by Penny Jordan
Now was her time to tell him the truth, but Lissa knew that she couldn’t. Trailing reluctantly upstairs she tried to convince herself that he might not notice her coldness; that it might not be as bad as she envisaged; that thousands upon thousands of women before her had endured the unwanted possession of the male sex. But Joel thought she was experienced and even worse eager for sex. Well he would soon learn the truth. All the fierce triumph she had felt at the thought of him being confronted with her innocence had gone, and a wild trembling seemed to seize hold of her limbs. She checked automatically on the two sleeping girls, leaving on the night-light in case one of them woke. The nursery was still relatively unfamiliar to them, and although on the surface they seemed to be accepting their parents’ death, who knew what terrors their subconscious minds might harbour.
Knowing she could delay no longer Lissa turned in the direction of her own room, quickly gathering up her nightdress and robe. She daredn’t linger here, because she wouldn’t put it past Joel to come looking for her, and that was a humiliation she could not endure. She did not want to add cowardice to all her other faults.
Joel was already in the room, and he paused in the action of removing his shirt to look at her. The glow from a lamp illuminated the warm bronze of his skin. His chest was shadowed with a line of dark hair and Lissa felt her stomach plunge and twist crazily as though she were riding a switchback ride. No doubt most women would think she was crazy to fear Joel’s possession so much. He was after all an extremely attractive man, and not just physically, she was forced to admit. He had a tender, gentle side to him that suggested that he would be a skilled and caring lover … A shudder washed over her, and watching it Joel frowned.
Lissa opened her mouth to tell him that there was no way she could go through with making love with him, but he anticipated her, shrugging off his shirt and coming across the room to take her hands in his. This close she could feel the heat coming off his body, smell the male scent of him, and she quivered nervously, her eyes huge and dark.
‘Nervous? Me too,’ he said softly.
Her surprise showed in her eyes and he added raspingly, ‘Lissa, I am human too you know. I know quite well that you’ve married me for the sake of the girls and that reason alone; that right now I am not the man you want in your bed, but we could have a good life together … children of our own …’
‘But … but what about love,’ Lissa heard herself croak in an unsteady voice.
His hands dropped away from hers and he turned away from her. ‘Can you honestly tell me that you’ve loved every man you’ve taken to your bed?’ And as she heard the iron bitterness in his voice Lissa knew that her chance to tell him the truth was gone.
Looking at the situation from Joel’s point of view it would seem all too logical that their relationship was a physical as well as legal one no doubt.
‘Hell,’ he swore briefly, ‘I’ve forgotten something. Back in a minute.’
While he was gone Lissa dived into the bathroom, cleansing her face quickly and rushing into her nightdress. When she opened the bathroom door he still hadn’t returned, and she scrambled into the huge double bed, firmly pulling the bedclothes up around her, tensing as the door opened.
Under his arm Joel was carrying an ice bucket and a bottle of champagne, two glasses in his hand. He raised his eyebrows queryingly as he put it down and a tiny ache began somewhere deep inside her. How would she be feeling right now, if things were different … if she loved Joel and he loved her … She could not deny his thoughtfulness and caring, and she could also sense the effort he was making to give their marriage some semblance of normality. Now she dreaded him knowing the truth for a different reason. She felt as though she were the one cheating him. But he had not married her for herself, she knew that. He had married her because she was the girls’ aunt.
She heard the champagne cork pop and watched nervously as he filled the glasses. She had to sit up to take hers, and she could feel his eyes on her as she clutched the sheet to her body. The bubbles tickled her nose, making her catch her breath.
‘Here’s to us, Mrs Hargreaves,’ Joel toasted softly. ‘Shall we forget the past, Lissa, and have a new beginning?’
If only she could! If only she were really Joel’s chosen bride, confident of his love … The thought jolted through her making her tremble. What was she thinking? It must be the champagne, she thought dizzily. She didn’t want Joel to love her. Why should she?
He disappeared into the bathroom, and she listened to him moving about, every muscle tense, her body aching with dread. Memories from the past threatened to swamp over her, and when Joel finally emerged from the bathroom, she could only stare at him with unseeing eyes. He was wearing a towelling robe, his legs bare beneath the hem, she noticed, her glance skittering away and yet somehow drawn back to his body. She was twenty-three for God’s sake, she derided herself mentally, not fifteen. But deep inside herself she was still only fifteen, locked for ever in the torment of a nightmare that featured this dark-haired man, who was now shedding his robe and getting into bed beside her.
‘Lissa?’ He tensed suddenly and for a moment Lissa thought he must have guessed the truth, but then he was frowning, throwing the bedclothes aside and pulling on his robe.
‘I can hear one of the girls crying,’ he told her tautly. ‘Listen.’
CHAPTER FIVE
IF ANYONE HAD ever told her that she would spend her wedding night comforting a distraught four-year-old she would never have believed them Lissa thought tiredly, glancing at her watch. Four o’clock in the morning and they had finally got Louise off to sleep.
‘You go back to bed,’ Joel told her. ‘I’ll sit with her now.’
