‘It’s... It’s...’ she searched for a word to fit her relationship with John and the disturbance Adam’s steady scrutiny was causing, gave it to her. ‘It’s peaceful.’
‘Peaceful!’ Adam repeated incredulously, scornfully. ‘You enjoy driving a man to hell and back, Serena Templeton, and you tell me you want peace!’
‘Yes. Yes, I do,’ she declared. ‘He makes me feel norm... ordinary.’
It slipped out in the rise of her ready temper but was left hanging in the sudden hush that followed, Serena looking confused and shamed by her admission while Adam was moved to pity by it.
‘Oh, Princess,’ he groaned, one hand gentle on the curve of her shoulder, ‘you’ll never be ordinary. You’re fire and ice, special and gifted, and trying to hide it is just plain madness.’
It was the word ‘madness’ that must have done it, Adam later concluded—that sent her shying away from his sympathy and clambering out of his car before he realised his unfortunate choice of words. His physical reactions were quicker, and he caught up with her before she was ten yards down the road.
‘Where in God’s name do you think you’re going?’ He sounded harsh from the shock her sudden flight had given him, not improved by her apparent coolness as she continued walking at a steady pace. ‘Come back to the car!’
‘Home.’ She didn’t break her stride, didn’t even turn her head when she muttered tightly, ‘Mad people can be a liability in moving vehicles.’
It broke Adam’s resolve not to be rough on her, as he pulled her to a sharp halt, and when she tried to twist from his grip, clamped his hand hard down on her waist.
‘Now listen, and listen good! With both ears and all that brain power you intend to waste on your simple farming boy.’ He dragged her closer till their faces were bare inches apart, and she looked startled by the anger vibrating his voice.
‘I’m sick of having everything I say misinterpreted so that it fits my villainous personality, and I am not going to spend the rest of our lives bending over backwards not to offend your sensibilities while you cut me up with your vicious little tongue. I’m only human, girl, not some cold-blooded creature or a martyred saint, and I’d have to be one or other to take it. Do you understand?’ Adam demanded.
Serena understood, enough to be choked by the pain threading his accusation, much more real than any imagined hurt she had made as an excuse to run out on their discussion.
The tears came trickling down from the enormous eyes staring up at him, and although she hadn’t realised she was crying till the first drop reached her trembling lips, Serena did not try to hide it. The tears were a gift to him—a little girl saying she was sorry for being bad, but Adam had never wanted it, couldn’t take it. He drew her towards him and buried her face in the curve of his shoulder so he wouldn’t have to see the distress he had wrought in temper and frustration. Even the quiet sobbing muffled by his jacket had a stranglehold over his heart that made it difficult to breathe, and yet part of him wanted to hold her there forever.
But Serena needed to say something once the tears had passed. Withdrawing from his arms, she started to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand and mumbled a shy, ‘Thanks,’ when he offered her his handkerchief. She scrubbed her face dry and raised her head determinedly, only to have every thought in it, chased away by the expression on his face—full of tenderness and concern for her. She seemed to see him for the first time without the past blurring her vision and wasn’t conscious of her fixed stare until he spoke.
‘Have I grown two heads since I shaved this morning?’ Adam teased, and as a test to see if her steady appraisal had worked in his favour, it was completely successful. Serena smiled, slow and shy, the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. He had to know, but he kept it light, ‘Still hate me?’
Serena shook her head, but her face straightened into seriousness. If she didn’t keep the courage to tell him now, they might never get to this point again.
‘She lied to me, said you’d have me locked away. And afterwards, when you came back, I got you mixed up with her...’ She wasn’t being too clear now either, but he came to her rescue as she faltered.
‘It’s OK, Princess, I understand.’ Adam didn’t want to put her through an exorcism any more, not at the risk of losing the precious ground he appeared to have gained. He placed a tentative arm round her shoulders. ‘Let’s go home.’
