As she stumbled back to her car, she didn’t feel the stabbing bite of the snow on her face, so much stronger was the pain that engulfed her heart as more memories tumbled into her awareness, his consideration for her being paramount. She understood his strange attitude toward her, the way he’d rushed her to begin with as if there wasn’t a moment to lose, as indeed there wasn’t. Then it was as if he’d stood back and taken stock, asked himself what that would do to her afterward. She’d let him know so plainly that before their relationship advanced another step, she wanted a more secure commitment, something lasting and binding. And all he could commit himself to was the moment. Oh, dear heaven, because now she remembered practically her last words to him on the subject. ‘You aren’t going to be a devastating thirty-two-year-old forever. Time could be running out for you.’ She must have hurt him bitterly, and all he could think about was not hurting her. He’d told her so. ‘You little fool, I’m trying my best not to hurt you,’ he’d said.
Ros couldn’t remember anything of the return journey. She went through the motions like an automaton, only realizing she was back at Holly Cottage when it occurred to her that the engine of the car wasn’t throbbing anymore.
The door of the cottage was wrenched open, and Cliff’s tall figure came looming toward her, the terrifying Heathcliff of childhood memory. He jerked the car door open and half dragged, half lifted her out. ‘Are you all right? I should never have let you go off on your own in this. I didn’t realize how bad it was. Why the hell didn’t you turn back, you idiot child? I’ve been out of my mind with worry.’
His tone verged on anger, but she knew it was because of his concern for her, and that gave the pain in her heart another twist. He could think of her at a time like this, in spite of all he was going through.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I didn’t mean to bark at you. It’s just that . . .’ He didn’t attempt to qualify that remark but said instead, ‘You don’t need to look so stricken now. The nightmare’s over. You’re home.’
It was strange, nice, to be fussed over and cosseted, even though there was as much temper in his actions as tenderness; his reaction under the circumstances, she supposed. But she should be cosseting him, she thought as his arm came supportively round her and he marched her into the cottage.
He helped her out of her coat and flung it over a chair with none of the fastidious care that was second nature to her when dealing with her clothes. The flakes of snow it had collected on its short journey from the car to the cottage began to melt and make puddles on the floor. If there was any wetness on her face, she hoped he would think it was the snow melting on her lashes and not the tears biting under her lids. He sat her down on the other kitchen chair, kneeling at her feet to remove her boots, which received the same rough treatment as her coat and were thrown into a corner. Even though it felt wrong for him to look after her, she knew it was right. Until she got herself together, it was better for him to think that she was trembling and in a state of shock because of the snowy conditions she had been caught up in, that she had felt terrified and unable to cope. She had to blame her lack of composure on something, and that excuse was as good as any and better than most. Whatever the temptation, she must not let on that she knew about him. She knew instinctively that he wouldn’t want to share it with her but would rather she ignored it.
She felt chilled to the bone, as if she would never be warm again, but with her chair drawn up to the fire in the living room, her fingers clasped round the hot toddy that Cliff had prepared for her, standing over her and insisting that she drink it, she began to give an outward appearance of having thawed out.
He disappeared for a while, and when he returned, he said: ‘I’ve put a hot water bottle in your bed. An early night wouldn’t come amiss.’
She rose with the obedience of a child. ‘You’re right. I do feel rather exhausted. I’ll go to bed.’ She sent him a look of appeal. ‘Don’t I get a good-night kiss?’
He dropped one on the end of her nose, propelled her round and administered a slight push that directed her feet toward the stairs.
She went through the familiar routine of undressing, washing her face and cleaning her teeth, putting on her nightgown and brushing her hair. She heard Cliff come up the stairs. She caught her breath as his step hesitated outside her door and released it in a rush as she heard him move along the passage to his own room.
She covered her face with her hands. Cliff, oh, Cliff, darling. How could something as horrible as this happen to you? You don’t deserve it. Or if it did have to happen, why couldn’t we have met up again sooner?
