'Does the peace and tranquillity not do something to you, Cara?' he answered her query with another when he finally turned his head to meet her upturned, impatient gaze.
'It does,' she confessed with a fiendish desire to shake him out of his arrogant, self-satisfied shell. 'It makes me realise that I would have enjoyed this day a great deal more with someone of my own choice.'
'Such as?' he demanded harshly, his eyes piercingly bright when they raked her insolently from head to foot. 'Name one man who hasn't been frightened off by your cold, haughty manner?'
'There's John Curtis, for instance,' she countered without hesitation, her mind conjuring up a vision of the lean, dark-haired young man who had been her friend and companion so often during the past years.
'John Curtis!' Vince repeated the name with a harsh bark of laughter which was tainted with cynicism. 'He's just a hungry puppy begging at your table for crumbs. You slap him down, but he always comes back begging for more.'
Shock vibrated through her at his scornful and inaccurate summing up of her relationship with John. 'It's not like that at all. We have been good friends since the days we were at school together, and we enjoy each other's company, but there's nothing more to it than that.'
'You're your father's daughter, Cara,' he accused with a savage note in his voice that made her back an involuntary pace away from him. 'You're blind to everything except that which you want to see. You will use people for as long as it suits you, but you will drop them flat the moment the tables are turned and they happen to need something from you.'
Cara felt a coldness invade her body which had nothing whatsoever to do with the weather. She could protect herself against the coldness of the weather, but she could not protect herself against such an icy accusation when she had no idea where it had originated. She was fighting an unfair battle, but she was not going to give in to that feeling of helplessness. Something was being withheld from her; something her father had done, and the unfairness of it was that she was being punished for it along with her father.
CHAPTER FOUR
'My father is not like that, and neither am I,' Cara felt compelled to protest vehemently as she fought against the hurt inflicted by his accusation. 'We do not use people, and then turn our backs on them when they need us.'
'We'll forget about your father for the moment, but why is it you haven't noticed the way Johnny-boy moons over you?' Vince's lips pulled away from his teeth in a mockingly derisive smile that made her palm itch with the desire to slap his face. 'Good God, the fellow almost swoons at your feet every time you subject him to one of your cool and distant smiles.'
Cara began to shake with suppressed fury, and she clenched her hands at her sides for fear of lashing out at him. 'You don't know what you're talking about, and how dare you stand there and pass judgment when you don't know John and you most certainly don't know me well enough to do so!'
'I know you better than you imagine, liebchen,' he corrected smoothly, and she was not deaf to the undercurrent of sensuality in his deep-throated voice. 'I have amused myself for months with the task of observing you, and last night I was rewarded with the discovery that there is a fire simmering beneath that cool exterior you display to the world.' He flicked a lazy finger across her cheek, and smiled mockingly down into her eyes. 'It pleases me to know that I can look forward to a year of spending the most enjoyable nights in bed with you.'
Her cheeks flamed with anger as she backed away from his touch. 'You're the most disgusting man I… oh!'
The heel of her sandal twisted beneath her when she stepped on the protruding root of a tree, and she lost her balance. It all happened so fast that there was no time to grasp at something to break her fall, and she went down heavily to slither down the slanted embankment into the river. The shock of the icy water made her catch her breath on a rasping note a mere fraction of a second before she was completely submerged and, when she surfaced from the murky depths, she found Vince standing at the water's edge with his hands on his hips, and a wide smile curving his mouth.
'If you had wanted to indulge in a swim, Cara, I would have suggested you remove your clothes first,' he mocked her as she got to her feet and waded out unsteadily, and the iciness of the water had not cooled the fire of her anger one iota.
'Oh, you—you—' Her teeth began to chatter, forcing her to relinquish the effort of flinging at him a suitable word to describe exactly what she thought of him.
'Come, let me help you,' he offered, laughing in his voice as he held out his hand invitingly towards her, but her laughter simply infuriated her more.
