by Penny Jordan
‘These happen to be the only clothes I had this morning. No doubt you like your women dulcet and feminine, compliant and obedient, but I’m not like that Blake. Not any more.’
‘No, you’re not are you?’ There was just a suspicion of laughter trailing in his voice, enough to make her stare back at him aggressively and refuse to give way as he came towards her. ‘I also like them aroused and responsive—just as you are at the moment.’
The explosive denial trembling on her lips died as he reached forward, his thumb stroking along her throat to rest on the point where her pulse thudded betrayingly. ‘Anger is a form of arousal isn’t it?’ he mocked lightly. ‘And you are angry with me, aren’t you Sapphire?’
‘Not as much as I am with myself,’ she told him curtly, drawing away. She wasn’t going to give Blake any advantages this time. ‘What I said to you last night still holds good, I don’t want to marry you.’
‘But you told your father that you did.’
‘No. I told him that I was doing. I didn’t mean to, but before I could retract you arrived.’
‘And now?’ He asked the question softly, watching her with eyes that gave nothing of his own feelings away.
‘I’ll have to go through with it—you know that. You saw how he reacted. Dear God, even now I can’t believe that I’m going to lose him.’ She paced distractedly, too strung up to give way to tears and yet needing to release some of her nervous energy.
‘And what about the boyfriend—have you told him?’
‘Alan? No … not yet, but he’s coming up for his car soon, I’ll tell him then.’
‘How soon is soon?’ Blake asked idly. ‘Because in three days’ time we’ll be married.’
Three days! She looked up at him not even attempting to hide her shock. ‘So soon?’
Blake shrugged his shoulders and against her will Sapphire found herself comparing the masculine breadth of them to Alan’s. Even dressed in faded jeans and an old woollen checked shirt Blake possessed a lithe masculine sensuality that Alan would never have, for all his expensive tailoring Alan believed that appearances were important and Sapphire wouldn’t have denied it, but Blake was one of those men who could afford to break life’s rules. Angrily she pushed the thought away.
‘Why wait?’ Blake asked laconically. ‘The sooner it’s done the happier your father will be.’
‘He told me that most people up here don’t even know that we’re divorced.’ Her voice gave away her anger.
‘Most people? No-one knows,’ Blake corrected, blandly.
‘Not even Miranda?’
His eyebrows rose, and Sapphire felt her face flush. What on earth had possessed her to bring Miranda’s name up? She had no interest in Blake’s love life—it was his own affair.
‘Why mention Miranda in particular?’ Blake mocked.
‘Perhaps because it’s the sort of thing a man would tell his mistress,’ Sapphire came back curtly. ‘After all you told her that our marriage … wasn’t consummated.’
‘How do you know that?’ His voice had sharpened, hardened almost, but he had turned slightly away so that Sapphire couldn’t see his expression, but she had definitely caught him off guard. Good, she thought, watching him. Obviously he didn’t know what Miranda had said to her.
‘Because she told me.’ She shrugged disdainfully as he turned round and stared at her with cold hard, golden eyes. ‘It was at the same time as she told me about the weekend the two of you spent in the Cotswolds actually.’ Giving him a cold smile she marched past, heading for the barn door. It would do him good to realise that she wasn’t as naive as he had always believed, but just as she drew level with the door his arm snaked out, his fingers curling painfully round her wrist.
‘And that, of course, was why you left me?’
‘It was one of the reasons—there were others.’ It was her turn to shrug dismissively. ‘But none of that matters now, I merely asked about Miranda so that I could be prepared for any situation that might arise.’
‘She doesn’t know we’re divorced,’ Blake told her. ‘After my experiences with you I decided I preferred the life of a bachelor.’
‘And having a wife tucked away in the background made it all a lot simpler. Yes I can see that. Let me go Blake, I want to go back to the house.’
‘Isn’t there something you’ve forgotten?’
She frowned, glancing uncertainly at him.
‘Loving partners normally part with a kiss,’ he told her mockingly.
