Sophisticated Seduction

by Jayne Bauling

  Bridget had gone pale. ‘If you can think that—’

  She broke off, confused, because there were so many possible reasons for his attitude, the most likely quite simply his ingrained cynicism.

  Nicholas seemed to wince as his eyes collided briefly with hers, which were dark and wounded.

  ‘No, I don’t think that,’ he muttered harshly, and the relief she experienced was so intense it was almost joy. ‘I know you too well. Bridget—’

  ‘You’re in a hurry, remember?’ she urged swiftly, touching his arm lightly. ‘Goodbye, Nicholas.’

  ‘Yes.’ He copied the gesture, touching her arm. ‘Take care, Bridget.’

  ‘You too. I’ll be here.’ Her lips were trembling too much for her to say more.

  Then she watched him go, knowing she could well be watching him walk out of her life and that she might never see him again.

  She wished she could believe she knew him as well as he had just claimed to know her, but she didn’t dare. She knew she was simple, easy to understand, because the only indelible writing on the page of her life was so recently put there and by Nicholas himself, but he was complicated, marked by his experiences in so many different, indecipherable scripts.

  All she could do was hope, and pray, and she did both fervently, unable to do much else at all, with sleep elusive and her appetite vanished.

  Somehow she knew that if there was no further contact between them here in India, then there would be none at home either.

  Her hopes tottered on such unreliably shaky ground. What did she have? Only his arrogantly asserted claim to know her, an intermittent suggestion of liking, and his apparent possessiveness which, she was all too painfully aware, could easily be purely sexual, as his last comments concerning Loris and Jolyon seemed to suggest: he didn’t want her any longer, but he was still too close to her to want anyone else to have her either.

  Those flimsy things, plus the perception that had come to her during the dawn, made Bridget well aware that she could be misled by her own lack of experience, having nothing with which to compare what had occurred between them. She had wanted, and meant, to give Nicholas peace, unable to bear seeing him so eaten by his desire for her, but she thought she had discovered something more than desire in him. It had seemed so manifest then, but she was no longer sure, and if whatever it was really existed, then it was hard and reluctant now, rigorously suppressed.

  She was so afraid. Nicholas had given her confidence in herself as a woman, but if he didn’t love her, then he would also have inflicted on her the greatest unhappiness of her life, because without him needing them there was no use for all the tenderness, passion and pleasure he had shown her she had to give. They existed solely for him.

  Bridget was aware that whatever work had taken him out of Delhi might prevent his returning in time to see her, but the phone also remained silent, save for one call from Jolyon Methven, which she cut short in case Nicholas was trying to get through.

  When the time came for her to start packing, late on the Saturday afternoon, she was forced to accept that she had been dreaming, the thing she was hoping for impossible, a miracle if it had occurred. Why should Nicholas change for her? Women who were superior to her in every way had failed to stir his heart into emotional life, so it had been unrealistic, and probably even conceited of her, to imagine that she might have succeeded.

  Bridget wanted to be angry with herself, but all she could feel was a great engulfing unhappiness, and she was crying helplessly as she packed.

  The sound of a car door slamming outside interrupted a sob. She listened a moment and then moved towards the bedroom door, hesitating unhappily as she reached it. She knew it was Nicholas arriving, but if all she had done for him was what she had originally thought she was doing in sharing herself with him, then she was no longer in his system and he could well have brought some new woman back with him, she realised, or have resumed whatever relationship he had had with Wanda.

  No! In the next second she knew that, even if he no longer wanted her, Nicholas would not do that to her— not knowing how she felt about him, and he did know. Bridget left the bedroom in a hurry.

  Nicholas was in the hallway. She saw his dark face, cruelly marked with signs of stress, black shadows under his eyes, mouth tense, and then she saw his shock and ensuing anger as he stared at her.

  ‘What’s wrong? What has happened?’ he demanded tautly, his appalled gaze roaming her pale, tear-streaked face, wet eyes and convulsively working lips.

  ‘You left it so late! I thought you weren’t coming,’ she sobbed accusingly, going to him. ‘I thought you weren’t even going to phone and I’d have to go home without even hearing your voice again.’

  ‘Oh, God, Bridget!’ Nicholas held out his arms and she stepped into them, slipping hers round him and discovering that he was shaking as badly as she was. ‘What have I done to you?’

  For a moment her damp face was pressed into the curve of his shoulder. Then she raised her head, looking at him in sudden terror.

  ‘You have come for me, haven’t you?’ she entreated desperately. ‘You have, haven’t you, Nicholas?’

  ‘What else?’ he acknowledged with a shuddering sigh. ‘I was afraid I wouldn’t get here in time… But you knew I’d come?’

  ‘I didn’t know, I just thought you might,’ Bridget gulped. ‘I hoped you would.’

