by Lynne Graham
He took a seat with a provocative smile. ‘Did you really have a photo of me tacked inside your locker at school?’
She thrust the salad bowl at him with unnecessary force. ‘It was fashionable to have a pin-up.’
‘You were fifteen,’ he said ruefully.
She flushed. ‘There was no one else to compete.’
‘Nasty,’ he reproved.
‘Well, it’s true!’ Warming to the subejct in self-defence, she persisted, ‘You were the only person who paid me a blind bit of attention at Ranbury.’
‘Carter should have been looking ahead.’
Against her volition she giggled and then asked, ‘Did Zelda go and see you?’
‘Phoned.’ He shrugged. ‘Matt and she have separated. Did you know that?’
She shook her head.
‘It was a mutual decision, and probably the best thing,’ he allowed carelessly.
When they’d finished eating, he got up, staying her hands when she would have begun to clear the table. ‘Can we talk about us now? I’ll take you down to Wytchwood. That’s my house in Kent. You’ll like it there. It’s quiet.’
Claire went to shut the curtains, eager to put some space between them. She found it quite impossible to look at him and refuse him when every traitorous sense urged her to capitulate. To be with him on any terms at any cost. Oh, it would be so easy to give in after the long, empty months she’d laboured through, but if she did there would be a different agony to live with daily: Dane’s essential indifference. Eventually he would begin to hate her for the situation. He was human, too. She couldn’t bear to think of Dane hating her, but that was what happened when one partner felt trapped out of a sense of duty alone. He didn’t want the baby and he didn’t want her. For how long could he pretend otherwise?
Valiantly she breathed in. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you, Dane. I thought I’d made that clear. You get on with your life and I’ll get on with mine,’ she delineated. ‘As you can see, I’ve managed fine so far.’
‘Like hell you have!’ he countered harshly.
Wytchwood, she was thinking bitterly. His country estate. He probably had a woman in residence in the penthouse. They had broken the mould when Dane was made. That keen, analytical brain of his was matched by a frightening degree of ruthlessness.
He continued, unaffected by her rigidly turned back. ‘Think of it as a fresh start. By the grace of God we’re still married and you’ve got no one else in your life. Still, I guess hugging a ghost at night is much more your style. You’ll never get a hairshirt that way.’
His taunt spun her round again. ‘You think you just have to snap your fingers and people obey, don’t you?’
A winged sable brow climbed. ‘I think my wife does,’ he murmured warningly.
‘I’m not your wife!’ she argued shakily. ‘We were separated. You’re only still here because I’m pregnant. Why can’t you at least be honest about that? I’m not so fragile. You feel responsible again.’
Instead of denying the charge he angled back his silvery head, ice-blue eyes striking off hers. ‘And why not? Who else is responsible for you?’
The tiny hope she had had died, blurring the remainder of his speech. His code of honour, his very conviction that she was somehow helpless, was compelling him into something that was all wrong.
‘Since you’re in such an unreasonable mood I’ll skip the coffee,’ he dropped. ‘You can think over what I’ve said, and pack. I’ll pick you up in the morning when you’ve calmed down and decided to stop playing Little Orphan Annie.’
Her lips parted. ‘I …’
‘No choices,’ he ruled. ‘You made your choice on Dominica. It was the last chance you’ll ever get from my corner to decide your own future. I’m making this decision for you.’
That was so horrendously arrogant even for Dane, she was close to speechless. ‘You don’t have any rights over me!’
His eloquent mouth twitched. ‘Why don’t you look in a mirror? You’ve got a husband.’
‘Ha!’ she slotted in with contempt and won herself a coldly inscrutable stare.
‘And a baby on the way.’ There it was again. He was throwing it in her teeth. If her stomach had been flat Dane would have been gone by now with an airy wave. ‘I’ll see you at ten tomorrow,’ he completed impatiently.
‘I won’t answer the door,’ she replied.
As he unlatched it he looked back at her, his expression predatory. ‘Course you will, Claire. You’d be too scared I’d kick it down and get the neighbours talking.’
And with that he departed. Shooting the bolt home gave her small satisfaction, although she had to unlock it again after she had tidied the kitchen. Randy could hardly be locked out of her own home.
A clean, civilised break. On Dominica she had believed that was possible. Now it seemed unlikely. His anger was encouraging him to act impetuously, she told herself. Perhaps overnight he would begin to see the worth of what she had advocated. Only unhappiness could result from Dane doing something he didn’t want to do. It would take a remarkable degree of saintlike unselfishness for such an unequal marriage to work. Love Dane or not, Claire didn’t see him managing such a feat of endurance over a long haul. He would grow to resent her. But dear heaven, she reflected tearfully when she ended up pacing the floor in the early hours, if she had thought differently, she would have snatched at the offer with both hands.
