by Penny Jordan
She paused, and Jake could see the tears she was fighting to blink away glittering in her eyes as he cursed himself inwardly for his stupidity. The last thing he’d wanted to do was to hurt her and he ached to be able to make her understand that loving someone, really loving them, had nothing to do with what they wore or how the rest of the world perceived them, and everything to do with what they were, and that a man who could only love a woman he could display on his arm like a pretty trinket wasn’t, in his opinion, much of a man at all. But how could he?
CHAPTER SIX
‘THIS way; we haven’t finished yet.’
Lucianna frowned as Jake took hold of her upper arm in a firm grip and turned her towards the shop facing them.
‘New underwear,’ he added succinctly, although no explanation had really been needed—not with Lucianna well able to see what kind of apparel the shop he was indicating sold from the items on display in its window—undies which bore absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the plain, sensible chain-store things she normally wore.
‘I don’t need any new underwear,’ Lucianna denied untruthfully, glowering at Jake as she saw his disbelieving expression.
‘No?’ he questioned sardonically. ‘You surely weren’t planning to wear those no doubt sensible but far from sensually appealing items of female apparel you were removing from the washing line when I called round the other week for the welcome-home seduction scene you’re planning for John’s return, are you? Because if so…’ He paused without finishing what he was saying, and added obliquely, ‘Besides, they’d show through under those silky trousers.’
Lucianna opened her mouth to argue with him and then closed it again.
She might need new underwear to complement her new clothes but there was no way she was going to buy it with Jake there.
‘I haven’t got time today,’ she told him loftily. ‘I’ve got a customer’s car booked in for a service at half past four.’
‘Really? Well, in that case we’d better make a move,’ Jake accepted. ‘It’s almost four now,’ he told her.
They were halfway back to the car when he suddenly said musingly, ‘I suppose you could always do without any underwear at all; that way the fabric would certainly hang well and of course, as you’ll no doubt have learned by now from your books, from a man’s point of view it’s a very definite ego boost to know that a woman wants you so much that she’s already prepared herself for sex with you and she wants you to know it.’
Lucianna stopped dead and gave Jake a murderous look, her face burning with angry heat as she denied furiously, ‘I would never do anything like that…How dare you suggest I might?’
The naivety of her angry indignation should have made him feel guilty instead of pleased, Jake acknowledged as they walked on with Lucianna maintaining a stormy silence, because he recognised that he had deliberately used a verbal description to conjure up an image he’d known she would find unappealing.
He could have, for instance, told her that there was nothing a man, and more specifically himself, would have found more erotic and emotional, as well as physically arousing than the knowledge that the only tantalising barrier between his hands, his mouth and her skin was the outward formality of her elegant trousers and top, and that beneath them her skin, her body, was deliciously and wantonly naked. He could have told her that nothing was guaranteed to make him ache more than to be with her in a public place knowing that…
Determinedly he shook his head, reminding himself sternly of the danger of such thoughts.
It had been a shock to see her emerging from that changing room looking both so soignée and glamorous and yet at the same time too vulnerably unsure of herself. He had been hard put to it not to snatch her up into his arms and keep her there, to tell her exactly how he felt about her, how he had always felt about her, and for a moment the temptation had been such that it had been touch and go whether he would be able to control it—and himself.
Broodingly he watched her as she stormed across the car park ahead of him, still obviously angry with him, her head held high, shoulders back. Half of him wanted to take hold of her and show her physically if necessary just why a man who really cared, really loved her, would love her, want her exactly the way she was, and the other half prayed that she would never, ever have to suffer the disillusionment and pain of discovering just how unworthy of her love precious John actually was.
Lucianna hummed softly to herself as she gave the ancient Morris Traveller she had just been servicing a little pat.
Bessie belonged to one of their neighbours, Shelagh Morrison, and Shelagh herself had inherited the car from her grandmother in Dublin, who had, in turn, been given her as a gift by her late husband, Shelagh’s grandfather, and Bessie was therefore considered to be more of a family pet than a mere car and had to be treated accordingly.
