by Penny Jordan
And when she lay in bed thinking of Neil so intimately, her body ached for him.
He had been away three days when Hannah came round, cheerfully announcing that she and her family were going away on holiday.
‘A friend of a friend has a villa in Spain and they’ve asked me to revamp the interior.’ She looked at her friend’s wan face and said shrewdly, ‘I suppose there’s no point in asking you to come with us.’
Quickly Rue shook her head, and then, conscious of her friend’s thoughtful look, said defensively, ‘How can I? I’m far too busy for one thing, and for another there’s Horatio.’
‘Wouldn’t Neil look after him for you?’ Hannah asked her.
‘He’s away at the moment,’ Rue told her, deliberately turning her head away so that Hannah couldn’t guess how much just talking about him affected her.
‘Away? Oh, you mean that trip to London,’ Hannah answered carelessly. ‘No, he’s back. He got back last night, or so he told me this morning. He telephoned and asked me to go round so that we could go through the rooms he’s putting on one side for his mother. They’re lovely,’ she added enthusiastically. ‘A bedroom and sitting-room plus bathroom on the first floor, overlooking the side of the house. They’re over the library, I think. Do you remember them?’
‘Yes,’ Rue told her shortly. The rooms her friend was referring to had once been her own, but she didn’t want to say so. She didn’t want to say anything which would encourage Hannah to linger, because she wanted…no, needed to be alone with the pain that was threatening to destroy her.
Neil was back, had been back for almost a full day, and had made no attempt to get in touch with her.
It made no difference that she herself had told him to stay away…her eyes felt sore and gritty and she had a horrible feeling that she was about to cry.
‘Most of the work he wants done is simple enough. The rooms are so lovely that there shouldn’t be any problem sorting something out. I’m going back home to outline a couple of schemes now so that I can get Neil’s approval and put things in hand before we leave for Spain.’ She eyed Rue thoughtfully and then told her firmly, ‘You’re getting too thin, Rue. There’s almost nothing of you apart from your chest,’ she added teasingly, eyeing her friend’s body with rueful envy. ‘How is it that when I lose weight, I immediately become flat-chested?’ she demanded wryly. ‘Whereas when you lose it, you immediately begin to look fragile and haunted, all high cheekbones and delicate wrists, and not one single centimetre do you lose off your bust.’
‘Genes, I suppose,’ Rue offered her absently. It was true that she had lost weight. Food seemed to have lost its appeal completely, and twice since Neil had left she had stopped work in the evening and discovered she had gone all day without eating a single thing.
Hannah stayed a few more minutes, chatting about her proposed trip to Spain. Despite the fact that she had wanted to be alone, once she had gone Rue found the house almost disturbingly empty.
What was it that Neil had done to her that made her find her once-prized privacy something which now made her feel acutely lonely?
She made herself a cup of coffee and called to Horatio. There was still work to be done: the watering, and all the flowers she and Neil had picked, which were now being carefully dried, needed turning and checking.
The very thought made her back ache, and she couldn’t help remembering how quickly the time had passed when she had had Neil to help her. How having him there working beside her had encouraged her to work that little bit harder. How, on those odd occasions when he had raised his head to smile at her, her aching back had suddenly been forgotten.
She worked until gone ten, all the time her ears straining for the ring of the telephone, the sound of the car which would herald Neil’s arrival, but everything remained quiet. Too quiet, she acknowledged with a tiny shiver as she walked back to the house, Horatio at her heels.
She knew she ought to have something to eat, but she felt too listless, too drained to be bothered. A hot bath and a milky drink, that was all she really wanted.
Lies, an inward voice taunted. You want Neil. And it was all too painfully true, but it seemed that he must have taken her words at face value. Because he didn’t rush to see her the minute he got home? she scorned herself. Why should he? She had no importance in his life. She sighed faintly.
She knew even as she went to bed that she wouldn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep, and, dangerously, she wondered what would happen if she got dressed again and went to see Neil. The worst he could do would be to ask her to leave…to tell her that he had no interest in her, sexual or otherwise. How easy it would be to give in to the temptation, but she mustn’t. What had happened to her pride? Her self-respect?
It was a long time before she fell asleep, and then Horatio, who was still sleeping in a basket in her room, got up and whined, his doggy ears catching something that couldn’t reach those of the woman asleep on the bed.
He looked at her and whined again, and then got out of his basket and padded downstairs, sensing an intruder somewhere outside in the darkness of the night.
It was his barks that woke Rue, sharp, fierce barks that warned of danger, and at first, still muddled by sleep, she thought that Neil must have come round after all, and she sat up, her face wreathed in smiles, her heart thudding frantically, wishing she had thought to wear something a little more exciting than her old nightshirt, trembling with anticipation and pleasure as she waited for him to knock on the door.
Only there was no knock, and Horatio’s barks were growing steadily more frantic, punctuated by deep growls that rumbled in his throat.
Calling to him, Rue got up and hurried downstairs, switching on the lights. Sometimes a fox or a badger disturbed his sleep and he barked like this, resenting their infringement on what he saw as his territory. He was standing by the back door, his hair on edge, the growls becoming more and more menacing by the time Rue got down to the kitchen.
