'Your friend would be as well to get one installed in his place, especially if he intends to use it during the winter.'
'I'll tell him,' Angelica responded. 'And, yes, I would like some broth please.'
'Good. In that case, I think we'll get you downstairs, and just see how strong you do feel once you're on your feet.'
At the same moment as Angelica swung her feet to the floor, he walked towards her, closing the gap between them and picking her up before she could draw breath to protest.
His shirt rode up to reveal the pale slenderness of her thighs, and, although she knew he had carried her like this on a dozen or more previous occasions, now that she was fully conscious she was acutely aware of the intimacy of his hold, of the strength and the heat radiating from his flesh where it touched her, of the way she had to lean against him so that her head was tucked into his shoulder, her breast pushing softly against his chest, one arm underneath her as he supported her, the other holding her tightly, so that she had no alternative but to lock her own arms around his neck even while she protested.
'Please-I can walk.'
'You mean you think you can,' he derided her. 'The last thing we need now is you collapsing and falling downstairs. Let's see how you go on when you're downstairs before we get too adventurous, shall we?'
He really was the limit, Angelica decided wrathfully. Telling her what she could and could not do. Laying down the law, when she was perfectly capable of making her own decisions. If it weren't for the fact that she owed him so much, she would have told him in no uncertain terms that no one dictated to her, that no man was allowed to dominate her life ... Not any more. She had learned the dangers of becoming too dependent on a man the hard way, and it was a lesson she intended to keep firmly to the forefront of her mind.
The cottage's stairs were very narrow and Angelica found she was instinctively holding her breath, her arms tightening as Daniel carried her down them.
'It's all right,' he assured her. 'I won't drop you. If I haven't dropped you yet, I don't think you need worry that I'm going to do so now.'
For some reason his words, which she suspected were intended to be reassuring, conjured up such images of intimacy within her too imaginative brain that she found herself trying desperately to arch her body away from him. His heartbeat was faintly erratic as though he was in fact finding her heavier than he pretended.
He might have carried her like this before, but then she had been in no state to register such things as the powerful contraction of his muscles, the warmth of his breath against her skin, the heat of his body, the scent of it stimulating her senses in a way she had never known before, not even with Giles.
To her anguished chagrin, she could actually feel her body reacting to his proximity in a way that made her desperately anxious to be out of his arms.
What was the matter with her? After Giles, she had told herself that never, ever again would she allow herself to be emotionally and sexually involved with a man. It was too dangerous-too painful.
Giles had made her all too acutely aware of how dangerous it was to allow herself to love. She was lucky she had discovered the truth about him before she had committed herself too deeply. As it was she had been hurt, but thankfully not fatally, and with hindsight she could see that her pride had been more bruised than her heart.
Even so it had been a salutary lesson, and one which had made sharply clear to her the dangers of allowing the vulnerable feminine need within her to take control of her life.
'There,' Daniel told her when they reached the bottom of the stairs. 'I told you you'd be quite safe.'
Quite safe. Odd how the words caused a tiny pulse to jump in her throat and her heart to thud warningly.
'If you don't mind, we'll eat in the kitchen. I tend to live in there.'
He nudged open the door with his foot and carried her into the warm, food-scented room, placing her carefully into a comfortable Windsor chair next to the Aga.
CHAPTER THREE
'How's the soup?'
'Wonderful,' Angelica responded truthfully.
She had virtually emptied her bowl, and her stomach felt pleasantly full, although she suspected it would be a few days before she was once more able to digest solid meals.
Loath though she was to admit it, the bout of food poisoning she had suffered had been far more debilitating than she had realised. After less than an hour downstairs, cosseted by the warmth of the Aga, without having to move an inch from her comfortable chair, she was still conscious of a variety of small aches and pains, of a lassitude and exhaustion that warned her that it was not going to be easy to go straight from the luxury of being pampered and cared for by Daniel to the austerity of being alone and looking after herself.
The very fact that she should feel this reluctance, this desire to stay here with him, made it even more imperative that she did leave, and the sooner, the better.
Because of that, once she had finished her soup she forced herself to stand up, and before Daniel could stop her she collected both their bowls and carried them over to the sink intending to wash them up.
Daniel's sharp, 'Leave those .. .' stopped her.
'You've spent the last seventy-two hours in bed,' he told her curtly when she looked at him. 'It's going to be days yet before you get your strength fully back. I don't want you having a relapse.'
'I'm not going to have one,' Angelica retaliated sharply. 'Believe me, I'm grateful for all you've done, but all I want to do now is to get back on my own two feet and leave you in peace.'
Something seemed to harden in his eyes as he looked at her. 'Independent, aren't you?'
Her chin tilted. 'Yes, as a matter of fact I am.'
'A career woman with no time for sentiment or weakness.' He sounded so bitterly angry that she couldn't make any response. 'The kind of woman who thinks nothing matters other than fulfilling her own ambitions.' His accusation delivered in a harsh, biting voice goaded her into responding. 'And if I am? I suppose you're the kind of man who likes his woman helpless and vulnerable.'
