by Penny Jordan
Shakily she switched on the light and then crouched down on the floor beside the dog. The wound had been attended to and cleaned, the bare patch of flesh gleaming pinkly against his dark fur. His tail thumped ecstatically on the floor. Rue put her arms round the dog and hugged him, whispering his name.
The bedroom door opened and she froze, hugging the dog protectively towards her as she saw Neil standing there.
From where she was kneeling on the floor, he seemed to tower over her; the dark robe he was wearing revealed a long and very muscular length of leg, instinct telling her that beneath the robe he was naked. She, in contrast, was wearing her underwear, with a nightshirt over the top, and she had a vague memory of Hannah helping her into it, so vague and clouded that she wasn’t sure whether it had been reality or a dream.
‘I heard you moving about,’ Neil told her, as calmly as though there was nothing untoward in him appearing in her bedroom without invitation looking as though he had just got out of bed, his dark hair tousled and untidy. ‘I thought I’d better come and reassure you about Horatio. The vet checked him over very thoroughly. Whoever shot him wasn’t very accurate. Apart from a flesh wound and shock, he was all right.’
Rue could hardly believe what she was hearing.
‘Did you tell the vet that you were the one who shot him?’ she demanded fiercely. ‘Because I certainly intend to…and the police.’ She started to shake. ‘Get out of here! Get out of my house.’ Her hand tightened on Horatio’s collar and he whined softly sensing her tension.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Neil interrupted her curtly. ‘For goodness’ sake, you don’t really believe I shot him, do you?’
He broke off as he saw her face. Rue stared back at him resolutely and demanded shakily, ‘Didn’t you?’
‘No, I damn well did not.’ He was angry now, almost as angry as she was herself, she recognised, and a tiny sliver of doubt touched her like a cold dart of ice. What if she was wrong? But she couldn’t be.
‘Hannah said you heard shots. What time, can you remember?’ he pressed her.
He was trying to trap her, Rue thought. ‘It was about nine o’clock. The news was on.’
‘For your information, at nine o’clock this morning I had a meeting with my accountants in Cambridge. A fact which I am sure they will be delighted to confirm for you.’
Rue didn’t want to believe him. She wanted to protest that a man as rich and powerful as he was could force his accountants to lie to her, but she knew that it wasn’t true, just as she knew from the way he was looking at her that she had been wrong.
A horrible hollow feeling inside her chest seemed to cause her heart literally to drop.
‘How dare you believe that I would wantonly try to hurt or maim any animal…and for what purpose? Come down out of the clouds, Rue. Yes, I would like to buy this land off you, but I don’t want it so badly that I’m prepared to destroy my principles to get it!’
He gave her such a savage look that she quailed beneath it. How had he managed to turn the tables on her and make her feel that she was the one who was at fault…that she…?
She shook herself free of the sensation his anger was arousing inside her and demanded huskily, ‘Well, someone shot him, or are you going to tell me that I imagined that as well?’
‘No, he was certainly shot…but whether deliberately or by accident it’s hard to know. I understand that the previous owner of the Court rarely visited the place, and that some of the villagers and locals tended to rather make free with the land.’
‘You mean that it would have been poachers?’ Rue asked.
‘Either that, or perhaps a group of teenagers fooling around shooting at rooks and hitting Horatio by accident.’
It was feasible, she knew that, but despite the fact that Horatio had only sustained a minor wound some instinct she could not explain told her that the dog had been shot at deliberately. There had been his terror, for one thing.
‘By the way, Hannah was telling me that I’m not the first person to want to buy your land.’
Rue frowned. A glance at her alarm clock when she had got out of bed had showed her that it was half-past one in the morning. She had slept away almost an entire day, and with every minute that passed she felt more alert, in control of herself, but surely the same could not be said for Neil? Surely he must be tired? Too tired, she would have thought, to want to exchange small talk about her land? Unless he was concerned that she might out of spite sell it to the builder.