CHAPTER NINE
‘HE was away by seven?’ Randy breathed in dismay.
Claire managed to raise an amused brow as she passed her friend a fresh cup of tea and coiled back into her corner of the settee. ‘Nothing’s changed.’
Randy groaned disagreement. ‘Everything’s changed. He obviously wants you back.’
Darn Randy and her taste for happy endings! She had drifted home around dawn, still semi-hypnotised with her ring. In the radius of such delight, Claire felt a wet blanket. ‘Because of the baby. Would you want that to be the sole basis of your marriage?’ she asked bluntly.
‘No.’ Randy had gone pink, her aura of pushy persuasion somewhat dimmed. ‘Then what are you going to do?’
‘I’ll let him support me.’ Her soft mouth twisted. ‘That ought to satisfy his sense of obligation.’
‘How to damn with faint praise,’ Randy sighed. ‘He mightn’t be as anti-kids and commitment as you think. Take Gil as an example. He married Dane’s mother for her money.’ Her eyes shadowed. ‘He hasn’t told me any lies about what he was like when he was younger. Like Dane, he was pretty wild. But he’s changed.’
Claire could only guess what that reference to Eleanor had cost her friend in terms of pride. ‘Believe me, if Dane changes it won’t be on my account,’ she murmured. ‘And he certainly doesn’t need a wife for the reasons men usually need wives. He’s got staff who take very efficient care of him and women, well … they come and go and that’s how Dane likes it.’
In the interim of awkward silence the bell went twice in quick succession. ‘It must be for you,’ Claire said. ‘Dane won’t be here until ten.’
Inordinately relieved to be released from the honesty session, Claire went to her room, since she was still clad in her cotton nightdress.
‘Guess I’m early.’ Dane’s low-pitched drawl sent her spinning round from the window in visible confusion. He shut the door. ‘Are you packed yet?’
Her fingers pressed against the tiny flickering pulse at the base of her throat. ‘I’m not going anywhere, so I don’t need to pack.’
His jaw clenched, his earlier half-smile evaporating. ‘I thought we had all this out last night.’
She lowered her unhappy eyes. ‘I’ll accept that allowance Lew offered if it makes you feel better, and I’ll be able to find a small house somewhere. That would be the most sensible solution.’
‘Whoever told you I was sensible? And where’s your ring?’ Moving forward he trapped and turned up her bare left hand. ‘Don’t you feel embarrassed to run round like this with no wedding r
ing on?’
For tact, he took the biscuit! ‘My fingers got fat like the rest of me!’ she snapped and snatched her fingers back from his cool grasp. ‘Don’t you understand, Dane? No further sacrifices are necessary!’
His hard mouth curled. ‘I’m not of the martyr ilk. Now why don’t you get dressed? It’s a beautiful day and you’ll enjoy the drive down to the house.’
It was like beating her head up against a brick wall and she wanted it over with, wanted him gone before she started crying and Dane began to realise he had her exactly where he wanted her. So she yanked open the door. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you, so you can go and do whatever you would have been doing if Gilles hadn’t visited you yesterday!’ she blazed shakily.
‘I would have been working.’
‘Really?’ She raised a doubting, supercilious brow.
Tension sizzled in the air between them. ‘I warned you,’ he breathed softly and clamped a pair of firm hands to her non-existent waist and suddenly, quite unbelievably, lifted her into the air. Her mules fell off and she aimed a kick at him while he held her there. ‘Put me down, Dane! Do you hear me?’ she demanded.
‘Shut up,’ Dane said succinctly, bundling her half over his shoulder, but not before she had seen the pure, untamed glitter of purpose in his eyes. ‘I wonder what gave you the crazy idea that I would listen to you being sensible the second time around. Once was enough.’
‘Randy!’ Claire wailed at the top of her lungs, pummelling at his back with her fists but she was all at the wrong angle, thanks to her stomach.
Dane was hauling open the front door. ‘I’ll send someone over for Claire’s clothes later if you’d be kind enough to pack them,’ he was saying.
Randy stood by in shock and steadily gathering mirth.
‘I’ll never forgive you for this,’ Claire cried furiously in the lift. ‘In my nightdress! You can’t take me out of here in my nightdress. Now take me back! Don’t you dare make an exhibition of me in public!’
‘You’re doing just fine on your own,’ Dane gritted.
Struggling for control, she choked on a very unladylike epithet. Cooler air hit her as they left the lift. A retired couple, who lived in the flat below Randy’s, were standing seemingly transfixed by the lift doors when she looked back. ‘Dane,’ she sobbed wrathfully in the fresh air. ‘How could you do this to me?’
