Craving the Forbidden
Page 7
Hope flared inside her. Instantly she stamped it out.
No. Tonight was not about being sexy, or having fun, she told herself sternly. Tonight was about supporting Jasper and showing Kit that she wasn’t the wanton trollop he had her down as.
She thought again of the photo in the paper—unsmiling, remote, heroic—and her insides quivered a little. Because, she realised with a pang of surprise, she actually didn’t want him to think that about her.
With renewed effort she gave the zip another furious tug. It shot up and she let out the lungful of air she’d been holding, looking down at the dress with a sinking heart. Her cell-like bedroom didn’t boast anything as luxurious as a full-length mirror, but she didn’t need to see her whole reflection to know how awful she looked. It really was the most severely unflattering garment imaginable, falling in a plain, narrow, sleeveless tube from her collarbones to her ankles. A slit up one side at least meant that she could walk without affecting tiny geishalike steps, but she felt as if she were wrapped in a roll of wartime blackout fabric.
‘That’s good,’ she said out loud, giving herself a severe look in the little mirror above the sink. Her reflection stared back at her, face pale against the bright mass of her hair. She’d washed it and, gleaming under the overhead light, the colour now seemed more garish than ever. Grabbing a few pins, she stuck them in her mouth, then pulled her hair back and twisted it tightly at the back of her neck.
Standing back again, she pulled a face.
There. Disfiguring dress and headmistress hair. Jasper’s dull girlfriend was ready for her public, although at least Sophie had the private satisfaction of knowing that she was also wearing very naughty underwear and what Jasper fondly called her ‘shag-me’ shoes. Twisting round, she tried to check the back view of the dress, and gave a snort of laughter as she noticed the price ticket hanging down between her shoulder blades.
Classy and expensive was always going to be a hard look for the girl who used to live on a bus to pull off, as Olympia Rothwell-Hyde and her cronies had never stopped reminding her. Attempting to do it with a label on her back announcing just how little she’d paid for the blackout dress would make it damned impossible.
She gave it a yank and winced as the plastic cut into her fingers. Another try confirmed that it was definitely a job for scissors. Which she didn’t have.
She bit her lip. Jasper had already gone down, telling her to join them in the drawing room as soon as she was ready, but there was no way she could face Tatiana, who would no doubt be decked out in designer finery and dripping with diamonds, with her knock-down price ticket on display. She’d just have to slip down to the kitchens and see if the terrifying Mrs Daniels—or Mrs Danvers as she’d privately named her when Jasper had introduced her this morning—had some.
The layout of the castle was more familiar now and Sophie headed for the main stairs as quickly as the narrow dress would allow. The castle felt very different this evening from the cavernous, shadowy place at which she’d arrived last night. Now the stone walls seemed to resonate with a hum of activity as teams of caterers and waiting-on staff made final preparations in the staterooms below.
It was still freezing, though. In the portrait hall the smell of woodsmoke drifted through the air, carried on icy gusts of wind that the huge fires banked in every grate couldn’t seem to thaw. It mingled with the scent of hothouse flowers, which stood on every table and window ledge.
Sophie hitched up the narrow skirt of her dress and went more carefully down the narrow back stairs to the kitchens. It was noticeably warmer down here, the vaulted ceilings holding the heat from the ovens. A central stone-flagged passageway stretched beyond a row of Victorian windows in the kitchen wall, into the dimly lit distance. To the dungeons, Jasper had teased her earlier.
The dungeons, where Kit probably locked up two-timing girlfriends, she thought grimly, shivering in spite of the relative warmth. The noise of her heels echoed loudly off the stone walls. The glass between the corridor and the kitchen was clouded with steam, but through it Sophie could see that Mrs Daniels’ domain had been taken over by legions of uniformed chefs.
Of course. Jasper had mentioned that both she and Thomas the butler had been given the night off. Well, there was no way she was going in there. Turning on her high heel, she hitched up her skirt and was hurrying back in the direction she’d just come when a voice behind her stopped her in her tracks.