She'd gone too far, said too much. The face he turned towards her might have been carved from stone.
'I'm sorry,' she apologised stiltedly, 'You've been very kind to me.'
'Because you were helpless and vulnerable, you mean. Well, for your information--' He broke off, compressing his mouth. 'Convalescence is always harder to cope with than actually being ill. It's hard having to accept the limitations of your own body, especially when you've always been used to full health.'
'Yes,' Angelica agreed starkly. She wanted to apologise for being so quarrelsome, to explain that the reason she was so desperate to get back on her feet was because she was afraid, afraid of becoming too dependent on him. It was as much for his sake as for her own ... but she was too proud, too self-conscious to be so open with him. He already knew all the secrets of her body, she could not, dared not, reveal those of her mind to him as well.
Instead she asked uncertainly, 'You've been ill yourself? The doctor told me.'
'Yes.'
He didn't say anything else, busying himself making their coffee, and Angelica knew that, whatever it was that had happened to him, it wasn't something he intended to discuss with her. It was silly for her to feel hurt, shut out, rejected almost, but nevertheless she did, so much so that she had to fight to stop herself saying that she no longer wanted any coffee and that she wanted to go back upstairs. Like a child crying for attention, she acknowledged cynically, but she was long past being allowed the indulgences of childhood and it would be dangerous to allow herself to give in to her foolish need to simply lean on this man and let him become a part of her life.
He had helped her as one neighbour to another, out of necessity and nothing else. This feeling of intimacy, of closeness with him which she was fighting so hard against, must not be something she allowed to grow ... Hadn't she learned her lesson with Giles?
Nearly twelve months after Giles's exit from her life she was still
suffering the after-effects of his cruelty. That was, after all, why she was here-to give her mind and body time to recover from the strains she had been imposing on them. At the time she had discovered Giles's deceit she had been able to do nothing other than absorb the shock and go on, too involved in negotiating an important contract for the firm to risk allowing her emotions to take control of her life, and so she had suppressed what she had been feeling, had forced herself to go on, so that now, although she was over the acuteness of realising that Giles had not loved her, although she was fiercely glad that she had discovered the truth about him in time, although she no longer felt the slightest degree of desire for him, she was still having to come to terms with the physical and mental effect of the strain she had imposed on her mind and body.
'Stress', her doctor had called it. She knew it was the delayed effect of discovering the truth about Giles. Of having to confront the fact that for her, at least, the term 'having it all' was no more than a cruel joke. Thank God only she knew how willingly she would have given up running the company single-handedly, how willingly she would have shared her responsibilities with Giles. How willingly she would have played a smaller role in the company in order to give herself up to the enjoyment of being a wife and mother. She had been so stupid, she acknowledged cynically. Men did not fall in love with women like her. Men found successful career women intimidating, frightening almost, or at least that was what she was beginning to believe.
The coffee Daniel brought her smelled tempting and fragrant. She wrapped her hands around the mug, savouring the rich scent.
'Take it easy,' Daniel warned her, watching her drink it eagerly. 'It isn't decaffeinated, I'm afraid, and your stomach will still be pretty weak.'
'Not when it comes to this,' Angelica assured him with a grin. Piping hot, strong coffee was one of her vices; Tom constantly teased her about the fact that, although she was quite happy to refuse alcohol, despite several attempts she had never quite been able to give up her addiction to her coffee.
'Ah, a fellow addict,' Daniel said now, returning her smile.
When he smiled his whole face changed, she thought breathlessly, as her heart hammered against her ribs in helpless reaction to the shock of her awareness of his sudden and totally unexpected warmth.
'It's disgraceful, isn't it?' she managed to say shakily. 'Nearly all my friends have switched to decaffeinated, and I feel horrendously guilty about not following suit. I've tried a couple of times.'
She was gabbling, frantically trying to fill the silence which had suddenly become very intimate and dangerous. And yet why was she reacting like this simply because a man smiled at her? Was she really so low in self-esteem, so helplessly vulnerable that all it took to overthrow her determined resolution to live her life on her own was one single smile? Did she really crave intimacy with another human being so much that she was pathetically ready to snatch at that smile, to read into it something which common sense told her could not possibly be there? What was wrong with her? She had a good life, a full and satisfying life, good friends like Tom. So why was she constantly aware of this aching emptiness inside her?
'Something wrong?'
The soft question startled her. Her glance flickered nervously to meet his; the cool blue eyes were watching her steadily, assessingly.
She swallowed back her automatic denial, knowing he would see it for the lie it was, and substituted a half-truth instead, shaking her head and saying, 'Not really. I was just wishing I hadn't stopped for that meal.'
'Because it made you ill, or because that illness made you dependent on me?'
His challenge silenced her. She had known instinctively that he would be perceptive, but not how perceptive nor how quick to recognise what she had thought was known only to herself.
'No one likes to feel dependent on a stranger,' she responded guardedly.