‘Maybe they do, but there’s nothing “loving” about our relationship,’ Sapphire snapped. ‘You didn’t want to kiss me four years ago Blake, I can hardly see why you would want to now.’
‘No? Perhaps I want to see how much your London lover has taught you.’ His head bent towards her and Sapphire immediately tensed trying to pull away, but Blake was still gripping her wrist. His free arm fastened round her, his hand on the small of her back forcing her against him.
A mixture of sensations raced through her as the heat of his body imposed itself against her; anger; tension, but most of all a resurgence of a familiar vulnerability she thought she had long ago overcome. The knowledge that she hadn’t, blinded her to everything else. She trembled against Blake, closing her eyes to blot out his mocking smile trying to convince herself that she was wrong; that the panic storming through her came from anger and not from fear.
But what was it she feared? Not Blake. No, herself, she admitted sensing the downward descent of his mouth, and twisting away to avoid it. Not Blake, but herself, her vulnerability towards him; her …
His mouth brushed hers and she tensed. ‘Is that all you’ve learned? Not very good,’ Blake drawled, as his mouth moved from her lips to her ear. His tongue tip explored the delicate shaping of her ear and panic exploded inside her. She mustn’t let him do this to her, she … Another moment and he would be kissing her again and this time … No she wouldn’t let him see that he could evoke a response from her … a response that was really surely nothing more than a conditioned echo of the old feeling she had had for him?
His mouth was feathering across her skin towards her lips. Taking her courage in both hands, Sapphire turned to meet it, willing herself to relax. She had dated several men in London before settling for Alan, and surely she had learned enough technique from them to show Blake that she wasn’t a frightened seventeen-year-old any more.
Forcing herself to ignore the screaming protest of her nerves Sapphire opened her mouth inviting his deeper invasion, teasing him with the tip of her tongue. She actually felt the sudden tension in his muscles, the quickly controlled start of surprise, but her brief advantage was lost as Blake’s arms tightened around her, his mouth taking what she had so recklessly offered, his lips harshly possessive against hers.
If only he had kissed her like this when she was seventeen. The thought surfaced through a whirling jetstream of jumbled emotions, fiercely clamped down as soon as she acknowledged it, and pushed Blake away.
He let her go, watching her with unblinking gold eyes. Almost as though he willed her to do it, Sapphire ran her tongue over the swollen contours of her mouth. ‘Well, well … That was quite something.’
His mouth was wry where she had expected it to be triumphant, because she couldn’t deny to herself that there had been a moment in his arms when she had forgotten everything that lay between them and she had responded to him in a way she had never responded to any other man, but if anything he looked angry.
‘He’s obviously taught you well.’ The comment bordered on the harshly accusatory and coming from anyone else Sapphire would have instantly taken exception to it, but sensing that for some reason she had got under his skin she responded lightly. ‘And very extensively, I’m not seventeen any more Blake.’
‘No, you’re not are you,’ he agreed, ‘so don’t expect me to handle you with kid gloves will you?’
‘I don’t expect you to “handle” me at all Blake—that’s part of our agreement—remember?
’
‘Oh I think I’ll be able to, now, but will you?’
He turned on his heel and left before she could speak, and although Sapphire told herself it was relief that made her shake so much that she had to lean against the stairs, in reality she knew that her emotions were far more complex than that.
What had she let herself in for agreeing to remarry Blake? She had always known he must despise her, but the anger she had just seen, so savage and bitter, that was something she hadn’t guessed at. He must want Flaws Farm very badly, she thought bleakly as she made her way on shaky legs back to the house.
‘Blake gone?’ her father asked, when she walked into his room. Already he looked much better, and Sapphire realised with an aching pang how much her marriage to Blake meant to him.
‘Yes.’ She couldn’t inject any enthusiasm into her voice. ‘Never mind.’ Her father obviously mistook the reason for her listlessness. ‘You’ll be seeing him tonight. He’s taking you out to celebrate—at least that’s what he said to me.’