‘Are you looking for something?’
Her heart leapt into her throat and she spun round. Kit had emerged from one of the many small rooms that led off the passageway, his shoulders, in a perfectly cut black dinner suit, seeming almost to fill the narrow space. Their eyes met, and in the harsh overhead bulk light Sophie saw him recoil slightly as a flicker of some emotion—shock, or was it distaste?—passed across his face.
‘I was l-looking for M-Mrs Daniels,’ she said in a strangled voice, feeling inexplicably as if he’d caught her doing something wrong again. God, no wonder he had risen so far up the ranks in the army. She’d bet he could reduce insubordinate squaddies to snivelling babies with a single glacial glare. She coughed, and continued more determinedly. ‘I wanted to borrow some scissors.’
‘That’s a relief.’ His smile was almost imperceptible. ‘I assume it means I don’t have to tell you that you have a price ticket hanging down your back.’
Heat prickled through her, rising up her neck in a tide of uncharacteristic shyness.
Quickly she cleared her throat again. ‘No.’
‘Perhaps I could help? Follow me.’
Sophie was glad of the ringing echo of her shoes on the stone floor as it masked the frantic thud of her heart. He had to duck his head to get through the low doorway and she followed him into a vaulted cellar, the brick walls of which were lined with racks of bottles that gleamed dully in the low light. There was a table on which more bottles stood, alongside a knife and stained cloth like a consumptive’s handkerchief. Kit picked up the knife.
‘Wh-what are you doing?’
Hypnotised, she watched him wipe the blade of the knife on the cloth.
‘Decanting port.’
‘What for?’ she rasped, desperately trying to make some attempt at sensible conversation. Snatches of the article in the newspaper kept coming back to her, making it impossible to think clearly. Heart-throb hero. Unflinching bravery. Extreme personal risk. It was as if someone had taken her jigsaw puzzle image of him and broken it to bits, so the pieces made quite a different picture now.
His lips twitched into the faint half-smile she’d come to recognise, but his hooded eyes held her gravely. The coolness was still there, but they’d lost their sharp contempt.
‘To get rid of the sediment. The bottle I’ve just opened last saw daylight over eighty years ago.’
Sophie gave a little laugh, squirming slightly under his scrutiny. ‘Isn’t it a bit past its sell-by date?’
‘Like lots of things, it improves with age,’ he said dryly, taking hold of her shoulders with surprising gentleness and turning her round. ‘Would you like to try some?’
‘Isn’t it very expensive?’
What was it about an absence of hostility that actually made it feel like kindness? Sophie felt the hair rise on the back of her neck as his fingers brushed her bare skin. She held herself very rigid for a second, determined not to give in to the helpless shudder of desire that threatened to shake her whole body as he bent over her. Her breasts tingled, and beneath the severe lines of the dress her nipples pressed against the tight fabric.
‘Put it this way, you could get several dresses like that for the price of a bottle,’ he murmured, and Sophie could feel the warm whisper of his breath on her neck as he spoke. She closed her eyes, wanting the moment to stretch for ever, but then she heard the snap of plastic as he cut through the tag and he was pulling back, leaving her feeling shaky and on edge.
‘To be honest, that doesn’t say much about your port,’ she joked weakly.
His voice was offhand. So why did it make goosebumps rise on her skin?
‘It’s a very cheap dress.’ She laughed again, awkwardly, crossing her arms across her chest to hide the obvious outline of her nipples, which had to be glaringly obvious against the plainness of the dress. ‘Or is that what you meant by it suiting me?’
‘No.’
He turned to face her, holding the slim neck of the decanter. She couldn’t take her eyes off his hands. Against the white cuffs of his evening shirt they looked very tanned and she felt her heart twist in her chest, catching her off guard as she thought of what he had done with those hands. And what he had seen with those eyes. And now he was looking at her with that cool, dispassionate stare and she almost couldn’t breathe.
