His gaze slid down her bare arm, and his hand went out, gently releasing her clenched fingers one by one. His touch alarmed her, leaving fine needles of fire.
He said softly, his eyes swinging narrowly back to her pale face, “You really think I should, Sara?” Her breath came unevenly. Was he really relenting, or was his mood transient, born from the unreality of a moment when they might be existing in another world?
Her reply came, barely audible. “I don’t think you would regret it.” Her voice held a faint note of wistfulness.
“Such optimism!” he mocked gently. “But for you, Sara, I might do just this one thing.”
Her face glowed suddenly from an inner warmth which spread through her body. Yet she shook her head. “Whatever you do, Hugh, you must do for Jill. She has the problem, not me.”
“But you could have, sooner than you think. A problem of your very own.”
He spoke lazily again, enigmatically, stretching his long legs lithely beside her, curling around one finger a strand of her long fair hair.
Her heart lurched unhappily as his gaze travelled over her. Until he released her she could not break free, and, she felt, it would be foolish to beg. What had he meant by his statement? she wondered. She had experienced his ruthlessness. What would he do if he discovered that Colin was actually living here, and that she had known? It didn’t bear thinking about!
Seeking distraction from her tortured nerves, she said, “Jill can’t understand why her mother went to America without her.”
“Better that she shouldn’t.” His eyes were discouraging and slightly wary.
“That sounds ominous.” The words were scarcely out before she regretted them. He would think she was probing.
Suddenly he grinned. With deliberate cruelty he tugged the strand of hair, and as she winced said smoothly, “Does it now, my little curiosity? I suppose Jill put you up to this? Well, just tell her I refused to talk, and see what she makes of that.”
Colour flamed wildly under Sara’s skin with a kind of helpless anger. “Why be so hypocritical?”
“I’m not where you’re concerned.” He moved nearer and her eyes widened. “In other circumstances your beauty might have tempted me. I’m only a man.”
“So long as you’re not sure about it!” Irrationally, she hated that ambiguous ‘might’.
His free hand shot out, catching her chin, almost bruising the delicate skin on her face as he forced her to look at him.
“All my life,” he drawled, “I’ve done things in a hurry, but sometimes a man likes to take his time. Your air of innocence acts as a brake, but it could be wholly deceptive.”
She gasped as a swift rage threatened to choke her. Her hand shot out, contacting his hard cheek as she twisted away from him in the sand, but he was too quick for her. He uncoiled like a panther, and his arms caught her as they fell together against the bank.
She had no time to catch her breath as his arms locked around her, firm as whipcord, and not to be denied. Even as she struggled, with a smothered exclamation his mouth came down on hers, salty and rough with sea air, totally without mercy. Her hands came up against his chest, trying to thrust him away, then stilled by the shock of pleasure which flooded every nerve of her slim taut body.
She couldn’t move, he held her so closely, his heart beating heavily against her own. Her blood was on fire and she only wanted the moment to go on for ever, careless of his hurting lips and hands.
There could be other forms of punishment, but none so devastating as this. The air seemed filled with the song of the oyster-catchers, but she was past caring. His mouth burnt as the minutes slowed and lengthened, until the bruising pressure eased and he lifted his dark head, staring narrowly down at her flushed face.
Then suddenly she was pushing away from him, her thoughts chaotic, but knowing as she did so a primitive urge to be back in his arms.
Her voice shook as she looked at him wildly. “Is this your usual form of chastisement?” On her lips she could still taste the saltiness of his.
His eyes, curiously intent, stayed on her bruised mouth before going to her thickly fringed blue eyes, still clouded with emotion. He mocked deliberately, “I couldn’t think of anything more charming.”
She drew back, an involuntary motion of protest.
“I didn’t enjoy it,” she retorted fiercely, as he looked down at her, a definite hint of a threat in his eyes.
He said softly, “You’re the hypocrite now, or didn’t you know it?”
Carefully Sara raised herself to a sitting position. “You advised me to seek a romantic attachment.”
“You wouldn’t find it such a shattering experience with Ian McKenzie. You could probably cope.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
His lip curled derisively. “Do you want me to explain?”
“No—I—” Sara’s lips trembled so that she could scarcely force words through them, as she shrank from having her emotions laid bare in front of her. She stared up into his darkly handsome face. He had some hold over her. Some part of her responded unpredictably to his dominant personality. If she didn’t fight she could be utterly subdued and crushed, and she was suddenly afraid.
“We’d better go,” she finished helplessly, thrusting back her heavy hair with shaking fingers.
“So help me!” he muttered, staring at her savagely. “Haven’t you ever been kissed before? Or will you try to deny it?” His head came up abruptly.
“I think I hate you,” she retorted, knowing otherwise, trying to ignore the tearing pain inside her.
“So you keep saying.” She flinched from the smooth satire-in his voice. “But I think you know it’s not true, and I think I could prove it.” His eyes dwelt on her softly curved lips. “You might even enjoy the experience, in fact I would even guarantee it. Only I must admit you’re not quite what I’m used to.”
