by Kim Lawrence
‘I hate to interrupt you in full flow, but I’m curious to know just what precisely you object to. Gibber must run in the family,’ he added half to himself.
She gasped. ‘You can ask that?’ You manoeuvred me into making that phone call seem legitimate.’
‘Considering you’ve been raised at Charlcot, I’m amazed how naive you can be sometimes, Emmy. I simply told the truth.’
‘Truth,’ she muttered disparagingly. ‘You wouldn’t know it if you fell over it. That was a complete fabrication from beginning to end.’
‘I recall distinctly that you said you’d prefer to marry me than Gavin.’
She snorted with derision. ’that’s so typical of you. Take everything out of context, distort it.’
‘It set me thinking,’ he continued as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘What a good idea it would be, marriage to a Stapely, a member of the inner circle.’ His sensual mouth curved cynically as he slipped off the bland mask; his eyes were searingly blue and as steely as his taut expression. ‘It seems an ideal solution all round.’
She shuddered and stared at him with growing incredulity. Serious…it wasn’t possible…not even Luke was that fixated, or unrealistic. ‘Not from where I’m standing.’ She gave a faint laugh. ‘I feel stupid just acting as if you’re serious, Luke; naive I might be, but I’ve not got a drop of martyr’s blood in my veins. I’d never, in any circumstances, marry you.’
‘You were going to marry Gavin.’
‘I love——’ she began, only to be interrupted furiously.
‘Fiction and you know it,’ he bit back, his eyes examining her face with clinical detachment.
She couldn’t bring herself to deny this; she never had loved Gavin, but that didn’t make her willing to contemplate such an impossibly ridiculous proposition. ‘You might have succeeded in bringing me here, Luke, but marrying me against my will might prove taxing even for your ingenuity. The whole thing is preposterous.’ She couldn’t quite believe he meant any of it. Any second now he would crack a joke—this was all part of his warped sense of humour.
‘I don’t find you boring, Emmy,’ he said slowly, reflectively, his tone low, intimate, with husky, swirling depths that were incredibly seductive. A corner of his mouth lifted as she wrapped her arms around her body. ‘And sexually speaking I find you one of the most sensual creatures alive. While it lasted, infant, we could have pleasure.’
She gave a startled gasp. His voice…just his voice had almost been enough to bewitch her, and then the pragmatic ‘while it lasted’ had awoken her to the criminal folly of listening to the sensual cravings of her wilful body.
‘This is to be temporary, then, this marriage,’ she said, carefully neutral.
‘Most are, it seems to me,’ he said harshly, frowning slightly at her sudden self-possession.
‘And I take it liaisons—discreet, of course—would be acceptable.’ She felt a small surge of confidence at his blank look. ‘You see, although Gavin and I may not be meant to be lifetime partners, he was a very… satisfactory lover,’ she announced gravely. ‘I’m sure we could come to some civilised arrangement.’
She heard the sound of his teeth grate against one another and saw the gleaming, predatory expression steal across his face. ’my wife won’t require another lover.’
He was awesome, she had to admit it. Something in her thrilled to the hawkish, wholly aggressive expression that had effectively blotted out the urbane, self-possessed man she knew. ‘And I could never be satisfied by one man.’ She was playing with fire, but it would be worth it. How dared he assume she was his for the taking, that she would be stupid enough to fall in with whatever scheme he proposed?
She was sure he was going to explode as he assimilated her provocative statement in stony silence. The austere disapproval transformed in the blink of an eye to laughter, sudden genuine laughter, deep and attractive. ‘You’re right, Emily, that wasn’t a very attractive proposal. You were piqued…’
Piqued she was, appalled, insulted, though perhaps it had been ambitious to play games with the master of the art. ‘You really are serious, aren’t you?’ Finally she was convinced. ‘You’d actually marry because it’s the most sophisticated form of torture you can conceive.’
His eyes narrowed at the look of disgust that contorted her features. ‘What other reason could there be?’
His tone eluded her; he was evincing strong emotions she couldn’t quite track to their source. ‘I take it that was a rhetorical question,’ she said bitterly. His words had the ability to stab.
