Satisfying herself that the males in the establishment had taken themselves off, she hurried to the bathroom, stood under the shower and wondered what to do. The events of last night wouldn't go away, no matter how hard she wished they would, so she would just have to take him aside and firmly inform him that it would never, could never, happen again.
So she dressed in the neat grey suit she had brought with her to bolster her research assistant image when working with the Professor, and stared at her subdued reflection: hair neatly slicked back, face wearing only a modicum of make-up, expression suitably aloof. All very well, but would Luke accept her ploy? Would he believe that whatever madness had overtaken her last night would not be repeated?
Probably not, a nasty little inner voice told her, reminding her that during each successive confrontation between them she had given just a little bit more—and he had been quick to take what was offered! He had, she recognised sickly, adroitly led her by the nose—and she, poor sucker, had suspected nothing! But now was the time to call a definite halt. It was up to her, she knew it was, and she would do it or die in the attempt!
Apart from a slightly raised dark brow, Luke gave no hint of surprise at her choice of formal gear. He put a steaming mug of fresh coffee down on the table and asked, 'Would you like toast? Eggs?'
'We had our breakfast ages ago!' Jamie scampered up to her and flung his arms round her knees. 'Luke said not to wake you 'cos you'd had a heavy night. What's a heavy night, Annie?'
'Late to bed,' she lied, hating herself for blushing because she knew that had Jamie not felt an urgent call of nature her night would have been very heavy indeed!
Wordlessly, she shook her head at Luke's offer of breakfast, meeting his eyes just briefly before flicking her own away. She had seen something in those deep blue depths that had turned her bones to water.
Getting a hold on herself, she picked up her mug and cradled it gratefully between cold hands, wondering how she was going to get through the rest of the day if she only had to meet his eyes to go weak at the knees. So her relief was enormous when Jamie piped, 'My mommy's coming today!'
'She phoned from Birmingham about half an hour ago,' put in Luke. 'She was lucky and got a flight almost immediately. She should be here by lunchtime.'
'Great,' Annie muttered thankfully against the rim of her mug. Another twenty-four hours here, cooped up with that devil, had been something that had made her shake just to think about.
She caught his eyes on her, humorously narrowed, and swallowed the unaccountable lump in her throat with the remainder of her coffee. Today he had chosen to dress in black—a lightweight, body-hugging black sweater, narrow-fitting black denims. The sombre garb didn't make him look menacing or predatory—just devilishly attractive, and she wished, for one shattering moment, that he weren't the man he was.
Why couldn't he have been more like Norman? Norman wasn't the love 'em and leave 'em type, whereas Luke didn't know the meaning of the words commitment and fidelity! She would be plain crazy to fall into his arms for the brief affair he had in mind—no matter how much she desired him physically. He was obviously a womaniser of the worst possible kind. No man who would attempt to seduce his own cousin's fiancée could have an honourable bone in his body!
Briskly, she emptied her mind of such maunderings. He was a loner, uncommitted to anything but his work, and any relationship she entered into would have to be long-term.
'Professor Rhys is out of intensive care now, and making good progress,' Luke told her, following her to the sink where she was making a minor production of rinsing her mug.
'You phoned the hospital?' Her hands stilled suddenly, her voice emerging huskily. He was too close; his nearness made her shake inside.
'No, they sent smoke signals,' he responded drily, making her feel a fool. And worse than a fool. Useless. While she had been sleeping as though drugged, he had been up, giving Jamie his breakfast, contacting the hospital. He was a caring, responsible man, she had to give him that, and the admission shook her. And it puzzled her, too. She couldn't easily equate the caring side of his character with that of the devious seeker of immediate satisfaction he had proved himself to be. And, in any case, it would have been easier to continue to think of him as irresponsible, uncaring, intent merely on self-gratification.
