Her breath caught in her throat, she tried to struggle. “Let me go!”
Instantly he gave her a terse little shake. “I don’t happen to be joking, or looking for an excuse to get you in my arms. I don’t want you passing out on me, that’s all.” His arms tightened. “Are you any warmer?”
“I’m not cold.’’ Her face was burning beneath his mocking candour, and she hated him, with a clear cold hate.
“Then why are you trembling?” His steely fingers reached for hers, testing their temperature. “Your clothing,” his voice was dry, “isn’t entirely suitable.”
She said, “I had my cardigan and the sun was hot.”
“And now it isn’t, and that cardigan is entirely inadequate.” Quickly, before she could protest, he unzipped his large coat, wrapping it around her so that it encompassed them both, and she was fast against the warmth of his chest.
Unbidden, Sara felt a fever of excitement rising within her, and closed her eyes, determined that he shouldn’t guess. A weight of longing came over her from nowhere, stunning her so heavily that she was afraid to move or speak.
The minutes passed slowly. “Are you feeling any better?” Hugh asked presently.
She had been dreaming, but when he spoke she glanced at him quickly, to see him looking at her a little oddly. She turned her head away abruptly, catching her breath. Her heart seemed to be beating loudly in the stillness, and the only reality was the man who was regarding her with oblique concern.
“I asked you a question!” he said sharply, when she didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry.” She felt her cheeks burning again. “Of course I’m feeling better. I don’t need your coat.”
One dark eyebrow soared. “Woman’s ingratitude to man!” He surveyed her mockingly.
He lifted his hand, she thought to remove his coat, but instead he tipped her head back forcibly, his fingers smoothing the heavy hair away from her forehead, heedless of the tangles. With deliberate deftness he lifted it from her neck, running his eyes over her delicately boned face, lingering with punishing intentness on the smudges, brown against the whiteness of her cheeks, and her gold-tipped lashes.
“Hugh ...” With a faint sigh she heard his name on her lips, scarcely aware that she had uttered it. There came a sudden unquestionable longing inside her, a tearing kind of hunger, not lessened by the feel of his strong body against her own. Bitter-sweet sensations began to mingle.
But he didn’t move. Only his hand continued to explore her face, his gaze pinning her down, arousing emotions she hadn’t been aware that she possessed.
“You were saying?” he prompted softly, his voice low against the rising wind, but faintly persuasive.
“Nothing ...” Confusion swept over her and her heavy eyelids fell. It was the only protection she had against his ability to read her like a book. Deep colour stained her cheeks, and even in the failing light she was afraid that he would see.
There was a moment’s silence when, as she had feared, his finger unerringly traced the flare of pink, and he said slowly, “You’re beginning to feel again, Sara. For too long you’ve been determined to live on a barren, unemotional plane, but now it’s receding.”
The lick of flame in his voice brought her right back to her senses, but she dared not move, her body went taut. She was afraid of how much he might guess. Her barren, unemotional plane, as he called it, had been invaded by a man who almost certainly belonged to someone else. Did he expect her to feel gratitude for awakening feelings which he obviously viewed with clinical detachment? Her eyes stung with sudden rage and tears. She could feel the warmth of his skin through the thin silk of her blouse and shuddered convulsively.
But even as she tried again to thrust him away, his arms tightened, crushing her body with a soft fluid movement against his own, then abruptly his head lifted, sensing danger, scanning the sky.
“The cloud!” Alert to the elements, his gaze went over her head. “It’s lifting with the wind. We’d better hurry.”
He was on his feet, pulling Sara with him, concentrating on the weather, his arrogant dark head clearly etched against the night sky. The wind was rising steadily, whipping at her hair, tearing at her clothes, filling the night with noise where before there had only been an eerie silence. The mist, she saw, now only covered the top of the mountain, while around and below them the ground lay clear. But as she lifted her hot cheeks gratefully to the cooling wind, there came with it a fine drizzle of rain, and a definite threat of more to come.
