by Kim Lawrence
‘Shame; they seem to like you. Of course it wouldn’t make any difference if they didn’t, but on the whole it makes matters simpler if they like my wife.’
‘Ben.’
‘Yes?’ An odd expression flickered into his eyes as he looked down at her hands curled tightly in the fabric of his shirt. Her head was downbent, as though she couldn’t bear to look at him. The tension in her slender body was palpable.
How did you convince someone of your sincerity? She closed her eyes tightly and willed him to hear the truth in her words. ‘I’m not pregnant.’
‘I know.’
Her eyes snapped open. ‘What did you say?’ Wide-eyed and confused, she finally lifted her eyes to his face.
‘I know you’re not pregnant.’ He deftly untied the ribbon that confined her silky hair at the nape of her neck. ‘That’s better,’ he reflected thickly as he spread it carefully over her shoulders. The delicate friction of his fingers on her scalp fragmented her residual concentration. He gently blew a stray strand that had settled on her cheek.
The warm scent, the teasing reminder of the taste of him made her ache; lips parted, she gasped for air. His fingers framed her face and firmly he pressed his lips to hers. It was all giving, no taking. The tenderness brought the sting of tears to her eyes.
‘I tracked Dad down, and he admitted the truth—well, his version at any rate. I suspect I got a strictly censored version. He skated around the stuff that might reflect him in a less than favourable light.’
‘That doesn’t leave much.’
Was he feeling sorry for her? Was that why he was being so gentle? He realised how much she’d wanted it to be true? God, but she couldn’t bear his pity.
This is what I wanted, she told herself. Mission accomplished. That was it, it was over; she could relax. She could get on with her life. Why wasn’t she feeling better? Benedict was; he was looking positively smug. He was free. She knew she’d never be free from this love—not ever! It was a life sentence.
‘My father has a gift with words,’ Benedict admitted wryly.
‘You must be relieved.’
‘Must I?’ The way he was looking at her made her sluggish heart shift into a higher gear. Other parts of her body followed suit and she rubbed the sudden rash of gooseflesh over her upper arms briskly. She dropped her eyes self-consciously from his and laughed lightly.
‘It’s quite funny when you think about it.’
‘The humour escapes me right now.’
‘Don’t be too hard on him; I think he genuinely thinks he was doing what was best for you.’
‘He always does. You seem very forgiving considering what a hard time I gave you because of his manipulative power games.’
She shrugged lightly and realised she was clinging again to his shirt-front. She let go and made an attempt to smooth down the crumpled areas. ‘Sorry; it looks like you’ve been mauled,’ she fretted.
He captured her hand mid-pat. ‘I’ve got one or two others.’
‘Of course you have.’
‘And you can maul me whenever you feel the urge.’
The words turned on that X-rated Technicolor projector in her head and it became necessary to talk. It didn’t much matter what she said or if it made sense; she just had to do something to distract herself.
‘You can start your new life with a clean slate now. Just the way you planned. You’re not…lumbered with excess baggage.’ She tried to sound generous and optimistic even if the idea made her feel wretched inside.
‘Would it have been so very terrible?’ His warm fingers curled around her chin again. His dark, beloved face swam mistily through the fog of hot, unshed tears.
‘I don’t have the excuse of youth this time.’
‘Do you need an excuse?’
‘To do what? Be reckless and irresponsible?’
‘No, to have my baby.’ His hand slid down to rest on her flat stomach. Her eyes were riveted on the warm, intimate image. Her body was screaming out with need. The tears she’d held back successfully suddenly began to fall in earnest.
‘You don’t know how horrible I am,’ she sobbed. ‘I wished it was true.’ She bent her head and burrowed into the hard, unyielding wall of his chest. The solidity and strength of it were somehow comforting. ‘I was actually tempted to let you believe…’ She bit down hard on her quivering lower lip and lifted her head, prepared for his scorn. ‘Your father is a good judge of character.’ There, it was out! Her dark secret was there for all to see.