She tried to quieten him, telling him that there was no one there, but he refused to heed her, scratching at the door and whining to be let out.
Knowing that he wouldn’t quieten until she had done so, she gave in, telling him firmly as she opened the door that there was nothing there. To reaffirm it, she went out with him, shivering a little as the cool night air struck her skin. She hadn’t bothered to pull on a robe, and all thought of going back into the house to get one was shocked from her as she walked to the end of the yard and then stopped, arrested by an ominous crackling sound and the smell of something burning.
Instinctively she started to run towards the sound, rounding the corner just in time to see the flames licking greedily at the window on the stable…right next door to the drying shed where she had put the newly cut flowers to dry and where she had thankfully placed nearly all her spare stock, only that week, cleaning out the shelves in the stable ready for the new season’s flowers.
Without stopping to think, she raced to the drying shed, flinging open the door and tearing inside, grabbing the nets that held the drying flowers, staggering outside with her arms full and hurrying to put them in the relative safety of the yard.
The thought that she herself might be in danger never even occurred to her. All she wanted to do was to save her stock, and while she worked she wondered frantically how on earth the fire had started. She was always so careful, so very careful…
A small explosion from the stable made her tense fearfully, and she staggered outside to see flames leaping from the loft window.
The fire was spreading quickly; soon it would reach the drying shed. Appalled, she realised the danger that she was in…and all that she stood to lose. Not just her business, but her home as well if the flames should spread, and potentially her life, and yet still she stood there, completely unable to move, mesmerised by the lethal tongue of red and yellow fire, ignoring the heat that scorched her skin, and the ominous crackling sound of dry roof-timbers being eaten away by the furious flames, unable to do anythi
ng but stand there and watch her whole world being destroyed. She saw the flames burst out through the loft door and burning timbers crash down on the drying shed. She heard in the distance the sound of a fire engine, and just for a moment her head turned towards it, but the flames captured her again. Dry-mouthed, she watched them devour everything she had worked for, while the fire engine raced ever nearer.
She was almost surrounded by a circle of flame when the Daimler screeched to a halt in her yard, its driver wrenching himself out and across the distance that separated them, snatching her off the ground just as a heavy roof-timber burned through and crashed down to the ground, hitting the spot where she had been standing.
‘You crazy fool!’ Neil told her roughly. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? Don’t you realise the danger?’
Danger…? Oh, yes, she knew all about that. Her eyes widened and darkened, her gaze fastening on him in shocked panic as she tried to claw her way free. This man was danger…danger and torment and almost unbearable pleasure all rolled into one.
As desperately as she fought him, he refused to let her go, wrapping his arms tightly round her so that she couldn’t move hers, swinging her up and carrying her past the helmeted uniformed men who suddenly seemed to be everywhere.
Neil stopped in front of one of them, and Rue heard him saying tersely, ‘I don’t think there’s much you can do to save the outbuildings.’
‘No, probably not. How many people are there in the house?’
‘Just one. She’s here with me. I’m taking her home with me now.’
And then he swung her round in his arms and carried her towards his parked car. Just before he bundled her into the passenger seat, Rue begged hoarsely, ‘Horatio.’
‘In the back of the car,’ Neil told her harshly. ‘He seems to have a damn sight more sense than his mistress. What in hell’s name were you doing standing there like that? Don’t you realise you could have been burned to death?’
His words brought home the reality of her danger to her in a way that the flames had not. She shuddered and then sagged, sick with shock and reaction, shivering with cold, hugging her arms around her body, and realising abruptly what she was wearing.
‘I can’t go like this. I need something to wear.’
‘You’re not going inside that house. Not until the fire brigade announces that it’s safe,’ he told her curtly, starting the engine. ‘For goodness’ sake, Rue, what were you doing? You hadn’t even alerted them, had you? If I hadn’t seen the flames and rung them…’
‘You rang them…?’
‘Yes. I’d gone out for a walk…’
‘At two o’clock in the morning?’
A violent spasm of shaking seized her, and she closed her eyes, unable to pursue her questions. She felt sick with the realisation of the danger she had been in. A danger which Neil had rescued her from…only to carry her into an even greater danger. She could be burned just as traumatically and fatally by the flames of her love for him as she could have been by those devouring her home. And who would save her from those?
CHAPTER NINE
AS NEIL drove her towards the Court, she had a confused impression of the countryside flashing by. Hedgerows, a darker shade of grey than the pale grey of the fields, all of this silvered by the moonlight. The car tyres squealed protestingly as he turned sharply into the drive. Rue swayed sickly in her seat, wanting to tell him to slow down, but almost afraid to say anything at all to him as she looked at his face and saw the tension and anger in it. She saw the outline of the Court ahead of them at the end of the drive, familiar and yet in some ways unfamiliar to her.
Neil stopped the car and unfastened his seat-belt with jerky, uncoordinated movements. Before she could even reach for hers he was round at her side of the car, opening the door and reaching inside to do it for her, lifting her unceremoniously into his arms.
‘I can walk,’ she protested, but the words were muffled against his chest, drowned out by the fierce drum of his heartbeat.