To celebrate! Sapphire grimaced, inwardly resenting the fact that Blake hadn’t said anything to her about going out. Had he done so, she would have refused.
‘I can’t tell you how much it means to me that the pair of you are getting back together again,’ her father said quietly. ‘He’s a fine man Sapphire. A good strong man, the sort of man you need.’
She made her escape from the room without giving any response, half-blinded by the weak tears threatening to obscure her vision. In her own room she opened the suitcase Blake must have brought up. Even to think of him walking into her room made prickles of antagonism run down her spine. How on earth was she going to live with him for six months when she hated him so much?
She hadn’t brought much with her, certainly nothing she could go out in to ‘celebrate’—and nothing she could wear to get married in. Fresh tears blurred her eyes as she remembered the dress she had worn the first time they were married. Stupid sentimentality, she derided herself; their wedding had just been another part of Blake’s elaborate charade, just like the half-reverent, almost worshipping kiss he had given her just outside the church doors. Sighing, Sapphire hung up her clothes. She would wear the plain black wool dress she had brought; it was a perfect foil for her colouring and a perfect accompaniment for her mood; Alan had always liked her in it.
Alan! She hadn’t told him yet about Blake. She gnawed on her lip uncertain as to whether to ring him, or wait until he came up. She was sure he would understand; Alan was always logical and reasonable. For the first time it struck her just what she had committed herself to. She would have to give up her job; her flat; her London life; everything she had fought so hard for when she left Blake. But surely it was a small price to pay for her father’s peace of mind? But say Alan did not accept her decision. She would not only have lost her job, she would have lost a good friend and potential lover as well. She couldn’t understand why the knowledge should cause her so little pain. Perhaps the agony of meeting Blake again; of being forced to remember how much he had hurt her had anaesthetised her against other, lesser hurts. Sighing she finished unpacking and went downstairs. One thing she did remember about farm life was that there was always work to be done and work, as she had learned in London, was a very effective panacea.
‘I’m just going down to the village to do some shopping and pick up your father’s prescription,’ Mary told her when Sapphire asked if there was anything she could do. ‘Want to come with me?’
‘No, I’ll stay here if you don’t mind.’ Sapphire frowned. ‘I would have thought the doctor would call every day, in view of Dad’s illness.’
Mary eyed her sympathetically. ‘There’s really no point now,’ she said gently. ‘Are you sure you won’t come with me?’
‘No … no thanks.’
‘Well I’ll be on my way then. I want to call at the butchers, your father loves shepherd’s pie and I thought I’d make one for him tonight.’
How could Mary be so matter of fact, Sapphire wondered, watching the other woman driving away, but then as a nurse she would be used to death; she would have learned to accept the inevitable. As she had not, Sapphire acknowledged, but then she had had so little time to come to terms with the reality of her father’s condition. Blake had broken the news to her almost brutally. The way he did everything. Unable to settle to anything she went up to her father’s room, but he was asleep. Not wanting to disturb his rest she left again. What on earth could she do with herself? Perhaps she ought to have gone with Mary. She wandered aimlessly into the yard, bending to pet the sheepdog that suddenly emerged from the field. Tam, the shepherd followed close behind, a smile splitting his weather-seamed face as he recognised her. Tam had been her father’s shepherd for as long as she could remember. He had seemed old to her when she was a child, and she wondered how old he was. He was one of a dying breed; a man who preferred the solitude of the hills, spending most of the summer in his small cottage watching over his flocks. The rich acres of farmland in the valley were given over to crops now, but her father still maintained his flock of sheep on his hill pastures.
‘Weather’s going to turn bad,’ Tam told her laconically, ‘Ought to get the sheep down off the hills, especially the ewes. Suppose I’d better get over to Sefton and see Blake,’ he added morosely, whistling to his dog.
Watching them go Sapphire realised the extent of Blake’s influence on Flaws Farm. No wonder he didn’t want to lose the land. He probably looked on it as his own already. She had wanted to protest to Tam that her father was the one to ask about the sheep, but instinctively she had known that Tam wouldn’t have understood. What she considered to be Blake’s interference would be taken as good neighbourliness by the old shepherd.
