by Penny Jordan
She stayed with them for several minutes, watching them and talking to them. Soon, no doubt, when it became fully dark, they would be roosting somewhere out of the way of any predatory hunting foxes.
Turning her back on them, Sylvie stared thoughtfully at the house, trying to visualise how it would look once the stone had been cleaned. That alone would cost a small fortune and would, no doubt, take almost as long as it would take for the interior to be renovated. She must ask Ran to give her any formal records from when the hall had originally been built and the work done on it since then. She wasn’t sure, but she suspected that the stairway she had seen had been, if not the work of Grinling Gibbons, then certainly the work of one of his more innovative apprentices.
The tiny sprays of coral, the seashells and unbelievably realistic fish carved into the wood related, no doubt, to the fact that the money for the original house had come from the very profitable overseas trading its owner had been involved in. As a prominent member of King Charles II’s court, and one of his favourites, he undoubtedly had had access to many money-making activities.
Idly Sylvie wondered what it would have been like to live in such a time and in such a house. It was one of her indulgences that whenever she became involved with a new property she couldn’t help daydreaming about its past, its history, picturing herself as part of it...imagining how and what she would have chosen had she been its chatelaine and then translating that into...
Ran parked his Land Rover out of sight and sound of the house. The peafowl, on their way to their roosting place, saw him and started to flap their wings until he threw down the grain he had brought with him to silence them. No point in giving the intruders the same warning he himself had so helpfully received.
Abandoning her study of the Hall, Sylvie stepped back into the shadows and made her way back towards her parked car. As he rounded the corner of the building, for a moment Ran thought that its frontage was deserted, and then he saw someone moving in the semi-darkness.
Immediately he acted, crouching down low and using the shadows to conceal his presence as he ran light-footed and quietly towards Sylvie’s car and whoever it was who was trying to break into it. There wasn’t any time to waste—the Discovery’s driver’s door was already open. Launching himself towards the figure about to climb into it, Ran brought the thief down in a rugby tackle, pinning him down on the ground beneath him as he grunted, ‘Got you.’
Sylvie didn’t see her assailant spring out at her but she certainly felt him as the speed of his attack carried her to the ground, his weight keeping her there as his hands moved quickly and lightly over her body.
Frantically she tried to struggle, kicking out at him, clawing his back as he pinned her legs, imprisoning her beneath his own, and then reached out to imprison her hands. As she twisted and turned beneath him, trying to throw off his weight, Sylvie felt too furiously angry to be afraid, but then, suddenly, as he secured both her hands in one of his and ran his free one experimentally over her body, she froze, all her feminine instincts and fears awakened.
‘Keep still,’ Ran warned his quarry abruptly. It had come as a shock to discover that she was female. He had assumed that the attempted theft of the car was being carried out by a young boy.
As she heard and recognised Ran’s voice, Sylvie’s fear immediately changed to a mixture of relief and fury.
‘Let go of me,’ she demanded immediately.
‘Sylvie...?’ Ran stared at her in disbelief. ‘What the hell...?’
He had relaxed his grip on her hands but his weight was still holding her pinned to the ground and Sylvie wriggled protestingly beneath him, complaining.
‘Sylvie,’ Ran repeated, still obviously shocked by her presence. ‘I thought... I heard the peafowl and thought someone was... I thought you were trying to steal the car... I couldn’t tell who you were in the dark,’ Ran told her curtly as he read the disbelief in her eyes, her expression revealed to him as the moon grew in strength now that the dusk had given way to proper darkness.
‘What are you doing here anyway?’ he demanded sharply.
‘I needed some fresh air; the windows in my room won’t open and I...I decided I might as well walk over here and collect my car... And what about you? I thought you were supposed to be going on a date, not creeping around frightening people to death,’ Sylvie accused him angrily.
She was becoming acutely and very uncomfortably conscious of the way he was lying on top of her, her legs still entangled with his from when she had tried to escape from him, but now...