She hesitated for a second and he gave her a light brotherly hug before leading her back to the Porsche and installing her in the passenger seat. By the time he had gone round to the other side and climbed in, the girl next to him looked very far away.
He touched a cold hand lying on her lap. ‘Fasten your seatbelt, Princess.’
It returned her to him, and he wasn’t ready for her question. ‘Why don’t you want to know about Andrea any more?’ His silence was received with disappointment and she muttered quickly, ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘You don’t give people much of a chance, Serena,’ Adam scolded mildly. ‘Are you sure you want to talk about it?’ She was sitting tense as a coiled spring but nodded. ‘Last week I paid a visit to Simon Clarke and he supplied me with the details you’d given him about Andrea’s behaviour towards you.’
‘Those lies!’ Serena interrupted brokenly. ‘I bet you found them amusing. Your dear refined aunt the child abuser—ridiculous, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’ Adam murmured softly, as all the old defiance came back into the eyes holding his. He was being tested and expected to fail. Her trust didn’t come easily either. ‘She was sad and sick. And maybe her reasons for harming you could be termed ridiculous. But none of the bare facts you threw at Clarke were designed to raise laughter.’
‘You believed them.’ It came out as a whisper but was a shout of wonder inside Serena’s head.
‘They were the truth,’ said Adam with conviction, and then almost casually, ‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘Simon didn’t. He called them implausible...’ She flushed guiltily.
‘You read his report?’ Adam astutely guessed.
‘He left it lying around,’ Serena defended half-heartedly, ‘and it was about me.’
Adam neatly laughed, but confined himself to an amused, ‘Poor Clarke, it’s small wonder that he didn’t abandon his profession after being led around in circles by his patient, expected to swallow whole and in the space of five minutes what he’d been trying to discover for twelve months, and then ostracised for not immediately doing so!’
He was gambling by making light of the sensitive subject, believing it needed fresh air.
It coaxed a half-smile from her lips before she pouted, ‘He was silly and sometimes too obvious for words.’
‘Well, if it’s any consolation, he would like to come and apologise for the mistake he made.’
‘No.’ It was very decisive, and when Adam’s eyebrows lifted in enquiry, Serena added regretfully, ‘I was mean to him and perhaps I didn’t give him much of a chance to help, but I don’t want to see him again... please!’
Her eyelashes were now lowered as a shield, but Adam detected the fact that she was rather ashamed of her behaviour to the young psychiatrist, but more worrying, she was humiliated by ever needing him.
‘You don’t have to,’ Adam affirmed quickly. ‘I’ll write him a letter if you like.’
‘If you would, I’d be... grateful.’
It was his mother’s sweet little girl talking, but natural, not forced. It stirred his conscience. ‘We’d better be moving before my mother thinks we’re both deserting her for dinner tonight.’
‘I’ve been childish, haven’t I?’ Serena admitted solemnly, and Adam wondered if he would ever stop being surprised by the things she said.
Adam smiled down at her. ‘You’re twenty years old, Princess. What’s my excuse?’
She actually thought about it, before matching his levity as she suggested, ‘Provocation?’ then laughed at his momentary disconcertment, her eyes gleaming with mischief a pr
ovocation in themselves.
She has no idea of her power, Adam thought, as he joined her laughter, although he was sorely tempted to lean towards her enchanting mouth and do something that would be utter stupidity in the present circumstances. Her trust was as fragile and precious as fine porcelain.
He turned his concentration to getting them home and in other people’s company as quickly as possible, while Serena looked out of her window, her expression moving with her thoughts between a frown and a smile.
When they drew up at the front door Adam asked simply, ‘Am I in to dinner?’ and held his breath for the answer.
It was slow in coming and indirect, setting the pattern for their relationship in the near future.
‘I’ll go and tell Mrs Baker,’ Serena offered courteously before scrambling out of the car with more haste than dignity to do just that.
Adam watched her retreating back till she disappeared into the house, and silently committed himself to do no more than that from then on. To watch and wait, and above all put her happiness before anything else.