'Don't touch me!' she hissed through her clenched teeth, waving his hand away. 'Just don't touch me!'
Vince's expression hardened, but he shrugged indifferently and turned away. 'Certainly, if you feel that way about it.'
Cara's sandals were ruined, and her wet clothes were clinging to her body like a second skin. Her hair had come undone to hang limp and cold between her shoulder blades, and she could not remember when, if ever, she had felt this cold before. She had to clench her teeth tightly together to stop them from chattering, and she followed Vince up the slippery embankment on all fours. It was all most undignified, and she took off her sandals to walk back to the cottage on bare feet. The sun would not warm her, and the refreshing breeze that stirred in the trees felt as if it was blowing directly off snow-capped mountains.
Cara's angry eyes were on Vince's broad back, her damp lashes caked together like little spikes, and she felt like committing murder when they entered the cottage and he paused in the lounge to glance at her bedraggled form.
'You look rather wet,' he observed blandly, but that hateful mockery lit his eyes and curved his cynical mouth.
'If you say another word, I—I'll throw something at you, I swear it!' Her voice was shaking with fury as she wrapped her arms about her shivering form, and then, to her horror, she burst into tears.
She turned her back on Vince to hide from him the humiliating sight of tears rolling down her cheeks, but she could not hide the fact that her shoulders were shaking with cold and silent sobs. This was one of the faults about herself which she hated most, and it was the reason why she always guarded against becoming angry. Anger nearly always drove her to tears, and she had never been more humiliated by it than at this precise moment.
Cara heard a match being struck, and moments later the sound was followed by the crackle of a wood fire in the grate. The smell of wood-smoke drifted towards her as Vince walked out of the lounge and into the bedroom, and she turned cautiously. The leaping flames in the fireplace beckoned with the promise of warmth and, dropping her ruined sandals on the carpeted floor, she crossed the lounge quickly in the hope of ridding herself of this bone-marrow coldness which gripped her.
'Take off your clothes,' Vince ordered when he returned with a blanket to find her huddling in a shivering bundle on the carpet in front of the fire.
'No!' she rejected his suggestion stubbornly, but strong hands gripped her arms and jerked her unceremoniously to her feet.
'I don't want you to catch your death, so take your wet clothes off, or I'll take them off for you.'
He towered over her threateningly, his eyes bitingly cold as they stared down into hers, and she knew with a shrinking feeling that he would not hesitate to undress her. She stared at the blanket in his hands and had to admit to herself that it would be a relief to rid herself of her wet, clinging clothes.
She nodded without speaking for fear that her teeth would chatter embarrassingly, and she turned her back on him while she peeled off her clothes. Her hands were shaking so much that she fumbled with the catch of her bra behind her back, and her cheeks flamed when Vince's hands brushed hers aside to undo the catch for her. The lacy garment joined the rest of her things on the floor, and she stood for a moment clothed only in the glow of the fire before Vince draped the blanket about her shivering body.
Cara lowered herself carefully to the carpet, and leaned with he
r back against the seat of the sofa while she stretched her feet out towards the warmth of the fire. She heard the clink of glass, and then Vince was bending over her again.
'Drink this while I hang your clothes out to dry,' he instructed, and she clutched the blanket about her with one hand while she wriggled the other out between the folds to take the glass from him.
She sniffed at the amber contents and wrinkled her nose. 'It's brandy.'
'Of course it's brandy,' he confessed harshly. 'You're shivering, and the brandy will warm your insides while the fire will do the rest.'
He did not wait to see whether she obeyed him, but stooped without a flicker of embarrassment to pick up her bundle of wet clothing. It was Cara who felt embarrassed at the thought that he was handling those lacy, personal items and, when he strode out of the cottage through the kitchen, she took a hasty sip of brandy to steady herself. She disliked the taste, but when the first mouthful of fiery liquid hit her stomach she felt the benefit of it almost instantly. She drank it slowly, taking a sip every now and then, and the warmth that spread through her insides made her begin to feel more human. She was also feeling a little dizzy, and a strange languour was shifting into her limbs, giving her an odd sense of well-being.