He smiled and she immediately knew she was going to hate what he said. ‘I wonder what Daddy would say if he knew his concern over his precious little girl was four years late? What, Emily, would Daddy think if he knew his little girl had slid into my bed all those years ago…right under his roof?’ He watched the colour seep from her face and his expression didn’t alter. ‘I think on balance it would rate even higher in the humiliation stakes than marrying me now. What do you think?’ he enquired.
Her eyes were wide, almost black with horror. This was indeed refined cruelty. ‘We didn’t…I didn’t,’ she said, shaking her head in denial. ‘Luke…’ The plea and confusion in her voice made his jaw tighten.
‘I know that, infant, and so do you. But what we both also know is that you thought about it.’ He paused, allowing this to sink in fully. ‘It’s a little like the old problem: is adultery any less adultery when it remains in the imagination of two people?’
‘Two…?’ she echoed in a numb voice.
‘You can’t imagine I didn’t know what you were thinking, offering, Emily,’ he said harshly. ‘A strange intimacy builds up gradually amid all that unspoken conspiracy of desire; even without words your intentions were incredibly articulate. It may surprise you to know I imagined it some too.’
This was so impossibly awful! She hadn’t known mortification actually had a physical taste. He hadn’t been able to stomach the thought at the time of sleeping with a Stapely, that much was obvious. Given his relentless pursuit of vengeance it was the only explanation of the fact that he’d never encouraged her to fulfil her cravings.
She gave a sudden groan and clutched her stomach, the knowledge that flashed through her brain actually manifesting itself in physical pain. She’d never escaped her juvenile fixation; it had matured with her. She was still in love with Luke—all the denial was never going to change that fact. He loathed her…enough to marry her. The bizarre irony of this fact made her laugh, straightening up as she did so.
‘You really would sink that low?’ Beads of sweat stood out on the marble paleness of her wide brow, and a nerve leapt in his cheek as his eyes ran assessingly over her.
‘You have to think like scum to catch scum,’ he said brutally. ‘I think you’d better think over my proposal, Emily. The idea does have its merits…if you’re honest.’
Honest! He could say the word without flinching. ‘You’re blackmailing me, Luke.’
‘When I want something I’m prepared to go as far as required,’ he said tautly.
‘You really hate me that much? Or am I just insignificant, merely in the way?’
The curve of his mouth promised sensual delights, but his eyes were bitterly ironic, tired, weary eyes. ‘Infant,’ he said softly, his hand running through his hair not totally steady, ‘I think you’re essential to my plans.’ He smiled, a mocking smile that seemed to be aimed at himself rather than her.
‘You mean you need my collusion to deliver the ultimate punishment,’ she accused, sure now that she was permanently off balance. She would never take anything at face value again!
‘I think you should consider my proposal.’
‘Ultimatum.’
Luke looked at her from beneath hooded eyelids. He made a circular motion with his head, rubbing his neck as if to relieve unseen knots in the columns of muscle and sinew. ‘I won’t argue with that,’ he said shortly. He extended the motion, outlining the concave shape of his belly below the ridge of
his ribs. She saw the bank of flesh across his waist and the beginning of the scar that ran across his back to terminate just to the right of his spine.
Completely distracted, she licked her dry lips, recalling the occasion she’d asked him about his wound, the one that had kept him so close during that fateful summer. He’d shown her then the line of puckered flesh, purple still from recent surgery to remove the shrapnel that had strayed perilously close to his spine.
He’d taken her reaction to be one of horror, whereas in reality the physical evidence of his pain had not repelled her at all. It was the reminder of how close to death or permanent disability he had come that had made her grow cold with fear. The fact that he’d had pain had made her feel, even then, impotently angry that she hadn’t been able to share or cushion his hurt. Suddenly she felt sixteen again, bewildered and afraid of the sensations evoked and her inability to govern them.
When she eventually raised her eyes, the thread of her argument had long since eluded her. His expression transfixed her; his eyes were filled with a blind, piercing hunger, pagan in its unsophisticated rawness and far removed from anything she’d imagined a human face could portray.