‘I haven’t got a glass, I’m afraid.’ He swirled the port around in the decanter so it gleamed like liquid rubies, and then offered it up to her lips. ‘Take it slowly. Breathe it in first.’
Oh, God.
At that moment she wasn’t sure she was capable of breathing at all, but it was as if he had some kind of hypnotist’s hold over her and somehow she did as he said, her gaze fixed un-blinkingly on his as she inhaled.
It was the scent of age and incense and reverence, and instantly she was transported back to the chapel at school, kneeling on scratchy woollen hassocks to sip communion wine and trying to ignore the whispers of Olympia Rothwell-Hyde and her friends, saying that she’d go to hell because everyone knew she hadn’t even been baptised, never mind confirmed. What vicar would christen a child with a name like Summer Greenham?
She pulled away sharply just as the port touched her lips, so that it missed her mouth and dripped down her chin. Kit’s reactions were like lightning—in almost the same second his hand came up to cup her face, catching the drips of priceless liquor on the palm of his hand.
‘I’m sorry,’ she gasped. ‘I didn’t mean to waste it—’
‘Then let’s not.’
It was just a whisper, and then he was bending his head so that, slowly, softly, his mouth grazed hers. Sophie’s breathing hitched, her world stopped as his lips moved downwards to suck the drips on her chin as her lips parted helplessly and a tidal wave of lust and longing was unleashed inside her. It washed away everything, so that her head was empty of questions, doubts, uncertainties: everything except the dark, swirling whirlpool of need. Her body did the thinking, the deciding for her as it arched towards him, her hands coming up of their own volition to grip his rock-hard shoulders and tangle in his hair.
This was what she knew. This meeting of mouths and bodies, this igniting of pheromones and stoking of fires—these were feelings she understood and could deal with expertly. Familiar territory.
Or, it had been.
Not now.
Not this …
His touch was gentle, languid, but it seared her like a blowtorch, reducing the memory of every man who’d gone before to ashes and dust. One hand rested on her hip, the other cupped her cheek as he kissed her with a skill and a kind of brooding focus that made her tremble and melt.
And want more.
The stiff fabric of the hateful dress felt like armour plating. She pressed herself against him, longing to be free of it, feeling the contours of the hard muscles of his chest through the layers of clothes that separated them. Her want flared, a fire doused with petrol, and as she kissed him back her fingers found the silk bow tie at his throat, tugging at the knot, working the shirt button beneath it free.
And suddenly there was nothing gentle in the way he pulled her against him, nothing languid about the pressure of his mouth or the erotic thrust and dart of his tongue. Sophie’s hands were shaking as she slid them beneath his jacket. She could feel the warmth of his body, the rapid beating of his heart as he gripped her shoulders, pushing her backwards against the ancient oak barrels behind her.
Roughly she pushed his jacket off his shoulders. His hands were at her waist and she yanked at her skirt, pulling it upwards so that he could hitch her onto a barrel. She straddled its curved surface, her hips rising to press against his, her fingers twisting in his shirt front as she struggled to pull it free of his trousers.
She was disorientated with desire. Trembling, shaking, unhinged with an urgency that went beyond anything she’d known before. The need to have him against her and in her.
‘Now … please …’
She gasped as he stepped backwards, tearing his mouth from hers, turning away. A physical sensation of loss swept through her as her hands, still outstretched towards him, reached to pull him back into her. Her breath was coming in ragged, thirsty gasps; she was unable to think of anything beyond satisfying the itch and burn that pulsed through her veins like heroin.
Until he turned back to face her again and her blood froze.
His shirt was open to the third button, his silk tie hanging loose around his neck in the classic, clichéd image from every red-blooded woman’s slickest fantasy. But that was where the dream ended, because his face was like chiselled marble and his hooded eyes were as cold as ice.
