Vows Made in Secret

by Louise Fuller

  Shifting his weight slightly, he turned his head and stared down into her face.

  Prudence looked up at him in silence. Her head was still spinning but she didn’t want to speak anyway. For to speak would be to break the spell. Drifting her fingers over the flat muscles of his stomach, she bit her lip. It had felt so good—too good, she thought, heat colouring her cheeks as she remembered the sharp intensity of her climax. But then, making love with Laszlo had always been shockingly exciting. It was hardly surprising that her body still responded to him so fiercely.

  She felt a twinge of alarm. Hardly surprising, but not particularly sensible. Her eyes closed. There was nowhere to hide from what she’d done.

  She’d made love with Laszlo. A man who had broken her heart seven years ago and made her feel worthless and stupid. A man who, she’d since found out, had lied to her for the entire length of their relationship but who held her responsible for ending their affair. Her eyes opened. Oh, if that wasn’t messy enough, he was both her boss and apparently her husband too.

  She shivered and, frowning, he pulled her against the warmth of his chest.

  ‘You’re not cold, are you?’

  She managed a weak smile. ‘No. I was just listening to the storm. I think it’s moving off.’

  Laszlo reached out and cupped her chin with his other hand. ‘It’s not, you know. It’s right here. In this room. Can’t you feel it?’

  His fingers began to drift languidly over her stomach and lower, to the triangle of soft curls at the top of her thighs. She knew she should push him away, tell him to stop, but already she could feel her pulse quicken in response.

  ‘We need to get dressed,’ she whispered quickly, for soon she wouldn’t be able to speak or think or even be aware of anything except the ruthless seeking rhythm of his caresses. ‘For lunch.’

  His fingers stilled and then she felt a sharp tug, like a fish hook in her stomach, as his warm palm slid over her breast, pulling gently at the nipple until she felt soft and hot and aching inside.

  ‘I can’t wait that long,’ he murmured, catching her hand and pushing it down towards his groin. ‘I’m too hungry.’

  Without giving her a chance to reply he lifted her hips and drew her against him, his mouth stifling her soft gasp of excitement. And even though something deep inside her knew she was heading for disaster she arched herself willingly against him as the fierce heat swept over her again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  GLANCING UP AT the window, Prudence frowned as a few small drops of rain hit the glass. Mr de Zsadany—she still thought of him as that privately—had given her the afternoon off and she’d been hoping to walk into the nearby village. Now that plan would have to wait. She sighed. Not that it mattered really; she had a stack of books by her bed or she could even just watch some old black and white movie on TV.

  She bit her lip. Only that would mean going back to the cottage. Her face flared, as it did every time she remembered that scene inside the living room: she and Laszlo, their bodies fused together, moving effortlessly against and inside each other, outside of time and reality. Her happiness had been absolute—and for the first time in such a long while she had felt savagely alive.

  Only now, back in reality, she had to face facts. She’d simply picked up from where she’d left off seven years ago. Only at least then they’d actually been in love—or she had. And to Laszlo, at least, she had been—her mind shrank from the words—his wife.

  Crossly, she snatched up a pile of papers and stuffed them without her usual care into a file. Now she was nothing more than a fool and a clichéd fool at that. She shook her head. The castle might be a romantic setting but the truth was more prosaic: she’d just slept with her boss. Like some naive heroine in a lurid story, she’d allowed herself to be swept away by a tide of fate and coincidence. And lust!

  She blinked. What was wrong with her? She had practically invited him to have sex with her. Her stomach clenched and she felt a pang of queasiness. How could she? Knowing what she knew about him and how he felt about her. For someone who’d vowed never to fall for his charms again, she’d certainly fallen into his arms with almost embarrassing alacrity.

  Biting her lip, she picked up a paperweight and thumped it down on top of a pile of certificates. Who was she trying to kid? What had happened between her and Laszlo had been inevitable. But also horribly confusing. Lying in his arms had felt so natural, so familiar—as if she still belonged to him. And afterwards, when he’d pulled her against him, kissing her passionately right up until the moment before he’d calmly ushered her into lunch, that too had felt as if it meant something.