The thought of his going out of her life, having only just come back into it, filled her heart with an unbearable sadness. The brave face he was putting on shamed her. She had always thought that she would be able to bear whatever misfortune life inflicted upon her with courage and dignity. But she hadn’t envisaged anything like this. It was too cruel. Why did people—nations—waste time warring and quarreling? Didn’t anyone realize how comparatively short the normal life-span was—and when that life-span was cut even shorter—
She was gulping back tears. His every look, his every mannerism, would be stamped indelibly on her brain, but she wouldn’t have Cliff. Never to see that smile on his mouth again. She had hated its mocking arrogance; so many times she had wished it were within her power to erase it. Yet suddenly it seemed—this was crazy—endearing. And how many times had her fingertips cringed into the palms of her hands at the way his eyes glanced over her, taunting her, desiring her?
How could she profess to have a heart filled with compassion for him and not sate that desire? Was she going to wait until it was too late? She raised her eyes slowly. Looking at her determined face in the mirror, she knew that the answer forming in her mind was the right one. She would have to be very casual, even joking, in her approach. He wouldn’t make the move toward her—he was too honorable—so she would have to go to him. She wished she looked more attractive for him. She should be wearing fragile lace adorned with tiny silk rosebuds and lovers’ knots, not practical brushed nylon. But she had never gone in for that kind of nonsensical nightwear. She frowned at her reflection; then a tremulous smile fluttered across her mouth. She wouldn’t go to him in brushed nylon! She twirled the offending garment over her head and tossed it aside; then her feet were creeping along the passage to Cliff’s room.
‘Cliff? May I come in?’ she called out.
‘No—don’t you dare! I’m starkers!’
His voice seemed to be coming from somewhere near the door. Observing that no strip of light filtered from beneath it, she said, ‘It’s dark. But if you’re that modest, get into bed.’ Inspiration came to her aid. She knew just the right approach. ‘I’ve brought your present.’
‘Stick it under the tree like any other civilized being, and I’ll get it in the morning. I have a golden rule that I never open my presents until Christmas morning.’
Her teeth were beginning to chatter, they probably would have done, anyway, because it was cold standing there, but she was shivering more from fright than anything. If she didn’t go in before her nerve went, she’d find herself hastening back to her room.
She compressed her lips and took a deep breath. Her hand closed round the doorknob. ‘That’s one rule you’re going to have to break.’ She opened the door and entered the room, smiling despite everything as she heard him dive into bed. ‘It isn’t gift-wrapped. I’m sorry about that.’ Her voice was shaky, and she was sorry about that, too.
‘I don’t know what fool game you’re playing at, but it’s obvious that I’m not going to get any peace until you’ve handed it over. So do so, and get out!’ he yelled.
‘It’s me. I’m your present,’ she said, sliding into bed beside him.
His hands shot out. ‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ She knew that he meant to evict her, but then his fingers contacted her naked flesh. ‘Rusty, what am I going to do with you?’
‘You need me to tell you
that?’ she asked in pretend incredulity, somehow managing to suppress the sob in her throat.
Another groan. His hands came up to clamp her face, as if he couldn’t trust them to be free. ‘It’s a very sweet thing you’re doing, Rusty, but I can’t. And before you start making fun of that, I don’t mean can’t, like not able to, I mean can’t, not to you.’
‘Why? Don’t you find me desirable? Don’t you want me?’
‘I’ve wanted you from the moment I set eyes on the grown-up you, but I’m not going to take you. You’re warm and beautiful.’ She wasn’t so sure about the beautiful, although it was nice to be told that she was. But she was warm now. The bedclothes were cold—he hadn’t pampered himself with a hot-water bottle—but the combined body heat they were generating made one unnecessary. ‘I must care about you; otherwise, I wouldn’t be talking this way now. I’d be accepting what you’re offering and hardly believing my luck.’