“We’d better hurry,” Hugh repeated, turning from his brief scan of the universe to slip out of his coat and zip it quickly around her. Quieting her feeble protests with one sharp look, he methodically picked up the Thermos before taking hold of her arm with his other hand. His terse expression brooked no argument, as he relentlessly turned her around.
“We have some way to go, and the cloud could come down again at any minute. It’s that sort of night, so just start walking, there’s a good girl. The next time we might not be so lucky.” His mouth was grim as he slanted a quick glance at her trance-like face.
He was right, as Sara soon realised. After half an hour, and within a hundred yards of the road, they were surrounded once more by a thick penetrating fog. He pushed her none too gently ahead of him, refusing to let her stop until they reached the vehicles. Breathlessly she doubted whether she would ever have made it on her own. They seemed to have walked for miles, yet it didn’t appear to have taken them very long.
“I happen to know this area well,” he told her curtly. “As a boy I enjoyed climbing Ben More.” A certain weariness tinged with tension ringed his mouth, as she paused for a minute in the darkness oddly poised as if ready for flight. “I want you to promise me, Sara, that you’ll never come here again by yourself.”
Sara wrenched open the door of the Mini and dived in. Anything to get away from that crisp, autocratic note in his voice. He wasn’t pleading or pretending a solicitude he didn’t feel. All he asked was that she didn’t make a nuisance of herself in this particular way again.
Rather blindly she groped for the ignition. “You’re a tyrant!” she choked, not looking at him, guiltily aware that while most people would be showering him with effusive thanks, some aching part of her refused to comply. Her whole being rebelled against a fate which had allowed her to fall in love with a man to whom she meant nothing at all.
She looked up and felt her nerves shrivel with apprehension. There was something near to anger in his eyes, almost as if her tense remark stung, yet he smiled, a mocking, characteristic smile, which relegated her to the ranks of precocious children. “You were saying?” he prompted, with steely intent, his hand acting as a break on the door, his voice challenging.
“Oh, sorry ...” With a slightly metallic laugh she decided to brazen it out. Better a discordant note than that he should guess the true state of her feelings. If she was extremely careful that final humiliation should never be hers.
She forced her eyes to meet his narrow stare, her lips parting with deliberate flippancy, “I am truly grateful, as I thought I’d said before, but if it pleases you, I’ll say it again, and promise to behave myself in future, Mr. Fraser.”
“Which could mean anything or nothing! Take a bow, Miss Winton.” With a half smothered exclamation the car door slammed and jumped with the force of his derision, as he neatly stepped to one side and waved her on. “All I ask now is that you keep out of my way in future.”
Which, Sara thought, with a frown of bewilderment, as her foot jerked on to the accelerator, seemed a very odd thing for a man to say to his secretary!
Jill said, “I don’t know why Hugh was so mad because I wasn’t here when you got back last night. I tried to explain that I knew he would find you, but he just wouldn’t listen. I thought he was making a great fuss about nothing. After all, it was only you.”
Sara hid a wry smile, disregarding Jill’s outspokenness with an amused shrug. “He was probably cross about something
else altogether. Your being out so late, I should imagine,” she suggested mildly.
“How very stupid. I’m not a child any more!”
Stung, this time, by the tone of Jill’s voice. Sara said sharply, “Apart from that, speaking generally, there could have been lives at stake. Anyone can get into difficulties, and you were supposed to get help if we didn’t return.”
Jill tossed her head unrepentantly. “You’re quite as bad as he is. And I still say there was no need for him to be in such a temper. It was only after ten, and Katie knew where to find me.”
“Katie seems to know a lot of things,” Sara remarked drily. “I suppose she knew about Colin being here long before I did?”
It was Jill’s turn to shrug, although she did look slightly ashamed. “Katie has been here all my life. Well, ever since I can remember,” she amended, “So naturally all her loyalty lies with me. And,” she added pettishly, staring at Sara, “I can rely on her.”
