by Penny Jordan
His own narrowed fractionally, their blankness suddenly sharpening into an expression that made her heart jump frantically, but thankfully he seemed to mistake the cause of her shock because he explained patiently as though speaking to a child, ‘Yes, the forfeit you owe me for so speedily saving you from misfortune. That’s the way it goes in all the best fairy-tales, isn’t it?’
Her heart jumped again. She averted her head, but couldn’t resist giving him a nervous sideways look. She licked her lips anxiously. He had said that almost as though he knew her; as though he knew of her childhood absorption and belief in such things.
But she wasn’t a child any more. She was a twenty-four-year-old woman, and he was a strange man who had no right to walk into her home even if she had misguidedly left the back door open.
However, before she could say as much he was speaking again, his voice soft, mesmeric almost. ‘You have such a warm, irresistible mouth that there’s really only one forfeit I can ask you for, isn’t there? A mouth like yours was surely fashioned deliberately to entice a man’s kisses.’
Her head was whirling. What on earth was happening to her? Things like this simply did not take place. Men such as this one simply did not walk into her life and demand forfeits from her…kisses… And as for what he had said about her mouth…
Unconsciously she traced its shape with her tongue tip, her eyes unwittingly darkening in reaction to the potency of what he had whispered to her, her naïvety and lack of experience so openly obvious that for a moment he hesitated.
What if his assumptions should be wrong? She looked so fragile…so lost…so vulnerable somehow; and then he reminded himself that he could not afford to make mistakes or allowances; that he had come here for one express purpose; that he… He tensed as she focused on him, her eyes so dark that they looked almost purple, so dilated that…
He felt his own heartbeat quicken, his body tensing in reaction to the scent and the warmth of her… the womanliness… Because she was a woman, despite the fragility of her body and the innocence in her eyes.
He lowered his head, sternly reminding himself why he was doing this.
Held fast in his arms, Melanie quivered nervously. He was going to kiss her; she knew it. She also knew she ought to stop him, but how could she? What was her puny strength against the hard bulk of his body?
The grey glance still held her own, inducing an almost trance-like state of stillness within her body.
She felt the warmth of his breath caress her cheek, and a rush of goose-pimples raced down her body.
She quivered once as his mouth touched hers, her body stiffening as her mind summoned all its feminine defences, desperately sensing an enemy more dangerous than any it had yet known, but her body was deaf to all the warnings of her brain.
He kissed her slowly and lingeringly, bemusing her so thoroughly that she wasn’t even aware of him gradually lowering her so that her feet could once more touch the floor, thus freeing his hands to cup her face and her arms to instinctively and betrayingly creep round his neck, her heart pounding suffocatingly, as his tongue tip stroked her trembling lips. The hand cupping her jaw held her still beneath his sensual assault, while its partner slid down her back, firmly moulding her against body.
Paul had kissed her. Several times and very passionately, or so she had thought, and there had been other kisses before that, but none like this; and for all the fact that there was none of the urgency, the greed of Paul’s kisses in this man’s almost detached possession of her mouth, she was still aware of a reaction within herself that was far, far more intense and dangerous that any emotion Paul had ever made her feel.
In fact, when he eventually started to release her mouth, her lips actually seemed to cling to his. And she knew that he was aware of it too because he made a sound beneath his breath which might have been irritation or which might have been amusement.
Thankfully whatever it was it brought her sharply back to reality in time to remove her arms from around his neck before he had to forcibly do it for her. However, when he stepped back from her, to her consternation she discovered that her body seemed to actively miss the hard pressure of his.
While she was still trying to come to terms with what had happened he stepped past her to examine her wallpapering, commenting almost brusquely, ‘You know, these ladders aren’t really safe. Some lightweight aluminium ones would be far better. Think what could have happened if you had fallen and I hadn’t been here to catch you.’
If he hadn’t been there she wouldn’t have fallen off the ladders in the first place, Melanie told herself sturdily. Now that he wasn’t touching her any more she was rapidly returning to sanity, to the awareness that he was a stranger who had invaded the privacy of her home, uninvited, and that, for all that her feminine awareness of him urged her to think differently, he could be dangerous.
‘Umm…’ he added, moving closer to the wall on which she was working. ‘It looks to me as though you could do with a plumb-line!’
‘A plumb-line?’ She stared at him.
‘Mm. If you’ve got a piece of string and some chalk I’ll show you what I mean.’
He turned round then and smiled at her, a warm gentle smile that made her heart turn over.
‘I am sorry,’ he apologised. ‘You must be wondering who on earth I am and what I’m doing barging in on you like this. I’ve just moved into the cottage at the bottom of the lane, only to discover that none of the services seem to have been switched on. I was hoping I could use your phone to make a couple of calls. My name’s Luke, by the way.’
‘Luke,’ Melanie repeated, automatically reaching out to shake the hand he had extended to her.
His grip was firm without being painful, the palm of his hand slightly callused as though he worked outside, and yet, for all the casualness of his jeans and shirt, there was an air about him which suggested that he was a man used more to giving orders than following them. But then, what did she know about men? Melanie derided herself a little forlornly.