Vince returned a few minutes later with a towel and a brush which he flung on to the seat behind her. He took her by the shoulders and pushed her a little forward so that he could sit on the sofa behind her, and she was beginning to feel too pleasantly warm and drowsy to object when he proceeded to dry her hair with the towel.
Neither of them spoke, but she was aware of his knees jutting out on either side of her, and the firmness of his hands inside the towel while he rubbed her hair dry made her scalp tingle. She felt warm at last, and strangely cosseted. It was a peculiar, but a pleasant sensation when Vince finally threw the towel aside to brush the tangles out of her hair which was still slightly damp. The action did not match the man she imagined him to be, and it shattered her momentarily when she realised fully how little she knew about this man who was her husband.
Vince finally dropped the brush on to the seat beside him, and pushed her forward again so that he could get up, but he did not leave the room. He sat down in the chair facing her to take off his shoes and socks, and he lit a cigarette as he stretched his feet out towards the fire.
'Feeling better?' he asked, his eyes narrowed as he studied her through a cloud of smoke.
'Yes, thank you.' The corners of her mouth lifted in a smile she could not suppress. 'I imagine I got what I deserved. I have insulted you from the moment we arrived here this morning, and I realise now that I provoked you into saying the things you did.'
A gleam of mockery flickered in his eyes. 'Is that an apology, Cara?'
Her smile deepened, and she put down her empty glass to snuggle deeper into the warm blanket. 'Yes, I suppose it is.'
'I didn't need much provocation from you to speak my mind, and I meant every word I said, so don't expect an apology from me.'
'I wasn't hoping for an apology,' she confessed, but inwardly she could still feel the stinging lash of his accusations. An odd little smile was playing about his mouth, and he studied her long and hard until she shifted uncomfortably beneath his gaze. 'Why are you looking at me like that?'
His smile became deeply etched in cynicism. 'I was thinking that you somehow manage to look haughty and beautiful even when you are wrapped in an unattractive blanket.'
The warmth of the fire could not prevent that chilling sensation that gripped her insides at his use of the word haughty. ' "Some people are all quality; you would think they were made up of nothing but title and genealogy. The stamp of dignity defaces in them the very character of humanity, and transports them to such a degree of haughtiness that they reckon it below themselves to exercise either good-nature or good manners",' she quoted L'Estrange softly, almost absently while she stared into the flames, and when she looked up she found Vince's eyes resting intently on her face. 'I am not like that, Vince,' she defended herself.
' "The dignity of truth is lost with much protesting".'
Her eyes widened in surprise. He had quoted Ben Jonson as if he had been a student of literature, and she stared at him thoughtfully as he put out his cigarette and joined her on the carpet in front of the fire.
'I was not protesting, I was stating a fact, but you are naturally free to believe what you wish,' she answered him, disturbed by his nearness, and intensely aware of his arm resting on the seat behind her shoulders.
'I notice you don't object to being told that you are beautiful.'
'Personally I think my mouth is too wide, and my eyes too far apart, but what woman in her right mind would object to being told she is beautiful?'
Her eyes were sparkling with irrepressible humour when she turned her head to glance up at him, but she regretted her action almost instantly. His face was mere inches from her own, and the moment their glances locked she found that she could not look away. His eyes fascinated her. They could change from icy grey to warm blue with his emotions, but at that moment his pupils were so enlarged that his eyes were almost black. Her heart began to hammer against her ribs, and a nervous tremor raced through her body.
'Your hair is almost dry.' His deep voice soothed and caressed her frayed nerves, and he pushed his fingers through her heavy mass of dark, unruly curls until her scalp tingled with his touch.
A lazy finger traced a line of fire from her ear down to the hollow at the base of her throat, and his arm tightened about her shoulders. For one fleeting moment she contemplated escape, but his warm breath mingled with hers, and then she was lost.
