by Kim Lawrence
‘You have blossomed a little since sixteen,’ he mused slowly. Emily was too submerged in the chaotic jumble of unaccustomed craving to register the unsteadiness in the deep rhythm of his voice. She was blind to the raw hunger that flickered in his eyes. A white-hot fire smouldered at the back of his eyes. Her own eyelids prickled with hot, painful pin-pricks, and her head dropped back, exposing the slender column of her throat to his greedy gaze.
‘Sixteen?’ she echoed, wishing her mind would begin to function independently of her senses; they were saturated, and it hurt to feel so much when she knew she shouldn’t.
One of his hands slid down her cap of silky, honeycoloured hair, capturing in his fist the strands at the nape of her neck. The other remained on her ribcage just below the swell of her breasts. ’the crush—don’t you recall?’
They’d laughed when she’d walked in on them. The blonde had been older than he was…a friend of her mother’s, prematurely widowed and enjoying the situation to the full. It had cured Emily instantly. She’d felt betrayed and disgusted, but relieved that her torrid fantasies had stayed firmly private in her head. It seemed Luke had a good deal of insight into these things. It wasn’t by accident that Gavin had been the antithesis of Luke. The painful lesson had made her wary of the qualities he had which made him so fatally attractive. Gavin had been the safe option.
‘You were speaking about antibodies?’
Emily felt life flow back into her limbs. She tore herself free of him. ‘You disgust me,’ she hissed, pulling the loose edges of her blouse together as his eyes strayed on the heaving contours of her breasts. This was all a lesson just to prove how irresistible Luke was; or did he need to humiliate her because she’d committed the ultimate sin—she was a Stapely?
‘If I were going to teach Gavin a lesson I’d choose someone who didn’t despise me because of who my father is. Dear God, Luke, you must think I’m stupid. You’re so twisted you’d probably tape the event and post it to Dad,’ she accused, disgust, aimed mostly at her own helpless response, and aching sound in her voice. ‘I’m not a stupid teenager any more.’ I might as well be. At least I kept an illusion of pride then, and then I didn’t know how deep and deadly was Luke’s need—need for retribution, she thought despairingly.
‘At least you were honest then,’ he interrupted, his voice as calm as her own was frantic. ‘If I were so lost to any sense of morality, so single-minded, hasn’t it occurred to you that I could have blighted the Stapely pride much more thoroughly simply by taking what you were so eager to offer at the time?’
‘You were distracted by the merry widow, that’s all,’ she sneered. ‘Providence cured me and saved me from making an even bigger fool of myself. Or you just couldn’t stomach the thought of touching a Stapely.’
Luke made a scornful noise. ‘Didn’t you ever realise that that little scene was stage-managed with the precise intention of curing you of the infatuation? It’s a tricky situation for a man in his twenties to be worshipped by a girl in the grip of pubescent hormonal imbalance. It was either that or do what you were so anxious for. I think the reality would have sent you running even faster. I don’t think you were as ready for the grown-up league as you thought.’
Had that been his idea of kindness? The cruel reminder of her naive transparency made her flush. ‘You expect me to believe that,’ she snorted, ‘after I’ve seen how much you hate my parents? You could have ruined me.’ Why wouldn’t he have? Was she to believe in scruples after she had glimpsed the indelible hate in his eyes, knew what his plans for her future were?
Silently he looked into her eyes, his expression at its most impenetrable. ‘Naturally you feel I wouldn’t have passed up the opportunity.’ He half turned away, his expression one of distaste. ‘At that time I half thought there might be something worth protecting, nurturing, in those big, transparent brown eyes. Even though you were a spoilt brat I thought by some miracle you’d been spared the taint.’ He gave a mirthless laugh and continued with heavy irony, ‘I had no way of seeing what a deceitful apology for a woman you’d turn into. But then, when it comes down to it you are a Stapely. You’re as shallow and self-serving as the rest of them,’ he said with thin-lipped distaste.
She took a step backwards as though he’d struck her. ‘You are the arbiter of taste in womanly attributes, I take it.’ Her voice was hard but inside for some reason she wanted to cry, weep like the child she no longer was. Mentally she remonstrated with herself for this wrenching, instinctive response to his cold indictment.