It had taken both of them to calm the little girl out of her nightmare fears, but she had clung fiercely to them both once she was awake, refusing to let them go, only when Lissa had promised to stay with her, had she finally allowed Joel to go downstairs and make her a drink. Now she was sleeping at last, like Emma who had fortunately remained fast asleep throughout the whole thing.
As she crawled back into Joel’s bed, Lissa reflected with niggling impatience that she ought to be feeling relieved that Louise’s timely nightmare had occurred, but instead what she did feel was something almost approaching a sense of anti-climax. Surely she couldn’t have wanted Joel to make love to her? Of course not … Then why this strange restless sensation that was gripping her, when in reality all she ought to be doing was dropping into an exhausted sleep?
Joel woke her at seven o’clock. A dark shadow covered his jaw and his hair was ruffled untidily.
‘Sorry to wake you,’ he apologised, ‘but I’ve got to be at the factory at nine—a meeting that was arranged some time ago. I’ll have a shower and get changed … If you could keep an eye on Louise, although I think she’ll be okay now.’
‘Has she had many nightmares like that?’ Lissa asked him. He looked tired and drawn and she had a crazy impulse to touch him, to smooth the lines of tiredness away from his eyes.
‘None quite as bad as that.’ He turned towards the bathroom and Lissa slithered out of bed, tensing as he turned round unexpectedly and came over to her. Her nightdress was a long one and demure, but the bright February sunshine made the fine cotton almost transparent and the way Joel was looking at her made it impossible for her to move, even when he reached out and gently pulled her towards him.
‘Good morning Mrs Hargreaves,’ he murmured against her ear, his breath tickling her skin, sending tiny shimmers of sensation coursing over it. ‘That was some wedding night, wasn’t it?’
She turned her head opening her mouth to respond, her words silenced by the warm pressure of Joel’s lips caressing her own. Shivers of something that was not entirely fear raced through her. She made an inarticulate protest, surprised to find that Joel was holding her quite tightly, drawing her against his body, so that she was aware of the heavy thump of his heart and the warmth of his skin, and then she pulled away relieved when Joel
released her.
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he muttered smiling at her. ‘There isn’t time now for me to make love to you as I want to. Surprised that I should desire you, Lissa?’ he asked apparently reading her mind with ease.
‘I thought you didn’t like me … that you disapproved of me …’ She made the admission slowly, still a little stunned to find that her mind clung obstinately to the memory of how his mouth had felt against hers.
He studied her quietly for a moment and then said slowly, ‘Perhaps neither of us entered this marriage for the most altruistic of reasons, Lissa, but we are married, and I vote that as from now we put the past behind us, and make a completely fresh start.’
When seconds ticked by without her making any response, he released her almost abruptly, his eyes darkening, and his expression losing the elusive tenderness she had thought she glimpsed in it, and reverting to that she was more used to seeing—hard and unyielding, but Lissa was too stunned by her own thoughts and emotions to pay more than fleeting attention to Joel’s tightlipped anger. Her heart was still thudding heavily with the shock of discovering how close she had come to agreeing with Joel’s suggestion. Put the past behind them! She suppressed a half hysterical sound of pain in her throat. If only she could! But Joel didn’t know what her past really was; and it was folly almost to the point of madness to allow herself to even think of responding to the half whimsical, half tender entreaty his words had seemed to hold. She must be going crazy, she thought over an hour later, still unable to banish Joel’s image and his words from her brain. He made her feel vulnerable in a way that no other male had ever been able to do, and whilst Lissa acknowleged that much of this vulnerability sprang from the past; at least some of it was new. Shivering slightly she paced the kitchen floor. What was happening to her? Why after all these years of hating and resenting Joel was she now seeing another side to him; a side she had never imagined existed? Why … last night she had almost envied Louise because of his tenderness towards the little girl. She curled her fingers into the palms of her hands, swinging round abruptly and going upstairs. Emma was awake, but Louise was still asleep, worn out by the trauma of her nightmares.
Since they were now without a housekeeper she would at least have plenty to occupy her hands if not her mind, Lissa reflected grimly when she had washed and dressed Emma.
But keeping her hands busy did nothing to still the restless tension of her thoughts. She had been a fool to marry Joel … she couldn’t have a normal marriage with him. Even at the thought of it odd tremors raced over suddenly hot flesh, her body trembling as though he were already touching it, caressing her … Emma gazed round-eyed at her as she suddenly clapped her hands over her ears and groaned out loud. What was happening to her? Why was she feeling like this? Why now after all these years was she suddenly experiencing this conflict within herself?
By lunchtime Louise was awake, and Lissa had just settled both girls down to a light meal, when the phone rang.
The sound of Joel’s voice on the other end of the line made the tiny hairs on her arm stand on end, his curt, ‘Lissa, is something wrong?’ making her glad that he could not see her pale face and betraying eyes.
‘I’m just a bit tired that’s all,’ she told him coolly.
He asked about the girls and then told her that he had to go up to London on business and would not be back until the morning.