‘So why aren’t you?’
‘Because I can’t marry you, and you’re too special for anything else. Stick to your principles, and hold out for the guy who’ll give you what you’ve a right to expect. Marriage and a settled future.’
It ripped her apart to hear him say that. He was pretending that he could marry her and give her a settled future if he’d wanted to. He was making it appear as though he were being selfish about this so that she’d go away. And it was just the reverse. She asked herself how anyone could be so unselfish. Anyone with a heart would forgive him for taking everything that she was offering. It was both touching and wonderful that he was willing to deny himself for her—putting her feelings before his own—and it increased her determination.
‘Somehow, the things that mattered aren’t all that important anymore. Who needs a silly old wedding certificate and the things that supposedly go with it!’ she scoffed.
‘Just who are you trying to convince? Me or yourself?’
‘I’m being serious. I’ve been living in a child’s dream. But now I’ve grown up.’
‘It won’t work, Rusty. My regard for you is too high for me to use you to satisfy my lust. My lust for your innocence. You wouldn’t be getting a good enough bargain.’
That was a debatable point. She knew that if she didn’t give Cliff that comfort, she wouldn’t be able to live with her own conscience afterward.
And so the glib falsehood, the lie by implication, fell from her lips. ‘Really, Cliff! How unrealistic can you get? How innocent of you to think that I’m a virgin! Has it slipped your mind that I’ve been engaged to be married?’
‘No, I haven’t forgotten that.’ His voice came out sounding amazingly stilted. ‘I just thought—’
She could sense that he was frowning. Pursuing her victory, she said silkily, ‘I’m human, too, you know. I wish you’d stop being virtuous, or whatever it is you’re being, and consider me.’
‘I think stupid might be the correct description. And, dammit, it’s you I’m considering,’ he growled.
‘But not in the right way. Hasn’t it occurred to you that I might be missing out?’
‘I wish you wouldn’t talk like that. It cheapens you.’
‘I’m sorry you see it that way. A woman gets the same kind of torments as a man. Perhaps I think you’re cheapening me by making me do all the chasing.’ Realizing that she should follow that up, do something to back up the experience she claimed to have, she knuckled his cheek and then turned her hand to draw her fingers down his taut throat and along the muscled hardness of his chest.
He grabbed hold of her hand, pushing away in a manner to fend her off, and then, on a muffled groan of despair, he used the leverage to bring her close, lifting her arm to kiss the tender pulse beating erratically on the inside of her wrist before trailing fingers of fire down her arm and across her back as he gathered her to his chest.
‘Ros . . . oh, Ros,’ he murmured against her ear, and she knew that as she had discarded Heathcliff in favor of Cliff, he had said goodbye to that rusty-haired little girl he had been so ready to tease. She was Ros now, a warm, delicious woman whose nearness was a delight to him.
His lips scraped sensuously across her cheek, plucking at the corner of her mouth, inveigling its softness to part for his prolonged pleasure in a long and fulfilling kiss. His fingers moved up through the richness of her hair, searching out the tender hollows behind her ears and the one at the nape of her neck that sent erotic ripples of feeling down her spine. She hadn’t known that such an innocent touch could give such passionate pleasure. Her own hands roved over his chest; the thick, dark, masculine growth of hair prickled her sensitized palms, which dragged up to caress his strong neck before clasping his dark head adoringly. She was too electrified by it all to be anything more than the passive partner. She was burning up with an unexpected intensity of feeling, and she needed a second to get her labored breathing on some kind of even keel.
She had come to his bed for reasons of the most pure and selfless nature, but her reward was the most tormenting delight she had ever known. A torment she never, never wanted to end. His fingers seemed to spend forever acquainting themselves with her back; there wasn’t a bump in her spine, a muscle or hollow, he didn’t know in the most intimate detail. The direction changed, and now his touch traced her rib cage. Her heart leaped as the exploration inched higher, gently curving to the underside of one breast before cupping its fullness. And then she was wriggling in joy as his strong thumb stroked sensuous circles round the rosy crescent.