‘No, you’re not,’ she told him shortly, cross with herself because she felt hurt that he could suspect her of such small-mindedness. If she was to sell to anyone it would be to him; the land had, after all, originally been part of the estate, and it was only fair that if she did he should have the first option to purchase it. Not that she was going to sell. ‘There was a builder last year who wanted to buy it. There’s been a rumor in the local Press that the land around here might be designated ‘‘white land’’ instead of green belt.’
‘And so prime land for building development. Especially yours, with its main-road frontage.’
‘Well, yes, although that doesn’t seem to be important, because he’s now bought an acreage behind me from the man who farms what used to be the home farm. Mrs Dacre—that’s our old housekeeper—was telling me about it when I went to see her.’
She bent her head over Horatio, stroking the dog’s soft fur, and so missed Neil’s quick frown.
‘He’s going to be perfectly all right,’ he told her quietly, walking over to the basket. ‘I brought him up here because I thought it would reassure you if you woke up.’
A huge lump had formed in her throat at his thoughtfulness. Why was he doing it, when he had every reason to dislike her? Surely he must know by now that she wasn’t going to sell the land?
‘Thank you,’ she said huskily, and looked up just in time to see his eyes crinkling with amusement.
‘It wasn’t so very difficult, after all, was it?’ he teased her, and just for a moment she longed to throw all caution aside and to respond naturally and warmly to him, but she couldn’t allow herself to do that. She must never forget the cruel lesson loving Julian had taught her…and Neil would hurt her too, if she let him.
Sidestepping his question, she said quietly instead, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘The doctor said you weren’t to be left alone. Hannah volunteered to stay, but since she has a family to look after, I said I’d do it instead.’ He looked up at her just in time to catch her expression. ‘Rue, for goodness’ sake, let the past go, and stop punishing me for another man’s sins.’
She was tempted. Oh, how she was tempted, and the knowledge of that temptation, and what lay behind it, panicked her into saying harshly, ‘It doesn’t make any difference. You…Julian…you’re all the same.’
She saw the anger touch his face like lightning, illuminating an expression of such savagery that she shrank from it.
‘Well, in that case, you won’t find it surprising if I do this, will you?’ he told her grittily, and then she was being lifted off her feet and carried over to the bed.
She started to cry out, but the sound was lost as he dropped her down on the bed, and then the weight of him was on top of her, imprisoning her there, his hands pinning down her arms.
Rue tensed, terror surging through her as she remembered her wedding night. They had been married quietly in a register office, which had disappointed her, but Julian had pointed out to her that with her father so recently dead a church wedding might not be seemly.
He had told her that he had rented a cottage from a friend for their honeymoon, and she had pictured something small and intimate in an idyllic setting, but in reality the place he had taken her to had been virtually derelict, and very far from attractive, one of a row of similar cottages, none of which were inhabited, miles away from anywhere outside a grim mining town. The house had been damp and smelled musty. She had later discovered that the house had once belonged to
Julian’s parents. Tired and disappointed, she had behaved like the rather spoilt nineteen-year-old she had been, protesting that she didn’t like the house, until they had quarrelled and Julian had stormed out, taking the car with him.
When he returned in the early hours of the morning, she had been contrite and penitent, eager to make up their quarrel, but Julian had been drunk.
Because of her, he had told her brutally when she had complained…because that was the only way he could bring himself to possess her—and he had to possess her to make their marriage legal.
He had spared her nothing then: neither the full reality of his contempt and dislike of her…of all those who had the wealth he had not…nor his vision of the way their life together would be.
She had fought him at first, until she realised the violence it unleashed in him and the way he enjoyed hurting her.
And now Neil was going to hurt her too.
She closed her eyes and tensed, her body waiting for the pain and humiliation to begin…knowing that it must begin and that the only way she could endure it would be to shut herself off from the horror…to use her mind to project herself away from it.