“Which hasn’t seemed much of an impediment so far,” she raged. “But I’m certainly not one of your women from the desert, or some tropical jungle!” With her temper came a small measure of composure which slowed her racing pulse.
There was a flare of amusement in his eyes as they glinted on the erratic nerve at the base of her throat. “What wouldn’t I do with you in the jungle, Sara! You wouldn’t escape me there.”
She knew he laughed at her, but his eyes were the dark smouldering grey of steel, and she felt the awful weakness of fascination. She had acknowledged before that she was no match for him verbally, and a transient hope that she might outwit him in another way died gently in her breast. Her folly lay in attempting the impossible.
She shook her head, sadly bereft of words, as he jumped to his feet, moving quickly for so big a man.
“We’d better get out of here,” Hugh said soberly, his jesting gone as he jerked her up and towards him in one supple lithe movement, his fingers hurting her wrist. “With your hair loose, and,” his eyes travelled downwards, “your feet bare, I won’t be responsible if we stay any longer.”
With a shrug he released her as she stared at him, fighting the feather sensation inside her, her eyes huge in her pale face.
She bent automatically to pick up her sandals, feeling slightly sick with an unexplainable humiliation, longing to be away from him. She said, her voice quite without expression, “Don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”
He laughed at that, a cynical sound, his eyes full of unspoken derision as they turned to walk silently back along the shore.
They returned to Lochgoil, and chaos, later that evening. It seemed that Biddy, after a disagreement with Jean, had insisted that she had been in bed long enough, and would get up and cook dinner herself. Katie, unduly alarmed, had decided to ring Dr. McKenzie and he had arrived at the same time as Beth. As he had still been there when they returned from Iona, Hugh could do no less than ask him to stay for the evening, an offer which had been accepted with unashamed alacrity.
“Presumably he needs to keep an eye on the invalid,” Hugh m
urmured drily, for Sara’s ears alone, as they sat down at the table.
Sara winced, ignoring his sally as he pushed in her chair. Did he not miss a thing? Ian’s eyes had been on her almost constantly since she had come downstairs five minutes ago. He would have been sitting beside her now if Hugh hadn’t neatly, and, she thought, deliberately forestalled him.
“I trust Biddy is able to carry on?” Hugh caustically addressed the doctor as he took a seat opposite between Jill and Beth—a Beth who was looking particularly attractive in a smart black dress.
“I should think so.” Ian’s grey-blue eyes, not without a sense of humour, twinkled. “It would certainly have been better if she’d stayed in bed a little longer, but one can’t work miracles. Sara has done wonders to keep her off her feet for a week, and she’s promised to take things easy.”
“She can’t bear the thought of anyone else in her kitchen,” Beth retorted crisply with raised eyebrows. “So you must just humour her, Hugh darling.”
“Perhaps if Hugh decides to stay and get married, his wife might cope with her,” said Jill, with a poker face, greatly daring. “I just can’t deal with Biddy’s tantrums.”
“My wife’s could be much worse,” Hugh teased suavely, glancing with some amusement at Jill as he filled Ian’s wine glass.
“I shouldn’t think so!” Jill laughed as she picked up her soup spoon. “Mummy says you always choose well—for a man.”
“I wonder...”
Sara felt suddenly slightly ill as she toyed with the food on her plate, unwilling to look up, her head spinning. In the muted glow from the centre light she looked almost ethereal, her dress with its soft swirling patterns clinging to her slender figure with innocent provocation. She was too conscious of Hugh by her side, a distracting element with his strange magnetism which she seemed unable to resist.
Her peculiar lassitude she put down to tiredness and the emotional excitement of the afternoon. The sensation of sea and sky, the subtlety of sun shimmering on water was still with her, emphasizing the disturbing reality of the moment. Hugh had parried Jill s remarks about a wife almost as if he had already made up his mind.
She knew a sense of relief when Beth, with a frowning stare in Jill’s direction, started talking about Iona, asking numerous sharp questions about their day.
Ian leaned carefully forward, saying to Sara, his eyes faintly reproachful. “If I’d known you wanted to go there, I’d have been delighted to take you. In fact I have to go next week to see a patient, if you’d care to go again?”
Oh, I’m sorry ...” She stared at him uncertainly. Nothing that had happened since they had returned had been able to obliterate the magic of Iona. But, in retrospect, she forced herself to concentrate on the cathedral rather than Sandeels Bay. She couldn’t bear to go back again, not straight away. But how to refuse? Already she had discovered that Ian could be stubbornly perverse.
Hugh said hardly as she hesitated, “Sara happens to be a working girl, Ian. I can’t spare her, I’m afraid. Not with the pressure of work here. Today was an exception. I wanted to see John Finley, and thought it would be a change for Jill.”
“And I want her for a day myself,” Jill inserted quickly before Ian could protest. “I thought we might go to Oban as I want a dress for the ball. I haven’t a single thing to wear.”