‘Luke?’ she queried a little more firmly, determined to let him know that she wasn’t a complete fool.
‘Luke Chalmers,’ he told her easily, adding softly, ‘I hope you aren’t too angry with me for taking advantage of the opportunity that fate so generously gave me.’
Angry! Her heart skipped a beat. Anger wasn’t exactly how she would describe her confused and chaotic emotions, but from somewhere she found the presence of mind to respond drily, ‘Do you make a habit of going round demanding forfeits from women you don’t know?’
‘Only when they’re as beautiful and tempting as you,’ he told her gravely. ‘And that, fortunately, is very rare. So rare in fact that I’ve never known it to happen before.’
Her heart was thumping frantically again. She felt as though she was suddenly caught up in a new game—a game that was both wildly exciting and frighteningly dangerous.
‘You wanted to use the phone,’ she reminded him breathlessly. ‘It’s downstairs. I’ll show you.’
As she walked past him he caught hold of her arm, his fingers sliding almost caressingly over the softness of its inner flesh so that she quivered. His fingers encircled her wrist, holding her in bondage while his free hand moved up to her face.
He wasn’t going to kiss her again was he? He wasn’t going to repeat that mind-blowing, devastating caress? No, he wasn’t, it seemed. He reached out and removed something from her face, causing her to gasp a little as she felt a sharp sting of pain. She looked at him in surprise as he held a small snippet of her wallpaper between his fingers.
‘I believe that in the eighteenth century ladies used to stick false beauty-spots to their faces in order to draw attention to their eyes and mouth, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen wallpaper being used for the same purpose.
‘What a pity it was so close to your cheekbone and not your mouth,’ he added sultrily, ‘otherwise I might have been tempted to demand another forfeit.’
Melanie thought
of all the sensible and authoritative things she ought to have said in response to this outrageous piece of male flirtation, but oddly all she could do was to gaze mutely at him, while inside she prayed desperately that he wouldn’t read into her silence the compliant eagerness of her body that he should adopt just such a course.
What on earth was happening to her? After Paul she had surely learned her lesson; had surely realised that it was idiotic to trust men so quickly, that it was dangerous to continue to believe in her childhood dreams and fantasies of finding love and living happily ever after.
‘The phone,’ she reminded him weakly. ‘It’s downstairs.’
‘Ah, yes, the phone,’ he agreed gravely. So gravely that she half suspected that he might be laughing at her. The thought made her face sting with embarrassed colour. Well, if he was she surely deserved it, allowing him to take advantage of her like that…allowing him to kiss her…to…to what?
Her bruised heart ached in panicky reaction to her susceptibility to him, reminding her of her vulnerability…reminding her of the close escape she had had from Paul’s deceit.
The telephone was in the sitting-room. She escorted him to it and then left him alone, retreating to the kitchen. When he rejoined her she would show him by her dignified silence, by her cool remoteness that whatever might have happened upstairs she was not the kind of woman to be easily influenced by his outrageous brand of flattery and flirtation.
He was a man who was obviously well versed in the ways of her sex, in its vanities and vulnerabilities, and it would be as well to ensure that he was aware right from the start that, close neighbours though they might be, she was simply not interested in the kind of flirtatious, meaningless affair in which he no doubt specialised and that he might just as well save his flattery and his kisses for someone more appreciative of them.
However, when he did eventually return he was looking so grave that she felt compelled to ask him anxiously, ‘Is something wrong?’
‘In a sense.’ There was no flirtatiousness in his manner now. ‘It seems that it’s going to be some weeks before the telephone people can put in a phone. Luckily the electricity supply should be on within the next couple of days. Unfortunately, however, my work does mean that I need a telephone.’
‘Your work?’
‘Yes,’ he told her. ‘I’m a private detective.’
Melanie stared at him. ‘A…a what?’
‘A private detective,’ he repeated casually. ‘I’m working on a case in this area. Naturally I can’t disclose any details. I rented the cottage, thinking it would give me a good base from which to work. It’s secluded enough to ensure that I don’t get too many people wanting to know what I’m doing here. That’s the trouble with country areas—people are curious about their neighbours in a way they aren’t in the city.’
‘Yes, they are, aren’t they?’ Melanie agreed. She too had discovered that, and it had thrown her a little at first, until she had sensibly realised that behind their curiosity was a very warm neighbourly concern for her well-being.
‘You’re not local, then?’ he asked her almost in surprise.
‘Well, no…actually I’m not.’
He paused as though inviting her to go on, and when she did not said softly, ‘Then it seems that we have something in common. Two strangers in a foreign land.’
For some reason his words conjured up a warmth within her, a sense of shared intimacy with him that made her react against it, to say primly, ‘I should hardly consider Cheshire a foreign land—’
‘You think not? The countryside is always a foreign land to a city dweller,’ he told her with a grin, adding, before she could respond, ‘Look, I’ve taken up enough of your time. I’d better go.’
To her horror, Melanie discovered that she was almost on the verge of protesting that she didn’t want him to leave; that she had to literally bite on the inside of her mouth to stop herself from uttering the betraying words.