And then, unbelievably, she was free, the mattress moving slightly as Neil moved away from her. She was trembling so much that she could hardly move, her heart thudding painfully against the wall of her chest. She opened her eyes and saw that Neil was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching her with an expression she couldn’t fathom.
He reached out to touch her and she flinched, unable to stop herself.
From a distance she heard Neil speaking to her, his voice oddly thick and unfamiliar, and as she forced herself to concentrate on his words she heard him say jerkily, ‘Rue, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. It was unforgivable. My cursed temper…’
At first she couldn’t believe it. He was actually apologising to her. Julian had never apologised, he had laughed at her fear…had enjoyed her fear. Neil, on the other hand, looked white with shock. He lifted his hand from the bed and she saw that it was trembling. She looked into his eyes and saw the same fear and pain in his that she knew was in her own, and from some previously hidden well of compassion she had never guessed existed, her own hand crept out and covered his in a wordless gesture of comfort.
She saw the agony in his eyes darken them to slate-grey as they glittered with a dampness that made her heart turn over in her chest. As she stared wonderingly at him, unable to believe she was responsible for such emotion, he raised her hand to his lips and uncurled her fingers, pressing his mouth against her soft palm.
The gesture, wholly without sexuality though it was, made her body stir like the branches of a young willow tree in a spring breeze.
His lips moved against her skin and she heard him saying roughly, ‘Rue. The herb of grace. Your parents named you well.’
And then quick tears stung her own eyes and she said huskily, ‘It was as much my fault as yours. I shouldn’t have made you so angry. Julian…’
‘No,’ he interrupted her harshly, dropping her hand, and then when he saw the way her eyes clouded he cupped her face and said more quietly, ‘No, Rue. You did make me angry, that’s true, but anger, no matter how justified, is never any excuse for violence…especially sexual violence. I abhor such cruelty. I always have and I always will. You can’t know what it does to my self-respect to realise how close I came to…’
She couldn’t let him go on and so she rushed in breathlessly, ‘There’s no need to feel like that. You didn’t hurt me.’
‘Hurt you?’ She saw his eyes turn almost black. ‘Don’t you understand even now?’
Her mouth trembled and he seemed unable to stop looking at it. She saw him shudder, felt it in the convulsive movement of his fingers against her skin.
‘I didn’t want to hurt you, Rue. I wanted…oh, hell,’ he muttered thickly, unable to drag his gaze away from the softness of her mouth and its innocent provocation.
Rue knew he was going to kiss her, just as she knew that she could quite easily have stopped him, but she felt no compulsion to do so…no compulsion to do anything other than melt against him with an inarticulate sound of pleasure as he brought his mouth down to hers, hesitantly and gently, so that she knew how afraid he was of hurting her, his body rigid against hers, the muscles in his arms corded with strain as he cupped her face and fought to control the need raging through him.
Later Rue wasn’t sure how she had known that he wanted her, genuinely wanted her for no other reason than that his body ached for her, but she had known it, just as she had known that the torment of her mouth trembling against his, clinging to it, would be almost more than his self-control could stand.
Quite from where she had gained the knowledge that the tip of her tongue tracing the outline of his lips, lingering provocatively on the bottom one and slipping between their parted hardness, would make him groan in protest and then draw her tongue into the heat of his mouth, his control splintering so that she could almost feel the desire running like quicksilver through his veins, she had no idea, but gained it she most definitely had.
As he gently pushed her back on the bed, Neil’s mouth touched her temples, her closed eyelids, her jaw, the soft curve of her throat, and finally, when she thought she could stand it no longer, her mouth, drinking from it like a man too long denied such sweetness.