CHAPTER NINE
Two months ago it had started with Serena accepting Adam’s invitations as penance for the gross misjudgement she had made of his character.
They went riding together, and, apart from helping her on and off her horse, he never touched her. He took her round every notable gallery in London, a veritable marathon, and proved himself capable of giving her an education in art history more enjoyable than any provided in dull textbooks, for it was laced with his wry humour; and on the way home, when she had almost spoilt a perfect day with a snide comment about not needing a substitute father, he had sensed and redressed the imbalance she was feeling with a confounding offer for her to criticise the first chapters of his latest novel.
Serena had felt too shy to take him up on it, but he had dumped the manuscript in her lap after dinner one evening. The next night he had listened and encouraged while she tried to give an unbiased opinion, impossible when she was so nervous of displeasing him now, and had laughed good-naturedly when she had commented that it lacked the biting edge that made his characters nasty but interesting.
He had taken her out to dinner and a few times to the theatre in Leeds, but those invitations always included Nancy. And all three had spent a weekend in London; it had been enjoyable, apart from the Saturday afternoon when the two women went shopping, and Serena felt guilty because her enthusiasm was forced and had failed to channel her mind from wondering where Adam had disappeared after dropping them in the Old Brompton Road. He had made up for it in the evening by taking them to a play written by the friend with whom he had spent the afternoon.
She was neglecting John, avoiding dinner dates and once actually forgetting one when Adam had arrived home unexpectedly early from a business trip to London. It had been embarrassing: John at the door in his best suit and Serena standing open-mouthed in jeans and paint-smeared top, and the Carmichaels left to entertain him while she changed in record time. And the sight of Adam playing host with impeccable politeness had convinced her that any sexual interest she had aroused in him had been killed by the knowledge of how his aunt had treated her. What had seemed like jealousy of John had simply been his way of showing her what she now knew to be fact—marriage to John Saxon would be a disastrous mistake, for both of them.
From the day of the auction she had understood what Adam was trying to do—in some way compensate for his aunt’s ill-treatment, by being guardian, friend, confidant, whatever she wanted him to be. There was no pressure to do so, but she gave him some of her bad memories and he helped to reduce their significance by making her see Andrea as pathetic rather than demonic, to be pitied for a jealously so extreme that she had taken it out on a child who had looked too like her mother and was loved too much by her father.
But she had let a new fear take the place of the others—that one day she would rise early, throw on her riding clothes and run down the stairs to find White Lightning without a master, the Porsche no longer in the garage and Adam a thousand miles away. It was what she had to expect; Nancy had told her long ago that he rarely remained in England for a whole summer—often stayed months on end in a country that captured his interest.
It was a silly fear in one sense, for the man she now knew wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye—but very soon he wouldn’t be her guardian.
He would have fulfilled the obligation he had admitted to feeling when she had asked why he had come to Yorkshire, and he would be free. And there was very little she could do to keep him here.
Suddenly it was the end of term at college, and the prospect that by the end of the summer Adam would have gone filled her with a quiet despair.
She had cleared her locker and, arms laden down with books and portfolios, was walking out into the sunshine with the other girls catching the bus to the station when she stopped short. The Porsche sat outside the main gates with Adam casually leaning against the bonnet.
‘Wow, what a fabulous car!’ one of the girls exclaimed.
‘What a fabulous man, you mean,’ said another. ‘I’d like him for my birthday—and without gift wrapping, if you get my drift.’
‘Whose is he anyway?’ asked a third.
‘He’s my cousin,’ said Serena before any further comments were made, and betrayed herself with a blush to the roots of her hair, before bidding the others a hasty farewell.
‘Tell that to the Marines!’ Cathy called after her as she almost ran to intercept Adam, and it started the others giggling, which made Serena feel unreasonably cross with him for being what he was, a handsome and very attractive male.
Little of her original elation on seeing him remained when she reached him, and although he emptied her arms and muttered something about end-of-term clutter, he looked none too pleased either.