“Fine,” Sara agreed, a trifle wearily. “So you can. But do remember that we can’t achieve the impossible. Hugh’s bound to find out, and to be quite frank, I’ll be somewhat relieved when he does. If I were you I’d just concentrate on a good explanation.”
Jill threw her a sullen glance as she jumped to her feet, her curly hair awry. “For goodness’ sake don’t start lecturing again. I’ve had enough to last me a lifetime! Why on earth should Hugh object to my marrying Colin if he intends to marry a bitchy type like Beth? No one ever bothers about me!”
A quick sickness touched Sara’s heart, combined with a painful drumming in her head, through which she heard herself murmuring ineffectually, “People have tried to help ...”
“Different people choose different ways!” Jill retorted enigmatically, her cheeks pink with irritation. “But let me tell you I don’t much care if Hugh does find out. In fact he could be in for a shock, and sooner than you think!”
Taking no notice of Sara’s strained white face, she turned to pick up a blue wool coat from the chair in Sara’s room where she had been sitting.
“Well, are you coming or are you not?” Jill’s voice was still laced with impatience as she made for the door, and picking up her own coat, Sara, clearly reluctant, followed.
Jill, in one of her childishly vindictive moods, was not particularly good company, and Sara wished she hadn’t agreed to her suggestion that they both had their hair done professionally for the dance. Now, it was too late to change her mind without arousing Jill’s suspicions. Jill had a flair for asking awkward questions, along with a talent for extracting interesting answers. She could almost have made a career from it, Sara decided with an exasperated sigh, as she ran downstairs by her side.
In the hall they bumped into Hugh. Sara had been busy in the office all morning, following a sheet of closely written instructions which she had found lying on her desk after breakfast. Apart from a few short minutes when he had looked in to put his signature to an urgent letter, this was the first time she had seen him to speak to all day.
As he stepped to one side to let them pass his dark brows rose fractionally at the sight of their outdoor clothes.
Sara hesitated, her face flushing slightly before his brief appraisal. “You will remember, Mr. Fraser,” she said hesitantly, when Jill, obviously still at loggerheads with her brother, made no effort to speak, “you will remember,” she repeated, “that you gave me permission to have my hair done this afternoon.”
She stood there a little uncertain, while Jill walked straight on through the door.
His eyes travelled over her fair head with suave deliberation, faintly satirical. “Now you come to mention it, Miss Winton, I believe I did. And after last night you could probably do with a little cosseting, although your hair always looks beautiful to me.”
From somewhere, unbidden, came the idiotic notion that he was making love to her. If it hadn’t been for the faintly punishing gleam at the back of his eyes, she might have believed that her imagination wasn’t just playing her tricks.
His parting words convinced her that she was being quite stupid, when he said smoothly, “This hairdresser you’re going to is very clever. Beth always looks like a film star after she’s been.”
Outside on the drive Jill had the Mini waiting, and was tooting impatiently. The sound seemed to disperse Sara’s frozen immobility. She stared up at him fixedly, then with a scarcely audible inarticulate excuse, which could have meant anything, she turned on her heels and fled.
CHAPTER NINE
Later that same day, as she sat waiting for Ian to collect her for the ball, Sara was only aware of an increasing despair. She didn’t feel like going out at all. Not even the unconcealed admiration in Ian’s eyes when at last he arrived seemed able to lift her depression. How could she bear it if, as Jill thought he might, Hugh announced his engagement to Beth that evening? She thrust the thought painfully from her mind as she climbed quickly into Ian’s car.
Hugh had gone on ahead with a neighbour and Jill, leaving Sara and Ian to follow. Sara had deliberately stayed in her room until they left, determined to give him no opportunity of guessing the true state of her feelings, or of making some remark which might strain beyond endurance her already precarious self-control.
Unsteadily she took a deep breath, willing herself out of her self-absorption as Ian apologized anxiously for being late.
