'I couldn't wait until tomorrow,' he explained, 'so I took a chance that you would invite me in for that cup of coffee I turned down the other night.'
Clad in beige slacks and polo-necked sweater beneath a brown leather jacket, he exuded a masculinity that threatened to take her breath away, and she turned away from the mocking scrutiny of those steel-grey eyes in the hope that her heart would ease its wild pace. 'I was in the process of making myself a cup of coffee,' she told him.
'Then I timed it perfectly,' he said, and to her dismay followed her into the small kitchen, his presence somehow dominating the limited space. She switched on the kettle and took down a second mug to spoon instant coffee into it, but she was aware of Jarvis with every fibre of her being, and she prayed that he would not see the tremor in her hands. 'Did you miss me?' he added.
His unexpected query almost startled her into revealing the truth, but she controlled herself in time. 'Was I supposed to?'
'Don't be evasive when all I require is a straight yes or no!' His voice was harsh, and his hand on her shoulder spun her round until she was looking a long way up into his equally harsh face.
'I feel as if I've been put into the witness stand!' She laughed to ease the tension that had risen between them, and she altered her voice dramatically when she added: 'Please answer the questions put to you, and remember you are on oath!'
'Well?' he demanded.
'I did find myself thinking about you at odd times,' she confessed when the look in his eyes warned her that nothing but the truth would suffice.
'Ah!' he sighed, a flicker of triumph in his razor-sharp eyes.
'Does that tell you what you want to know?' she asked with a hint of mockery in the smile that curved her sensitive mouth.
'No further questions.'
'I don't believe it!' she exclaimed in mock surprise, turning from him when the kettle boiled, and moments later she faced him again with a mug in her hand. 'Your coffee, Mr Attorney.'
'Thank you, George.'
Their fingers touched briefly as the mug exchanged hands, and a current of electricity seemed to shoot up her arm. 'Don't call me George!'
'Don't call me Mr Attorney,' he countered mockingly.
'Do we have an agreement on that?' Their glances met and held, making her realise that their present conversation was merely a cover for that almost static mutual awareness.
'We have.' He inclined his head slightly.
'Wonderful!' Her voice was flippant, but her pulses were racing, and it took a concentrated effort to break free of the spell she was certain he was casting on her. 'Shall we drink our coffee in the lounge?'
Jarvis did not react at once, and her heart leapt. His glance lingered briefly on the pulse beating frantically at the base of her throat before he stepped aside and allowed her to pass. If Gina had imagined he would give her a little more room to breathe in the lounge, then she was mistaken. His fingers snaked about her wrist, and she was forced to sit next to him on the sofa. Her alarm spiralled, but somehow she succeeded in looking outwardly calm.
He shrugged himself out of his leather jacket, and the muscles rippled beneath the expensive sweater which was moulded to his powerful chest and arms. He questioned her about her family while they drank their coffee, and their mundane conversation somehow eased the tension from her body until she began to relax her guard. That was what Jarvis wanted, a part of her mind warned. When her guard was down he would pounce like the good attorney he was, and she would be totally defenceless without the barriers he had dismantled.
'I almost forgot,' she said much later. 'Thanks for the roses, they were beautiful.'
'You're beautiful,' he said, his voice as much a caress as the fingers that slid beneath her hair to stroke the nape of her neck gently.
'Jarvis, don't!' she pleaded, leaning away from him to escape those unexpected shivers of pleasure that raced through her.
'Don't what?' he smiled ironically. 'Don't tell you you're beautiful, or don't touch you?'
'Both!'
'That's going to be rather difficult,' he told her. 'I'm accustomed to speaking my mind, and since I saw you again at my mother's funeral I've been wanting to touch you in any and every possible way.'
Her cheeks went pink with embarrassment, and she lowered her long, silky lashes as she rose to her feet to put a safer distance between them. He had been in her thoughts almost every waking moment during the past two days, but his words struck a chord that awakened a fear in her.