‘If homogenised life is what you want, far be it from me to criticise.’
His drawl made her want to run at him, fists flying. ‘Look at me, will you?’ she snapped, catching hold of his sleeve, aware even in the heat of the moment of the sinewy hardness beneath the fabric. ‘You were criticising…you are. Who gave you the right?’ she demanded fiercely.
‘Why in God’s name did you never break free?’ The words erupted and the anger in his face was savage. ‘After university, you went back to that bloody mausoleum. Haven’t you got any backbone? I expected more—much more of you. I thought I saw some integrity in your eyes once.’
The unexpectedness of the accusation, and the accompanying information that Luke had spared a passing thought for her, made her catch her breath. ’terribly sorry to be such a profound disappointment to you,’ she snapped with heavy irony, quashing the unexpected sense of guilt as though she had to justify herself to him.
‘What is the great attraction of Charlcot? The company of sweet little Charlotte? That’s the same poor soul who swiped your boyfriend, is it?’ he asked with a quirk of one eyebrow. ‘Dear Charlotte, beneath her wistful-little-girl looks, can manage very nicely, thank you. What had you intended to do, take her with you when you got hitched? As things have turned out I’m sure hubby would have been amenable. I mean, two of you might have doubled his promotion prospects!’
So the only thing that would make a man want her was her family’s wealth, was it? She saw his face distorted through a glaze of tears. ‘You are a pig. I don’t see what it is about my life that offends you so much.’
‘I hate waste.’ The sudden flash in his eyes made her blink, and she struggled against the hands that turned and caught her own forearms, half dragging her towards him. ‘Your life is aseptically neat, down to the last ingredient—a lover you can control and never be out of control with. You can’t even be honest about what the guy actually meant to you. All this tearful carping about loving him. I know honest emotion doesn’t exist in the precincts of Charlcot’s palatial walls, but you can’t invent life to suit your own purposes. You have to get out, get bruised, sample things, live. You can’t plan life; it just happens if you let it.’
‘You complacent, smug…’ She twisted wildly, infuriated by the denunciation of her life. ‘You’ve done all those things, I take it. I should possibly follow your example. The first step is naturally to walk, blessing my good fortune, into your bed—and leave a better and wiser person! Like the multitude that have been there before me!’ She almost choked on the sentence. ‘Did you have to blackmail them too? I know you for what you are, Lucas Hunt, and I know you don’t give a damn about me or how I feel. I’m just a way to get back at my parents, a tool. Well, for your information I like them as little as you do. I have never looked to a soul-mate to live my life through—I’ve seen poor Charlotte try and do that. I might have made a mistake where Gavin was concerned, but at least I wasn’t blinded by some animal lust elevated for the sake of convention to the heights of some sickly romantic ideal. I don’t intend to start bed-hopping now!’ A sudden sob, dry and racking, robbed her of words. ‘From your point of view I’m a failure. Think what a lot that gives you in common with my parents.’ She held her hands up to fend off his attempt to recapture her. Whether this physical approach was meant to comfort or censure she had no notion.
‘You can hardly accuse me of advocating casual relationships, Emily, not when it’s marriage I’m propos
ing.’ His eyes were almost navy with emotion, turbulent and as angry as she’d ever seen him. ‘As for getting you in my bed, my taste runs to warm, confident women who don’t need reassurance every other word. When did you become such a soulless little cynic, Emily? You’ll marry me because you’re afraid of what it will do to your father if he believes we were lovers four years ago. When it boils down to it, you know that despite all the window-dressing and protests you’re still the dutiful little girl,’ he said derisively. ‘You can be as sanctimonious as you like, rant on about the lust you clearly expect me to believe you find distasteful, but the truth, Emily, is you can’t cope with your own sexuality. You want to be that little girl,’ he told her, his mouth compressed to an austere line of distaste. ‘You don’t hate the way my mouth feels on yours; you’re hungry to taste me.’ He made a guttural sound in his throat and released her hands. ‘You’re aching for me to touch you,’ he continued with blighting scorn. ‘But if it makes you happy in your own perverse way to think you’re nothing but an unwilling victim, fine.’ He shrugged.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she faltered.