“It doesn’t matter,” she smiled warmly, her blue eyes sympathetic. “I know all about such matters. No matter what happens your patients must come first.”
“I expect so,” he grinned wryly, glancing at her gratefully as they sped along. “Fortunately it was only a minor mishap, although that actually seemed to make me feel much worse at the time, if you know what I mean.”
Sara nodded, still smiling as she looked at him. In Highland dress he looked extremely debonair, and was obviously in a good mood in spite of his setback. Surely it shouldn’t be so difficult to put the image of Hugh’s darkly handsome face from her mind for one evening and enjoy herself?
It was a fairly long drive to Beth’s home near Carsaig Bay, but Sara didn’t mind. Ian was good company and it gave her a chance to regain her cool composure. The light was just beginning to fade as they arrived at a large square house, pleasantly surrounded by tall stands of trees. Substantially built and dignified with age, it was set amidst green lawns overlooking a wide bay. It didn’t seem so bleak or isolated as Lochgoil, and its sheltered grounds were colourful with rhododendrons and wide herbaceous borders just coming into bloom.
“It’s rather a beautiful old place,” Ian murmured appreciatively, as they approached the large front entrance.
“The whole island seems to be here,” he whispered later, half under his breath, as he took Sara’s arm at the bottom of the winding oak staircase up which she had gone a few minutes ago to leave her wrap.
Near the entrance to the ballroom he introduced her to Mrs. Asquith, Beth’s widowed mother, and Sir Donald Irvine, Beth’s uncle from Glasgow, who was helping with the formalities. Beth was nothing like her mother, Sara decided, as she shook hands with the small motherly-looking woman in front of her. Beth seemed to possess little of her mother’s warm friendliness and gentle charm.
After a short while they moved on, Ian introducing her to numerous other people who were gathered in the hall. As he had pointed out, there seemed to be dozens of guests, with many of the men, she noticed, wearing Highland evening dress, and the women long tartan skirts.
In the gaily decorated ballroom a small orchestra played enthusiastically on a slightly raised dais, and in spite of the crowded floor everyone appeared to be joining in and enjoying themselves immensely. The gaiety of the atmosphere was infectious, and within minutes Sara found herself waltzing happily in Ian’s arms, with some of her former apprehension fading.
As they danced Ian held her closer and murmured, “You’re beautiful, Sara,” his lips only inches from her ear, his eyes intent on the ashen sweep of her gleaming hair as he swept her arou
nd the floor.
Sara vaguely realized from the deep tone of his voice that one day, as he had already hinted, he might seek more than friendship, and that it might be kinder to find some way of warning him that friendship was all she could ever give. But she was too busy searching over his shoulder for Hugh to give more than perfunctory attention to what he was saying, and most of it went unheeded over her head.
It seemed that at last he guessed that her thoughts were elsewhere, even if he wasn’t entirely aware of their direction. “If you’re looking for the party from Lochgoil, Sara, I don’t think you need worry. They’ll be around somewhere, enjoying themselves.”
Sara, confused, grasped at the excuse, forcing light laughter. “Actually I was just wondering about Jill,” she replied, feeling slightly ashamed of herself. Not that this was so very far from the truth, she thought silently. Jill, and her attendant problems, was never far from her mind!
“I think I caught sight of her before, just as we came in,” Ian told her. “Dancing the Gay Gordons. She should be all right. It’s some time now since her operation.”
Sara smiled, turning back to Ian, glancing up at him as he swung her around, resolving to forget about Hugh. After all, it was Ian who had brought her here this evening, and she owed it to him to be cheerful if nothing else.
Jill was nowhere to be seen, and Sara hoped she wasn’t still sulking with Hugh. It seemed a shame that she hadn’t been able to bring Colin along—a fact which made her recent behaviour seem all the more foolish. If she had been brave and approached her brother again, Colin might have been here with her having fun.
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