The impression was reinforced as he stowed her gear in the boot with a slam and impatiently clicked on his seatbelt. It annoyed her into announcing ungraciously, ‘You didn’t have to come, you know. I could have taken the train.’
‘I wanted to,’ he replied, his grim face implying something else.
‘It sounds like it,’ Serena said sulkily, and instantly regretted it. All day worrying about him leaving before she stopped needing him around, and now she was behaving in a manner that might guarantee it!
‘I’m sorry. Thanks for coming, Adam.’ It solicited a smile that made the sun come out again for Serena.
‘My fault,’ Adam muttered self-deprecatingly. ‘I don’t like being giggled over, especially when I can guess the reason.’
‘I didn’t like it either,’ Serena hastily set the record straight. ‘And what do you imagine they were saying?’
He refused to meet her eyes but answered moodily, ‘Who’s your dad, or words to that effect.’
It set Serena off, but she couldn’t help it. ‘It’s absurd, Cathy thinks...’ she managed, before the rest was swallowed up by laughter.
Adam’s tone was sobering, as he struggled to keep his temper. ‘What does Cathy think?’
‘She thinks,’ Serena expanded, trying to keep her face straight, ‘that she’d like you as a birthday present, but she’d dispense with the gift-wrapping. And believe me, that was very euphemistic for Cathy!’ She’d expected it would make him look a little less forbidding, but if anything it made it worse. ‘She meant that...’
‘I know what she meant,’ he interrupted brusquely.
Serena wasn’t too sure how she had caused offence, but the black look he was giving her started her nervously biting her lip.
The transformation in Adam was immediate and total as his hand came up to stroke the hair from her face and he said softly, ‘I’m not mad with you, Princess. And you’re right, I am being absurd. What you think is all that matters.’
If there was the merest hint of question in his quiet statement, she wasn’t given the time to form an answer before he lightly touched her cheek and then leaned back to switch on the engine. It was just as well
, because when he looked at her like that, his eyes lazy with indulgence and the beginnings of a smile on his firm lips, feeling took over from thought, and she didn’t want to embarrass him with it—even if she could have articulated her chaotic emotions.
The day was very warm and Adam pulled open the sun-roof when they were away from the city fumes. A pleasant breeze filled the car and the conversation was aimless and pleasant, just right for a summer day. They arrived home much sooner than Serena would have liked.
Adam dropped her at the door and she went in search of Nancy, reflecting on the ways her relationship with the older woman had altered too. It was more equal, less adult and child, and consequently more satisfying for them both. The two women nearly collided on the threshold of the lounge.
‘You’re early.’ Nancy’s shock at finding Serena home made her slow to react, and Serena was breezing into the lounge with a cheerful, ‘Yes, Adam came to collect me. I had mountains of rubbish and he...’
When she realised Nancy was not alone, Serena’s natural reticence reasserted itself and she tailed off mid-sentence. Later she was to wonder how she guessed the stranger’s identity before she even spoke.
The redhead rose languidly, her slanting eyes quickly assessing and mentally dismissing, and Nancy broke in hurriedly, ‘Serena, this is a—friend of Adam’s, Julia Hamlisch.’
Julia laughed throatily at the hesitant introduction and, every inch the sophisticate in sleeveless white satin, strolled forward and drawled with a pointedly slow diction, ‘You must be Adam’s little cousin. How are you, dear?’
The woman was talking to her as if she was an idiot, and for a long second all Serena could do was gape, confirming it.
‘Where’s Adam?’ Nancy urged at her elbow.
It snapped Serena out of her daze sufficiently to answer, ‘The garage.’
The only one equal to the situation was Julia, too insensitive to feel any awkwardness, as she took a bemused Serena’s arm. ‘Come and sit with me on the sofa, dear, while Nancy breaks the news of my arrival to Adam. Men can be so funny about surprises we women spring on them!’
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