Brittle Bondage

by Anne Mather

  ‘Well, at least Daddy likes to hear my opinion about things,’ Daisy retorted now, but there was a faint tremor in her voice that was unmistakable. However confidently she acted sometimes, she was really frightened and uncertain. Not sure of what was expected of her, and anxious about the future.

  And, at once, Rachel relented. ‘I like to hear your opinions, too, darling,’ she exclaimed, laying down the tea-towel, and crossing the room to where Daisy was standing. With a rueful smile, she gathered the little girl into her arms and gave her a swift hug. ‘I’m sorry if I was grumpy. Your father has that effect on me.’

  Daisy sniffed, returning the hug for a moment before drawing back. ‘Why does Daddy make you grumpy? He didn’t used to.’

  ‘No—well——’ That was one topic Rachel didn’t want to get into. It had been hard enough at the time, explaining why Elena had left at the same time as her father. Later, she supposed, the child would demand a proper explanation. But, for the present, Rachel would prefer to avoid the issue. ‘We’re just not—compatible,’ she offered now, and saw her daughter’s face cloud over again. ‘But we are still—friends,’ she appended, revising that to ‘still speaking to one another’ in her own mind, ‘Then why does Daddy make you grumpy?’ argued Daisy, returning to her original question, and Rachel thought how wonderful it must be to see things so simply.

  ‘Well—because he does,’ she replied, smoothing the little girl’s dark hair behind her ears, and regarding her with some regret. ‘It happens sometimes, darling. People think they’re happy together, but then they discover they’re not.’

  Daisy frowned. ‘Was it my fault?’ she asked, voicing a doubt that had evidently been troubling her, and Rachel tugged her close again.

  ‘Of course not!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re the best thing that ever happened to us.’ She kissed the top of her daughter’s head. ‘I think you’ll find that’s one thing on which your father and I can agree.’

  And it was while she was standing, cradling the child to her, that Rachel looked up and found Ben watching them through the kitchen window. How long he had been there, she had no idea, but she was relieved that he couldn’t possibly have heard what they were saying. Nevertheless, the idea that he should be creeping about her garden at this early hour infuriated her. How dared he behave as if he had a right to be there? Why couldn’t he have come to the front door and rung the bell like anyone else?

  Because he wasn’t like anyone else, she thought, her mind automatically supplying the answer, as her emotions reacted unnervingly to his presence. Meeting his eyes, glimpsing the satisfaction in their depths, she felt an overwhelming feeling of inadequacy. Ben had always had that effect on her, and time—and changing circumstances—hadn’t altered it one whit. Her heart lurched. In jeans and a navy blue sweatshirt, he was disturbingly attractive, and she couldn’t help comparing his lean muscularity to Simon’s solid appearance. But that was the difference between them, she reminded herself angrily, putting the child away from her and reaching for the handle of the door. Simon was solid, and dependable, two characteristics that Ben was sadly without.

  ‘What are you doing, skulking about out there?’ she demanded, using her anger as a means of defence, and Ben came to rest indolently against the doorframe.

  ‘I wasn’t skulking about,’ he replied mildly, smiling as Daisy showed her excitement at his appearance by flinging herself upon him. ‘I remembered we always used to have breakfast in the kitchen, and I didn’t want to startle you.’

  ‘Well, you did,’ retorted Rachel shortly, suddenly aware that in her old dressing-gown and fluffy slippers, her tawny hair a tangled mess about her shoulders, she didn’t look anything like the controlled being she’d intended to present to him.

  ‘Are you taking me to the hotel for breakfast?’ Daisy demanded eagerly, and her father pulled a thoughtful face.

  ‘If you like,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps your mother would like to invite me to have breakfast here. She used to be a mean hand with crispy bacon and scrambled eggs.’

  ‘I don’t eat breakfast any more,’ Rachel responded, not altogether truthfully. She seldom left the house without eating at least one slice of toast and marmalade, but this morning she didn’t feel as if she could eat a thing. Once again, Ben was giving her the runaround, and she was doing nothing to stop him.

  ‘I’d rather go to the hotel,’ Daisy intervened, much to her mother’s relief, not at all enthusiastic about eating breakfast at home, even if her father was. ‘Do they serve pancakes at the Old Swan, like Mrs Cornwell makes?’ She turned to her mother. ‘Oh, Mum, you should taste Mrs Cornwell’s pancakes. They’re really delicious!’