‘She’s horrendous to drive and expensive to keep and, if I’m honest, I much prefer my BMW,’ Shelagh had confided once to Lucianna. ‘And yet I just can’t bring myself to part with her. I’m just thankful that you’re able to service her for me. They told me at my BMW dealership garage that I was lucky to have found someone who could.’
Lucianna glanced at her watch now. She’d just got time to get Bessie washed and polished before Shelagh came to collect her. Her smile turned to a small frown as she saw a car come racing down the farm lane. Whoever was driving it was driving far too fast for the lane and its country environment and Lucianna’s frown deepened as the car swung into the yard and she recognised its driver.
What was Felicity doing out here? She hadn’t come to tell Lucianna that they’d had another fax from John, presumably. Lucianna wiped her hands on her dungarees and started to walk towards her.
In contrast to her own sensible mud- and farmyard-proof dungarees and boots Felicity was wearing spiky-heeled, strappy sandals and a short—very short, Lucianna noticed—white dress.
‘Oh, Luc, good! I’m glad you’re here!’ Felicity exclaimed as soon as Lucianna was within earshot. ‘My car is making the most peculiar noise; could you look at it for me?’
‘I can,’ Lucianna agreed, glancing immediately at the car’s relatively new number plate, ‘but isn’t it still under warranty?’
She remembered how impressed John had been when Felicity’s then boyfriend had bought her the car as a twenty-first-birthday present, commenting much to Lucianna’s chagrin, ‘But you can’t blame him for going overboard and trying to impress her. She is a real stunner…’
Stunner or not, she was certainly not mechanically minded, Lucianna decided ten minutes later, having run the engine of the Toyota and heard it making no noise other than a clean, healthy purr.
‘What sort of noise was it making exactly?’ she asked Felicity cautiously once she had checked out all the obvious potential faults.
‘I don’t really know…it was just…you know, a noise…’ Felicity told her unhelpfully. ‘Heavens, you are clever,’ she added. ‘I don’t know the remotest thing about car engines. Not that I would particularly want to,’ she added. ‘All that dirt and grease…It must ruin your nails and your hands. Ugh…
‘By the way,’ she added conversationally when Lucianna made no response, ‘who was that guy you were with when I saw you in town the other day? I rather thought I recognised him from somewhere but…’
‘Jake, you mean?’ Lucianna asked her as she closed the bonnet of the car. ‘He’s…’ On the point of launching into an explanation of Jake’s background and position in their local society, she suddenly changed her mind, alerted by some female sixth sense as to what was really behind Felicity’s seemingly innocent question—which was confirmed by the predatory, eager look in the other girl’s eyes. ‘Oh, he’s just a neighbour,’ she said dismissively instead.
‘A neighbour?’ The other girl’s eyes widened slightly and then narrowed as she gave Lucianna an assessing look before starting to smile and then laughing. ‘That’s typical of you, Luc,’ she commented, and then added for no
apparent reason, ‘I could never do a job like yours.’
‘So you’ve already mentioned,’ Lucianna agreed tersely.
‘I’d hate having to wear such unfeminine clothes,’ she continued, apparently oblivious to Lucianna’s increasing desire to bring her call to an end. ‘I like to wear soft, silky things next to my skin—silk underwear…Do you ever wear silk underwear, Luc?’
‘Not under my dungarees,’ Lucianna returned woodenly.
‘I don’t suppose you ever wear stockings either, do you, Lucianna?’ she queried, giving Lucianna a faintly malicious look. ‘John often teases me about wearing them.’
Lucianna looked away from her, determined not to let her see how hurtful she found her revelations—revelations which she was beginning to suspect were fully intended to be hurtful and to underline the differences between them. Well, anyone could buy a pair of stockings—and wear them. Lucianna’s heart suddenly seemed to start beating a little faster.