'Don't play games with me, Jarvis,' she begged without turning to face him. 'I have neither the desire nor the experience for it.'
She had not heard him get up to follow her, but she felt him behind her, and his hands were firm and warm on her shoulders when he turned her to face him.
'I'm well past the stage of wanting to play games,' he assured her with a vibrant note in his voice that quickened her pulse.
His warm mouth shifted over hers to explore, taste and savour her lips with a featherlight sensuality to which she responded with a growing excitement. A tremor raced through her body, leaving in its wake a melting warmth that made her lean against him weakly with her hands sliding up along his broad back to cling to his wide shoulders.
Gina's mind felt drugged, and his sensual kisses aroused an aching longing that surged through her to sharpen on desire when his hands moulded her more firmly to the hard curve of his male body. He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her throat, and she was too hopelessly lost to realise that he was easing down the zip of her dressing-gown when he held her a little away from him. It was only when his hands cupped the swell of her breasts that she realised what he had done, but the unexpected pleasure of his touch sent a jerky little sigh past her lips. The exciting, probing caress of Jarvis's fingers felt so right it could not be wrong, but that was where the danger lay, and it was with this sobering thought that she pulled away from him to zip up her dressing-gown with trembling fingers.
'No, Jarvis!' she protested huskily when he would have pulled her back into his arms. 'I think it's time you went home.'
There was a gleam of mockery in his eyes when he slid a lazy, sensual finger across her flushed cheek. 'Will you have dinner with me Tuesday evening?'
'I'd like that,' she accepted his invitation, and the smile that curved his sensuous mouth made her breath catch in her throat.
'I'll pick you up at seven,' he said, kissing her lightly on the lips and walking away from her to collect his jacket. 'Goodnight, my sweet.'
My sweet? If that was an endearment, then it sounded quite alien on his lips, and Gina stood with a bemused expression on her face long after Jarvis had let himself out.
Jarvis did not take Gina to Vittorio's for dinner on Tuesday evening. He took her instead to a place where the intimacy of the atmosphere made her feel as if they were the only people in the small restaurant. They talked throughout dinner, exchanging opinions and ideas about certain things, and sometimes arguing a point of interest.
'I missed you, Gina,' he said when they were drinking their coffee, his eyes mocking and probing simultaneously when they met hers. 'Did you miss me?'
She thought of how the hours had dragged for her until he had picked her up at her flat earlier that evening, but she answered cautiously. 'I have looked forward to this evening very much.'
'Then you did miss me?'
'Yes, I did,' she admitted before she could prevent herself.
'Ah!' he smiled triumphantly, leaning back in his chair to study her with mocking eyes. 'I'm very glad to hear that.'
'There are times when I don't like you very much, and this happens to be one of them.' She tried very hard to look annoyed, but the corners of her mouth quivered into a smile which could not be suppressed. 'You have a diabolical way of making me say things I have no intention of saying at all!'
His heavy eyebrows rose above mocking, vaguely accusing eyes. 'Is it so terrible to tell the truth?'
'No,' she answered gravely, 'but a girl ought to keep a ma
His smile faded as he leaned towards her across the table, and his hand captured hers unexpectedly. 'Will you come with me to Eldorado?'
'Eldorado?' she echoed, his touch almost as disconcerting as his query. 'Why do you want to go to Eldorado, and why at this time of night?'
'I have a sudden yen to visit my home,' he explained. 'And you haven't been there since my mother passed away, have you?'
'No, I haven't.' Her fingers trembled slightly in his, and she swallowed hard. 'I couldn't bear the thought of going to Eldorado knowing that she wouldn't be there.'
'Then come with me now.'
The thought of visiting Eldorado with Jarvis did not conjure up those fearful feelings she had had at the thought of going there on her own, and she nodded. 'I'll go with you.'