  ‘Possibly,’ Ben was beginning, while Rachel absorbed the fact that there were things her daughter and her father had shared about which she knew nothing. At least she knew who Mrs Cornwell was, she reflected gratefully. Not one of Ben’s dolly-birds, but the housekeeper he had employed after several unsuccessful months of coping for himself.

  ‘Then can we go?’ Daisy persisted, evidently half afraid her mother was going to change her mind. ‘I’m all ready, and I’m really hungry.’

  ‘Well——’ Ben began again, but this time Rachel took the initiative.

  ‘In a minute, darling,’ she said, earning a frustrated look from her daughter but ignoring it. ‘I’d like to have a quick word with your father.’ She paused, then said, albeit a little acidly, ‘If he has the time.’

  Ben straightened, and came into the kitchen, closing the door behind him. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to make me breakfast?’ he asked, leaning back against the glass panels and folding his arms. ‘Just for old times’ sake, of course.’

  ‘In your dreams,’ retorted Rachel, wrapping the folds of her dressing-gown closer about her. ‘Go upstairs for a few minutes, will you, Daisy? This won’t take long.’

  ‘Again?’

  Daisy’s reaction was resentful, and Rachel controlled her own temper with difficulty. ‘A few minutes, Daisy,’ she said, giving the little girl a warning look. ‘You don’t want me to forbid you from having breakfast with your father, do you?’

  ‘You couldn’t, anyway,’ declared Daisy defiantly, but this time Ben took a hand.

  ‘She could,’ he said, giving her a gentle push towards the hall. ‘Do as you’re told, baby. As your mother says, this won’t take long.’

  Daisy went, albeit with many a wounded backward glance, but Rachel had more important things on her mind. ‘I can discipline my own daughter,’ she said, first of all, returning to her previous position by the sink. Then, when Ben made no comment, she added rather ungraciously, ‘Do you want to sit down?’

  ‘Why?’ Ben was sardonic. ‘Do you think what you’re going to say is going to shock me?’

  ‘It may.’ Rachel refused to be disconcerted. ‘Simon wants Daisy and me to live with him at Kingsmead, while we’re waiting for the divorce.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THERE was silence for a pregnant moment, and then Ben straightened away from the door. ‘What was it you said earlier?’ he asked, and briefly the mildness of his tone deceived her into thinking he had taken her news calmly. ‘In your dreams?’ he suggested, immediately dispelling her moment of relief. ‘This is Daisy’s home, Rachel. For as long as you remain my wife.’

  Rachel’s face suffused with colour. ‘Which won’t be for much longer,’ she countered, stung into an uncontrolled response. ‘What a hypocrite you are, Ben. You live your life exactly how and where you choose, but just because I want to make some changes in my life you suddenly decide to play the heavy husband!’

  ‘It’s not a role I’d have chosen, believe me,’ he retorted, lowering his hands to his sides and pushing himself away from the door. ‘And as Daisy’s mother, I’d have thought, you’d understand the position. Or does sleeping with your lover count for more than considering your daughter’s feelings?’

  Rachel caught her breath. ‘How—how dare you?’

  ‘How dare I what?’ Be
n had taken another step towards her, and, while he wasn’t making a frontal attack, his approach was just as menacing. ‘What did you think I’d say? Oh, yeah—go ahead; disrupt Daisy’s life for as long as it takes for you to come to your senses?’

  ‘To come to my senses?’ Rachel’s back was to the sink, and now she placed one hand on the unit at either side of her. The action pushed the lapels of her dressing gown forward and exposed the rounded neckline of the T-shirt she used to sleep in, but she couldn’t help that. It wasn’t as if she was revealing anything, and the attitude—she hoped—was one of defiance. ‘Exactly what am I supposed to come to my senses over? I’ve told you: Simon and I love one another. And—and he’ll make a good father for Daisy. As you can see, she needs a man’s influence.’

  ‘I agree.’ Ben took another step towards her. ‘Mine. She needs my influence. I’m her father, Rachel, not Simple Simon, whoever he may be. And if you think I’m going to hand my daughter over to some country bumpkin you’re mistaken. If you want to change the rules, OK, but if you do, Daisy comes to live with me!’

