by Penny Jordan
‘Exactly what I told her,’ Slade commented dryly, watching the colour run up under Chelsea’s skin with clinical detachment.
‘Come back to the farm with us,’ Tom suggested. ‘Ma will look after you.’
It was a tempting prospect. Sandy’s hand on her forehead felt beautifully cool. Her head seemed to be stuffed with a peculiar form of cotton wool that felt as heavy as lead, and she could think of nothing better that being coddled by Mrs Little. She opened her eyes and saw that Sandy’s were focused on her with narrowed wariness. Poor girl, she was probably out of her mind with jealousy because Chelsea had been alone with Slade.
She opened her mouth to accept Tom’s offer, but instead heard Slade saying coolly, ‘Oh, there’s no need for that. I’m sure your mother already has enough on her hands, Tom. I think I’m perfectly capable of nursemaiding a ‘flu victim.’
‘Slade’s right,’ Sandy confirmed to Chelsea’s further amazement. ‘I’ve got my bag with me and there are some antibiotics in it which I can give you. They should help speed things up. If you want me you can always phone. I’m staying up at the farm to give Val and Dad a chance to have Christmas alone with the twins.’
‘If you want to drive us back I can loan you the Land Rover,’ Tom suggested to Slade. ‘It’s pretty ancient and we only use it in bad weather, but we can always manage with the Range Rover until this stuff clears. Fortunately we were all prepared for it, so we shouldn’t lose any stock.’
Slade accepted, and when the three of them had gone, Chelsea dragged herself up to her room, Sandy’s instructions ringing in her ears.
She was asleep when Slade came back, and returned to consciousness groggily to discover him standing over her bed, one cool hand against her flushed face.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Hot and aching,’ Chelsea admitted, ‘and thirsty.’
‘The last problem’s easily remedied. Mrs Little has sent you some of her homemade barley water. Apparently it works wonders. I’ll go and get you a glass.’
If he wasn’t sympathetic at least he wasn’t as cold and remote as he had been, Chelsea reflected achingly when Slade had gone. Her sheets seemed to be full of tiny gritty objects which dug into her tender skin, and her whole body seemed to ache with a nagging pain which even affected her bones.
When Slade returned she was shivering convulsively, although she tried to hide it from him. Having him towering over her while she lay in bed made her feel distinctly at a disadvantage.
‘Sit up and drink this.’
Like a small child she did as she was told, puzzled when Slade disappeared into her bathroom, only to return within seconds with her sponge and a towel.
‘Sandy said this would help you to feel cooler,’ he said dispassionately as he pushed the straps of her nightdress off her shoulders and sponged her burning skin with cool detachment. If he expected her to feel grateful to him he could think again, Chelsea decided crossly when her broderie anglaise straps were once again in place.
‘I could have done that myself,’ she snapped childishly, ‘but I suppose it gives you some sense of power to treat me like a child!’
His mouth compressed in a grim line, his eyes as unfathomable and unfeeling as jade as he retorted in a clipped voice, ‘I’m trying very hard to remind myself that you’re not well. Now, Mrs Little suggested an omelette for your supper—I know it isn’t turkey…’ Chelsea felt nauseated at the thought of any rich food, and ashamed of goading him. If it wasn’t for her Slade could have spent Christmas up at the farm with Sandy to adore him.
‘I suppose Sandy would have preferred you to stay up there,’ she said jealously.
He had turned away from her and paused, eyebrows rising. ‘Why should she—she’s got what she wants. Tom,’ he enlightened, when she looked blank. ‘Surely you must have realised that she’s in love with him?’
‘Sandy loves Tom?’
Slade’s gaze sharpened. ‘You know she does, we’ve already discussed it once.’
Chelsea mumbled an assent, unwilling to admit to him that she had believed the other girl to be in love with him. So that was why Sandy had looked so rigidly at her before, and perhaps why she had suggested that Slade should nurse her down here. She ought to have realised; no sane woman urges the man she loves to stay alone with a potential rival.
‘And Tom?’