Eldorado was in darkness when they turned into the sweeping, circular drive and, caught in the powerful beams of the Jaguar, it was a magnificent, if somewhat sad, sight to behold. The servants would no doubt have kept it in order, but it seemed inanimate without Evelyn Cain there to breathe life into it. The two-storeyed house was etched sombrely against the night sky when they ascended the shallow steps on to the pillared portico, and a little shiver raced up Gina's spine when Jarvis produced a key to unlock the heavy oak door. It swung open on oiled hinges beneath his hand, and he stepped inside to switch on the light in the hall while Gina remained on the doorstep, her eyes wide and dark in a face that had gone strangely white. It would take time to find joy in remembering.
Jarvis turned to look at her, and his mouth tightened at what he saw. He held out his hand to her in silence, and there was comfort in the clasp of his strong, warm fingers about hers when he drew her inside and closed the door against the chill of the autumn night. He led her into the living-room and switched on the lights. Everything was as Gina remembered it. The gleam of polish on the wood of the furniture, the comfortably padded sofa and antique chairs arranged around the stone fireplace, and the wine-red velvet of the curtains at the windows. The three weeks since Aunt Evelyn's death might not have been. Nothing had been altered, everything was exactly the way her aristocratic godmother had preferred it, and Gina could almost make herself believe that at any moment Evelyn would walk into the living-room with that warm, welcoming smile creasing her lined face.
'Would you like a sherry?'
Jarvis's query startled her back to the reality of the present, and she was quivering in every limb as if from cold when she turned to see him opening the doors of the tall mahogany cupboard in the corner. 'Thank you, that would be nice.'
She watched the golden-brown liquid being poured into two crystal glasses, and Jarvis's eyes narrowed to discerning slits when her trembling fingers closed about the stem of the glass he offered her. He crossed the room to stand in front of the fireplace beneath the magnificent painting of a fox-hunt in progress, and his eyes were watchful as he gestured her towards a chair. But she could not sit down: she had a sudden, crazy desire to run like the fox in the painting. Instead, she wandered about the room, sliding her fingers lightly over the furniture while she sipped her sherry, welcoming its steadying influence.
'I've always loved this old house.' She broke the strained silence between them, her fingers absently exploring the intricate carvings in the backrest of the chair her godmother had favoured, and her sweeping glance encompassing the living-room from its beamed ceiling down to the Persian rugs covering the polished floor. 'Each room has such exquisite character,' she continued thoughtfully, 'but it's a house that needs to be lived in… and laughed in.'
The latter had been sadly lacking for many years, but perhaps some day… when Jarvis lost his aversion to marriage… and there were children… ! An unexpected stab of pain brought tears to her eyes, but she blinked them away hastily.
'Would you like to live here?' Jarvis's deep voice cut across her thoughts, and her fingers stilled their exploration of the rose carved into the wooden backrest of a chair.
'I couldn't possibly do that.'
'If you married me we could live here together.'
Her heart leapt wildly in her breast, but her logical mind warned that it would be a mistake to take him seriously, and she donned a rigid, expressionless mask to hide her inner torment when she turned to face him. 'Don't be silly, Jarvis.'
He raised a quizzical eyebrow. 'Does the thought of marrying me not appeal to you?'
Gina was not sure how to deal with a situation such as this. Should she take him seriously and risk his mockery, or should she play safe and laugh it off? She did neither. Her anger rose sharply to dictate her actions, and her annoyance was clearly evident in her husky voice when she placed her empty glass on the low table beside her. 'This is a ridiculous conversation!' she told him.
'I'm serious, Gina.' He pushed himself away from the mantelpiece and his glass followed hers down on to the table. His features were stern, and there was no sign of mockery in the eyes that held hers for interminable seconds before he lowered his gaze to that pulse at the base of her throat which was so clearly conveying her distress. 'Marry me, and live here with me as my wife.'
'Stop it, Jarvis!' she ordered sharply, desperate now to bring to an end a situation that was developing into something painfully beyond her control. 'Don't talk about marriage when I happen to know that it's the last thing you want, and I'm beginning to wish you'd find someone else to entertain yourself with until Lilian Ulrich returns from her overseas trip!'