She had finished her coffee, and as he leaned across her to remove her mug she flinched back automatically. She was becoming so dangerously aware of him in all the ways she should not be doing that merely being with him was becoming the kind of emotional and physical strain she simply could not handle.
'Is it because I'm a stranger, or because I'm a man?' he asked her bluntly.
She couldn't stop the colour sweeping over her skin, hating the way he made her feel as gauche and awkward as a child.
'You did what had to be done and I'm-I'm grateful to you for it,' she told him uncomfortably.
'You might be grateful to me but you still shy away from me as though you expect me to pounce on you at any moment,' he told her tautly. 'Is that the reason you're so anxious to move next door, even though both of us know damn well that you still aren't strong enough to manage on your own?'
'No,' she denied immediately, horrified by what he was saying. Did he really think her so immature, so stupid that she could possibly imagine he was that kind of man? Far from it ... The truth was ...
The truth was that it was herself she was afraid of. Her own reactions which she feared. Her own needs which she dreaded getting out of hand.
He studied her for a moment and then said quietly, 'Good. Well, now that we've got that out of the way, let's not have any more nonsense about you moving next door until you're fully fit, shall we? And while we're on the subject, conscious or unconscious you're in no danger from me. I don't get my kicks from that kind of abuse, no matter how attractive and tempting the woman.'
Angelica stared at him, knowing that her entire body was suffused with a hot colour that he couldn't avoid noticing.
He had described her as attractive as tempting. Surely he must be exaggerating. flattering her. He couldn't possibly mean that he found her attractive. and she was a fool if she allowed herself to think so. More than a fool ... Hadn't she learned anything from her experiences with Giles? Hadn't she told herself over and over again that from now on she would live her life independently. that she would not allow the kind of emotions rioting through her right now any place in her life?
Why, when for the last twelve months the thought of becoming emotionally involved with anyone else had caused her to feel the most acute fear and tension, had she suddenly changed like this, overnight almost, between one breath and the next so that she had arrived at the cottage as one woman and come round from her illness to discover she had become another?
Was it because subconsciously the intimacy between them, even though it had been an intimacy of necessity and not desire, had had such an effect on her that she now found it impossible to look on Daniel as a stranger? Was that why she was so intensely aware of him? Was that why she felt this breathless, aching need crawling through the pit of her stomach whenever he came too close to her? Was that why she was acting like a complete fool, and now compounding that folly by stupidly agreeing that she would continue to stay with him? What on earth was the matter with her? She knew how imperative it was that she broke this dangerous intimacy now before she became even more enmeshed in these stupid feelings. So why wasn't she doing so? Why wasn't she moving heaven and earth to protect herself from the danger he represented? Because she was a fool, that was why, she told herself bitterly, as Daniel picked up both their mugs and made them a second cup of coffee.
In the end it was another three days before she was strong enough for Daniel to agree that she could manage alone and move into Tom's cottage.
During that time, he had learned far more about her than she had about him. He had a gift for drawing people out, she discovered, a way of encouraging her to talk about herself without making her feel as though he were probing or prying. He made her feel that he was genuinely interested in her, that it was important to him to learn about her.
Only when it came to her relationship with Giles was she deliberately cautious, unwilling to admit to him how much of a fool she had been.
It had been raining all morning. Daniel had disappeared to the farm after breakfast. She had wanted to go with him, but he had said that he thought the walk might be too taxing for
her.
Unwilling to press her company on him, when perhaps he was using their need for fresh milk and groceries as an excuse to have some time to himself, she had forborne to point out that they could have driven there, saying coolly instead that it was time she started packing up ready to move next door.
She had been ashamed to discover how much she disliked going back to sleeping in her own nightdresses when Daniel had brought her things out of her car for her; how much she missed the intimacy of wearing his shirts.
Her wayward imagination had even managed to convince her that the scent of him was somehow or other impregnated into the fabric so that when she slept it was almost like sleeping in his arms.
That thought had panicked her so much that she had spent all of the following morning avoiding Daniel. She wasn't used to this intense sensual awareness of a man. Even when she had believed herself in love with Giles, that love had been more cerebral than sensual. Then she had been relieved rather than resentful when he had shown no inclination to make love to her, accepting it when he'd told her that he wanted their physical relationship to be something special and treasured, something precious that would begin with their marriage.
It was only later that she had realised almost inadvertently that he had cold-bloodedly and callously intended that by refusing to make love to her he would send her into such a frenzy of need that she wouldn't look too closely at his reasons for rushing her into marriage. It had never even occurred to him that she was so sexually inexperienced that she had no awareness of the kind of sexual deprivation he'd believed he was inflicting on her.
And yet now, and still with that same lack of actual experience, she was deeply and intensely aware of a need growing within herself, a foolish, almost adolescent urge to behave in a way that was totally out of character for her, an awareness that time was running out; that soon she would be thirty and that because of her dedication to her work there had been no space in her life for her to experience anything else.
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