Sylvie drew a sharp self-admonitory breath at the direction her thoughts were taking. It was becoming increasingly difficult for her to breathe and not just because of Ran’s weight on top of her. She was all too aware of how, when she did breathe, her breasts were pressing against his chest and even more dangerously conscious of the way her pelvis was accommodating itself to the shape of him. She could smell the warm summer night air on his skin and with it the much, much more intimate musky male scent that was him. Somehow or other during their struggle her T-shirt had become separated from her jeans and she was hideously aware that it was too late to regret now the fact that in re-dressing herself she had not bothered to put back on the sensible white bra she had discarded when she had gone to bed. Instinctively her free hand went to her body to check just how far up her T-shirt had ridden.
‘What is it?’ Ran asked her, his attention caught by the movement of her hand.
‘You’re heavy, Ran, you’re hurting me,’ Sylvie told him, not entirely truthfully, as she tried to bury herself in the night’s cloaking shadows, but it was too late and she could see from the sudden narrowing of his gaze as it followed the action of her hand that he realised, as she had just done herself, that her wretched T-shirt had ridden up far enough to expose the lower curve of her breasts.
The last thing, the very last thing she wanted was for Ran to study her body in any way at all, so why...why, the moment his gaze fell to her breasts, did they suddenly decide to react to his presence by swelling and firming, her nipples sensually flaunting peaks of explicit womanhood?
‘You’re not wearing a bra...’
‘Thank you, Ran, but I am already aware of that fact,’ Sylvie snapped at him through gritted teeth, her face hot with colour as she tried to reach the edge of her T-shirt to tug it down. But before she could do so Ran forestalled her, his own fingers curling round the thin white fabric.
Sylvie was in no doubt that Ran did intend to pull it down to cover her breasts. She could read his intentions quite plainly in his eyes. So how on earth what happened next did happen she was at a complete loss to know.
She moved, and so did Ran’s hand. Sylvie froze tensely as she felt his knuckles brush the underside of her breasts; immediately she made an awkward lunging movement away from his touch, forgetting that Ran had hold of the edge of her T-shirt. As she moved Ran tugged and then Sylvie tugged back and Ran let go.
Sylvie wasn’t sure which of them it was that made the small hissing sound, expelling their breath as her T-shirt, Lycra added to the cotton to ensure its smooth neat fit, reacted automatically to their tugging action and shot upwards, fully exposing her naked breasts.
Sylvie heard Ran curse and then saw him go very still; motionless herself, Sylvie waited. The sensation of Ran’s hand gently cupping her naked breast made her close her eyes in self-defence as she tried to stem the rapture that flooded through her. It wasn’t just what he was doing, it was the fact that she had once longed for him to touch her, to hold her like this so very, very much, and it was as though all that long-ago feeling and all that long-ago need had suddenly risen up inside her.
‘Ran...’ She heard herself whisper his name, but the hands she put out to him were there to hold him, not to push him away, and as she felt him lower himself slowly against her again the shudder that ran through her was one of desire and not rejection.
Very slowly and gently his fingertips stroked her breasts, shaping them, explo
ring them. The night air felt velvet soft and sensual against them but nowhere near as soft nor as sensual as Ran’s hands.
Carefully he caressed her and she could see the fierce gleam in his eyes as he looked briefly into hers and then he was bending his head towards her, kissing her with a fierce, passionate intensity that left her totally defenceless. Helplessly she opened her mouth to the hungry demand of his, making a tiny soft keening sound deep in her throat as she responded and matched his passion.
There was something earthy, primitive, inevitable and unstoppable about what was happening. A soft breeze whispered through the trees bordering the gravel and hypersensitively Sylvie heard it, felt its warmth against her skin. The rough cloth of Ran’s shirt teased her breasts, making her ache for the feel of his hands against them again. His hands...his mouth... She heard him groan, his fingers biting into her skin as he drew her close, so close that she could feel the hard, aroused pulse of his body. Instinctively her own rose up as though seeking even closer contact with him. His mouth burned hotly against her throat as he kissed it, his head moving lower and lower still until she could feel its demanding heat against her breast.