Silently she accompanied him to the back door, only able to incline her head in assent when he told her smoothly, ‘You really should get that lock seen to, you know. I’m surprised a streetwise city girl like you hasn’t had that attended to already.’
The way he said the word ‘streetwise’ made her tense as though sustaining a blow, as though somehow the words had held an insult, a gibe; and yet when she looked at him the grey eyes were still smiling, the relaxed bulk of the male body carelessly at ease, so that she knew she must have imagined the toughness, the threat which she had momentarily felt lay beneath the words.
Melanie closed the door as soon as he had driven off, bolting it from the inside. He was right about one thing. She must get that lock seen to.
Although she went back upstairs, somehow wallpapering had lost its appeal and she discovered that she was wandering restlessly from room to room of her new domain, her thoughts not on the house and all that she had planned to do to it, but on the man who had just left.
She raised her hand to her lips, touching them questingly as though in search of the physical imprint of his. Even without closing her eyes she could recall every detail of those moments in his arms, every nuance of the sensuality of his unexpected kiss.
Stop it, she told herself shakily. Stop it at once. You know how stupid it is to daydream. It’s time you grew up…faced reality…accepted life for what it really is.
CHAPTER TWO
EASY enough to say, but far, far harder to do, as Melanie discovered that evening as she tried to concentrate on the gardening books she had borrowed from the local library with the praiseworthy intention of doing what she could to restore order to the wilderness that lay beyond the house.
As she closed her book she was aware of a deep, welling sense of pity and sadness for the man who had willed her this house. How lonely he must have been, and how alone. The house and its environs bore testimony to that solitude; and although it had been a chosen solitude it had not been a happy solitude, she was sure of that. A happy hermit would never have allowed the garden to become so overgrown, or uncared for; a happy hermit would never have turned his back on the comforts his modest wealth could have afforded him to live virtually in the kitchen and his bedroom, as the village gossip had informed her her benefactor had. No; these were the habits of a man whose aloneness, while chosen, was a burden to him, a burden chosen out of bitterness perhaps, out of misery and pain. And yet, why? Why choose to live in the way that he had? Why turn his back on humanity? Why leave his estate to her, a stranger? How had he chosen her—from a list of names which closed eyes and a pin? she wondered unhappily. She had no way of knowing. The solicitors denied any knowledge of how or why he had made his choice, informing her only that it was perfectly legal and his will completely unbreakable.
But what about John Burrows’s cousin? she had asked uncertainly. Surely he must have expected to inherit the estate?
Not necessarily, the solicitor had assured her, adding that the two men had quarrelled some years before, and that, besides, the cousin—or, more properly, second cousin—was wealthy enough in his own right not to need to concern himself with his relative’s small estate.
Even so, Melanie had not been able to shake off the feeling that somehow a mistake had been made; that she was going to wake up one morning to discover that there had been a mistake; that it was another Melanie Foden to whom John Burrows had intended to leave her inheritance.
Although as yet she had not told anyone so, not even Louise, she had decided that at the end of the summer when the cottage was put up for sale whatever monies it brought in she would donate to charity, along with her benefactor’s contribution to her substantial bank balance.
The reason why she had not mentioned this plan either to Louise or to the solicitors was that she suspected that they would try to persuade her out of such a decision, but her mind was made up.
Much as she was enjoying her occupation of the cottage, she intended to treat these next few months as a complete break from reality, a voyage of
discovery and exploration; a time of healing and rejuvenation, but something apart from her real life to which she fully intended to return once autumn came.
Right now, though, autumn was a long time away and she had a good deal of work to do. Work that involved a careful study of the books piled at her feet and not daydreaming about Luke Chalmers.
Face it, she warned herself as her thoughts traitorously refused to respond to her exhortations. He probably treats every woman the way he did you. It meant nothing…nothing at all. By rights she ought to have stopped him the moment she’d realised he intended to kiss her, instead of standing there like a fool, practically inviting his embrace. And not just inviting it, but enjoying it as well, she acknowledged guiltily as her thoughts and her memories reactivated that wanton throbbing deep within her body which had shocked her so much when she’d been in his arms.
Such feelings were completely unfamiliar to her. Her upbringing in the children’s home had never allowed her to give full rein to her burgeoning sexuality, and oddly, although Paul had touched her emotions, kindling the same yearning need for commitment and sharing, for someone with whom she could share her love, which she had experienced so much during her growing years, he had never aroused within her the sensations she had experienced in Luke Chalmers’s arms.
Disturbed by the train of her own thoughts, she got up, pacing the sitting-room restlessly.
The cottage was old, its walls irregular and bumpy, its ceilings low and darkened by the heavy beams which supported it.
Like Melanie, it was desperately crying out for love and tenderness, she acknowledged, shivering a little. It worried her constantly, this need she sensed within herself, because she knew how vulnerable it made her, how much in danger she was of mistaking the reactions and responses of others.
Look how she had deceived herself into believing that Paul genuinely cared about her! No wonder that hand in hand with her need had always gone caution and wariness, her mind’s defences against the vulnerability of her heart.