‘I’ll never submit to blackmail.’
She wanted to feel the contours of the sharply defined cheekbones beneath her fingers, trace the jawline, surrender to the erotic clamour of his compelling eyes. She gave a small cry filled with a hopelessness that suddenly swamped her. He was capable of carrying out any threat, which meant he’d inevitably discover the true state of her feelings. Ignoring the sound of her own name as he called her with an urgency that made no impact, she ran outdoors.
The horizon had a crystal clarity where all the shades of blue met in one glorious colour, obliterating the line between sky and sea. Emily stared at the panorama without actually seeing it; none of the azure shades had the same inspired depth as Luke’s eyes.
‘I’m not sixteen any more, Luke.’ She didn’t have to turn to be aware in every fibre of her being of the tall, silent figure who had followed her down to the lochside.
‘I’d noticed the difference, Emily. I think maybe you’ve still got a four-year-old unresolved fantasy. Could be therapeutic if we worked it through.’
She took a deep, steadying breath and twisted around to look him full in the eyes. ‘You seem a little slow on the uptake, Luke,’ she sneered, her heart thudding. ‘I’m not interested.’
His eyes were amazingly cold, a blue chill that went bone-deep. ‘We both know that’s not true,’ he said clearly, each word enunciated with terrible clarity.
Combating a rising swell of frantic panic, she swung away, only to be caught by iron fingers and spun back. One hand caught and cupped her chin, wrenching her head upwards. It was true and he could say it with no trace of tenderness. She swallowed. God help me, do I want tenderness…from him? The knowledge appalled her.
‘Don’t turn your back on me,’ he responded savagely. ‘I realise a gentleman,’ he drawled the word mockingly, ‘doesn’t mention such obvious facts, but your indifference has taken the form of a combination of petty aggression and smouldering glances interspersed with the sort of tension that only comes when two people are a long way off indifferent to one another.’
Her pupils expanded until the colour of her eyes was almost totally obliterated. ‘What are you implying?’ she responded shakily. Why had he had to say it, bring it out into the open? Ignore it and it’ll go away was out of the question now.
‘I’m not implying anything,’ he said tersely, his tone scornful. ‘I’m observing that denying something makes it no less real. The way I see it, just because our being together can be served up as the ultimate punishment for Charlie, it doesn’t alter the fact that it’s what we both want.’
‘I’m in love with Gavin,’ she protested, her voice shrill and discordant in her ears. It was a lie. She had faced the fact that she had never loved Gavin. Gavin had offered a security without the involvement of strong emotional bonds, and that had appealed to her. She had instinctively wanted to avoid any situations fraught with the sort of unpredictable, exhausting, exhilarating elements…exhilarating! ‘What you’re suggesting makes a mockery of everything marriage is based on. It’s a purely temporary measure—two birds with one stone. Once you’ve inflicted humiliation on my family and lost interest in sleeping with me, a nice clean divorce,’ she said with disgust.
‘Sleeping with you, Emily? I’m not interested in sleeping, though I’ve had precious little of that commodity recently.’ She was aware of the deepened shadows beneath his eyes as she listened to his dry voice. ‘What’s been going on with us has been something more…’ the low, vibrant throb of his voice was so hypnotic that a debilitating lassitude took a direct route to her limbs ‘…primitive.’ She knew he must have felt the violent tremor that swept through her like a gust of wind.
The small derisive laugh was whisked away by a sudden flurry that swept in off the loch. ‘I think you’ve become too involved with your fiction to see the rather more mundane realities of life clearly,’ she continued, her voice containing a betraying quiver as her eyes watched him bend down and select a flat, dull pebble which he casually sent skipping over the water. His air of relaxation was an added injury to her floundering confusion. She was aware of the smooth ripple of muscles in his shoulder tautening against the fabric of his shirt, and the concentration that made his profile still as he delivered the throw.