  Rachel’s breathing felt constricted. ‘You’re not serious!’ she exclaimed, pressing her spine back against the unit behind her. ‘Besides——’ she had to say something or her panic would overwhelm her ‘—you agreed that I should have custody. You can’t take her away. The courts wouldn’t let you?’

  ‘Try me,’ said Ben softly, lifting one hand and stroking the line of her jaw. ‘You didn’t really think I’d make it that easy? Oh, love, you’re talking to the wrong man!’

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ Rachel jerked her face away from his caressing hand, but all she achieved was for Ben to mimic her action by putting a hand at either side of her, imprisoning her against the sink like a butterfly on a pin. ‘And—I’m not your love,’ she added, for good measure. ‘You won’t get away with this, Ben. I’ve got weapons, too.’

  ‘Weapons!’ He echoed the threat with mocking indulgence, in no way alarmed by her puny attempt to defend herself. ‘Oh, Rachel, how did we ever come to this?’

  ‘If you don’t let me go——’

  ‘If I don’t let you go—what?’ His eyes were on her mouth, and although she knew it was crazy she found herself pressing her lips together, as if by doing so she could prevent the sensuous brush of that dark, disturbing gaze. ‘What will you do?’ he taunted. ‘Scream?’ He shook his head. ‘Oh, no, I don’t think you’ll do that, Rachel. We don’t want to upset Daisy when it’s not necessary.’

  ‘She won’t be upset if you’ll just accept that other people are entitled to a life as well as you,’ retorted Rachel breathlessly. ‘It’s not as if she’s your only child, is she? What happened to Elena’s baby, or aren’t I allowed to ask?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what happened to Elena’s baby,’ he retorted carelessly. ‘I don’t even know where she is. She went back to France, I imagine. It’s no concern of mine.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ She lifted her hand and pushed back the tumbled weight of her hair. ‘Ben, this is childish. Whatever do you expect to achieve?’

  ‘You didn’t cut your hair.’ His response was oblique, and Rachel raised her eyes to the ceiling, as if seeking divine intervention. But the truth was, his nearness still unnerved her. She despised him, but she couldn’t ignore him, and the strain of the situation was getting to her.

  ‘What do you want?’ she tried again, wondering if by reasoning with him she might be any more successful. God, if only Simon were here, she thought despairingly, latching on to the image of her fiancé in a vain attempt to avoid Ben’s raw reality. If he were here, this wouldn’t be happening. If he knew what Ben was doing, he’d stop him in his tracks.

  ‘You.’

  Ben’s response almost went unnoticed as Rachel struggled with her feelings. She was so busy trying to find a way to escape him that his words scarcely registered in her brain. But then, as he bent his head towards her, as he caught the tender lobe of her ear between his teeth and bit the soft skin, she understood, and the meaning of his answer caused the blood to pound hotly through her veins.

  ‘You’re crazy,’ she said, but her hopes of handling the situation rationally were rapidly receding. Her attempts to appear indifferent to his advances were not going to do it, and, taking a deep breath, she pressed both hands firmly against his chest.

  The sensual heat of his skin striking up through the material of his sweatshirt was almost her undoing. It reminded her so much of other occasions, when touching him had not been such a traumatic experience. His body had always been so hard and smooth, so leanly muscled, that it had been a pleasure to slide her hands across his chest and midriff, and the flat contours of his stomach. He didn’t have a hairy body—unlike Simon, she admitted, guilty at the direction of her thoughts—but the fine hair that arrowed down to his navel was essentially masculine, curly and virile, and amazing soft. Thicker, too, where it reached the heated junction of his thighs …

  ‘Am I?’

  Rachel came to with an effort, realising that, while she had been allowing her thoughts to drift, Ben had moved in closer. Her resistance had waned at the reckless slant her thoughts had taken, and she was vulnerable now as she hadn’t been before. He was nuzzling her neck with his lips, finding the erratic pulse at her jawline, and measuring its beating with his tongue. If she turned her head a fraction, he was going to find her mouth, and the dangers of that happening were too awful to consider.