As she walked back into the kitchen the ‘phone was ringing, and she answered it automatically.
‘Sapphire, is that you?’
‘Yes, Blake.’
‘I forgot to mention it this morning, but I’ll be round about seven-thirty tonight to take you out to dinner, and before you say anything, I didn’t plan it. It was your father who mentioned it; he seemed to think some sort of celebration was in order, and I think he’s probably right. If we’re seen dining together, it won’t come as too much of a surprise to people when they know we’re back together.’
‘Surprise? Don’t you mean shock?’ Sapphire gritted into the receiver. ‘Especially where your female friends are concerned Blake.’
‘If I didn’t know better I might almost believe that you’re jealous.’
‘Funny,’ Sapphire snapped back. ‘I never realised you had such a powerful imagination. I must go now Blake,’ she lied, ‘Dad’s calling me.’
‘See you tonight.’
She hung up quickly leaving her staring at the black receiver. How could her life have changed so radically and so fast. One moment she had been looking forward to her holiday with Alan; to their relationship perhaps deepening from friendship into marriage, convinced that she had laid the ghosts in her past, and now, so swiftly that she could scarcely comprehend even now how it had happened, her life had somehow become entangled with Blake’s again, but this time she was older and wiser. She had been burned once—so badly that there was no way she was ever going to approach the fire again.
But fire has a way of luring its victims, she acknowledged, bitterly, just like love.
CHAPTER FOUR
SHE WAS READY when Blake arrived. He gave her black-clad body a cursory examination as he stepped into the kitchen and then drawled, ‘Mourning, Sapphire?’
‘It was the only dress I had with me.’
Again those golden eyes studied her body, but this time there was no mocking warmth to light their amber depths as Blake said coolly, ‘You should have told me, I’ve still got a wardrobe-full of your things up at the house, and by the looks of you you could still get into them.’
He made it sound more of an insult than a compliment, and Sapphire turned away so that he wouldn’t see the qu
ick flush of colour warming her skin. Why was it that Blake seemed to possess this ability to put her in the wrong, even when she wasn’t?
‘If you’re ready I think we’d better be on our way. I’ve booked our table for eight.’ He glanced at his watch, the brief glimpse she had of his dark sinewy wrist doing strange things to Sapphire’s stomach. She recognised the sensation immediately, and it gave her a sickening jolt. She had thought she was long past the stage of experiencing sexual appreciation of something as mundane as a male arm. As a teenager, the merest glimpse of Blake in the distance had been enough to start her stomach churning with excitement but that was all behind her now. Shrugging aside her feelings as an echo of the past she picked up her coat and followed Blake to the door.
To her surprise he hadn’t brought the Land Rover but was driving a sleek black BMW. Some of her surprise must have communicated itself to Blake because he glanced at her sardonically, his eyebrows raised as he waited for her to join him, opening the door for her as she reached the car. But then he always had had that air of masculine sophistication, a rare commodity in the Borders where most of the boys she had grown up with thought only of their land and their stock. But she had lived in London for long enough not to be overawed by Blake any longer, surely? Alan was always meticulous about handing her into his car, but his fingers beneath her elbow didn’t provoke the same jolting, lightning bolt of sensation that Blake’s did, her senses told her treacherously.
Ridiculous to feel so affected by such casual contact—no doubt she was over-reacting. She had had to guard herself against thinking about Blake for so long that she was almost hyper-sensitive to him. Yes, that must be the explanation Sapphire decided as Blake set the car in motion. Of course she was wound-up and tense, who wouldn’t be after learning that their father was close to death and that the one thing he wanted in life was the one thing she least desired. Marriage to Blake! She glanced covertly at his profile. He was concentrating on the road, his lips set in a hard line. Reaction suddenly shivered through her. What had she committed herself to? Despite the warmth from the car’s heaters she felt chilled, and yet her face seemed to be burning. She couldn’t go through with it. Her father would understand. She must talk to Blake, she …