She stood rigidly at the sink, the mug clasped between her hands, willing him to go away, to give her space to breathe, but he took the mug from her to hang it on the dresser, smiling faintly as if he knew how much he troubled her. And now was as good a time as any to come out with her carefully prepared speech. Jamie had disappeared so there was nothing to stop her, but although she opened her mouth no words came out.
Luke said, 'Jamie and I will be going for a walk. Won't you join us?'
The voice was coaxing, very warm, and through the window she could see the wide expanse of blue sky, a rugged snatch of landscape glittering gold and silver and green beneath the sun. And she was almost tempted until, his eyes raking her as if he could see right through the prim grey suit to the soft body beneath, he continued, 'Though I would suggest you get out of that defensive garment first. It's not much good for hill walking, or anything else.'
And that did it. It reminded her that she shouldn't willingly go anywhere with him!
'You go ahead,' she replied tartly. 'I'll get a room ready for Jamie's mother and make lunch. She's bound to be feeling washed out when she arrives,' she qualified stiffly, 'with all that travel and worry.'
She hadn't meant to make it sound as if he were callous, going out to enjoy himself while she stayed behind and worked. But it came out sounding that way and she could have sworn a flicker of distaste—and disappointment?—moved across his face before he turned away.
'Suit yourself. I'd planned on being back in plenty of time. We could have done everything necessary together.'
Together. The word imprinted itself on Annie's brain, made her throat feel tight. It held promise and pain in equal measure. Being the people they were, togetherness was out of the question, she knew that perfectly well. So why did she suddenly want to cry?
Pans were bubbling on the stove, the study fire was blazing well and coffee was percolating by the time Paula Fellows arrived. And Annie was able to tell her the latest news.
'Your father's well on the road to recovery. Luke phoned earlier, and I enquired again about half an hour ago. You can go and see him whenever you like.'
'Thank God for that!' Paula's face was ashen with fatigue and her grey eyes brimmed as she told Annie huskily, 'I can't thank you enough for stepping into the breach. I can't think what would have happened to Jamie otherwise.'
'Mrs Morgan would have taken him with her,' Annie assured her quickly and, sensing that total collapse was imminent, suggested firmly, 'Coffee, I think, by the fire. Then lunch. After you're rested I'll drive you to the hospital.'
In the event it was Luke who drove Paula to see her father while Annie played a strange hybrid of cricket and football with Jamie on the grass in front of the house. His reunion with his mother had been ecstatic. 'Where's Daddy?' he had demanded at last.
Paula, still inclined to be tearful, had told him, 'He'll be here tomorrow afternoon. He couldn't get a seat on the same flight and he's going to have to hire a car.' She had passed a shaky hand over her forehead, glancing up at Luke. 'I honestly don't know whether I'm coming or going.'
At least Jamie will be tired out by bedtime, Annie thought, as she watched the small boy dive into a thicket of rhododendrons after the ball she'd just hit. Then she lifted her head as she heard the approach of the Ferrari.
At the sight of the tall figure unwinding itself from the driver's seat Annie's heart performed a lurching somersault. Making herself tear her eyes away from him, she walked over to the shrubs, peered into the dusty depths and called, 'Your mommy's home,' disgusted to hear how husky her voice was.
Damn the man! she agonised as she watched the child emerge, his face streaked with dirt, his fat
little legs seeming to fly over the ground as he headed for the car. Luke made her feel like a young girl in love, and she wasn't a girl and she wasn't in love and she was going to have to do something drastic about it.
But what? a weary inner voice enquired as she slowly made her way back to the house. What indeed?
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was dusk. The mountains were far behind them, and the countryside showing up in the Ferrari's headlamps seemed tame by comparison. But the atmosphere inside the car wasn't tame; it was tense, almost electric.
Paula had been adamant about her ability to manage on her own.
'There's no need for you to stay a moment longer. My family's imposed on you both too much already. And Jim will be here tomorrow.'
She had been a different woman after seeing for herself the rapid progress her father was making.
