappy
about that. No, of course she wasn’t. Not having to spend time with him had
suited her very nicely, thank you...very nicely indeed.
Moreover, she had been more than pleased on her return to work to be told
that, because of the interest being shown locally in the pet visits scheme she had
inaugurated, Philip had decided that she should be the one to go as an observer
on a four-week course being run by a charity that trained dogs to become canine
helpers to severely disabled people. Naturally Georgia was thrilled to be offered
such an opportunity to observe these dogs going through the final weeks of their
training alongside their human partners. One of the dogs and her human
counterpart actually lived in the town, and the dog would become one of their
potential patients once his own training was over. Georgia knew that it was quite
a feather in her cap, professionally speaking, to have received Philip’s mark of
approval in having been chosen to attend the course.
‘Ben is behaving so much better,’ Emily Latham enthused as she bent down to
pat the dog’s head. He was seated at her side and he had greeted Georgia with
great enthusiasm on her arrival. Georgia smiled but said nothing. She had a
suspicion that part of the reason for Ben’s changed behaviour was the effect the
traumatic change in his lifestyle had had on him. He was, she believed, more
than intelligent enough to have realised now just what a lucky animal he was.
‘He has been rather worryingly subdued recently, though,’ Emily Latham
‘He has been rather worryingly subdued recently, though,’ Emily Latham
murmured. ‘I was going to bring him into the surgery to be checked over, but
Arthur says that he thinks Ben is missing Piers.’
Missing Piers! Georgia tensed, but Emily was getting up out of her chair to
answer the doorbell which had just started to ring.
‘I’d better go,’ Georgia told her quickly, afraid that her hostess’s visitor could
well be the person she had been at such pains to avoid recently.
‘Oh, dear, must you?’ Emily fluttered. ‘Well, do at least stay to say hello to
Arthur, won’t you? He told me how fierce you’d been in Ben’s defence when he
came round to complain about him.’
As she spoke she was hurrying towards the door, her face flushed a very
attractive shade of pink, imploring Georgia to stay where she was just for a few
minutes.
Obediently Georgia did so, having realised that Emily Latham’s visitor could
not, as she had dreaded, be Piers, but must instead be the colonel who had called
round whilst Emily was away to complain at Ben’s desecration of his garden.
‘Good afternoon to you, my dear.’ The colonel beamed as he followed Emily
into her drawing room. ‘Delightful to meet you again, and under such auspicious
circumstances. Ah...stay, sir...’ he commanded Ben, who was about to get up,
fixing him with a very stern ‘services’ stare.
It didn’t take long for Georgia to realise that it was more than any mere desire
to make sure Ben was behaving himself that had brought the colonel round to
see Emily, and Georgia suspected the older woman was by no means indifferent
to her ex-military admirer.
Leaving them to enjoy their afternoon tea à deux, Georgia drove home.
The four-week training course she was observing began on Monday, and she
was going to spend the weekend with her parents before driving straight to the
course from her parents’ home.
Naturally she was relieved that her visit with Emily Latham had passed
without any mention of Piers, and even more relieved that she hadn’t had to
endure actually seeing him.
But where was he? Emily had said that Ben was missing him. Did that mean
he had decided against taking up permanent residence in the town? Had he
perhaps decided to move somewhere else? Somewhere as far away from her and
her unwanted love as he could possibly get? Well, if so, he needn’t have troubled
himself. There was no way she was going to make a fool of herself over a man
who didn’t want her. What did he think she was going to do? Fling herself at his
feet and beg him...?
feet and beg him...?
Angry colour scalded her skin. Did he really think that just because she had
not been able to control her longing for him, her love for him, once, that
meant...?
Once? a sharply clear inner voice demanded delicately. Her face burning even
more hotly, Georgia compressed her mouth and started to make mental lists of
everything she had to do before she started her journey to her parents’ home.
It was the town’s evening rush hour, and a Friday as well, and the traffic was
at a standstill, gridlocked, but Georgia valiantly refused to give in to the
temptation to allow her thoughts to double-back to Piers.
She would need to pack clothes for the weekend, and for the course she was
attending. She had warned her neighbours and her landlord that she would be
away. She had put batteries in her small tape recorder so that she could make
notes of what she saw. She had checked up on the progress of her patients. She
had operated on two dogs and a cat earlier in the day, all three minor procedures,
which had come through without any complications, the animals having been
reunited with their grateful owners before she had left work.
She had bought her father a copy of a new political biography which she knew
he would enjoy for his upcoming birthday, and she had treated her mother and
herself to a video of one of their favourite Jane Austen books. She still had to fill
her car with petrol and— Abruptly Georgia tensed as she saw Piers’s familiar
figure emerging from the local estate agent’s office.