‘Has it occurred to you, infant, that the sacrifice is mine? Marrying a Stapely is hardly my life’s ambition. Nothing matters to me except repaying a debt. It makes the slate clean as far as I’m concerned.’
‘Is that supposed to be some sort of incentive to go along with this crazy scheme?’ The fact that she loved him gave him a unique ability to inflict a staggering amount of pain…The only redeeming factor was that that, at least, remained her own secret. ‘If I marry you, Luke, to stop you telling Dad all those vindictive lies, it will be a marriage in name only. Considering I’m the unclean, a full-blooded Stapely, you can hardly object to those terms.’
He regarded her with an absence of emotion that was bedrock, cold. ‘I’ll need to get a valid licence once we get back to London…that will be long enough for you to rethink that scheme, Emily.’
‘I won’t—’ she began hotly.
‘And when you do,’ he interrupted, a small, malicious smile playing about his lips, ‘you’ll do the asking!’ He strode away from her without a backward glance, his spine rigidly erect, his long legs putting distance between them swiftly.
‘Never, never, never…’ she muttered to herself from between clenched teeth.
CHAPTER SIX
‘DO YOU plan to work so industriously all evening, or will you join me to eat? This is by way of being a celebratory meal,’ Luke reminded her mockingly.
Emily had stiffened the moment he’d leant over her to see the typewritten words on the page she’d been transcribing. ‘I’ve no doubt you would consider it a celebration,’ she replied coldly. He had her tacit agreement to this farcical marriage, his ultimate revenge; he couldn’t make her act as though she was happy about the situation! For years he’d waited for such an opportunity, and she had provided it.
‘And such a diligent fianceé—I scarcely need secretarial assistance.’
Emily flexed her stiff neck. ’there’s precious little else to do here,’ she muttered. The truth was that occupying her hands if not her thoughts had been one way of avoiding him; the cottage was too small actually to escape. Eventually she had even begun to be engrossed by the story unfolding beneath her fingertips. Luke’s storylines were always original, and underlying the brisk action was a depth of local knowledge, no doubt gleaned from his extensive travels. It was the underlying vulnerability of the hero which had captured her interest, because beneath the gung-ho exterior he was a man attempting to regain an idealism she knew his inventor to despise.
She flinched as Luke’s long fingers began to knead the tight muscles of her shoulders and neck through the thin material of her shirt. Magically he was locating and eliminating knots of tension. It was a dangerously pleasant feeling, one which made her feel languidly relaxed. His next words made her realise what a dangerous condition that was to be in.
‘I can think of other activities to which you could apply your feverish energy,’ he drawled, and she choked on the sigh of pleasure that had been leaving her lips, instantly alert to the danger of his fingers and the seductive, gravelly drawl of his voice.
‘I was just trying to relieve the monotony of your constant company,’ she responded, standing up and distancing herself from him. ‘If you’ve cooked I might as well sample what you have to offer. And there’s no need to leer in that vulgar manner,’ she grated. ‘It’s the food I’m referring to.’ His expression could in no way be classified as a leer, but it was incredibly disruptive, a fact her trembling limbs bore witness to as she followed him through to the dining area.
‘I do enjoy a smattering of vulgarity myself, infant, but then I’m not a Stapely, am I?’ he said, holding a chair for her with mock-formality. ‘Actually I wasn’t offering anything but food. We must keep up your strength.’
Emily glared at him, managing with effort to retain her self-control. ‘For the ordeal ahead.’
‘Wedding nerves,’ he observed sympathetically. He only grinned wryly as she ignored him and took the other seat on the opposite side of the table. ‘A common affliction.’ He moved to the kitchen area and began to dispense a very passable spaghetti sauce. ‘Aren’t you glad I’m a modern man? I can cook, wash, sew on buttons…’
‘The perfect wife,’ she snapped nastily. ‘Don’t forget blackmail. Your talents are impressive—I’m still congratulating myself on my supreme good fortune.’ She almost choked on the sense of injustice that swelled in her chest.