‘Worried by the thought of losing an admirer?’ he drawled. ‘Tom was dazzled by you, but at heart he’s a man who knows sterling worth when he sees it, and old-fashioned enough to expect virtue and loyalty in his wife.’
‘Would you?’
For a long moment there was silence, and then with a sigh he straightened up to face her.
‘I hope I’m not hypocritical enough to expect an innocence in another that I no longer have any claim to myself, but yes, I would want and look for sexual fidelity for the future; and a love deep enough to match my own.’
‘Love?’ Chelsea’s voice trembled on the word, a funny little pain aching inside her. ‘You surprise me, I didn’t think you believed in such an emotion.’
‘I don’t necessarily believe in an after-life, but that doesn’t stop me from illogically hoping it’s there,’ he told her enigmatically.
CHAPTER NINE
IT was almost New Year before Chelsea was well enough to get up. Sandy came down to see her twice, and on the second occasion told her that she was now well enough to get up.
‘Have you heard that they postponed the Young Farmers’ Ball because of the bad weather?’ she asked Slade. ‘They’re holding it tomorrow now, why don’t both of you come?’
Chelsea expected Slade to demur, but to her consternation he said evenly, ‘Good idea, I think we will.’
‘I’ll tell Tom to arrange tickets,’ Sandy said gaily. ‘We can make a foursome.’
When she had gone Chelsea said shakily, ‘I’m not going to that ball, I can’t…’
‘You haven’t anything to wear,’ Slade finished mockingly for her.
It wasn’t what she had been going to say, but she coloured to the roots of her hair, remembering the scene with Tom.
‘I’m not wearing that dress,’ she said flatly, shuddering at the thought of it, ‘and nothing you can say will make me change my mind.’
‘Nothing I can say,’ Slade agreed evenly, ‘but plenty I can do. We’re going, Chelsea; and you’re going to wear that dress. You owe it to Sandy if nothing else. One look at you in that will convince Tom more than a thousand words that you simply aren’t the woman for him.’
‘No? Who am I the woman for, then?’ she challenged recklessly, tears burning the back of her throat. ‘You?’
‘Me, and any other man willing to pay the price,’ he taunted cruelly. ‘But Tom isn’t like that. He wants marriage and permanency—plus a commitment we both know that you’re incapable of giving.’
The fates all seemed to conspire against her, ably aided by Slade, Chelsea decided darkly when Tom telephoned with the information that he had been able to secure tickets for them. It was in vain for her to protest that she did not want to go; she would go if he had to drag her there, Slade informed her unkindly, adding that she could look upon it as a form of repayment to Sandy for her ministrations to her. It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that his ministrations had been far more intimate than Sandy’s and to demand what form of payment he was going to seek, but just in time she stopped herself. She had enough self-knowledge to know that if he chose to look upon her words as a sexual challenge she wouldn’t be able to resist him.
It seemed that the Ball was something eagerly anticipated locally. The snow had cleared sufficiently for them to get to and from the village, although they still had to use the Land Rover.
Chelsea went up to her room the next morning after breakfast and discovered that Slade had left her blue dress on the bed. She looked at it with revulsion, hating the thought of wearing it. It was not so much the dress itself, she admitted, but the memories it evoked. Part of h
er longed to defy Slade and tell him that nothing would make her wear it, but caution prevailed.
The arrangements were that Tom and Sandy would pick them up in the Range Rover and they would all travel together. Uncomfortably aware that she could so easily have been Tom’s partner rather than Slade’s, Chelsea wasn’t too happy with the arrangement, although it was infinitely preferable to being alone with Slade.
Ever since the night she had run away from him he seemed to have changed; before she had feared him simply because she didn’t think herself capable of resisting if he chose to seduce her; now there was a brooding, almost menacing air about him, coupled with a tense explosiveness which she found hard to equate with the coolly sardonic man she knew him to be.
Supper was being provided by the hotel, and after a light tea, Chelsea excused herself to go and get ready. She had spent the morning pressing the crumpled ball of silk and now it hung on her wardrobe door, a rich pool of colour against the wood.