Had he been in there to tell them that he wasn’t now interested in any local
property?
Greedily Georgia absorbed every detail of him: the thickness of his hair and
the way it grew down into the nape of his neck, the tanned column of his throat,
exposed by the casual shirt he was wearing, its short sleeves revealing the strong
muscles of his arms, the late afternoon sunshine glinting on the fine, silky hairs
that covered them.
He was close enough for her to be able to see the way he was frowning, as
though deep in thought. A pretty girl emerged from a shop next door to the estate
agent’s, almost bumping into him, and his frown changed to a warm smile as she
apologised to him.
The warmth of that smile pierced Georgia’s heart. Jealousy was a red-hot
burning coal inside her body, a fierce anguish that shocked and hurt her.
Determinedly she averted her face, unable to endure looking at them. What if
Piers was suggesting that as recompense for bumping into him the girl allowed
him to take her for a drink? What if she accepted, smiling another flirtatious
smile at him? Georgia could all too easily imagine how tempted she would be,
smile at him? Georgia could all too easily imagine how tempted she would be,
how tantalised at the thought of attracting the interest of a man as good-looking
as Piers.
The car in front of her moved off, but Georgia didn’t notice. She was too
entrapped in the horrible mental images tormenting her. Piers and the pretty
girl...a bride and groom looking adoringly into one another’s eyes...looking
lovingly...
Georgia jumped as the driver behind her sounded his horn, and Piers, alone
now, now that the girl who had walked into him had gone on her way, looked
over to see what all the commotion was about, his body tensing as he saw
Georgia.
He had done everything he could to get her out of his mind...and out of his
heart... Those remaining days they had shared together at his godmother’s house
had been sheer purgatory for him, and, even now, he had no idea just how he’d
managed to stop himself from going into Georgia’s bedroom and pleading with
her to at least try to love him. But somehow he had.
He had told himself that it was the best possible thing that could have
happened, for both their sakes, when his godmother had returned home and
Georgia had moved out, but there wasn’t a day that went by without him
thinking about her, longing for her. A day! He was lucky to make it through an
hour, a minute, without aching for her, he told himself bitterly.
‘Georgia?’ He had called her name and started to cross the road to her before
he could stop himself.
In her car Georgia was uncomfortably aware of the displeasure of the drivers
behind her. Hot-faced, she changed gear, refusing to give in to the temptation to
look back across the road to see if Piers was still there...with that oh, so pretty
girl...but as the traffic started to move forward she couldn’t quite prevent herself
from stealing a glance in her driving mirror. Piers was crossing the road behind
her but there was no sign of the girl. Perhaps she had rushed home to change for
her date with him, Georgia decided forlornly. Oh, how she envied her. Oh, how
she wished that things could have been different and that Piers could have loved
her.
*
Really, some people had no idea when they were well off, Georgia told herself
sternly. She had just returned home from a most enjoyable and informative
month spent witnessing the strength and bravery of the people who had been
learning how to get the best out of their new canine helpers, and into the bargain
learning how to get the best out of their new canine helpers, and into the bargain
she had been invited out by one of the course instructors who, flatteringly, had
made it plain that he was attracted to her.
On her return Philip had summoned her into his office and told her how
pleased he was with her work and how much he hoped she would stay on with
them after her trial period was up, and, despite her gentle refusal of his
invitation, the course instructor had telephoned her once she got home, trying to
coax her to change her mind.
Yes, she had every reason to feel good about herself and her life. Every reason
bar one, that was!
She had arrived back in town early the previous day and had called in to the
practice in the afternoon to check in there. Today was her day off and she had
done some essential food shopping and all the washing she had brought back
from the course with her; she was planning to spend the afternoon indulging in a
leisurely walk along the river bank, enjoying the warmth of the summer sun.
And when she did so she was not going to think about Piers once. Just as she
hadn’t thought about him once when she had been away? she taunted herself
grimly. Not once, no...just every single day, every single minute!
A couple of hours later, as she was walking along the river path, Georgia
heard her name being called by Emily Latham. As she looked towards the older
woman she was relieved to see that Piers wasn’t with her. The colonel was,
though, his manner towards his companion both proprietorial and protective,
Georgia noticed when they came over to talk to her.
‘Where’s Ben?’ she asked the older woman conversationally.
‘Oh, didn’t you know? He doesn’t live with me any more,’ Emily Latham told
her.
‘You’ve re-homed him?’ Georgia couldn’t keep the distress out of her voice.