'And I'm going to put my foot down about Dad living here alone,' she'd stated, battle lights glinting in her eyes. 'He knows Jim and I would love to have him live with us—there's ample room for him and all his books, and Jamie adores him.'
'So all's well that ends well,' Luke commented, uncannily taking up Annie's train of thought, before adding, with that maddening confidence of his, 'And that's the way it's going to turn out for us.'
For a moment her heart seemed to stop and a sharp visceral pain knifed through her. He obviously believed she had given him the green light last night, that her later repudiation of their earlier intimacies had stemmed from a coy, virginal need to draw breath. So now, this minute, was the ideal time to put him right.
Drawing in a ragged breath, she stared straight ahead, her eyes fixed on the headlights as they cut a dazzling swath through the twilight.
'Nothing will end for us because nothing ever began,' she stated through stiff lips. Her mouth felt numb, as if she were gradually turning to a block of stone. Weird, she thought wildly, that the verbal act of denying the strange immediacy of the disastrous attraction between them should make her feel as if she were slowly dying inside.
But she was a sensible woman and she sure as hell wasn't going to have an affair with him, and she folded her hands in her lap and stoically waited for his blistering comments.
None came. And his voice was smooth as silk when he eventually replied, 'Lie to me if you must, but don't lie to yourself, there's a good girl. You can't be an emotional coward all your life.'
Apprehensively, she darted a sideways look but his features—or what she could see of them in the dusky interior—were as equable as his voice as he continued with damning veracity.
'Something began for us at the precise moment we met. Had it not, then I would simply have decided that Monk's Hall was suitable for my purposes, made a duty visit to The Laurels as I was in the area, paid my respects to Norman and his future wife, then returned to town. One of my deputies would have sat in on the auction and I probably wouldn't have set foot in Seabourne until the Monk's Hall project was completed. I don't keep dogs to do the barking myself. But I saw you and something started, something I couldn't fight, didn't want to fight.'
He glanced at her briefly and, even through the gloom, his electric-blue eyes reached her, touched her soul, made her shake.
'I'm being as honest with you as I know how to be, so why can't you be honest with me, Annie?'
'I am being,' she lied. Suddenly the issue of what he intended to do with Monk's Hall didn't matter any more. It hurt, but it was no longer the catastrophe she had believed it to be. Catastrophic emotions only emerged when one cared deeply, and perhaps he had been right and she had been sublimating her sexual drive into a pile of bricks and mortar. The central issue now was his shameless and openly acknowledged pursuit of seduction— her seduction! And that could turn out to be a catastrophe of monumental proportions if she ever allowed it to happen. An affair, for him, would be nothing more than a pleasant interlude in a busy life, nothing more meaningful than that. But for her, making love with him would mean loving him, and it wouldn't be meaningless at all. And if she allowed him to make love to her, with no love on either side, then she would be degrading herself, and she couldn't live with that.
'Last night is something I'll always be ashamed of,' she informed him stiffly. 'It can't and won't happen again.'
A sharp hiss of indrawn breath was his only response as with one swerving movement he hauled the car off the road, braking viciously on to a layby, gravel spurting beneath squealing tyres. And for the first time ever she sensed a terrible anger in him, his former patience with her clearly a thing of the past.
His reaction to her repudiation of him frightened her. Until now he'd always been in control, his management of her—and that was what it assuredly had been—light and easy, if sometimes a little acid.
But there was something dark here now, something furious and demanding, and the face he turned to her was grim. But his anger, although it was real, was controlled and he asked her tightly, levelly, 'Do I have to make you angry again before you'll tell me what this is all about? I think we could both do without the trauma, don't you?'
'In case you'd forgotten, I happen to be engaged to Norman and I don't want a sneaky affair with you!' she countered hotly. 'Why can't you get that into your head?'
'But you are going to break with Norman, aren't you?' he stated unequivocally, and she stared ahead into the darkness, her body rigid, and told him, 'No,' flatly, because she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was right.
