by Penny Jordan
But she knew that it was. Desperation lent her the strength to take a few more tentative steps before she lost her footing and plunged full length into a deep bank of snow. Fear swamped her, weak tears of despair trickling damply down her cold face. Then a sound that was not simply the harsh keening of the wind seemed to reach her, and she strained to catch it.
Hope flared inside her—Slade must have come after her. Struggling to get to her feet, she found to her horror that her right ankle wouldn’t support her.
‘Slade!’ She called his name until her throat was hoarse, unable to believe she simply hadn’t called him up out of her imagination when he suddenly materialised at her side, the shoulders of the heavy dark jacket he wore thickly powdered with snow.
‘Oh, Slade, thank God!’ Chelsea was crying and laughing at the same time, not caring what she betrayed in her relief at seeing him.
Even his rough, ‘You crazy fool, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ didn’t have the power to frighten her.
‘Where are we?’ she asked him when he reached her. ‘I’m completely lost.’
‘About a mile from the house,’ he told her curtly. ‘And next time you decide to pull a stunt like this you might at least wait until I’m adequately dressed for it. Come on.’ He leaned down to help her out of the drift, frowning when he felt her body sag. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘It’s my ankle,’ Chelsea admitted ruefully. ‘I’ve twisted it, I think. It keeps giving way every time I try to put any weight on it.’
‘God, that’s all we need!’ She was caught off guard when Slade bent down and picked her up bodily.
‘It’s the only way,’ he told her harshly. ‘Oh, I realise how much you hate the thought of me touching you—you’ve made that abundantly plain. Didn’t it strike you that a simple “no, thanks” might have done just as well?’
‘I’d already tried that, remember?’ she snapped back at him, wincing as he almost stumbled, jarring her ankle.
‘You might have mouthed the words, but there was damn little conviction behind them,’ Slade claimed. ‘Quite the contrary. But you’ve made your point now all right.’
There was an odd inflection to his voice that might almost have been pain, but Chelsea told herself that she was letting her imagination run away with her.
‘Didn’t it occur to you, the danger you were risking?’ he demanded bitterly. ‘Running out like that with nothing for protection but a thin coat and a pair of fashion boots?’
His scorn scorched her already tender nerves.
‘I just wanted to escape,’ she murmured painfully, without adding that her flight had been from her own emotions as much as from him.
‘Thanks a million. You do wonders for my ego!’ He paused, bracing himself to support her weight, breathing deeply, and Chelsea felt ashamed of goading him when he was risking his own life to save hers.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered huskily. ‘I didn’t think. I meant to go to Darkwater, but somehow I lost my way and…’
His savage, ‘You’re damned lucky you didn’t lose your life as well!’ cut across her apology, and his mouth was grim with anger as he trudged through the steadily deepening snow. ‘You realise that even someone who knows these hills like the back of their hands wouldn’t risk going out in a blizzard like this? Familiar landmarks can be wiped out faster than you can turn round. It’s a mercy you hadn’t gone any farther.’
‘I stopped when I couldn’t see the elms any longer,’ Chelsea admitted. ‘I was terrified, and so cold—I just couldn’t feel my fingers and toes.’
Slade came to an abrupt halt. ‘Can you feel them now?’ he demanded, watching her.
Chelsea shook her head slowly, fear spiralling up inside her, not needing to ask why Slade suddenly increased his pace to a degree which she knew must be punishing.
The snowy shape of the Dower House suddenly materialising out of the blizzard was the most welcome sight she had ever seen. Slade carried her into the study, disregarding her protests about their snow-covered clothes and the resultant damp puddles, simply reaching for the phone.
Chelsea heard him swear.
‘Out of order,’ he said heavily when she looked enquiringly at him. She had been trying to remove her boots with her strangely white hands, but they simply refused to move. ‘Let me look.’
She flinched as he examined the dead white flesh, his face darkening.
He flung out of the study, returning within seconds carrying a bottle and a glass.
‘Drink it,’ he urged her when he had poured a large measure. ‘It will help, in more than one way,’ he added under his breath as she dutifully drained the dark amber liquid.