On this occasion, since she was not playing a part, there was no need for her to dress as she had done before, and besides, she hadn’t brought with her the provocatively feminine underwear she had worn on that occasion.
She was just about to run her bath when her bedroom door was thrust open and Slade walked in. He had spent the morning in Alnwick and Chelsea had been grateful for his absence. It seemed that whenever he was near her she found it difficult to behave or even think rationally, and as always when she saw him her stomach churned with a mixture of anger and desire. For a moment he simply leaned against the door he had closed behind him, tall and sombre in the black jeans and sweater he was wearing. The fine wool fabric stretched tautly over the breadth of his chest and in an effort to avoid his eyes, Chelsea’s slid downwards, coming to an abrupt halt on the buckle of his belt.
‘Something I thought you might need,’ he said laconically at last, throwing the package he was holding in his hands on to the bed. It spilled open, and Chelsea’s face went white as she saw the dainty minuscule briefs and matching suspender belt in the same colour as her dress. Toning stockings were with them. The colour which had left her face so precipitously came flooding back in an angry wave. Her voice shook as she demanded huskily, ‘You don’t imagine I’m going to wear those?’
‘Why not? It’s nothing very different from what you had on the last time you wore that dress, unless my memory’s playing tricks on me, and I’m damn sure it isn’t. What’s the matter?’ he goaded, ‘and don’t trot out any rubbish about not wearing underwear provided by a man—some man paid before, even if he didn’t personally buy it. Or is it just the fact that I paid for it you object to?’ he asked with soft savagery. ‘Oh no,’ he told her as Chelsea turned blindly away, head bowed, ‘you don’t get to me by doing that. Wear them, Chelsea,’ he warned her, ‘otherwise I’ll damned well dress you in them myself!’
He would as well, she acknowledged, literally shaking with anger and humiliation when the door had closed behind him.
Half an hour later, as she slid on the sheer silky stockings, she shuddered with the knowledge of Slade’s victory. The obvious expense and delicacy of the underwear afforded her little pleasure, and she closed her mind against the thought of Slade’s lean brown fingers touching the scanty scraps of satin and lace.
The shoes she had worn before were still in Melchester, but she did have a pair of delicate high-heeled mules which she could wear instead. The shaking hand with which she applied her make-up did little to restore her confidence. Her theatrical training made it impossible for her to deliberately inflict an exaggerated or unflattering mask on her face; if anything her eyeshadow was more subtly subdued than it had been on the previous occasion she had worn the silk dress, although basically it was very similar. Her hair she simply coiled into a smooth chignon, which privately she thought a little stark, unaware of the way in which it drew attention to the long sweep of her throat and the pure lines of her face. As she zipped up the dress she studied her reflection in the mirror, startled to see how it transformed her, adding an aura of sophisticated sexuality she hadn’t been so aware of before. It was Slade who had opened her eyes to that particular aspect of her nature, she acknowledged wryly, as she dabbed perfume on her wrists.
‘I hope you aren’t going to stop there,’ Slade commented silkily from behind her.
He had entered her room without her being aware of it, and she stared up at him, startled eyes taking in the immaculate fit of evening clothes that drew subtle attention to the wholly male frame they enclosed.
Her perfume was removed from her unresisting fingers as Slade bent on one knee behind her. She froze as she felt his hand grip the smooth flesh just above her knee.
‘If I recall,’ he said softly, ‘the rule is perfume on every pulse point, am I right?’
Chelsea shivered under the light touch of his hand, remembering how she had deliberately scented her skin in the most provocative fashion she could think of.
There was something dangerously volatile about Slade tonight; something that warned her not to risk provoking an argument in the intimacy of her bedroom. Inwardly raging and frightened, she submitted to the touch of his fingers against her skin as his thumb stroked caressingly over the place where he had applied her perfume; the backs of her knees; her throat, and lastly the place where her dress dipped to expose the curve of her breasts. His thumb seemed to linger longest there and before he finally turned away Chelsea glimpsed an anger smouldering in his eyes that turned her bones to water.
‘So,’ he murmured when he had finished, ‘now you’re exactly as you were the night we met.’