'And when that's behind you,' he went on grimly, as if she hadn't spoken, 'there'll be time for us. Because, whatever happens, you're going to be mine.'
'Oh, am I?' she choked, unnameable emotion clogging her throat. 'For how long? Until you tire of me? That's just great, isn't it?' she snorted, disgust with him, with the way he could churn her emotions, sparking her anger. 'You'd be willing to break up what Norman and I have, just because you've decided you want me to share your bed for a while? You've got to be the most selfish, unprincipled bastard I've ever met!'
'Maybe,' he acknowledged tautly, his fingers drumming an angry tattoo on the steering-wheel. 'But I want you, and Norman doesn't—not in the sense I mean. And, like it or not, you want me, so why the Victorian scruples? In any case, all Norman is to you is a father figure. Think about it.'
He started the engine and drew the Ferrari back on the road, seemingly unaware of her now, of her shocked reaction to his declared intent to have an affair with her. And that, more than anything else, ignited an unreasoning anger in her.
How dared he blithely assume she was like all the other women who had been willing to share his bed for brief periods of time! How dared he! He might accuse her of having Victorian morals, and maybe she had, but she just wasn't hard enough, sophisticated enough, to take casual sex in her stride, to shrug and walk away when the footloose loner re-emerged, when he tired of her and moved on to seek fresh challenges, new conquests.
It was fully dark when they reached The Laurels. Luke entered ahead of her, anger riding him still.
'Break with him. Tonight,' he commanded tersely, stalking to his room, leaving those few words hanging in the air like a threat.
A hot denial gathered in her throat and she longed to scramble after his lordly, retreating figure and scream that no way would she do a single thing he commanded her to, because she was her own woman, always would be, and she certainly wasn't his!
But a brawl like that would only alert the others to his outrageous behaviour and make hers sound as bad. Better to swallow her ire, her need to retaliate, and simply ignore him!
Swallowing her rage, she walked slowly to Norman's room. She could hear the unmistakable sounds of a Western clear through the door.
Tonight she would break their engagement, but not because Luke had told her to. She had to do it for her own sake, and for Norman's. Almost regretfully, she recognised the change in herself that made marriage to Norman no longer possible.
Luke had taught her that she was capable of passion. Luke wa
s wrong for her, of course; she had no intention of gratifying his whim for a short-term affair. But one day the right man for her might come along and then, she knew, she would be capable of a deep and enduring love. So she would break their engagement and she knew, without a doubt, that her only emotion in the aftermath would be one of relief. Knew, too, that Norman would not be hurt. Maybe his pride would suffer a little to begin with, but even that might remain untouched because his emotions had never been involved, either.
She pushed open the door, the retort of rifles, the drumming of hoofbeats, which issued from the set drowning out the sound of her entry.
Norman and Joan were absorbed, her armchair pulled up at his bedside, a box of chocolates on the counterpane between them. They looked the archetypal middle-aged couple, contented and comfortable with each other, the knowledge of the other like the knowledge of self. And in that moment, before her presence was noted, Annie prayed that Norman would eventually see where his best hope of companionship and undemanding happiness lay. Joan would make him a far better wife than she could ever have done herself.
She moved, caught their attention, saw Norman register surprise—nothing more—and recognised something hostile in Joan's eyes before she got up and lowered the sound.
'We didn't expect you.' Norman sounded almost annoyed and Annie, smiling politely, perched on the end of his bed.
'I should have phoned, I'm sorry. Anyway, how's the back?'
'Improving slowly.' He smiled at her then.
Joan, though, rushing around collecting their used coffee-cups, put in, 'Have you and Luke eaten? If you'd bothered to let us know when to expect you, I could have had something ready.'
'Not since lunch,' Annie told her. She wasn't particularly hungry herself, but Luke might be, though why that should bother her she didn't stop to analyse. 'I'll fix something for him, you carry on watching your film.'
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