And in that second, in a rush of horror and pain, Sophie understood what had just happened. What she had just done. He didn’t need to say anything because his expression—completely deadpan apart from the slight curl of his lip as he looked at her across the space that separated them—said it all.
She didn’t hesitate. Didn’t think. It was pure instinct that propelled her across that space and made her raise her hand to slap his face.
But her instinct was no match for his reflexes. With no apparent effort at all he caught hold of her wrist and held it absolutely still for a heartbeat before letting go.
‘You unutterable bastard,’ she breathed.
She didn’t wait for a response. Somehow she made her trembling legs carry her out of the wine cellar and along the corridor, while her horrified mind struggled to take in the enormity of what had just happened. She had betrayed Jasper and given herself away. She had proved Kit Fitzroy right. She had played straight into his hands and revealed herself as the faithless, worthless gold-digger he’d taken her for all along.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SO IN the end it hadn’t even been as hard as he’d thought it would be.
With one quick, angry movement Kit speared the cork in another dusty bottle and twisted it out with far less care and respect than the vintage deserved.
He hadn’t exactly anticipated she would be a challenge to seduce, but somehow he’d imagined a little more in the way of token resistance; some evidence of a battle with her conscience at least.
But she had responded instantly.
With a passion that matched his own.
His hand shook, and the port he was pouring through the muslin cloth into the decanter dripped like blood over the backs of his fingers. Giving a muttered curse, he put the bottle down and put his hand to his mouth to suck off the drops.
What the hell was the matter with him? His hands were usually steady as a rock—he and his entire team would have been blown to bits long ago if they weren’t. And if he hesitated, or questioned himself as he was doing now …
He had done what he set out to do, and her reaction was exactly what he’d predicted.
But his wasn’t. His wasn’t at all.
Wiping her damp palms down the skirt of the horrible dress, Sophie stood in the middle of the portrait hall, halfway between the staircase and the closed doors to the drawing room. She was still shaking with horror and adrenaline and vile, unwelcome arousal and the urge to run back up to her bedroom, throw her things into her bag and slip quietly out of the servants’ entrance was almost overwhelming. Wasn’t that the way she’d always dealt with things—the way her mother had shown her? When the going got tough you walked away. You told yo
urself it didn’t matter and you weren’t bothered, and just to show you meant it you packed up and moved on.
The catering staff were putting the finishing touches to the buffet in the dining room, footsteps ringing on the flagstones as they brought up more champagne in ice buckets with which to greet the guests who would start arriving any minute. Sophie hesitated, biting down on her throbbing lip as for a moment she let herself imagine getting on a train and speeding through the darkness back to London, where she’d never have to see Kit Fitzroy again …
She felt a stab of pain beneath her ribs, but at that moment one of the enormous doors to the drawing room opened and Jasper appeared.
‘Ah, there you are, angel! I thought you might have got lost again so I was just coming to see if I could find you.’
He started to come towards her, and Sophie saw his eyes sweep over her, widening along with his smile as he came closer.
‘Saints Alive, Sophie Greenham, that dress …’
‘I know,’ Sophie croaked. ‘Don’t say it. It’s dire.’
‘It’s not.’ Slowly Jasper circled around her, looking her up and down as an incredulous expression spread across his face. ‘How could we have got it so wrong? It might have been cheap as chips and looked like a shroud on the hanger, but on you it’s bloody dynamite.’ He gave a low whistle. ‘Have you seen yourself? No red-blooded, straight male will be able to keep his hands off you.’
She gave a slightly hysterical laugh. ‘Darling, don’t you believe it.’
‘Soph?’ Jasper looked at her in concern. ‘You OK?’
Oh, hell, what was she doing? She’d come here to shield him from the prejudices of his family, and so far she’d only succeeded in making things more awkward for him. The fact that his brother was the kind of cold-blooded, ruthless bastard who would stop at nothing to preserve the purity of the Fitzroy name and reputation was all the more reason she should give this her all.