Fire burned its way down to her stomach, followed by a delicious warmth.
‘Brandy,’ Slade told her briefly. ‘Unfortunately we’ve yet to train our sheepdogs to carry it to snow-beleaguered tourists. Now just sit there while I get those boots off.’
He didn’t waste time on the zips, and Chelsea winced as he cut through the expensive leather with a knife he had brought from the kitchen.
‘I don’t believe this,’ he said softly when he had cut away her jeans to reveal the smooth flesh of her leg. ‘Surely common sense warned you to wear some additional form of protection, such as socks?’
‘There wasn’t room,’ Chelsea admitted feebly. She had contemplated wearing a pair of thick socks she had brought with her, but when she put them on it had been impossible to zip up her boots.
She winced as Slade started to rub life into her numbed feet. Her toes remained completely unfeeling, but her ankle were she had turned on it was throbbing painfully.
‘By rights you should see a doctor,’ Slade told her, ‘but seeing that we’re unable to summon one right now, you’ll just have to force yourself to suffer my ministrations. Of course,’ he added suavely, ‘I could always leave you to your fate; I might almost be doing myself a favour if I did,’ he added under his breath, as he bent to lift her out of the chair.
The brandy had made her feel muzzy and lightheaded, and it seemed too much of an effort to protest when Slade carried her into his room instead of her own. Even the sure touch of his fingers on her clothes failed to awaken any instinct for self-preservation. Her eyelids felt curiously heavy and she kept longing to close them, but every time she slid towards unconsciousness Slade shook her.
Every bit of her body apart from her fingers and toes ached. She watched Slade examining them with detached interest, aware with a careless floating indifference that he was frowning.
‘Can you feel that?’
She shook her head as he touched her toes, wondering at the expression of grim determination in his eyes.
He also examined her swollen ankle. ‘I don’t think it’s broken, more likely sprained.’
Chelsea shivered, suddenly terribly cold, an odd nausea rising up inside her. She managed to quell it, but nothing seemed to be able to stop the increasingly violent tremors gripping her. She tried to sit up and was instantly overwhelmed by a terrifying dizziness.
‘Lie down,’ Slade cautioned her, and disappeared in the direction of the bathroom.
Chelsea could hear the sound of running water, and when he returned his sweater had been discarded, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow.
‘Chelsea!’ She responded instinctively to the incisive note of command in his voice. ‘If we don’t do something about these,’ he tapped her feet briefly, ‘you could be in real danger from frostbite. We can do two things—wait and hope that circulation will return as your body heat builds up, or try to speed matters up a little.’
Chelsea grimaced. The brandy he had given her was making her feel decidedly odd, and yet curiously not even the gravity of what he had told her seemed to have much power to affect her.
‘What do you want me to do?’ she demanded. ‘Sit with my feet in a bowl of boiling water?’
‘Something like that.’ He was bending over her, reaching for the buttons on her blouse. She drew
back instinctively, her eyes widening.
‘Look—–’ impatience and something else lurked in the depths of his eyes, ‘I’m not about to rape you. Hot water merely on your feet isn’t enough. I’ve run a bath for you and you’ll stay in it until your hands and feet tingle and smart with returning circulation. Is that clear?’
All too clear. His words had penetrated the comfortable brandy-induced fog which had en-shrouded her, and Chelsea sat up to protest.
‘Drink this.’ Slade produced another glass of brandy. ‘Drink it, Chelsea,’ he warned her, ‘otherwise I’ll pour it down your throat.’
Unwillingly she did so, telling him huskily that she could manage without his unwanted ministrations, her face burning at the thought of his hands on her body.
‘Oh, of course you can,’ he agreed sardonically. ‘It’s a very minor task to get from here to the bathroom with one ankle out of action and both feet so numb that you can hardly stand up on them. I’ve already told you,’ he reiterated impatiently, ‘as far as I’m concerned you’re completely safe. Somehow the fact that you’d rather face a raging blizzard than my obviously unwelcome advances has had a decidedly cooling effect on my ardour.’