‘Oh, poor Ben.’
‘Oh, no, he’s very happy,’ Emily told her immediately, ‘and Piers was so
adamant that it was the right thing to do.’
Piers!
She might have known, Georgia realised. Everything he had said to her about
him feeling guilty about the way he had been with Ben had simply been a lie. He
had quite plainly been planning to get rid of Ben all along, just as he had warned
her. And now, it seemed, he had succeeded. Why had she been naive enough to
assume that he had changed his mind?
‘Yes, we’ve just been to visit him,’ the colonel boomed. ‘Can’t really
understand why a single chap should move into a place as large as his...’
understand why a single chap should move into a place as large as his...’
‘Piers has bought Riversreach Farm,’ Emily informed Georgia happily. ‘He
moved in just a short time ago.’
Riversreach Farm. Georgia knew it. It was a lovely Georgian farmhouse just
outside the town. She had visited the previous owners to look at a cat they had
which had gone down with feline flu.
‘I do miss Ben,’ Emily was saying, ‘but Arthur has suggested that I should
think about getting a smaller, quieter dog.’
‘Where is Ben?’ Georgia wanted to ask her, but her throat felt too choked with
her anger for her to formulate the words. She was surprised that Emily could
discuss Ben’s banishment with such equanimity. She had seemed so devoted to
him. But no doubt Piers had spun her some tale about it being in Ben’s interest
for him to be re-homed and Emily was naive enough to believe him...just as she
had done!
Her pleasure in walking totally spoiled, Georgia returned home, but once there
she couldn’t get poor Ben or his fate out of her mind, and the more she thought
about what Piers had done, the angrier she got. It was high time that someone
confronted Piers and made him see just how callous and cruel his behaviour was.
And who better than she! Who better indeed?
In a trice Georgia was in her car and driving out of the town in the direction of
Riversreach Farm.
A ‘For Sale’ sign still marked the entrance to the farm lane, but the forlorn
appearance Georgia remembered the farm as having was well on the way to
being banished, she recognised as she reached the end of the lane and saw the
house’s sparkling windows, their stone surrounds picked out in a buttery cream
paint whilst the façade of the house itself had been painted a paler-toned warm
cream. The garden at the front of the house had been tidied up as well, the
borders weeded and the gravel recently raked. Quite plainly Piers intended to
spare no expense in setting the farmhouse to rights, Georgia decided sourly. Pity
that he hadn’t had the compassion to spend some of his money on doing
something for Ben.
Stopping her car, she took a deep breath and pushed open the driver’s door.
She wasn’t going to let herself dwell on how much of her anger was fuelled
by disappointment at what Piers had done, because he had fallen so far short of
the ideals of the man she had allowed herself to believe he could be—a man big
enough, wise enough, man enough to admit that he had made an error of
judgement and that he had been wrong. A man compassionate enough to
understand the effect Ben’s being found another home, being rejected a second
time, might have on the animal; a man caring enough to realise what it must be
time, might have on the animal; a man caring enough to realise what it must be
like for the woman who was foolish enough to love him when he wasn’t able to
love her back.
But Piers was none of those things. Piers was...
Raising her hand, she was just about to ring the doorbell, but Piers had
obviously seen her arrive, because before she could do so he had opened the
door and he was standing there.
‘Georgia!’
Georgia blinked a little as she heard the warmth in his voice, and then told
herself that she must have been imagining it as she ignored his greeting and told
him bitterly, ‘I know. I’ve just seen your godmother. I know what’s happened to
Ben... How could you...? And to think I really believed all those things you said.
To think I believed that you’d actually changed your mind about him.
‘Have you no feelings, no compassion? No, of course you haven’t.’ She
answered her own question. ‘You just couldn’t wait to get rid of him, could you?
You just couldn’t wait to persuade your godmother to find him another home.’
Tears filled her eyes. ‘And to think I thought you’d changed—’
‘Now just a minute,’ Piers interrupted her grimly. ‘You don’t—’
‘I don’t what? Understand?’ Georgia demanded furiously. ‘No, I don’t. I don’t
understand how anyone...any man...could behave towards a dumb animal the
way you have to Ben. And to think that I actually believed I loved you...that I’ve
just spent night after night longing for you...wishing you were with me...wishing
that you loved me—’ Abruptly Georgia realised what she was saying and where
the hot dam-burst of her anger had taken her.
Her face burned, but she lifted her head proudly and locked her eyes on
Piers’s as she told him quietly, ‘You aren’t worthy of my love, and I’m glad that
I discovered the truth about you before I wasted any more tears on you. Where is
Ben? I want to know because...’