Sylvie whispered in need, arching up towards him, almost sobbing in relief as his mouth finally closed over her nipple, caressing it gently, his tongue laving it and then flicking erotically against it before he started to suck on it with a rhythmic urgency that echoed the pulsing heat of his arousal.
Once, long ago, she had dreamt of Ran wanting her like this, needing her like this, all aching, fierce, demanding male passion. Tiny shock waves of desire were flooding sensuously through her, she wanted him so badly; eagerly she drew him closer and then froze as somewhere in the woods a fox screamed noisily to the moon.
Ran too tensed, lifting his mouth from her body as he turned his head in the direction of the noise.
Suddenly, abruptly, protected no longer by the heat of his passion nor the warmth of his body, Sylvie realised what she was doing. The gravel of the drive which previously she had not even noticed pressed sharply into her skin, and her face flushed with mortification as she realised how she must look, how she must seem to Ran, so pathetically eager for his kisses, for him, that she...
‘Don’t touch me,’ she warned him shakily as she yanked down her top and struggled to her feet. ‘I feel sorry for your...for Vicky...if all it takes to make you unfaithful to her is...’
‘You?’ Ran supplied tersely for her.
Sylvie’s flush deepened, pain filling her body as she turned away from him so that he wouldn’t see how much he was hurting her.
‘We both know that what just happened had nothing to do with... That it wasn’t me... I could have been anyone. My body could have been anyone’s. You were...’
‘So turned on by the sight of your semi-naked breasts that I couldn’t resist seeing if they felt and tasted as good as they looked,’ Ran told her softly. ‘You forget, Sylvie... I’ve seen them before, and not just seen them but—’
‘Stop it, stop it,’ Sylvie begged him, instinctively placing her hands over her ears to blot out the sound of his taunting words. That was the last thing she wanted to be reminded about now...the very last... Tears blurred her vision. Frantically she blinked them away; she wasn’t going to let Ran see her crying... No way...
Shakily she made her way towards the Discovery whilst Ran watched her broodingly. What the hell could he say to her? She had every right to be furiously angry with him. That gibe about Vicky had been uncalled for, though. Vicky wasn’t his love...he didn’t have a love... There was no relationship, no commitment in his life...unlike her.
Did she respond to Lloyd the same way she had to him, with that aching, intoxicating blend of female need and almost out-of-control hunger?
Ran closed his eyes as he heard Sylvie start the engine of her car.
He had made his fair share of mistakes in his life and had his due portion of regrets, but there was nothing he regretted more than... He swallowed and looked out into the darkness. He hadn’t needed what had happened tonight to tell him that there was unfinished business between him and Sylvie.
As he started to walk towards where he had left his car the fierce male ache in his body made him clench his teeth. Right now there was nothing, nothing, he wanted more than to finish what they had started. Nothing he wanted more and no one he could have less.
Sylvie’s body might still be responsive to him, but Sylvie herself hated him. He knew that. She had told him so often enough.
‘Wayne’s the man I love,’ she had said, throwing the words at him like weapons, and he, too furious, too jealous to respond, had simply walked away without explaining to her that she was a wealthy man’s daughter and he might have nothing, but at least, unlike her precious Wayne, he genuinely cared about her, hadn’t just been using her!
He had spent the next two days searching Oxford from top to bottom for her, but by then it was too late—she had disappeared. The next time he had seen her she had been with the band of New Age travellers who had invaded Alex’s land, quite plainly enjoying flaunting her relationship with its leader in front of him.
‘What’s wrong?’ she had taunted him. ‘You didn’t want me...you told me so and you were right, Ran, you’re not the one for me...not very much of a man at all compared with Wayne,’ she had purred with a sensuously knowing look that had made him feel as if someone was ripping out his guts.