‘So did I.’ Benedict was clearly still fixated on her earlier comment.
‘You…? I don’t understand,’ she faltered. The solid ground she was standing on suddenly felt like shifting sand. What he was saying made no sense, unless…? No. She closed her mind firmly against this miraculous, impossible idea.
‘I wished it was true too. That’s why it took so long for me to see you were telling the truth. I wanted you to be carrying my baby. I thought I could use it as a lever to make you stay with me. Every time I tried to tell you how I felt you pushed me further away. I was so frightened of pushing too hard and losing you completely.’ The memory of the pain still lingered like a shadow in his dark eyes.
He caught hold of her cold hand and raised it to his mouth. His eyes were half closed as his open lips moved over her palm. ‘Marry me, Rachel,’ he said, his voice throbbing with emotion. ‘If you really hate the idea of Connor’s Creek we could stay here in England. It doesn’t really matter where we are so long as we’re together,’ he said urgently.
‘I love you, darling, and I want you, Charlie and me to be a family. Is it the idea of Fauré that stops you speaking?’ he demanded roughly. ‘You deserve better than some other woman’s left-overs!’ he ground out passionately. ‘Give me the chance and I’ll make you happy, Rachel—happier than he ever could!’
Benedict loved her; he was prepared to stay in England and live a life that stifled him. Getting her head around these fantastic revelations required more mental agility than her punch drunk-brain was capable of.
‘You can’t love me. I’m…’
‘The woman who haunts my dreams,’ he said fiercely. His arms closed so tightly around her, she could hardly breathe. The compelling message in his eyes distracted her from such mundane necessities. Who needed to breathe when the man you loved looked at you with such fierce, possessive tenderness?
‘The woman I want to live with, grow old with—the woman I want to love if she’ll let me. Will you?’ he growled throatily. She could feel the tension stretching the muscles of his lean body.
She raised a trembling hand to his face. Her fingers trailed with wondering tenderness down his lean cheek before coming to rest against his lips.
‘But you didn’t come near me after…’
‘After you threw me out of your bed—your life? You’re surprised?’ he asked, one dark brow lifting ironically. ‘I had this idea you might find you missed me more than you thought. Being the optimist, I thought you might be more malleable after a dose of deprivation. I don’t know what it did to you, but I’ve been half out of my mind.’
‘I thought you and Sabrina—’
‘Despite appearances, I have explained to Sabrina in words of two syllables or less that I’m not interested in resurrecting a very tepid on-off thing we had last year.’
She nodded, accepting his words without reservation.
‘I tried to think about the future, tell myself you were just passing through,’ she recalled huskily. ‘But when I was with you I couldn’t protect myself at all. Nobody has ever made me quite so miserable.’ Her eyes glowed with a deep warmth as she raised them fully to his. ‘Or quite so blissfully happy.’ She watched the anguish drain from his face to be replaced by a sensual satisfaction. ‘I fell in love with you, Ben, even though I knew there was no future.
‘You have to understand that it’s a long time since I did anything without considering the consequences. With you I knew what the consequences would be and I did it anyway! If I
hadn’t been so concerned that Charlie was falling in love too in her own way, bless her, I’d have spent every waking second I could with you before you went away. It wasn’t pride or common sense that made me pull back—just a desire to protect her. We come as a package deal.’
‘I always did have my father’s eye for a good deal. I’ve got a ready-made family. Besides, Charlie picked me out personally,’ he reminded her, resting his forehead against hers and placing his big hands firmly over her rounded bottom. ‘She brought me home—home to you.’
‘Ben!’ What followed was half sob, half husky laugh; translated, it meant rapture and it was lost in the warmth of his mouth. For several breathless minutes there were no words at all.
‘Someone might come back in,’ she mumbled as his lips nuzzled hungrily at her neck.
‘Yes,’ he agreed without much interest.
‘They’ll…they’ll…’ She twisted her throat to enable him to complete his self-appointed task of kissing every inch of her throat.
‘They’ll be jealous,’ he suggested helpfully.