‘The way I see it, you’ve succeeded in a typically disreputable way to turn my misfortune to your advantage.’ Her teeth connected with her lower lip as he dusted his hands on his jeans and turned directly to face her derision with the quirk of one dark brow. ‘And don’t start all that stuff about mutual advantage and the kindness of your heart,’ she swiftly added. ‘You planned this whole nightmare.’
‘I didn’t bind you and gag you to get you here,’ he pointed out, pivoting on his heel until he faced her. ‘You went along with it because deep down it’s where you want to be…here with me.’
His arrogance was breathtaking. ‘While the balance of my mind was disturbed, I think is the common phrase. I was kidnapped. In retrospect, I can see that hitching on the motorway would have been preferable.’
One corner of his mouth curled contemptuously and his eyebrows rose in patent disbelief.
‘What’s wrong, Emmy, have you decided against delivering a taste of his own medicine?’
Her brow furrowed in genuine confusion.
‘Wasn’t that part of what you had in mind, infant? Give the bastard a taste of his own medicine, see how he likes the idea of you in another man’s bed? I rather thought you were experimenting with that idea.’
The concept he was casually outlining made her colour fluctuate wildly as she grasped his crude point with escalating fury. ‘You think I had it in mind to sleep with you just to prove to Gavin I can be equally imprudent and promiscuous?’ Her voice rose to an incredulous squeak. She was aware that his opinion of her was low…but this!
‘You mean big sister wasn’t the first?’ Luke clicked his tongue in mock-sympathy.
‘Don’t judge the rest of humanity by your abysmally low standards.’
‘Excuse me,’ he drawled. ‘But you did say promiscuous.’
‘If you think I’d lower myself to score points off Gavin you are sadly mistaken,’ she continued, gritting her teeth and ignoring his gibes. ‘I realise you think you’re totally irresistible, but I acquired immunity when I was sixteen. My bloodstream is positively crammed with antibodies that make me want to throw up at the idea of you…’ Her mouth went dry as she met his lancet blue regard. What had possessed her to dredge up a piece of dusty history? she wondered bleakly.
‘Undoing the buttons on your blouse?’ he supplied helpfully as her tongue refused to curl around the words necessary to complete her sentence.
She froze as his fingers began to perform the task he described so matter-of-factly, a task so intimate that she had no experience with which
to compare it. Had she actually married Gavin, this would have been his right, to remove her clothes and touch her flesh with a possessive certainty that he would please her, that it was his right. Could she ever have allowed him this and other greater intimacies?
Her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth as she watched Luke—his hands, to be precise…long, lean fingers—in a horrified fascination. Where was her instinctive fastidious distaste now? The one that had gripped her at the notion of Gavin doing what Luke was doing now with such casual expertise? She shook her head in a mute denial of what he was doing, what she was permitting. The heat was a solid thing in the pit of her belly. It rose until it occluded her windpipe, fogged her thought processes.
She had imagined this so many times that it had seemed real. Luke had spent more time than usual at Charlcot during her sixteenth summer. He’d been recovering from an injury he’d sustained during the coverage of a violent coup in a Third World country, a fact that had increased his glamour in her eyes. Only the age-gap had stopped him declaring his feelings, she was convinced. She had spent her time in a permanent daydream, awaiting the magical moment when she was sure he would be overcome by the passion that consumed him. Just the thought of him could make her body react to an imaginary touch. The power her mind had over her body had fascinated her. She’d constructed so many complex fantasies, placed herself in mortal danger from which he inevitably rescued her. Her eyes had followed him with transparent yearning. The thought of it made her curl up with embarrassment. What he had actually seen had been an awkward adolescent.
Now the fantasy was happening, but it had never been like this…a sweet, aching violation of body and will both intolerable and addictive. She was going to stop him—wasn’t she? The soft, cool air against her skin passed unnoticed as Luke’s hand cupped first one breast and then the other in his hand, his fingers sliding over the brief lacy covering. Sensations were building up layer upon layer, intermeshed, swelling the pleasure, the unacknowledged hunger.
Self-preservation was screeching in her head, but the hypnotic spell of sensual enchantment his voice and hands had spun held her immobile.