  She frowned. But it hadn’t. What they’d shared had just been sex. And after seven years of occasional dates and virtual celibacy, what she’d been feeling had simply been loneliness and lust. Only it had been impossible for her to see that, because intimacy with Laszlo shouldered out all rational thought.

  She sighed. It was too late for regrets. All she could do now was keep her distance. Which shouldn’t be hard, given that shortly after she’d let him take what he wanted he’d simply disappeared, slipping away like a swallow at the end of summer.

  Picking up a box of files, she glanced round the empty room dispiritedly and sighed. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she could make her longing for him disappear just as easily?

  An hour later, hair newly washed and dressed in a faded sundress, she wandered slowly around the garden behind the cottage. She felt slightly calmer now, restored by the fresh air and the sunlight. The rain had stopped, the sky was a clear blue and a light wind brushed her bare legs as she crossed the lawn.

  With a cry of pleasure she spotted a cherry tree and, after pulling down a handful of the gleaming dark fruit, she bit into one. It was perfectly ripe and a sharp sweetness filled her mouth.

  And that was when she saw him, walking slowly towards her across the grass.

  It was all she could do to keep breathing. She stood, tracking him with her eyes, until he stopped in front of her. There was a roaring sound in her ears and her pulse scampered like a mouse across the floor as his gaze met hers—golden, steady and unwavering.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he said quietly.

  Skin prickling, she stared at him in silence, hardly able to believe it was him.

  ‘It’s my afternoon off,’ she said finally, glancing at him and then quickly looking away. ‘Can’t it wait until tomorrow? I’ll be back at work then.’ The gentlest of breezes caught her hair and, suddenly conscious of his focus, she felt her face grow warm.

  ‘It’s not work-related,’ he said softly.

  Their eyes locked and Prudence flushed. ‘Then we have nothing to discuss.’

  He laughed softly. ‘In other words, we have a lot to discuss. Let me guess: you’re mad at me for going off like that?’ He lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I’m sorry I disappeared. I had to be somewhere. But if it’s any consolation I’ve been thinking about what happened a lot.’

  Prudence stared at him in silence. ‘Did something happen?’ she said slowly, trying to affect an air of nonchalance. ‘I didn’t notice. Just like I didn’t notice that you’d disappeared.’

  A slow smile spread across his face and then, shaking his head, he reached out towards her. Her heart contracted. It would have been so easy to give in, to let him take her into his arms, to lean in to his warmth and strength. But instead she raised her hands, curling them into fists.

  ‘Don’t!’ she said fiercely. ‘Don’t even think about it! Honestly, Laszlo. You’re unbelievable. Did you really just think you could roll up after two days and expect to carry on like before?’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘I said I was sorry. What more can I say?’

  She stared at him helplessly. ‘What less could you say? You didn’t even say goodbye. But don’t worry, I’ll say it for you now. Goodbye.’

  She turned to walk away but he reached out and grabbed her arm.

  ‘Let go of me!’ Jerking
her wrist, she tried to pull herself free, but he merely tightened his grip.

  ‘I’m sorry, okay?’

  Shaking her head, she tugged herself free of his hand. ‘It’s not okay. How could it ever be okay?’ She grimaced. ‘Laszlo. We broke the rules.’

  ‘I’m aware of that. But I don’t see why you’re getting so upset about it. We’re both consenting adults.’

  Gritting her teeth, she took a step towards him. ‘It’s not that simple.’

  His face stilled and her skin seemed to catch fire beneath his gaze.

  ‘Oh, but it was. Simple and sublime.’

  She caught her breath, achingly aware of just how sublime it had been. How sublime it had always been. For a moment she hovered between desire and anger, and then anger won.

  ‘It’s not simple and you know it. It’s a mess,’ she snapped.