That was twice now within the same twenty-four hours that she had been told that her choice of underwear lacked man-appeal, and even the book she had been reading on flirtation had stressed that it was perfectly acceptable for a woman to indulge in a small amount of sensually teasing dressing.
She took a deep breath as she came to a sudden decision.
‘I can’t see that there’s anything wrong with your car,’ she told Felicity firmly. ‘But it might be as well if you took it back to the dealership and got them to check it over just in case.’
She looked at her watch. ‘I’m sorry but I’ve got to get the Traveller washed and polished before its owner comes back for it.’ And then, quite deliberately, she turned away from the other girl to show her that she expected her to leave.
If Felicity was so determined to make fun of her then Lucianna couldn’t stop her, but she certainly wasn’t going to help her, nor was she going to let her use her as a means of trying to get an introduction to Jake.
Did she really think that she, Lucianna, was so stupid, so lacking in female awareness, that she wouldn’t realise just what she was really after underneath all that patently untrue concern about her car? If Felicity had been a little bit more open and honest with her, if she hadn’t taken such delight in underlining the fact that John found her attractive, then she might have felt more inclined to help, Lucianna decided. And she might even have felt enough female fellow-feeling for her to warn her that Jake was no stranger to female admiration, even though he might have said to her this afternoon that it had been a long time since his last relationship.
Determinedly keeping her face averted, Lucianna didn’t turn round until she heard the Toyota’s engine die away as the other girl drove back the way she had come.
If she was so interested in Jake then let her find another way of bringing herself to his attention. The two of them would be well suited, Lucianna decided angrily.
‘What’s wrong with you? You haven’t spoken a word all through supper,’ David said in concern.
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Lucianna told her brother quickly.
In point of fact the reason why she had not contributed very much to the suppertime conversation was that she was still reflecting on the events of the day. As she looked towards the window, she was mentally contrasting the visual difference between her own dungaree-clad body and the sultry, deliberately sensual swing of Felicity’s hips in the short skirt she had been wearing, the way she had run her fingertips down along her thigh as she’d moved. She recalled the other girl’s comment about how John teased her about her stockings.
There had been stockings in the window of that underwear shop Jake had directed her attention to this afternoon—stockings attached to the most frivolously feminine garter, with a tiny pair of briefs to match.
‘I’m going over to Ryedales tomorrow. They’re taking delivery of a new state-of-the-art harvester and bailer. Want to come with me?’
Lucianna looked at her brother then shook her head.
‘I can’t,’ she told him. ‘I’ve…I’ve got some shopping to do.’
Behind Lucianna’s back Janey quickly and very firmly shook her head in her husband’s direction, warning him not to make any comment.
‘Lucianna going shopping…I don’t believe it,’ David commented to Janey later, when they were on their own. ‘She’s really got it badly for this John.’
‘She’s a woman, David,’ Janey reminded him gently. ‘And she’s just beginning to discover the pleasure of what being a woman means, of taking pride in herself and her femininity.’
‘But she’s always been such a tomboy…’
‘Because that was what all of you expected her to be,’ Janey told him firmly. ‘But she isn’t a teenager any more, she’s a woman now, and a very, very attractive one…’
‘Luce?’
‘Luce,’ Janey confirmed, shaking her head in faint exasperation at the brotherly disbelief in his voice and adding spiritedly and, so far as David was concerned, very cryptically, ‘And if you don’t believe me then ask Jake…’
‘Jake…? What…?’
Shaking her head again, Janey gave him an enigmatic smile.
Men. Why was it that even the nicest of them could be so obtuse at times?
‘Jake’s been on the phone,’ Janey announced as Lucianna walked into the kitchen the following morning. ‘He’s got to go away for a few days—something about some business matters needing attention. He said to tell you that he’ll be back by the end of the week.’
Jake was away. Lucianna’s heart gave an unexpectedly intense flurry of small thuds which she told herself quickly were no doubt due to relief that she would be relieved of his odious and demanding presence for a small oasis of time.