Her voice trailed away as Piers stepped back into the hall and called, ‘Ben,
come here. You’ve got a visitor...’
As the setter came bounding into the hall Georgia couldn’t help noticing how
happy and healthy he looked. His coat gleamed, his eyes shone and he had that
air about him that said that he was getting far more exercise than he had ever
done with Emily Latham.
‘B-Ben’s here...?’ To her chagrin Georgia knew she was beginning to
stammer. ‘B-but...’
As the setter rushed up to greet her Georgia kneeled down to pat him, burying
her hot face in his coat.
her hot face in his coat.
‘When the time came for me to move out of my godmother’s house and into
this one I decided that I really missed Ben, so I asked her if she would consider
allowing him to live with me full-time. She was reluctant at first, but the colonel
persuaded her; since I suspect any day now that the colonel will propose to her—
it’s obvious just how the pair of them feel about one another. In the end she
agreed that Ben could come to me, with the proviso that, should Ben be in the
least bit distressed or unhappy, she would have him back.’
‘In the event he’s settled down here better than I could have hoped for—
haven’t you, boy?’ Piers asked Ben, reaching out to stroke his ears.
Georgia could see immediately from the way Ben reacted to Piers just how
happy the dog was with his new home and his new master.
‘I...I’m sorry...’ Georgia apologised stiltedly as she stood up. ‘I didn’t realise.
I shouldn’t have said what I did. I...I must go.’ She was practically gabbling as
she turned away, ready to make an undignified, hasty dash to her car.
What on earth had prompted her to say the things she had? Bad enough for her
to have criticised Piers and accused him so unjustifiably, but to have told him
about her own feelings...to have betrayed her unwanted love to him...
‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ Piers told her softly. ‘Not yet. You and I have—’
‘No, I’m not staying; you can’t make me,’ Georgia protested apprehensively,
quickly moving out of his reach.
But to her consternation, as she started to turn away, Piers said firmly, ‘Ben,
guard...’
Ben immediately came and stood in front of her. When she tried to get past
him the dog caught hold of her wrist in his mouth—very gently, but very
determinedly.
Wildly Georgia stared at Piers.
‘You did say that he was very intelligent,’ Piers reminded her dryly, ‘and I
have to confess that you were right!’
‘You can’t do this. Make him let me go,’ Georgia demanded.
‘Not until you agree to come inside and talk to me,’ Piers told her.
‘We don’t have anything to talk about,’ Georgia told him shakily.
‘Oh, yes, we do,’ Piers corrected her.
‘Like what?’ she demanded.
‘Like the fact that you have just made some very interesting comments
about...about a certain matter... Have you any idea how jealous I was when I
thought that Ben meant more to you than I did...when I thought you were
defending him, protecting him from me?’
‘You were jealous of Ben? But that’s—’ Georgia began weakly, but Piers
interrupted her before she could finish speaking.
He said softly, ‘That’s very predictable behaviour for a man so desperately in
love.’
‘You...desperately in love...with me?’ Georgia whispered. ‘No, that’s not
possible.’
‘You don’t think so?’ Piers asked her whimsically. ‘Well, there are certain
time-honoured ways of proving that it’s true, but none of them I think are best
witnessed by a third party—even a canine third party. Release, Ben,’ he told the
dog, who immediately released Georgia’s arm and stepped back from her with a
wag of his tail.
‘I can’t believe you’ve taught him so quickly,’ Georgia said as Piers guided
her along the hallway.
‘Well, I can’t take all the credit,’ Piers told her. ‘You had done all the
groundwork, and I have been spending a lot of time with him since he’s been
here. After all, he’s the closest thing I’ve got to you.
‘How could you believe I’d go behind your back like that and get rid of him?’
he asked her as he opened one of the doors off the hallway and stood back for
her to precede him into the sitting room that lay beyond it.
‘I don’t know,’ Georgia admitted honestly. ‘I think I was just hurting so much
from loving you... Piers,’ she protested as he suddenly pushed the door shut with
an audible bang and pulled her into his arms.
‘Piers what?’ he challenged her thickly, holding her so close to his body that
she could feel the fierce, fast drumbeat of his heart. ‘These last few weeks
without you have been...’ He stopped and shook his head, as though unable to
find the words to describe his pain.
‘And for me too,’ Georgia agreed shyly. ‘But if you love me,’ she asked him,
‘then why didn’t you say so...when...?’ She paused, drawing a very careful little
design on his shirt-front with her fingernail, unable to look into his eyes just in
case she had got it wrong after all and this was simply a cruel joke he was
playing on her, a punishment he was inflicting on her.