Against her body, she could feel the fierce beat of his heart as though it was her own. She ached for him to strip the clothes from her and make love to her properly. To run his hands over her skin, to shape the soft curve of her hips and the narrow indentation of her waist, to cup the fullness of her breasts and place his mouth against their swollen crests. Where once she had dreaded the mere thought of making love, now she ached to do so. She could feel that hard arousal of Neil’s flesh and was maddened by the thin layers of fabric that separated them, and still Neil kissed her, his hands holding her shoulders down against her bed, his body hard on hers, making her moan deep in her throat in pleasure…
A pleasure, though, which was quickly turning to frustration as she opened her eyes and looked into his, willing him to read the need there and to answer it. His own eyes were brilliant with desire, but he made no move to touch her, to push away the intrusive layers of her clothes and caress her aching body as she so longed for him to do.
Her womanhood, dormant for so long, refused to be denied the needs he had unleashed in her, so unfamiliar to her that she had no way of controlling them. His mouth slid from her lips to her jaw, taking hungry, fierce kisses, as though he feared that she might be wrenched away from him at any moment, and yet still he made no move to do anything more than kiss her.
It was more than Rue could stand. She reached up and clamped her fingers on his wrists, urging his hands down towards her breasts.
She felt him tense as she moved against him, and saw the fierce darkening of his eyes. She knew he wanted her as much as she wanted him, and yet when he spoke her name it was in a kind of desperate denial which she did not want to hear, so she turned her head and placed her mouth against his, willing him not to reject her. Tears stung her eyes and her body trembled with pent-up emotion. If he rejected her now she would know that it was all lies, that all his gentleness and kindness had meant nothing, other than that Julian had been right when he had said that she was undesirable, that no man would ever want her for herself.
Without knowing it, she conveyed these thoughts and more to him in the look she gave him, and like a man knowing that he should continue to fight against the tide, even as he knew it was too strong for him, he felt her body move beneath his hands and reality abruptly ceased to matter as he found the opening of her nightshirt and buried his mouth in the scented hollow between her breasts.
In the end it was Rue who helped him to remove her nightshirt and underwear, kneeling on the bed, bathed in moonlight, suddenly proud of her body instead of hating it, knowing instinctively what the curve of her hips, the arch of her spine and the thrust of her br
easts were doing to him, and rejoicing in her power over him like a pagan priestess of love.
His own robe was quickly disposed of, her hands deft and exquisitely sure as she untied its belt and slid her palms up over his torso, glorying in the tension of his muscles, the musky scent of arousal that came from his skin, the heat that burst from it as she touched him, stroking and then kneading his flesh with a sensuality she had never dreamed she could know.
And in the end it was she who placed her mouth to his throat, savouring the hot, salt taste of his skin, feeling the tiny pulse jerk and thud as she bit gently while he closed his eyes and shuddered, completely unable to deny his need for her.
Suddenly she felt gloriously free of the past, totally in control of her life, mistress of her own body and of his, and wantonly she let her mouth wander over him, tracing the dark line of hair with teasing kisses until she felt his belly quiver beneath her mouth and he cried out, holding her away from him and looking at her with eyes that glittered with desire-racked hunger.
‘No,’ he told her hoarsely. ‘No, not yet, Rue…it’s too soon.’
And as she stared at him, all the confidence and pleasure draining from her, he cursed bitterly, the tight bite of his fingers easing into a caress.
‘It isn’t because I don’t want you! Heaven knows, you must know that I do.’ And when she continued to stare at him, her eyes frozen lakes of pain, he pulled her towards him and kissed her mouth fiercely, as though willing her to believe him.
He didn’t want her at all. It had just been pity, pretence…and she had humiliated herself in front of him, shown him… She shuddered and looked past him into the distance, her body suddenly as cold as alabaster.
‘Rue, let me explain…’
She focused on him and said tiredly, ‘You don’t have to. I understand…’ And then, like a small child reciting a carefully taught speech, she said formally, ‘I’m sorry if I’ve embarrassed you; I didn’t mean to. Too much emotional trauma in one day. There’s no need for you to stay. I shall be all right now.’