Her initial feeling was one of intense disappointment, but the brandy was having its effect upon her. Chelsea seldom drank more than the occasional glass of wine, and the potency of the spirit on an empty stomach was acting like a tranquiliser on her overwrought mind, forcing it into a state of hazy lethargy.
This time when Slade deftly unfastened her buttons she made not the slightest protest, allowing him to completely remove her blouse without demur. The remnants of her jeans quickly followed, and although she knew she should be embarrassed when he bent swiftly to remove her bra and briefs she was hazily conscious only of a surging pleasure engendered by the briefly accidental brush of his fingers against the smooth curve of her breast. For a second he seemed to stiffen into rigidity, but Chelsea barely had time to register the fact before he was lifting her up in his arms and carrying her towards the elegantly male bathroom decorated in dark blues and gold.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHE hadn’t realised just how cold she was until she felt the blissfully warm lap of the water against her skin, Chelsea acknowledged dreamily, flinching as Slade tapped her lightly on the cheek and said curtly, ‘Don’t go to sleep on me, Chelsea. I want to know the moment you feel life coming back to your feet.’
He was more concerned with her feet than she was, Chelsea reflected, for some reason finding the knowledge amusing. She wanted to laugh so much her laughter was like a tight bubble inside her, but something warned her that Slade would be angry if she did. She also wanted to luxuriate in the delicious warmth of the water, to lie down in it and let it lap over her while she drifted off to sleep.
‘Chelsea!’
She yelped as Slade turned on the tap and hot water gushed into the dark blue depths of the bath.
‘I want to go to sleep,’ she protested childishly, smothering a yawn, and frowning a little as she heard Slade swear. He seemed very angry about something, but somehow it was just too much of an effort to work out why.
‘Your feet… can you feel them yet?’
Giggling, Chelsea reached down and touched her toes. ‘I think so—are these them?’
She thought she heard Slade mutter something uncomplimentary under his breath, coupled with something about ‘too much damned brandy’, but it didn’t really register. All of a sudden she felt gloriously free of inhibition and caution. What did she need them for? she asked recklessly, watching Slade through downcast lashes, wondering what he would say if she suggested that he join her. The bath was after all large enough for both of them.
She frowned as pain suddenly lanced through her ankle combined with red-hot darts of fire in her toes, gasping as the pain increased in severity, and all the colour left her face.
Slade was cruelly unsympathetic, his muttered ‘thank God!’ filling her with irrational resentment. Instead of comforting her as she wanted him to do he seemed to take great pleasure in increasing her discomfort by roughly massaging the flesh of her feet. To punish him she withdrew her foot from his grasp, splashing him deliberately as he reached out to recapture it. Water soaked the front of his shirt and she giggled helplessly.
‘You’re drunk.’
‘Am I?’ she smiled sweetly up at him, not really caring if it was the truth or not, her eyes rounding provocatively as she said huskily, ‘Whose fault’s that?’
‘Look…’ He grimaced suddenly, then reached down to lift her out of the water, not seeming to care that she was soaking the front of his shirt and jeans. Chelsea didn’t care either. It was blissfully satisfying to be held against him like this, the brandy obligingly releasing her hold on reality so completely that it was impossible for her to think beyond the immediate present.
She pouted when Slade wrapped her in a thick towel, but the feel of his hands on her body as he briskly rubbed her dry was so delicious that she soon forgot the disappointment of being removed from the close contact of his body.
‘Bed for you,’ he told her grittily when he had finished. ‘Something tells me you’re going to have an almighty hangover in the morning. Are you hungry?’
Chelsea shook her head, closing her eyes as he picked her up and walked into the bedroom. He had reached the door before she realised where he was taking her.
‘No!’ she protested as he reached for the handle. ‘I want to stay here.’ Dimly she realised that she was flirting with potential dynamite, but suddenly it didn’t seem at all important; other and more urgent desires clamoured for utterance.
With a faint grimace Slade walked across to his own bed, thrusting aside the covers and sliding her inside, before securing them round her as firmly as though she were a child.