‘You need a shave,’ she grumbled, rubbing her chin against his jaw. ‘It reminds me of…’
He lifted his head and the devilish glint completed the disreputable image. ‘Who does it remind you of?’
‘You know perfectly well who,’ she said ruefully. ‘I felt sorry for you,’ she added with a sniff.
‘And the rest,’ he scoffed. ‘Your interest wasn’t any more pure and elevated than mine was; admit it.’
‘You’re so conceited, Benedict Arden.’
‘At least you’re not dishonest enough to deny that reform wasn’t the only thing you had on your mind,’ he teased.
‘Just as well, because as it turned out you’re beyond redemption.’ Her expression suddenly sobered. There was something she had to tell him. ‘Talking about honesty…’
‘Do I sense a confession coming on? Should I sit down?’
‘Maybe.’
Her gravity was contagious; Benedict looked cautiously down at her.
‘About Christophe.’
She felt his hands, which had rested lightly on her shoulders, tighten. ‘I know he’s Charlie’s father but—’
‘No, he’s not.’
‘Pardon?’
She hurried on. ‘He’s not Charlie’s father. He’s her uncle; his brother Raoul was her father.’
‘Raoul Fauré.’ He frowned, trying to place the name. ‘The racing driver?’ He rubbed his forehead; there was a dazed expression on his face.
‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘I met him when I was working for Christophe and his wife as an au pair. I think he was bored one weekend; that’s all it amounted to for him,’ she admitted. The only thing it hurt to admit that now was her pride. ‘I was dazzled by the glamour and you know the rest.’ It was amazing that the whole sorry incident could be summed up in two sentences. ‘The accident happened not long after.
‘Christophe and Annabel never knew; not until Christophe spotted the same family resemblance you did.’
‘My God, Rachel, I wanted to kill the man,’ he grated hoarsely. ‘I thought he was trying to worm his way back into your life, and worse still I thought you wanted him to. I suspected he might even pull some stunt like getting custody of Charlie.’ He groaned. ‘You have no idea what it’s been doing to me imagining…’ His dark eyes were filled with pain. ‘Why did you let me think that, Rachel?’
‘Charlie didn’t have a proper family because I was a silly, gullible girl who only saw what she wanted to. I didn’t want to do that to her again. She’s so fond of you and she kept dropping hints the size of bowling balls about us… I thought you were leaving.’ Her eyes pleaded for understanding.
‘Like Raoul left you,’ he said grimly.
‘There’s no comparison,’ she denied swiftly. ‘I’ve never loved anyone before you.’ Lovingly she took his face between her hands and spoke from the heart. ‘I didn’t have the experience to be able to distinguish infatuation from the real thing back then. I do now. Nothing,’ she said fervently, ‘is more real than the way I feel about you. I needed the excuse to drive you away because I didn’t have the backbone to do it by myself.’
‘Does Charlie know about her father now?’
‘Yes.’ She searched his face anxiously for a clue to what he was thinking. What effect had her confession had?
‘Everything?’
‘Well, I didn’t say, Your father wouldn’t have remembered my name a week after you were conceived.’
‘I can see you wouldn’t want to do that. Has he reached heroic proportions yet?’
‘You don’t mind?’ She gave a relieved sigh.
‘Mind! I mind all right. But sometimes the truth comes at too high a cost. Charlie needs to be protected from the unvarnished version of this particular truth.’
‘I was afraid you’d…’
‘I love Charlie,’ he said quietly. ‘Of course I care about what that bastard did to you! I’d like to climb onto the proverbial old white charger and right all the wrongs that have been done to you if I could. That’s what you’ve done to me, woman.’ He shook her gently. ‘And if you tell anyone I admitted that I’ll never forgive you.’
‘My lips are sealed…’
‘To every other man but me,’ he agreed complacently. The expression on his face as his glance dwelt on the passion-swollen pink outline made her tremble.
‘When I think of what you must have gone through. This time it’ll be different,’ he vowed.
‘You want a baby?’ She knew she was smiling in a dopey, foolish way, but he didn’t seem to mind.