Having assured him that Louise seemed quite recovered, Lissa let him ring off. There was no reason in the world why she should feel this sharp stab of something very close to disappointment, no reason at all and yet she did. It came to her then, as she walked back to the girls that she had always enjoyed their encounters in the past and that she had actually derived a certain savage pleasure in her confrontations with Joel. Shaking her head over the complexity of her own emotions she tried to dismiss him from her thoughts.
By the time she had got the girls bathed and in bed, Lissa felt extremely tired. She had telephoned the local paper during the afternoon to place an ‘ad’ for a cook-cum-housekeeper, and she had also spent some time exploring the house.
Although much of the decor was not to her taste, the house itself appealed strongly to her, and as she wandered from room to room she found herself mentally refurbishing them, making plans for a future here she was not sure she had. What would Joel do if she told him the truth?
If? Lissa grimaced inwardly. There was no if about it. She had to. She had come to that decision during the afternoon. Now that the fierce hunger for revenge which had eaten away at her had gone, she knew she had little alternative. Joel was not the monster she had always told herself he was. She had only to see him with the children to know that, and Lissa knew that much of the resentment and bitterness she had hoarded against him had had its roots in her feelings towards her father—he was the one who had rejected her, but because at fifteen she had been unable to cope with such ambivalent feelings towards her parents as love and resentment, she had focused her resentment on Joel. She sighed faintly. She was not telling herself anything she did not already know. Several years ago she had made herself re-live the traumatic years of her teens and had taught herself then to analyse what she had experienced, but she had never totally thrown off her hatred of Joel … Until now.
Too emotionally restless to settle she wandered tensely from room to room, pausing occasionally to study a portrait or an object without really seeing them. It was one thing to know and accept that much of her resentment of Joel was something she had transferred from her father’s shoulders to his, but that did not explain away the sexual trauma she experienced whenever she was with someone else. Why should it always be Joel’s image that rose up to taunt her when another man held her in his arms; why not her father’s angry, forbidding features?
And why the overwhelming complex tangle of emotions she experienced whenever he was close to her? Both were questions she could not answer, any more than she could turn back time and control the tide of anger which had swept her into this marriage in the first place.
At last she settled in the sitting room, switching on the television but watching it without taking anything in. It was too early to go to bed yet—she would never sleep, and the evening stretched emptily ahead of her. The house felt different without Joel in it. What was the matter with her she chastised herself. Good heavens how many evenings had she spent alone in her London flat without feeling the slightest desire for anyone else’s company?
She curled up in one of the easy chairs, tucking her feet underneath her, gradually letting the tension ease out of her body. As soon as an opportunity presented itself to her, she must tell Joel the truth. If she didn’t and he went through with his intention of making her his wife physically as well as legally he would discover some of it at least for himself anyway, and the childish desire for revenge which had carried her into their marriage now seemed childish and incredibly foolish. What good would it really serve either of them for him to discover the hard way that physically she was unable to respond to him, other than to prove how wrong his judgments of her were? The satisfaction she would gain would be nothing when set against her embarrassment and mortification. It had been very hard for her to accept that some vital element of her femininity had been destroyed, and she couldn’t bear to lie and watch the vagrant tenderness she had thought she glimpsed in his eyes this morning, turning to bitter contempt. She had experienced the angry and frustrated reactions of too many men already for her to be in any doubt about Joel’s.
And worse he would guess that she had deliberately withheld the truth from him and why. She had seen a different side of him these last few days; one she had never guessed he possessed, and it caused a strange yearning emotion inside her.
Her eyes closed and she let her thoughts drift, ranging backwards in time and then forwards, gradually relaxing into sleep.
‘Lissa?’
She woke with a start, looking uncertainly towards the door which Joel had just opened.
The
unexpectedness of seeing him there disorientated her. She glanced at her watch, surprised to realise how long she had been asleep. It was gone twelve o’clock.
‘Joel!’ she exclaimed in a sleepy, surprised voice. ‘What are you doing back?’
She tried to move as she spoke, gasping in pain as pins and needles attacked her legs. Her own fault for falling asleep with them tucked up like that.
‘Perhaps I couldn’t bear to stay away.’
Joel’s hands on her wrists, firmly folding her hands in her lap before they moved to her legs, shocked her into immobility. He spoke calmly enough, his voice so devoid of inflection that it was impossible for her to interpret whatever motive lay behind what he was saying. Was he being sarcastic, or simply making a light joke? She shivered, as his fingers touched her skin, rubbing the tingling sensation away.
‘Are you all right?’
Now she could hear something in his voice, concern and something else she couldn’t name, that made it rough and slightly husky. She could tell that he was frowning without looking up at him, and guessed that he was aware of her tension; of the way she tried to escape his touch.
‘Fine,’ she lied, giving him a brittle, tight smile. ‘I think I’ll go up …’ She squirmed away from him, hoping he would move, but he kept his hands either side of her on the chair arms.
‘Something is wrong. What is it, Lissa?’ He turned away from her abruptly, but she was too tense to get up. ‘It’s too late now for second thoughts; for wishing that I was Greaves.’
‘I don’t …’ The denial was blurted out before she could retract it, and she felt a curious twist of emotion curl through her heart as he frowned down at her; a combination of fear and an excitement she could not analyse; a tiny thrill of apprehension.