His mouth poured liquid fire into hers. He kissed her until she was insensible, gliding mindlessly to unscaled heights of delirium. A wild, uncontrollable longing swept through her, a craving that consumed her in its molten beat. Her stomach muscles contracted so violently that the pain was as intense as a cramp. In a way, she supposed it was a kind of cramp, a sensual cramp, the driving anguish of her need. Her body was a hot aroused flame that wanted to wrap around him, yearned to be absorbed by his strength.
His arm formed a tighter circle as he held her shuddering form more closely, but the appeasement she expected was denied her as his fingers lifted to stroke back the clinging damp tendrils of hair from her overheated brow.
‘Are you absolutely sure, Ros?’ he asked.
She had never been more sure of anything in her life. She had never sat down and defined her feelings for him, but if this emotion overflowing her heart wasn’t love, she didn’t know what love was. Being in love is wanting to give. She would have given her life for him; her body was such a small thing by comparison.
It wouldn’t be true to say she was totally without inhibitions. There was still a hard core of apprehension and shyness deep within her that he hadn’t touched, but that was getting easier to ignore all the time. It certainly wasn’t solid enough for her to change her mind. She was ninety percent happy about things, smug, questioning how any woman could hold herself aloof from the man she loved. Love was the key for her. Love and unselfish devotion were above the niggardly ten percent of primness and principles. It seemed significantly less important that the affection was one-sided. He might not love her in the way she wanted him to love her, but he was loving in his actions. His patience with her was infinite, and she knew the rewards would be exceptional because of this, far exceeding the joys she’d experienced so far in his caring embrace. Her fingers gripped his shoulders on convulsive sweetness as her awakened body quivered on expectation.
‘Yes, Cliff, I’m sure. So very, very sure.’ When that did not unleash the primitive force of his passion, when he still made no move to possess her body, she said, ‘Why do you ask?’
He took a long time in answering.
‘I ask you because you are a liar, R—’ His tongue stalled on the R that preceded her name, a momentary hesitation that made plain the nature of the lie he was accusing her of. He knew she was a virgin. If he goes back to calling me Rusty, I’ll scream, she vowed—‘Ros,’ he said, which was something at least.
‘You know, don’t you?’
‘Hardly untouched,’ she said, finding his hand and tracing her fingertips across the tips of his.
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I still don’t know why you stopped. You’re acting as if my virginity is something to be prized which you mustn’t violate.’
‘It’s special to you, Ros. For that reason, it’s got to be special to the man who takes it.’
Her consolation was the tortured rawness of his breath. He was denying himself, but not without great effort.
But he didn’t have to. Even though his words had tapped on that doubting ten percent, she still had to help him, make it easy for him. It strengthened her resolve to do better.
Drawing in her breath, she said, ‘Having got me to this pitch, you’re not—not going to leave me unsatisfied, are you?’
‘The answer to that should be a decisive yes, but I’m not that much of a saint, so let’s talk it out some more. I don’t want to leave either of us unsatisfied. I want you to understand that the score hasn’t altered. Forgive me, but I’ve got to be brutal to be kind. Your sweetness isn’t going to enslave my heart, if that’s what you’re thinking. I intend to remain free and uncommitted. If you’re looking for a permanent relationship, you’re in the wrong bed. I’m not sure how long I’ll be hanging around. I’ve accumulated a fair bit of leave, so I can be flexible in my plans. But sooner or later, I’ll up and go. You’ve got to understand that.’
She swallowed. How could he still pretend? How could he talk of going so rationally?
‘Good grief! You’re not crying, are you? I thought you were the girl who went for blunt speaking?’
‘I am. Where are you going now?’ she asked as the bed suddenly lightened.
That Tender Feeling Page 9