Why was he so furiously angry with her? Because she had disturbed his walk? she wondered in confusion. Because he was having to help her out yet again, or because he was being forced into an intimacy with her that he didn’t want?
She realised with a small shock that the front door to the Court was standing wide open.
‘When I saw the flames, I came back here to telephone you. It was only then that I thought you might be stupid enough to try to tackle the blaze by yourself.’
He shouldered his way into the hall and switched on the lights. Immediately the familiar contours of the room sprang into view in front of Rue’s bemused eyes.
‘When you didn’t answer the telephone, I thought…’ Rue felt the shudder that went through him, convulsing his muscles, and making the hand that held on to her tighten almost painfully into her flesh.
‘For heaven’s sake, Rue!’ he demanded abruptly. ‘What the hell were you doing out there working at that time of night?’
A vein throbbed in his temple, and his skin, when she looked at it, was oddly flushed. A warm feeling of tenderness and compassion melted her bones.
‘I wasn’t,’ she told him huskily. ‘Working, I mean. Horatio woke me up. He was scratching at the door and barking. I thought there must be a badger out there, or a fox. He wouldn’t be quiet, so in the end I had to let him out and I went out with him. That’s when I heard the flames and smelt the smoke.’
‘You were in the house all the time.’ He put her down on her feet abruptly, and glared at her. ‘Then why in hell’s name didn’t you stay there?’ he demanded. ‘What on earth possessed you to go rushing off down there? Didn’t you realise the danger you were putting yourself in?’
‘I never thought about it,’ she told him honestly. She felt peculiarly shaky now that she was standing on her own two feet. ‘All I could think about was the flowers, the ones we picked before the storm. I had to get them out.’
‘You’re joking,’ she heard Neil saying tiredly. ‘Do you honestly mean to tell me that you risked your life and my sanity to save a handful of flowers?’
His vein was pulsing even harder now, his eyes almost black with fury, but Rue was angry herself now; too angry to care what she was risking or inviting as she lashed back at him.
‘A handful of flowers? That’s all they might be to you, Neil, but to me they are my living. I couldn’t let them be destroyed, not after all the hard work we’d put into saving them. There was almost a whole year’s profit in that drying shed. I had to get them out.’
‘A whole year’s profit.’ He was breathing heavily now, glaring at her, making her feel rather like a vulnerable and very new matador faced by an extremely dangerous and maddened bull. She circled him warily, without taking her eyes off his face. ‘And just exactly how much is a whole year’s profit?’ he demanded thickly.
Her anger had died away as quickly as it had arisen, and she was too nervous to lie to him.
‘Somewhere about five or six thousand pounds,’ she stammered helplessly, hardly daring to look at him as she saw the rage engulf his features.
‘Five or six thousand pounds?’ he gritted, almost spitting the words at her. ‘You risked your life for five or six thousand pounds? Come here.’ He practically dragged her into the study and thrust her down into a chair. ‘Let me give you a lesson in economics,’ he told her. ‘If you invested the money I offered you for the land, it would bring you an annual income far in excess of five or six thousand pounds.’
Rue knew that it was true. She had no defence against either his argument or the look that he gave her. Right from the start she had known that the money both he and the builder had offered her for her land would enable her to live in comparative comfort and without the hard work she was now obliged to do; but to simply give up after everything that she had done, to put aside all the effort she had put into making the small business a success, had seemed to Rue in a way to be turning her back on everything she had learned from her disastrous mar
riage to Julian. It would have been as though in some way she was reverting to the spoiled, thoughtless girl she had once been.
She looked at Neil, almost without seeing him, unaware of the emotions reflected in the sombreness of her gaze.
‘Why?’ he demanded thickly. ‘Why the hell punish yourself like that?’
He reached out towards her and took hold of her hand, grasping her wrist and turning her hand first palm upwards and then nails upwards, making her look at them.
‘Think what you’re doing to yourself, Rue. For how many more years can you push yourself the way you’re doing now, working single-handedly almost every hour in the day—and for what?’
‘For something far more important than mere money,’ she told him, suddenly finding her voice again. ‘For self-respect, Neil. For the right to prove to myself that I can be both independent and self-sufficient.’
‘And that’s very important to you, isn’t it?’ he asked her cynically. ‘Has no one ever told you that no man, nor any woman for that matter, is an island, Rue?’
Of course they had, many, many times, she remembered—when warning her of the isolation she was turning her life into.
‘All right, so you were once hurt and badly, but surely that doesn’t mean you have to turn your back on the rest of the human race for ever?’
‘I haven’t,’ she told him, shivering a little beneath the force of his words.
‘Oh, yes, you have, Rue,’ he argued with her. ‘You’ve built a wall between yourself and the rest of humanity. You’ve told yourself that you don’t need anyone or anything, and you’re determined not to let anyone behind that barrier you’ve created to protect yourself.’
‘Stop psychoanalysing me, Neil,’ she interrupted him sharply. ‘Just because my life doesn’t fall into the normal pattern for a woman of my age, just because I don’t have a husband and two point four children, that doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with me.’