  He studied her dispassionately. He hadn’t intended to argue with her. On the contrary, he’d been looking forward to seeing her again despite the fact that she was right: it was a mess. He smiled grimly. After they’d made love he’d held her in his arms, trying to rationalise his behaviour, and on some levels it had been easy to explain. It was perfectly natural for any man to be attracted to any woman—and what man wouldn’t be attracted to Prudence? She was beautiful and clever and poised.

  His face tightened. Only then he’d started to think about their marriage, and about lying to his grandfather, and suddenly he’d wanted to be free of the tangled mess of his thoughts. A flush coloured his cheeks. And so he’d simply walked out, fully intending to stay away until the cataloguing was complete. Only after just two nights he’d changed his mind, driven back to the castle by a sudden inexplicable need to see her smile.

  She wasn’t smiling now. Her face was taut and strained, and he knew that his sudden disappearance had angered and hurt her. Hell! Why couldn’t she just accept his apology and move on?

  He stared at her coldly, his dark hair falling across his forehead. ‘What do you want me to say, Prudence? I thought you enjoyed it. I certainly did.’

  She was staring at him as though he were speaking in Mandarin.

  ‘This isn’t about whether I enjoyed it or not.’

  ‘Then you really don’t know yourself at all, Prudence. You slept with me for the same reason I slept with you. Because what we have is incredible. Physically, we couldn’t be better matched.’

  Prudence blushed, heat seeping over her throat and collarbone. There was a loaded silence.

  ‘Fine. I agree,’ she admitted finally. ‘But that doesn’t change the fact that our doing what we did makes everything so much more difficult. Even you must see that.’ She stared at him agitatedly. ‘I can’t believe you just left. That you didn’t think we should at least have one tiny conversation about it.’

  He shrugged and glanced across the lawn, his gaze drifting away towards the horizon. ‘What’s there to talk about?’

  ‘Everything!’ she cried. ‘You. Me. Us. My job. Our marriage. Where do you want to start?’

  He stared at her, his golden eyes reflecting the early-afternoon sun. ‘At the beginning.’ He gave her an infuriating smile. ‘When we got married. Which makes you my wife.’

  She gazed at him helplessly. ‘Only I don’t feel like your wife, Laszlo! It still doesn’t feel like a real marriage to me. But even if it did we haven’t been together for seven years. We broke up—remember? And now we’ve crossed a line.’ She bit her tongue. ‘I know couples who split up do end up sleeping together and it’s understandable. I mean, everything’s so familiar and safe and easy.’

  Feeling his steady gaze on her, she paused, blushing, for none of those adjectives bore any relation to her intimacy with Laszlo.

  She glowered at him. ‘But they have a one-night stand! They don’t have to live and work with each other afterwards. We do—and I don’t even know how to describe our relationship any more, let alone how to make it work.’ She felt a spurt of anger. ‘Everything’s so messy and confusing, and you just stand there and do nothing like it’s all going to just fall into place—’

  ‘And what are you doing, pireni?’ he interrupted her harshly. ‘I fail to see what you think you’re actually achieving here. You’re just asking me unanswerable questions.’ His mouth twisted. ‘What happened between us in the cottage isn’t the problem, Prudence. You are. You turn everything into an inquisition. Hell, seven years ago you turned our relationship into an inquisition.’

  Prudence choked in disbelief. ‘An inquisition? Did you ever stop and think why I asked all those questions?’ She shook her head, bunching her hands into fists. ‘No. Of course not. Our relationship was never about me, was it? It was only ever about you and your needs.’

  Misery washed over her in waves and she curled her fingers into the palms of her hands to distract herself from the pain.

  ‘I asked questions because I wanted answers. I wanted to know you; to understand you. But you made me feel like I was an intruder in your life. When you were there you never wanted to talk and then you’d disappear for days and I wouldn’t know where you were. And you just expected me to put up with it.’

  Laszlo shook his head in frustration. ‘Not this again. You knew I didn’t have a nine-to-five job. You knew I sometimes worked away for days at a time. And you knew I’d be back.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ Her voice sounded suddenly loud and harsh. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  Her whole body was shaking and she stopped, breaking off as she saw from his face just how baffling and irritating he found her insecurities. She bit her lip. She’d had reason to feel like that. Only aged twenty-one she had felt too unsure of his love, too aware of how boring he found any sort of soul-searching, to blurt out her life story.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ she said again, more quietly this time, for the old pain was welling up, making her hurt inside.