She suddenly found herself wondering whether these business matters Jake so unexpectedly had to attend to might involve the presence of a female travelling companion, a someone with whom Jake might share whatever private time these business matters might allow him, a someone who might enjoy being taken shopping and dressed up in those same, so silky, frivolous bits of nonsense which had kept manifesting themselves throughout her troubled dreams last night.
Not that she cared. No, of course she didn’t. Why should she? Jake could buy underwear for as many other females as he chose—it was nothing to her! Nothing at all.
Janey frowned as Lucianna pushed away her cereal virtually untouched. Perhaps David was right after all and Lucianna did genuinely love John. Janey sincerely hoped not—for several reasons!
‘I’d better go upstairs and get changed. I’ve got some shopping to do this morning,’ Lucianna told her sister-in-law, abruptly coming to the decision she had been tussling with.
It was an easy enough task for Lucianna to drive to the shopping complex and find the shop Jake had pointed out to her the previous day. What proved far harder was actually making herself open the shop door and go inside.
In the end it was the friendly and slightly concerned smile of the girl behind the counter inside the shop, who had already glanced in her direction several times, that finally gave Lucianna the impetus to push open the door and go in.
‘It is hard to choose, isn’t it?’ the girl commented as Lucianna glanced uncertainly around, thoroughly bewildered not just by the multiplicity of styles and colours in which the underwear was displayed but also by the confusing language in which it was described. ‘Would you like some help?’ the salesgirl continued.
Lucianna took a deep breath, nodding. Since she was the only customer in the shop she didn’t exactly feel comfortable fibbing that she was simply browsing.
‘Are you looking for something for yourself?’ the salesgirl queried, and when Lucianna nodded again she enquired further, ‘Is it for a special occasion or to go under a specific outfit? For instance, we recommend either a string or these to go under trousers,’ she explained, taking in Lucianna’s jeans-clad figure with a brief but professional glance and pointing to a nearby display.
The ‘string’, as she described
it, made Lucianna gnaw worriedly at her bottom lip. She could just imagine Jake’s reaction to the idea of her wearing such a delicate feminine wisp of underwear.
‘It’s far more practical and hard-wearing than it looks,’ the salesgirl informed her, taking it off its hanger and proving her point by stretching the skimpy white lace garment.
‘I wear them myself, and they’re great under even the tightest jeans or anything where you don’t want to show any knicker line. My boyfriend thinks they’re rather neat as well,’ she added with a conspiratorial grin.
‘We do sell these as well, of course,’ she added, her voice and expression thoroughly professional once more as she replaced the string with its fellows and removed the other pair of knickers she had pointed out to Lucianna.
‘Big knickers, we call them,’ she explained wryly, ‘and of course they do give an equally neat outline, but we do tend to find that they don’t sell quite as well as the strings. Men don’t like them,’ she told Lucianna, before turning away and waving her hand around the shop floor. ‘Of course, if you’re after something a little bit more frivolous, something that’s more flirty than functional, we do several mix-and-match ranges that include everything from silk or satin teddies right through to balconette bras, French knickers…’
Lucianna took another deep, steadying breath and, before she could lose her nerve, blurted out, ‘Er…actually, I was wondering…Do you sell suspender belts?’
To her relief the girl didn’t betray by so much as a flicker of an eyelash that she found anything unusual in her request.
‘Oh, yes, they’re over here,’ she told Lucianna, indicating and walking towards another display.
‘I must say I don’t wear them very often myself since I tend to go for trousers rather than skirts, but just once in a while I have to admit there’s something rather special and sexy about wearing stockings.
‘This is one of our most popular ranges, especially with brides,’ she said, removing a delicate garter belt of white silk and lace from the rack and holding it out for Lucianna’s inspection. ’We do a matching strapless bustier-cum-corset piece, which is ideal for strapless dresses, but if it’s just the belt you want I can definitely recommend this one. And these are the briefs that go with it,’ she added, reaching for a pair which Lucianna could see on a display behind her.