‘I have hidden depths,’ he agreed, with a smug indifference to her distress that made her want to scream.
’so do sewers!’
Luke placed a heaped plate in front of her. ‘Be careful, infant, or I might think you’re trying to be grotesquely offensive. Parmesan?’ he asked, as she opened her mouth to confirm this accusation vehemently. ‘And I might have to take measures to break that little habit early on in our relationship.’
Emily took the cheese and glowered at him as he took his seat opposite her. ‘I may be going to marry you, Luke, but, believe you me, I won’t be the sort of wife you’ll want your friends to meet. You’d be amazed at how indiscreet I can be when I put my mind to it!’ she warned him. She wanted to make it clear that his intimidatory tactics left her unimpressed.
‘That should win me the sympathy vote, if nothing else,’ he said drily.
Discretion won the day after a brief internal battle, and their conversation stayed safely monosyllabic. The food was good and Emily realised just how hungry she was as she attacked it. The wine eventually dulled the edge of her anger and thawed some of her open hostility.
‘Do you write for yourself or to sell books?’ The words came out gruffly to break one of the long silences that had arisen. Not companionable silences, at least not on her part, but noisy silences when her mind grew over-active and her motor skills stiff and awkward.
Luke looked up from his task of mopping up the glass of wine she’d tipped over the table. ‘What was that, Emily?’ he asked, and she had the impression that he’d only been half listening to her. His mind was obviously elsewhere, she thought resentfully. She repeated her question with a hint of hauteur this time.
He straightened up and rolled the cuffs of his shirt up his forearms, exposing the dark, tanned skin covered with a fine mesh of dark hair. ‘Are you getting very intense and asking me about artistic integrity?’ he asked in the lazy, mocking way she was accustomed to. ‘Actually I’m in the fortunate position of being able to do both without having to compromise too much.’ He raised a brow as she refilled her empty glass. ‘Is that wise, cosidering the present state of your coordination?’
Emily narrowed her eyes. ‘Do I need your permission?’
‘You can get plastered and swing from the chandeliers as far as I’m concerned, infant,’ he replied, his light tone at variance with her swift antagonism.
‘I think I can guarantee I won’t do that,’ she returned, colour tingeing he
r cheekbones. ‘I thought authors based their heroes on themselves? Yours are always so…ordinary.’
‘Aren’t I?’
The cerulean blue of his eyes was intent and difficult to look away from. His overt male vitality jarred on her senses; the only predictable thing about Luke, she found herself thinking, was that he would always be unpredictable. Ordinary he would never be.
‘You call managing to juggle a career as a photojournalist with news reporting and writing very ordinary?’ she drawled nastily, as though this excess of talent were a criminal activity.
He shrugged. ‘And lots of women hold down a job, rear children and run a home. What’s so special? I can be selfish. I have no one to please but myself, so I do.’
‘But what do you think of yourself as?’ she persisted, realising this modesty was totally genuine and feeling shock: it was out of tune with all her notions of him. She’d so often heard him referred to at home as arrogant, self-important, that the scathing denunciations had gradually seeped into her mental filing system as truth. How many of her concepts about Luke were culled second-hand? she wondered. Was she as guilty of prejudice as he?
‘Why this desperate need to pigeon-hole, infant?’ He held his glass at arm’s length and watched her narrow-eyed through the deep red liquid, twirling the stem between his fingers. ‘I mean, I have no ambition to write the definitive book, so I don’t fear dilution of my talent. Opportunities arise and I take them. It always seemed churlish not to. I’ve been lucky—in the right place at the right time,’ he mused. ‘It would be terrible to wonder what might have been—so much easier to find out.’ He made it sound so damned easy, she thought resentfully. ‘People are just people,’ he continued reflectively. ‘It’s the way they react in extraordinary circumstances that makes them different; that’s why people can relate to my characters.’ He made a dismissive gesture and took a swallow of his wine. ‘At least, that’s what my agent says.’