  ‘Then how come—?’ As he broke off, she felt his hand pass shakily over the braid at the back of her head. ‘It has haunted me! Why did you say you didn’t want my love?’

  ‘I didn’t!’

  ‘When I asked you if you wanted a red rose and a declaration of love, you said—’

  ‘Oh! I didn’t need to hear if you did… Because I thought you might… I needed you to know if you did and to decide if you wanted me in your life.’ Bridget was still crying a little, and her voice carried the memory of her earlier anguish. ‘Only, when I didn’t hear from you, I thought you weren’t going to.’

  ‘Bridget?’ Suddenly Nicholas was holding her face between his hands, searching it with an almost wondering expression in his eyes. ‘Can you really know me so well—better than I know myself? That’s what I’ve been doing, finding out—or, rather, facing up to the fact that this thing I’ve never believed in actually exists and has happened to me… And you understood all that?’

  ‘I hoped I did, and only after we’d made love, but I was so afraid of being wrong,’ she confessed emotionally, tightening her hold on him. ‘But I wasn’t, was I? You do, you know—’

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted abruptly, and closed his eyes for a moment as his arms came round her again. ‘I couldn’t see it for a long time, and then after that I wouldn’t. By the end I was desperate, telling myself deliberate lies, making excuses… But it must have been there right from the start.

  ‘I misled you, you know, letting you think it was Wanda who’d been inhibited by your presence here, hence her departure from the house the night I arrived in Delhi. It was me. I suppose part of me knew I’d just seen my love for the first time, and I couldn’t bring myself to be unfaithful to you, then or later; she was pretty disgusted when the affair I’d made it clear I had in mind never even got started. I kept finding myself wanting to look after you, protect you, and being furious with my sister for sending you out here all alone—and then I’d manage to turn it round, kid myself it was Virginia’s welfare that concerned me, and be angry with you instead, simply for being here, really, and doing all that to me, I think.

  ‘Do you remember how arrogantly I gave you some philosophical advice when you were still upset over Loris—not that I knew it was him then? I said that next time around it would be some man suffering over you. That has really come back to haunt me! I never dreamed the man would be me, because I didn’t believe I could…feel. And I was so damned jealous of my cousin, even after I knew there’d been nothing between you, just because you’d thought yourself in love with him, for however short a time…

 
‘Well, you know how it affected me. After Virginia told me you hadn’t had an actual affair with him, I made up my mind there could be nothing between us, because my sort of affair would be no good for you, but I couldn’t bear the idea of your wanting someone else instead of me, whether Loris or Methven…

  ‘I want to be with you all the time. I’ve treated you so badly, haven’t I? I suppose I’m a typically reactionary male. I hated even having to consider new ideas, such as the possibility that love might actually exist. I’ve kept trying to persuade myself that most of what I was feeling was lust. When we got back to Delhi from Rajasthan and I heard you telling Virginia to leave me alone, give me time to unwind—you looking after me, trying to protect me, in effect—I liked it so much that it kicked holes in the pretence and I was absolutely furious. As you know.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Bridget had stopped crying and her hands were moving soothingly about his back, trying to ease the terrible tension that still held him.

  ‘So now we both know, and here we are,’ Nicholas said tightly. ‘But what the hell are we going to do about it, Bridget?’

  ‘Be together and love each other,’ she answered him in a whisper, her smile still shy, but confident too.

  ‘We can’t!’ he protested harshly. ‘I’m no good for you!’

  ‘We can,’ she insisted gently. ‘And now that you know too I will be a nuisance, Nicholas. I’m not letting you go.’

  ‘Think of how unhappy I’ve already made you!’ His tone was almost despairing. ‘I’ll be terrible, Bridget. I’ll treat you badly, I’ll take advantage of your generosity, I’ll let you look after me—’

  ‘And I’ll like doing it. That’s why I’ll suit you,’ she claimed with a happy little laugh. ‘Most women wouldn’t accept it, however crazy they might be about you, but I’m not modern; I want to—to take care of you, and make your life easy and happy.’

  ‘You would, too,’ Nicholas acknowledged broodingly. ‘I’ve already witnessed how you’ll share the burden of my family with me—try to protect me from them.’

  ‘But you’ll look after me too,’ she reminded him confidently, knowing it was true. ‘And you’ll make me happy.’

  ‘How can I? I’ll be possessive, as I was when I was so vile after you’d made yourself look so beautiful in your red dress. That was ugly of me. I didn’t want you to be so ravishing because I was afraid you’d attract all sorts of other men,’ he admitted painfully. ‘Not that you wouldn’t anyway, without the effort.’

  ‘But you’ll know that any time I do make the effort it will be for you.’ Bridget thought a moment and sighed. ‘I don’t suppose I will very often, though.’