‘Don’t you?’
Rachel gazed up at the big man she loved. ‘Yes, please.’
‘Let Charlie’s dad be a dashing hero; I can live with it. If you love me I can live with just about anything!’
‘I think she’s more interested in her real-life hero.’
‘And who might that be?’
‘He’s already spoken for,’ she whispered, emotion throbbing in her voice.
‘Then you’ll marry me?’
‘Yes!’
The couple twisted around at the sound of the jubilant cry.
‘Nat said you were getting married. She was right!’ Charlie was dancing around the room.
‘I’m always right,’ came the modest reply. ‘So where is the bubbly?’
Benedict looked down at his startled bride-to-be, a smile in his eyes. ‘Well, you have to say yes now.’
‘I thought I did.’
‘I might need to hear you say it more than once.’
The idea that Benedict, big, strong, confident Benedict, could need reassurance brought an emotional lump to her throat.
‘Can I have a horse? Just a small one. Ben’s got loads of money; Nat says so. Nat says—’
‘Nat says too much.’
‘Excuse my avaricious offspring.’
‘She brought me home to you; I’ll forgive her anything,’ he said with extravagant good humour.
Rachel sighed. He still had a lot to learn. ‘That statement will come back to haunt you,’ she predicted.
‘We’ve laid to rest the only phantoms that had me worried.’
Rachel returned the pressure of his fingers and nodded mutely back. ‘I should have known you were trouble the first moment I set eyes on you,’ she teased huskily.
‘Forget first impressions.’ He dismissed them with a shrug. ‘It’s lasting impressions that count. Did I make a lasting impression on you, my love?’
‘The eternal variety,’ she confirmed happily.
EPILOGUE
RACHEL tucked the light sheet over the chubby limbs of the sleeping baby.
‘Is he off?’
Rachel leant back into the strong arms that encircled her. ‘At last,’ she confirmed. ‘Turn on the baby alarm, will you, Ben? It went well, didn’t it?’ she said happily as he returned to her side.
He looked down proudly into his wife’s face and nodded. She’d wor
ked incredibly hard organising the christening of their first son and she’d still managed to look good enough to eat all day—and all day he’d been wanting to do just that.
‘Isn’t it about time you put your feet up? The others are on the veranda knocking back the left-over bubbly. That baby’s had enough toasts today to last him clear through till his eighteenth birthday.’ He smiled at the small figure of his sleeping son.
‘I’ll just…’
‘No way,’ he said, hooking his arm around her trim waist. ‘I’ve already looked in on Charlie and she’s flat out.’
‘Is it time to worry when you start answering my questions before I’ve asked them?’ she asked, giving one last peek at the sleeping baby before closing the door quietly behind them. Things were good with Charlie right now. She’d got her pony. They were just gritting their collective teeth and waiting for the dreaded teenage hormones which were almost upon them.
‘Don’t worry, you can still surprise me. Last night for instance…’ He let out a soundless whistle.
‘Shh!’ she said warningly. She reached up and pressed her finger to his lips. ‘Someone might be listening.’
He nibbled the finger before saying reflectively, ‘That didn’t seem to bother you last night.’
‘Ben!’ she remonstrated, trying to sound angry, but the grin kept peeping out.
She smiled a lot these days. Life wasn’t one long party by any means. Ben worked long hours. She could understand his fascination with this land now, and shared it to some degree. Her real passion was reserved for this man who was as complex and demanding as this wild country. Getting to know both better was a rewarding, deeply fulfilling experience. Seeing how much he loved it here made her appreciate how great a sacrifice it would have been for him to stay in London—a sacrifice he’d been prepared to make for her!
They strolled in companionable silence outside to the veranda. The warm night air was soft on her bare arms. Rachel glanced upwards; she didn’t think she’d ever take this marvellous night sky for granted.
‘So Ruth knew as soon as she heard the name that Rachel was the girl,’ they heard Tom Arden say. He was wiping tears of laughter from his face.