  How had she got herself into this position? she wondered incredulously, as the hard strength of his leg pushed against the clamped tightness of her thighs. How had she let him get this close, when all he really wanted was to humiliate her? Well, whatever his intentions, he wasn’t going to get away with it—however weak her knees felt when she looked at the thin-lipped arrogance of his mouth …

  ‘You don’t want me,’ she insisted, making her neck ache with the effort to get away from him. ‘You just want to control me, to destroy any chance I might have of finding happiness with someone else.’ Her voice had risen as she spoke, and she could hear the thread of panic running through it. ‘You don’t really care if I marry Simon. You just can’t stand the thought that he can do what you never could!’

  ‘Never?’

  Ben’s tone had hardened now, and she guessed it hadn’t been the wisest of moves, making him angry while he had her in his grasp. With a hostile expellation of his breath he caught her chin between his fingers and forced her face up to his. Then, while she was still reeling from the shock, he ground his mouth down on hers, crushing her lips against her teeth.

  ‘Never?’ he said again, against her mouth, the moist heat of his breathing invading her nostrils and forcing her to open her mouth so that she could get some air. And when she did so, his tongue slid wetly between her lips, almost suffocating her with its hungry possession.

  Rachel’s senses swam. For a mindless moment, she couldn’t think; couldn’t breathe; couldn’t even react, though her senses were working overtime. The taste of him, the feel of him, as he pressed her back against the sink, was all she was really aware of. It wasn’t pleasurable, it wasn’t desirable, but her limbs ached with a hunger she hadn’t felt for years. Hard and fierce, Ben’s mouth sought and ravaged her sweetness, and although in some far distant corner of her brain she knew she should be resisting this, the needs he was inspiring were impossible to ignore.

  She felt his arousal almost instinctively. The bones of his thighs and hips and pelvis were all impaling her against the wood behind her, but it was the swelling hardness between his legs that caused the sudden awareness. His maleness thrust against her, straining the fabric of his jeans and unerringly finding the joining of her legs, where her own unwanted response was pulsing slickly between her thighs.

  Dear God, she thought, she wanted him. Not gently or intelligently, as she wanted Simon, but hotly and hungrily, with a passion that was wholly sexual. And, as he drove his fingers into her hair and brought her mouth more fully to his, she kne
w that she had only to go on like this and he’d be lifting the hem of her nightshirt, and loosening his zip.

  It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened. In the early days of their marriage, before the miscarriages she had had after Daisy was born had turned making love into a frightening gamble, they had loved one another whenever and wherever they liked. Sharing their bodies—sharing their love—had seemed the most natural thing in the world, and Rachel would never have believed in those days that anything—or anyone—could come between them.

  But something had—someone had—and just because she was suffering some kind of mid-life crisis there was no reason to forget what Ben had done. He was just tormenting her now, attempting to prove to her—and to himself—that if he wanted her, he could have her.

  For the past few months he had kept his distance, probably due to the knowledge that what he had done had spoiled her for other men. And in the early days after their separation she had been too numb to even think of going out with anyone else, and Daisy must have kept him informed of her lack of interest in his sex.

  Besides, if their behaviour before they split up was anything to go by, Ben must have thought there was no danger of her ever getting involved with anyone else. After her last miscarriage, her fear of getting pregnant had destroyed the spontaneity of their love-making, and she couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so recklessly alive.

  But that was no excuse for what she was doing—for what he was doing. Just because her legs were shaking and her knees were trembling, and the urgency of his mouth was turning all her bones to water, it was no reason to allow him to get away with this. Simon made her tremble—or he would if she let him get this close to her. Simon was the man she was going to marry. Ben was just seeing how far she’d let him go …

  But, in the event, it was the sound of Daisy coming down the stairs again that brought an end to her trial of fire. As Ben uttered a muffled oath and released her, she tried to tell herself that even without Daisy’s intervention she would have put an end to it. But as she wrapped the folds of her dressing-gown more closely about her and met his sardonic gaze she knew she’d never convince him of that. Well, not on today’s showing anyway, she conceded, meeting his stare with cold contempt. But whether that contempt was for him or herself she couldn’t be certain. All she knew was that he was a danger to her newfound happiness, and as unscrupulously selfish now as he’d ever been before.