The sensual pressure of his hard mouth parted her lips, and a new warmth surged through her that left her trembling against him. His kiss was not demanding; it was instead a lingering, tantalising, and intensely exciting exploration of her mouth, and it made her feel as if an intoxicating drug was slowly being injected into her bloodstream. She murmured in protest when he raised his lips from hers to seek out the sensitive hollow behind her ear, and he laughed softly while he trailed a slow, teasing path back to her eager, waiting lips.
He knew exactly what he was doing to her, damn him, and he was using every erotic trick he was acquainted with to ensure her capitulation. Cara was aware of this; her mind warned against it, but her body was too busy responding to those fingers trailing from her throat to her smooth shoulder. There was fire in his touch; a fire that kindled an answering fire in her, and perhaps the brandy he had given her was to blame for the fact that she felt too lethargic to protest when his hand dipped down inside the blanket to cup the swell of her breast. His thumb moved in lazy, sensuous circles around the hardened peak until a shudder of desire coursed through her, and her body moved willingly with his when he lowered her into a reclining position on the carpet.
His mouth moved hungrily over hers, drawing on the sweetness within before he eased himself away from her. She used this opportunity to regain her breath, and she was only vaguely aware that he was tearing off his shirt with a swiftness that did not give her sufficient time to come to her senses. He was between her and the fire, obliterating its glowing warmth, and she fastened her eyes on to his wide shoulders and hair-roughened chest. He leaned over her, and the clean male smell of him stirred her senses as nothing had ever done before. That aura of raw masculinity which surrounded him made her feel like a fragile piece of china, and her eyes pleaded unconsciously with his for leniency before his mouth swooped down on hers to rekindle the fires he had ignited inside her.
The blanket parted beneath the urgency of his hands, exposing her slender body and shapely legs to his brilliant gaze, and a wave of intense shyness made her turn her face away from him. His laughter mocked her, but there was seduction in the hands that explored her body, and his touch aroused every nerve and sinew to a tingling awareness of that aching void inside her that needed to be filled. A wave of shame engulfed her as her body betrayed her. She tried to thrust Vince from her, but h
e laughed at her puny efforts and forced his knee between her thighs. The dark curtain of her hair lay spread around her flushed face on the cream-coloured carpet, and he buried his hands in it so that she was forced to meet his probing gaze.
'Don't!' she begged when she saw the naked desire in his eyes, but her plea went unheard.
His lips ravaged hers before trailing a destructive path along the sensitive column of her throat, and a stream of fiery sensations coursed through her body when his mouth began to explore her breast. He was creating exquisite havoc with her emotions, and the intimate arousal of his strong, yet sensitive fingers brought her swiftly to a fever pitch of desire. It was at this crucial point that her mind cruelly underlined the distressing knowledge that she was merely being used.
'Oh, no… no!' she moaned breathlessly, her hands flat against his chest in an attempt to push him away from her, but the hair-roughened warmth of his skin against her palms aroused a further spate of unwanted sensation which were beginning to sap her energy.
'Tell me you want me.' His voice was hoarse with unmistakable desire, and there was a stab of fear in the recesses of Cara's mind when she actually found herself on the verge of complying with his wishes.
'No, I won't!' she cried out in protest against his unfair command as well as her own crumbling resistance.
'Say it!' he growled threateningly.
'You—you can't make me—say something I—I don't mean,' she gasped unsteadily, clinging desperately to her pride, but her body was pulsating with a rapidly growing need to be possessed by him.
'You will say it, and you will mean it, because right this minute you want me as badly as I want you,' he murmured savagely against her throat, and she could not deny to herself that this was true.
'Vince, don't—don't make me!' she begged huskily, the erotic urgency of his hands on her burning flesh driving her wild with an intolerable longing that made her want to cry out with agony of it.
The Devil's Pawn Page 6