‘I tried to,’ Piers told her simply. ‘But every time I did you seemed to want to
change the subject, and I thought it was because you didn’t share my feelings.’
‘No. I thought you were going to warn me off, to tell me that it was just sex,
and say that I mustn’t fall in love with you. That’s why I stopped you. I knew it
was already too late for me! I wouldn’t have done the things I did...been so...so
intimate with you if I hadn’t loved you,’ she told him, pink-cheeked. ‘It’s not...
I’m not...’
‘No, I did wonder about that,’ Piers agreed. ‘But to my mind there’s no shame
for a woman in physically wanting a man without being able to love him.’
‘So you thought I felt lust and not love?’ she asked him ruefully. ‘What would
we have done if I hadn’t come round here today?’ she added shakily. ‘We could
have—’
‘No.’ He stopped her. ‘No. I hadn’t given up... I’ve taught Ben to limp. It
would have taken a good many visits to the surgery before you cottoned on to
the fact that there was nothing wrong with his paw—or so I hoped!’
‘Oh, Piers,’ Georgia laughed. ‘You wouldn’t have...’
‘Don’t bank on it. The way I feel about you is—’
‘Mmm...?’ Georgia interrupted him, an invitingly husky note in her voice as
she looped her arms around his neck and lifted her face towards him. ‘The way
you feel about me is...?’
*
Human beings did the oddest things, Ben reflected. His two were still upstairs in
bed despite the fact that he should have had his dinner two hours ago, and not
even a discreet bark outside the bedroom door had alerted them to their
negligence... Never mind, there were home-made sausages in the fridge...!
EPILOGUE
‘OH, JUST look at the dog; isn’t he gorgeous...?’
Ben wriggled appreciatively as he heard the onlooker’s praise. Personally he
thought it a little undignified, a little infra dig, so to speak, to be carrying a
basket of flowers, but they had insisted. They had even made him carry one up
and down the driveway for weeks on end, just to make sure he knew what he
was doing.
A basket of flowers...and here they were now, coming out of the church with
everyone throwing rose petals at them.
Obligingly Ben went over to have his photograph taken with the bride and
groom and their families...still carefully carrying his basket.
*
‘Ben did marvellously well with the flowers, didn’t he?’ Georgia sighed happily
to her new husband as the wedding car pulled away from the church.
‘He did indeed,’ Piers agreed.
‘You’re so clever to teach him to carry the basket,’ Georgia giggled.
‘Mmm... I think he got more oohs and aahs than we did,’ Piers said wryly,
‘which isn’t very fair when you think that this is our special big day. He had his
last month, when he was presented with his Brave Dog of the Year award.’
Georgia laughed reminiscently.
‘He certainly enjoyed that, didn’t he? He posed for the photographs like a real
pro. I’m glad your godmother offered to look after him for us whilst we’re on
honeymoon; I wouldn’t have wanted to put him in kennels.’
‘Mmm... Let’s hope the colonel’s cat shares your feelings. Marmalade is
rather elderly, and Ben, as you keep reminding me, is still a young dog. Now
what does that look mean?’ Piers quizzed her as he saw the soft, dreamy look
darkening his new wife’s eyes.
‘I was just thinking that in a year or so’s time Ben is going to be the perfect
age to be around babies...’
‘Babies?’ Piers leaned closer to her. ‘I see! Are we talking, I wonder, about
his babies...or our own...?’
Laughter dimpled the smile Georgia gave him as she told him teasingly, ‘Who
knows? Maybe both.’
knows? Maybe both.’
‘Hmm... I see. Well, we’d better not waste any time, then, had we?’ Piers
murmured as he bent his head over and kissed her.
‘Oh, I don’t know...I don’t mind if we have to practise a few times first,’
Georgia told him blissfully as she snuggled into his arms.
As the wedding car pulled up at the hotel where they were to have their
wedding reception, Piers told her softly, ‘Oh, I thought we’d spent the last few
months doing just that—and, so far as I’m concerned, no amount of practice can
make things between us any more perfect than they are right now. I love you,
Mrs Hathersage.’
‘And I love you too,’ Georgia whispered back.
*
In the back of Mrs Latham’s Volvo Ben was happily demolishing the treat that
the bridegroom had slipped him just before he’d got into the wedding car with
his new bride.
Home-made sausages... Ben loved them—almost as much as handmade
shoes... Mmm...!
*
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IMPRINT: Special Release eBooks ISBN: 9781460891100
TITLE: ONE NIGHT IN HIS ARMS/ONE INTIMATE NIGHT
First Australian Publication 2013
Copyright © 2013 Penny Jordan
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