‘She and Wayne seem to be lovers,’ Alex had confided to him unhappily, and now another man had taken over that role in her life, that place in her bed, and he had no right...
Helplessly he stared at the stars. Why the hell had he done it, given in to the temptation to resurrect for himself all the old ghosts, all the old pain? Hadn’t he already spent enough nights lying alone in his bed, aching for her, wanting her?
Perhaps Alex was right; perhaps it was time that he looked around for a woman to settle down with, and perhaps once this business was finished and Sylvie was finally out of his life that was exactly what he would do... Perhaps...
CHAPTER FIVE
SYLVIE frowned as she started to double-check what she had just been reading. In a detailed account for the work involved in treating both the wet and dry rot to Haverton Hall, she had only just noticed that slipped in at the back was an additional sheet reporting on some dry rot infestation in the Rectory, Ran’s private property, and with it was a brief note confirming that the work on the Rectory would be put in hand before the contractors started working on Haverton Hall itself.
Sylvie could feel her heart starting to thump heavily with a mixture of anger and pain as she re-read the sheet. It wasn’t unknown for the owners of the properties the Trust took over to try to drive as hard a bargain as they possibly could. It had fallen to Sylvie on more than one occasion to tactfully inform very grand personages that odd pieces of furniture they had listed as antiques had turned out, on further inspection, to be in fact extremely good copies and therefore not worth the value which had originally been attributed to them. On such occasions a very large supply of tact plus an even larger helping of erring on the side of generosity was called for, but for some reason the possibility of having caught Ran out in such a way evoked within her such strong and confusing emotions that she had to get up from her makeshift desk in front of her bedroom window to pace her bedroom floor whilst she mentally rehearsed exactly how she was going to confront him with her discovery of what he had done. The sum involved wasn’t particularly large—and, had Ran gone about things in a different way, she knew perfectly well that the Trust would probably have large-mindedly and generously offered to bear the cost of the work on the Rectory. It was the fact that he had tried to cheat them...to deceive and trick her...that Sylvie found so unacceptable, the fact that he probably thought he had deceived her, the fact that he was probably secretly laughing at her behind her back. Well, he wasn’t going to be laughing when she confronted him, she decided angrily.
A knock on her bedroom door stopped her
in her tracks, her body tensing as she called out tersely, ‘Come in,’ whilst mentally deciding how to mount her attack. But when the door opened it wasn’t Ran who walked into her room but the housekeeper, Mrs Elliott.
‘Oh, Mrs Elliott,’ Sylvie faltered.
‘Ran asked me to check with you what you would like for dinner this evening,’ the woman told her. ‘He landed a fine wild salmon this morning and he said it was a particular favourite of yours...’
Sylvie closed her eyes.
Damn Ran. What was he trying to do to her reminding her, of things, of a past, she would much rather forget?
‘That’s very kind of you, Mrs Elliott,’ she told the other woman crisply, ‘but I shall be eating out this evening.’
Previously she had not given the least thought to where she might eat her evening meal, and she knew that her behaviour in refusing Ran’s salmon was both illogical and slightly childish, but she hadn’t been able to help herself.
Where was Ran anyway...strategically keeping out of her way? Well, he couldn’t do that for ever, and she certainly intended to tell him what she had discovered and to demand an explanation of his misuse of the Trust’s funds. No doubt he had imagined that he could slip the bill for the work on his own property through with the bill for the cost of the work on Haverton Hall without anyone being any the wiser. Well, he was going to learn very quickly his error. Which reminded her—she really ought to go up to the house and have a word with whoever was in charge of the company he had hired to deal with the dry rot. Sylvie pursed her lips. By rights the contract ought to have been put out to tender, but she had to admit that by acting so promptly and getting both the report compiled and the work started Ran had saved her a good deal of groundwork—and enabled work to be done on the Rectory at the Trust’s expense?