  ‘Meaning what, exactly?’

  His face was like stone and she looked away from it. ‘I know it sounds crazy but I didn’t know that you’d come back. Every time you disappeared I thought that was it. And I couldn’t bear it.’

  Laszlo said nothing and she felt the pain inside her spread. But had she really thought he would want to understand now, after seven years of hating her, just because they’d had sex again?

  ‘Why did you feel like that?’

  His voice was so gentle it startled her, and she looked up, half thinking that someone else must have asked the question.

  ‘Did you feel like it right from the start?’

  She nodded slowly, suddenly deprived of speech. Looking up, she saw him frown.

  ‘But if you felt like that,’ he said softly, ‘then why did you stay with me?’

  Prudence sighed. There in that one sentence was why their relationship had ended. For surely he knew the answer to that—just one look at her face had been enough for her Uncle Edmund to guess the truth.

  She’d stayed because she’d fallen deeply and desperately in love with him.

  Those few short weeks with him had been the most incredible, the most exciting time in her life. Exciting but terrifying, for Laszlo had unlocked a part of herself that she’d denied and feared in equal measure: a part of herself that she’d spent most of her life trying to repudiate or forget.

  And here, now, after everything they’d done and said, she was afraid of giving too much away. Or, worse, destroying the memory of their time together, the time when she’d loved him and believed he loved her. Her lip quivered. She might no longer love Laszlo, but part of her still wanted to protect and preserve her memories.

  ‘Like I said, I was acting a little crazy.’ She smiled weakly.

  Laszlo studied her. ‘You were never crazy. Anxious and insistent, yes. And sweet, gentle and sexy.’ His gaze rested on her mouth. ‘Not crazy, though.’ He paused, his eyes cool and unreadable. ‘But why does that mean you didn’t think I’d come back. I mean, I admit I was unreliable. But I was reliably unreliable: I always came back.’


  He was attempting a joke and she tried to smile. But instead, to her horror, she felt hot tears sting her eyes and she shook her head.

  Laszlo stared at her with a sort of bewildered anger and then his jaw tightened. ‘So you’re saying it’s my fault? I made you feel like that?’

  But Prudence didn’t answer; she couldn’t. Not with Laszlo standing so close. He wouldn’t understand her fear, the creeping uncertainty. He was just so certain of himself—so sure and utterly without doubt.

  ‘Please. Tell me. I want to know,’ he said slowly.

  Some roughness in his voice made her lift her head. And then, after a moment, he reached out and touched her hand, uncurling it with his fingers.

  ‘I might even be able to help.’

  Heart pounding, she took a deep breath. ‘It wasn’t you.’ She gave him another weak smile. ‘Although you didn’t help much.’ Her heart twisted. ‘It was me. I was just waiting for it to happen. Waiting for you to leave and not come back. Like everyone else.’

  She felt close to tears again, remembering the waiting, fearing, hoping that it would be different—

  ‘Who’s everyone else?’ Laszlo frowned, his face darkening. ‘You mean other men?’

  Prudence laughed. ‘What other men? There haven’t been any. Not really since us—and certainly not before.’ She shook her head, frowning. ‘No. I mean my mum—and it’s a long story. You won’t want to hear it.’

  Laszlo stared at her intently. ‘I do want to hear it. Tell me about your mum.’

  His face was focused on hers, the golden eyes calm and dispassionate and yet warm like the sun. She let out a long breath.

  ‘My mum met my dad when she was nineteen. They got married and had me. And then he left her.’ Her mouth trembled. ‘He came back, though. He always came back after a bit. While he was away she’d be frantic, and sometimes she’d go out looking for him.’ The skin on her face felt suddenly scorched. ‘Or for someone who’d make her forget him. She’d leave me. On my own. For hours. Sometimes all night. I hated it, being alone in the house in the dark.’