Sara shot her a puzzled glance. Only this morning Jill had declared that she wasn’t going to Beth’s dance. Why the sudden change of mind? Furthermore, if Jill had decided that there wasn’t anything suitable amongst the array of dresses in her wardrobe, then what about her own? Sara had brought very little in the way of party dresses to Lochgoil. Of course some women must have something new for every occasion. But during the few days she had been here Jill hadn’t given the impression that she was one of those. More than likely she just wanted another day
Hugh moved irritably by her side. “Why on earth didn’t you bring a dress with you, Jill? You might have known you would need it.”
Jill smiled sweetly at her brother, her eyes wide and guileless. “My operation, dear Hugh! I felt too ill to even think about the dance, so don’t be mean about Sara. I’m sure you can spare her for a few hours. Don’t you agree, Ian?” She turned her pleading face towards the doctor.
Ian nodded, momentarily in league with her, his good humour restored. “At any rate,” he grinned, “I’m taking Sara to the ball. You can’t possibly work her through that, old man.”
While everyone chuckled Sara found it difficult to raise a smile, and in a curious fashion her eyes gravitated to Hugh, noticing with sudden nervous apprehension that his mouth had drawn into a tight line.
His eyes glittered narrowly at the smiling man across the table, yet he said carelessly, with little sign of anger, “I’ll say this for you, McKenzie, you don’t waste much time. Unless,” he added smoothly, “you’re being a trifle presumptuous?”
Sara stirred uneasily, twirling the stem of her wine glass, her fingers taut as he turned his head. His hard dark eyes encountered hers, and there was unconcealed cynicism in their depth. She knew it was up to her to say something, but she didn’t know how to answer and moved her shoulders in a helpless gesture.
“It was only arranged yesterday morning,” she confessed unhappily, glancing at Beth. “Miss Asquith asked me too, the other day, and I didn’t think you would mind.”
“Hugh probably imagines I’ll run away with you,” Ian laughed, his pleasant face beaming, obviously not aware of any particular undercurrents. His gaze lingered enthusiastically on Sara’s pink cheeks. “I haven’t been able to get to the ball for years, owing to the nature of my work, but nothing short of a catastrophe is going to stop me this time.”
And that, Sara decided, as the conversation became general once more, seemed to be that!
But later, just before he went home, as Sara was having a last word with him about Biddy, Ian entreated her again not to forget that she had promised to go out with him.
“It’s not that the ball is so important, Sara, you know that.” His nice eyes were suddenly serious. “I’ve never met a girl like you before. I think I’m falling in love.”
“Oh, please, Ian ...” Startled, Sara stared up at him. “You can’t be serious! You’ve only known me a few days.” A state of confusion blended with tiredness jangled her nerves. He looked so sincere, almost as if he believed what he was saying. If only she wasn’t so completely aware of another man, how very different everything might be. A wave of despair swamped logical thought, and she could only look at Ian mutely.
But before she could say anything more, with a rueful grin he picked up his old tweed cap and turned towards the door, almost as if he guessed a little of what she was thinking. “Never mind, sleep on it, Sara. Don’t let it worry you now.” With a gentle touch of his hand he was gone, leaving her gazing after him. It had certainly been quite a day!
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jill decided not to go to Oban after all for a new dress. It had, she confessed to Sara, been a hasty decision born from a sudden urge to spend a whole day with Colin, who might have gone with them. But, after some thought, she had come to the definite conclusion that the risk wasn’t worth taking.
“Hugh might easily find out,” she sighed. “Or he might have insisted on coming with me himself in case I have a relapse or something. And you know what he is. He has eyes in the back of his head!” Sara smiled wryly at Jill’s quip. She had no inclination to go shopping for clothes with Jill. Nor had she any real desire to leave Lochgoil, even for a day, and she could only feel distinctly relieved that the girl had changed her mind.
They were sitting on the terrace in the garden after tea. The warm spring sunshine had enticed them out, and with Biddy active once more Sara found she had more time on her hands. She stretched luxuriously and turned her face up to the sun.
Jill stirred restlessly when Sara made no reply. She didn’t care for silence of any kind. Her eyes roamed thoughtfully over Sara’s pale profile.
&nbs
p; “I heard Hugh telling Beth the other night that he might be going down to London again next week. I might go with him for a couple of days, if he’ll have me. Colin has quite a lot of work to catch up on, and I’d only be in the way and make him irritable. Whereas if I go with Hugh he can forget all about me until I come back.”
Sara turned her head slowly and stared at her, startled out of her inertia. “Mr. Fraser didn’t mention it, and we’ve been busy in the office all morning.”
“Probably never thought of it,” Jill shrugged. “He’s much too busy running after Beth. I don’t know why I worry so much about keeping Colin out of sight. I don’t suppose he’d notice if the two of us sat on top of Ben More!”
“You were only saying a minute ago that he never misses a thing, or words to that effect?”
“Must you always take me so literally!” Jill’s eyebrows rose impatiently. “I’m only trying to point out that sometimes love seems to make people blind. He’s almost sure to announce his engagement at the dance.”
“You mean—to Beth?” Sara tried to smile, but her lips only stretched painfully.
“Who else?” Jill hesitated only slightly before rushing on. “I’ve been watching them closely and I’m sure there are signs.”
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