The height and breadth of him dominated her when he stepped towards her with an angry gesture of dismissal. 'If you think I find this entertaining, then you're mistaken. I asked you to marry me, and I expect an answer.'
The ensuing silence was fraught with a tension that seemed to emanate from Jarvis more than herself, and into this silence came the sound of the clock on the mantelpiece chiming eleven. Her nerves objected to that musical reminder of the time. It jarred and made her wince inwardly, and finally there was blessed silence once again. She was aware of Jarvis observing her intently, waiting for her to say something, but she had no intention of prolonging the conversation.
'Take me home, please,' she said icily, picking up her wrap and handbag, but they were removed from her hands as if her fingers had been deprived of the strength to hold on to them.
'Later,' he said, pulling her into his arms and setting his hard mouth purposefully on hers.
There had been no warning so that Gina could make an attempt at avoiding that fierce embrace, and consequently there had been not one iota of resistance in her body when she found herself moulded to his muscular frame. Neither was there any question of not responding; it came as naturally as breathing, and the searing passion of his kisses lit an answering fire in her which she could not have checked even if she had wanted to. Her slender body yielded with a trembling expectancy beneath his skilful hands, and her lips moved against his with a hunger that made her wish this moment would never end. His fiery mouth trailed explosive little kisses along her throat to her shoulder, and she could not suppress the shudder of pleasure that shook through her.
His hand worked its way through her hair until her scalp tingled with the touch of his fingers, and her eyes, stormy now with aroused passion, did not waver from his smouldering glance. 'You do love me, don't you, Gina?'
'Yes… oh, yes!' she admitted without hesitation or sense of shame. There was no point in shutting her mind to the obvious truth. She had fallen in love with him as a child and, despite her attempts to overcome it, she had never stopped loving him.
'Marry me, Gina,' he murmured, his lips exploring the smooth line of her jaw, and a bone-melting weakness invaded her body.
She had lost the power to think clearly, and the answer she gave came straight from her heart. 'If you really mean it, then yes… I'll marry you, Jarvis.'
CHAPTER FIVE
Gina was seated next to Jarvis at the centre of the long stinkwood table in Eldorado's main dining-room. She lowered her gaze to the plain gold band that had joined her engagement ring on her finger, and still found it difficult to believe that Jarvis had actually relinquished his much desired freedom to make her his wife.
There had been times during the past three weeks of hectic preparation when she had paused to wonder if she had not been too hasty in accepting his proposal, and whether they were not rushing into something they might both regret, but she had never voiced her misgivings to Jarvis. In his presence they had seemed so unimportant, so absurd, and she had repeatedly shrugged them aside.
Their wedding had been a very private ceremony which they had shared with family, and a few close friends whom they had invited to join them afterwards at Eldorado for a reception in the form of a luncheon party. They were a jovial group of people seated around the table, eating, and drinking champagne, and Gina's glance skipped across several unfamiliar face before it settled on Harold Ashton. The lawyer was looking rather more austere than when she had been called to his office to learn about the legacy her godmother had left her, but she did not pause to wonder at the reason for his expression as her glance shifted on to Clifford and Susan. They were holding hands and smiling at each other, perhaps at the memory of their own wedding day, and seated close to them was her father, Raymond Osborne. There had been a moistness in his eyes when he had taken her into the church, and even now, as she thought about it, it brought a lump to her throat.
Gina distanced herself from them all for a moment to look at Jarvis. Her glance lingered on the strong line of his jaw, and the stern yet sensuous mouth. She had never imagined she could love a man with such intensity, and it frightened her to some extent to know that she had placed herself in such a vulnerable position. He turned his head then as if he had sensed her appraisal, and, when their glances collided, she glimpsed an expression in his eyes that gave rise to a vague uneasiness which she could not explain. That look was gone the next instant to be replaced by his now familiar mocking smile, and her pulses raced as if his smile was the key to her heart's mechanism.
-->