  ‘I wouldn’t deserve it.’ At last she thought she detected a quirk of his lips as he held her away from him for a moment, inspecting her cream cotton dress. ‘But you always look lovely; it was the sophistication that disturbed me then… When I think of how I’ve treated you, and the way I’ve believed I wanted you to be different, I’m ashamed. You are perfect, Bridget… But how can we be together? It’s been difficult enough understanding myself, and I still don’t understand you. How can you want me?’

  ‘I adore you,’ she responded passionately. ‘But I think you do understand me. You knew I was waiting for you to come back or phone, didn’t you? And I don’t think you really believed in your heart that I’d meant I didn’t want your love, or you couldn’t have come back.’

  ‘No, it was probably my last excuse to myself,’ Nicholas admitted drily, ‘and it gave me a reason to go away instead of staying and having to face the truth— but I’ve had to in the end, anyway.’

  ‘I suppose you were half hoping I’d confirm that I didn’t want it when you asked me now?’ Bridget teased tenderly. ‘You really do believe in fighting to the last, don’t you, my darling?’

  He stared at her for a moment before laughing unevenly, and joy and relief surged through her as she felt all the rigid resistance leave him.

  ‘But here is where I surrender. If you know me that well, I suppose I’ll just have to marry you,’ he accepted decisively, and then he was holding her in a tight, convulsive embrace, and speaking into her ear in a low, passionate voice. ‘I don’t mean to be flippant. This is so new to me! I’ve always felt alone, even in close situations with other women, and among my family, but I never feel alone when I’m with you. Hold me, Bridget. Hold on to me and don’t let me get away.’

  ‘Do you want to?’ she asked lovingly, lips against his cheek.

  ‘No, I never will,’ he asserted intensely. ‘But I’m so selfish and difficult and demanding that you’ll probably often feel like letting me go.’

  ‘No, I won’t, because I love you the way you are, difficult and all, and—oh, Nicholas, more than anything, I want to make you happy!’ she concluded urgently.

  ‘You’ll spoil me,’ he murmured, a tender caution.

  ‘I happen to think you’ll spoil me,’ she retorted.

  ‘But not destroy you?’ he prompted, with a slight return of his earlier resistance.

  ‘No.’ Bridget was confident. ‘You know you won’t. Oh!’

  A car was hooting outside, and Nicholas frowned. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘It’ll be the taxi I ordered to take me to the airport,’ she explained.

  ‘I got here just in time, then.’ Nicholas gave her a complex look as he released her. ‘I know you have your professional commitments to consider, and that you must—No, I’m not letting you go! I can’t. Oh, hell, I told you I’d be difficult and demanding!’

  Bridget laughed. ‘Oh, Nicholas, don’t you know? I want you to be demanding in that way. I want you to demand that I put you first, so I know that the fact that I do is necessary to you. I love you and I need you to need me, because loving you is what I’m best at… Will you send him away for me, please? I’m sure Virginia will understand when we explain.’

  ‘It will be too bad if she doesn’t,’ he asserted, and she felt her heart expand with joy at his return to the arrogantly authoritative man she loved. ‘I only need a few more days here anyway, and then we can go home together and get married, and my cousin Adrian can come home too because I’m transferring Loris to the States. Thank you, my darling. I know I don’t deserve this—or you.’

  ‘Hurry,’ she said as the taxi hooted again, and he gave her a quick hard kiss on the mouth before going outside.

  It was growing dark, so Bridget switched on a few lights and waited for him to come back to her.

  When he did, they each shut one of the pair of carved doors and stood looking at each other for a moment. Then Nicholas took her hands in his.

  ‘I love you, Bridget,’ he told her, following it with a slight, rueful sigh. ‘I wish I could tell you in some beautiful, original way, but I’ve had no practice as I’ve never loved anyone before. I’ll probably never get much good at telling you or showing you, but I do, and I always will.’

  Bridget’s fingers stirred against his, and she saw the desire that flared in his eyes at the same time as her own was ignited.

  ‘Do you know when I was most sure that you do?’ she asked him, with a slow, radiant smile of pure happiness. ‘When we made love. You showed me more beautifully than I ever dreamed was possible… Will you make me sure again, please, Nicholas, and let me be…what you showed me I’m meant to be for you?’

  His answering smile promised so much tenderness and passion that she started to tremble as he released one hand and, keeping hold of the other, led her out of the hall.

  ‘With pleasure, Bridget,’ he said, ‘and with all my love.’

  eISBN 978-14592-7614-7

  SOPHISTICATED SEDUCTION

  First North American Publication 1996.

  Copyright © 1995 by Jayne Bauling.

  All rights reserved Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and r
ecording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone beanng the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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