His words struck a chill of warning through Chelsea, panic fluttering wildly through her. What did he mean? Why should he want her to be as she had been when he first met her? Unless… Her breath caught in her throat. Was he perhaps regretting allowing his contempt for her to overcome his desire for revenge? Had he decided after all to take what he so arrogantly claimed she owed him?
‘Ready?’
His voice was as smooth and bland as velvet. She must have been imagining the anger she had seen in his eyes, Chelsea told herself, because it certainly wasn’t there now.
Her only coat was her cream wool one, and she shivered as Slade held it for her while she slid it on. The scent of her own perfume clung almost suffocatingly to her skin and she was aware of an urgent need to escape from the close confines of the house and Slade’s presence.
Tom and Sandy arrived on time. Tom looked attractive but slightly uncomfortable in his formal clothes. Sandy was wearing an attractive dress which she confided was a Christmas present from her father.
‘But nothing like as fantastic as yours,’ she said regretfully, eyeing Chelsea’s blue silk. ‘It’s lovely, isn’t it, Tom?’
Chelsea held her breath as Tom glanced at her. There was recognition, and resignation in the look he gave her. ‘It’s very nice,’ he said quietly, reaching across to squeeze Sandy’s hand as he added softly, ‘But too sophisticated for a baby like you.’
Tears stung the back of Chelsea’s throat. Tom couldn’t have made it clearer what he thought about her, but she acknowledged that what really hurt was the sardonic smile in Slade’s eyes as he watched him. He had been right, she thought tiredly, even if she hadn’t fallen in love with Slade, she could never have made Tom happy; not in the way that Sandy probably would.
The hotel where the Ball was to be held was several miles outside the village and had once been a private house. Discreetly extended at the rear to provide a conference centre and additional bedrooms, the hotel was in private ownership and had an ambience that suggested to Chelsea that it could easily rival any one of London’s top hotels.
The ballroom was in actual fact the original ballroom of the eighteenth-century mansion, Sandy told her enthusiastically when they were together in the ladies’ cloakroom.
‘It really is fantastic,’ she enthused. ‘Plasterwork ceiling; lots of elegant gilt and glittering chandeliers.’
‘In short, not exactly your average disco,’ Chelsea teased.
Sandy grimaced. ‘Trying to qualify as a doctor is one long hard slog without much time for discos or anything else. It doesn’t help having most of the medical profession still firmly against women practitioners. They all seem to think you’re going to rush off and get married the moment you’re qualified—either that, or even worse, that you’re using the training as a sort of husband-hunting ground.’
‘Are you saying you don’t want to get married?’ Chelsea questioned lightly.
Sandy shook her head. ‘Very much, and as you’ve probably guessed, to Tom, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t continue with my career. Have you known Slade long?’ she asked, changing the subject.
Chelsea stiffened. ‘No.’ Had Tom told her about that scene with Slade? She discovered that she didn’t want Sandy or anyone else thinking that she was simply another of Slade’s women-friends.
‘Oh, it’s just that he was so worried about you when you were ill, insisting on looking after you himself, I thought…’ She broke off and flushed.
‘I think his concern sprang more from a desire to save Mrs Little any extra work than for me personally,’ Chelsea replied evenly. Winter is a very busy time for a farmer’s wife, isn’t it?’
Sandy seemed to accept her explanation, but as they went to join the men Chelsea wondered if she had suspected that Slade had done it to protect her by, as he thought, keeping Chelsea away from Tom.
The ballroom was everything Sandy had claimed, and before too long they were the centre of a small group of people, most of whom seemed to know or have heard of Slade.
To her surprise he made a point of drawing her into his conversations, introducing her, and explaining what she was doing in the Borders. Everyone was very friendly, and Chelsea received several admiring requests to dance; the band stuck mainly to tried and traditional tunes, and although the evening was termed ‘Young Farmers’, there was a good spread of age groups. The only thing that spoiled her pleasure was the knowledge that she was far more sophisticatedly dressed than the other women, a fact which seemed to make her the cynosure of a good deal of male interest, which she found exceedingly uncomfortable.