The Temptation Trap
Page 16
‘I still haven’t put things completely straight,’ he said when he raised his head a little. ‘I said want, and it’s true. You know how much. But I love you, Rosanna. You, not a ghost. When you chose David over me—’
‘I kept on trying to explain about that,’ she interrupted crossly, pushing him away. ‘So listen. Properly, this time. David did come to tell me he was marrying someone else. But it made no difference. Because I was going to tell him I was, too. Only he got in first. Although,’ she reminded him, eyes flashing, ‘you never seriously mentioned marriage!’
‘Fool that I am, I thought I had.’ Ewen grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her slightly. ‘So I wasn’t second choice after all?’
‘I never had a choice at all, once I met you.’ She smiled at him ruefully. ‘Because of David I tried to fight against it, but it was useless. Otherwise, Mr Fraser,’ she added primly, ‘I would not have consented to share your bed.’
Ewen breathed in deeply, cast a look at the stairs, then shook his head. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘We are going to spend the day watching sport on television, or playing board games, or reading, or just talking, making plans. I don’t just want bed, darling. I just want to be with you, savouring every minute of our time together, whatever we’re doing.’
They went into the sitting room and Rosanna smiled invitingly as she curled up on the sofa. ‘We broke up for half term yesterday. I don’t go back until Monday week.’
Ewen sat down beside her and hauled her onto his lap, kissing her for a long, breathless interval. ‘Stay here with me until then.’
‘My mother’s expecting me for lunch tomorrow, and I haven’t brought any clothes,’ she said huskily, rubbing her cheek against his.
‘Ring your mother and postpone lunch until next Sunday instead, and tell her I’m coming with you, to ask your father for his daughter’s hand in the time-honoured way. Though I want the rest of you too,’ he pointed out, kissing the hollow behind her ear. ‘The clothes don’t matter. You can borrow something of mine. Or I’ll take you shopping in Cheltenham.’
‘OK,’ she said simply.
Ewen sat very still, then turned her face up to his. ‘You mean that?’
She nodded. ‘Don’t you think we’ve wasted too much time already?’
‘Too right I do,’ he said, with a deep breath of thankfulness. ‘Several bloody awful weeks of it. God, I’ve missed you, my darling.’
Rosanna hugged him hard. ‘I’ve missed you, too.’
It was much later that night, after keeping steadfastly to his programme, when Ewen took her upstairs to bed at last.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said as he closed the door behind them. ‘The bedlinen’s been changed several times since Wayne’s occupation.’
Rosanna giggled. ‘That’s a relief! By the way, have you noticed how sparkling the entire house is? Sally must have worked her fingers to the bone.’ Her smile faded as she saw the single, perfect rosebud in a crystal vase on the bedside table. ‘Roses? At this time of the year?’
He looked at it in surprise. ‘There are still a few in the garden, but I didn’t put it there.’
‘I think it’s Sally’s olive branch.’ Rosanna smiled at him. ‘Highly appropriate.’
‘Only because it’s beautiful. Like you.’ Ewen took her in his arms. ‘It was always you, Rosanna, right from the first moment on your doorstep. No ghost. Just you.’
She leaned against him, savouring the moment of tenderness and peace before the urgency began. As it would, she knew. For both of them. ‘I know. Besides, I only look like my grandmother. I could never have been noble, like Rose.’
Ewen’s arms tightened. ‘In what way?’
Rosanna looked up into his intent, possessive face. ‘David’s fit and healthy and all in one piece—’
‘And a pretty hefty piece at that!’
‘Don’t be rude. What I’m trying to say is that Rose kept her promise to marry Gerald Rivers, my grandfather. But I couldn’t have done it. I’m glad David’s found someone else. But even if he hadn’t it wouldn’t have made any difference. I could never have married him—or anyone else—once I found you.’
Ewen let out a long, unsteady breath, and kissed her with a tenderness that brought tears to her eyes as she smiled up at him.
‘And while I’m in confessing mood,’ she went on, ‘I might as well tell you why I came to the cottage that day.’
‘To kiss and make up, I hope,’ he said, rubbing his cheek against hers.
‘A bit more than that.’ She moved back a little so she could look up into his eyes. ‘Actually I came to accept your terms, Ewen Fraser.’
He frowned. ‘What terms?’
‘I was so unhappy without you I was ready to accept your offer.’
Ewen’s eyes glittered. ‘You mean you were actually willing to live in sin with me, Miss Carey?’
‘Since you were so allergic to marriage, Mr Fraser, what else could I do?’
‘So we abandoned our previous stands almost simultaneously?’ he said in amazement, then pulled her to him with sudden ferocity. ‘Now I know you love me.’
‘Did you ever doubt it?’ she said against his shirt.
‘Damn right I did, once I laid eyes on Dr Norton.’
She gave a muffled laugh. ‘Let’s not bring all that up again.’
Ewen turned her face up to his. ‘What shall we do instead?’
When her eyes gave him her answer he crushed her to him then took her to bed, and it was in the early hours of the morning, long after they’d celebrated their reunion with passionate thanksgiving, that Ewen told her he’d rewritten the ending of his book.
Rosanna propped herself on an elbow to look at him in the soft, muted lamplight. ‘You mean your heroine didn’t make the sacrifice after all?’
‘Oh, yes, she made it. She parts from her lover in anguish and marries the disabled fiancé.’ Ewen reached up and pulled her down to him, settling her comfortably against his shoulder. ‘But he dies three years later, and she meets the lover by chance in Hyde Park one day, when she’s out walking with the son she named for him.’
‘And?’ demanded Rosanna.
Ewen kissed her. ‘When you think of the passionately physical relationship between Rose and Harry, and the times they lived in, don’t you think it’s a bit of a miracle there was no child born of it?’
She nodded, her eyes glowing with sudden comprehension. ‘So in your book there was. The child she named for him actually was his.’
‘Right. So they get married and he adopts the son, who will feature in my next book— Why are you laughing?’
‘That’s why you made the child his, Ewen Fraser— you needed the character for your next novel!’
‘True,’ he agreed. ‘But quite apart from that I had this compulsion to write a happy ending.’
‘I’m glad,’ said Rosanna fervently. ‘Everyone loves a happy ending.’ She shivered and slid further down into his arms. ‘We came horribly close to missing ours.’
‘Not a chance!’ Ewen held her close with sudden urgency. ‘Fate had us marked out for each other from the start.’
‘Perhaps that’s what my grandmother meant,’ said Rosanna breathlessly.
‘When?’
‘She said I should read the diary and the letters when the time was right. And it was. An hour after I finished reading them you appeared on the doorstep!’
‘Struck dumb at the sight of you. I thought Rose’s photograph had come to life.’ Ewen leaned over her possessively, his hand tracing the line of her cheek. ‘Then I took a second look and knew exactly who you were.’
‘Who?’ she whispered.
‘My destiny,’ said Ewen, and turned out the light.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-1351-7
THE TEMPTATION TRAP
First North American Publication 2000.
Copyright © 1998 by Catherine George.
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