In drowsy satisfaction Chelsea watched him remove his soaking shirt and jeans, her heart thudding painfully as she studied the clean lines of his body clad only in briefs which did little to disguise his masculinity. As she watched him she started to tremble feverishly with the longing to feel his hard warmth against her, her whole body shaking with the need she had dammed up for so long. Slade removed a clean shirt from a drawer and started to fasten the buttons. Chelsea’s skin felt clammy and she was dreadfully cold. He had found a clean pair of jeans and was pulling them on. She tried to tell him how terribly cold she was and how much she wished she was back in the languorous warmth of the bathroom.
Tucking his shirt into his jeans, Slade walked across to the bed to study her dispassionately, and Chelsea thought she heard him mutter under his breath, ‘This is all I need,’ but she couldn’t be absolutely sure because her mind seemed to be playing tricks on her, making the room recede, strangely out of focus and making her feel as cold as though she were still out in the snow when in reality she ought to be lovely and warm.
‘Slade.’ Her small whisper checked him. She wished he didn’t always frown when she spoke to him, Chelsea thought unhappily, watching the telltale gesture. ‘Slade, I’m dreadfully cold,’ she told him, her teeth starting to chatter. ‘I feel cold right through inside and out, even though I can feel my toes.’
‘Chelsea—–’ he began warningly, but her teeth were chattering so loudly that he had no need to touch her ice-cold skin to know she was telling the truth. ‘Slade, I’m freezing—please help me get warm,’ she pleaded huskily.
There was a long silence when she wondered hazily what she had said now to anger him. She looked hesitantly up at him, dismayed by the fixed rigidity of his expression and the small pulse beating tensely in his jaw.
‘Slade!’
‘I heard you,’ he answered grimly. ‘My God, you really believe in turning the screws, don’t you?’ he added bitterly, but Chelsea was feeling too hazy to know what he meant. All she did know was that she longed for the male warmth of his body against the icy coldness of hers, and she couldn’t seem to make him understand.
For a moment she thought he was going to walk a
way and leave her, and she started to tremble, violently overcome by another icy shivering fit, but when she opened her eyes he had already removed his shirt and his hands were on the buckle of his belt, and she felt her tension ease enough for the violence of her shudders to ease a little.
When he slid into the bed beside her she curled up against him like a small kitten seeking warmth, almost ready to purr with pleasure when his arms reached out to hold her.
Just for a moment he seemed to tense and draw away, but sleep was already claiming Chelsea, drawing her down into an embrace almost as warm and comforting as Slade’s.
At her side Slade remained awake, an expression on his face which suggested that neither Chelsea’s presence nor his own thoughts brought any surcease to whatever had drawn the tight lines of pain beside his mouth.
Chelsea was dreaming. She was lost in a whirling demoniacal snowstorm, battling against the biting intensity of a wind which seemed intent on stripping the flesh from her bones, pursuing her relentlessly no matter how she tried to escape from it. She moaned in her sleep, moving restlessly, and the hand she had raised to ward off the cold suddenly came into contact with the solid warmth of Slade’s chest.
She awoke immediately, disorientated and bewildered, unable to understand where she was or with whom, and then as her eyes searched the unfamiliar darkness of Slade’s bedroom everything came rushing back; at least up until the moment when Slade had made her drink the brandy. After that events took on a hazy quality as though they were something she had seen on a screen rather than participated in; no, not merely participated in, she acknowledged grimly, remembering how she had begged Slade to stay with her, but actively initiated.
Slade! She risked a look at him. He was lying on his side facing her, his eyes closed. In sleep he looked less austere and more vulnerable. Without thinking she reached out to brush the thick dark hair off his forehead. Beneath her fingertips his skin felt vibrantly warm and alive. She remembered how cold she had been and how it had felt to be held in his arms. She also remembered how annoyed he had been, and vividly remembered him saying that she was safe from him now. She knew she ought to be relieved; that was after all what she had wanted, but instead she found herself having to stifle a swift stab of disappointment.