He stowed her determinedly in the rear seat of the Rolls and swung in beside her. Only the convulsed look on the chauffeur’s face silenced her until the door slammed on them both.
‘Well, if ever anybody got what they asked for,’ Dane provoked, stretching out his long, lean legs in insolent relaxation, ‘you have. Stop fussing and shut up. I’ll buy you something to wear.’
‘And then you will take … there’s nowhere for me to get dressed!’ she realised on a new tide of near tongue-tied rage.
‘Little prude.’ Dane lifted the phone to communicate with his driver.
‘I think you’ve gone insane.’ Claire thrust her hair off her damp brow in utter frustration. ‘How dare you tell me to shut up?’
‘I should have told you that a long time ago,’ he murmured gently.
The rest of her recriminations were greeted by silence. When she eventually ran out of steam, Dane leant forward and opened the bar to extract a glass and what looked like fresh orange juice in a container. ‘Thompson’s compliments. He said Vitamin C would be good for you,’ he advanced. ‘But I don’t reckon you need more energy.’
‘It was the baby he was talking about.’ She took the glass with an unsteady hand.
‘He got driven down to the house last night to get things ready,’ he continued. ‘Once you’re installed you’ll be really comfortable there. Anyone would think I was threatening you with a prison sentence. I won’t be there all the time.’
He sounded so cool and uninterested that her eyes pricked with tears. He’d forced her out of the apartment because he wasn’t prepared to waste any more time discussing it.
He left the car in the vicinity of Bond Street. She curled up but she couldn’t get very comfortable. An odd little ache in her back kept on niggling at her and she finally rested her head back with a cross mutter. Yes, she was cross. In fact, she was in a filthy mood. I won’t be there all the time. No, indeed he wouldn’t be! He’d be jetting about the globe, free to savour all the wicked, wanton pursuits he thrived upon and which she would read about in the papers. The world would turn full circle for her again and she’d still be on the outside looking in.
Dane was ages, and when he returned he was loaded down with carrier bags. ‘We can stop once we get outside the city limits.’
‘Nothing will fit,’ she forecast.
‘I’m not a complete bozo. I went to a maternity shop. The rest of you is still the same size, maybe even a bit thinner.’ His appraisal was sharply critical and she shifted uncomfortably. ‘The ladies were very helpful.’
‘I just bet they were.’ Huffily she rummaged in the bags.
He cleared his throat. ‘When’s it due?’
‘It?’
‘Well, what do you expect me to call it?’ he rasped impatiently.
‘I’m sorry. Three weeks.’ She stuck her feet into a pair of low-heeled leather mules, after several attempts.
‘What do you want?’
‘God doesn’t take orders.’
He burst out laughing and then bent down to encircle one of her ankles with cool fingers. ‘That’s swollen like your fingers. Is that normal?’
She reddened. Her pacing last night wouldn’t have helped. ‘It’s the heat, that’s all.’
He didn’t look quite convinced, but she basked in his ignorance of such matters. ‘You won’t be doing anything strenuous today,’ he said after an awkward pause.
He had bought three dresses, each of them the last word in maternity chic, and all aimed at the current hot spell. True to his word he had the car pulled into a lay-by an hour later and with great amusement he climbed out, followed by his now poker-faced chauffeur. His sense of humour had awakened her own. She slid into the silky French knickers with a grin, ignoring the tights. Pulling the coolest looking of the dresses over her head, a crisp navy and white sundress, she stowed her nightie in one of the carriers and buzzed down the window to signal the all clear.
She borrowed his comb to tidy her hair. ‘Your driver must think we’re mad,’ she muttered.
‘I don’t know. Wifenapping’s fun.’ Dane treated her to a lazy, even-tempered smile. ‘Feel better?’
She nodded dutifully. Having achieved his objective, he could afford to smile. She stole a glance at his perfect profile, becoming a little greedy as she let her starved gaze slowly plot a course down over his superbly male physique, accepting the insidiously sweet stirrings of her own body in response.
‘I got Thompson to fix a picnic,’ he announced.
‘A picnic?’
‘Why not?’ His tone was curt. ‘I’ve never been on a picnic in my life, do you know that?’
She could have guessed, and the admission didn’t imply to her that he was dying to fill the gap in experience. It was about noon when the car filtered off to minor roads, into a wooded area where it eventually stopped. The chauffeur solemnly produced a hamper and a rug from the boot.
It’s part of the Wytchwood estate,’ Dane informed her with a slanting grin. ‘That’s how I know about this place.’
He was so obviously set on his picnic plan that she smiled. Just being in the presence of all that vitality of his brightened her. Vibrations of sheer sensual enjoyment emanated from him and touched that cold spot in her heart. He was quite, quite irreplaceable, and she wished unhappily that she had been able to retain him as a friend. Only then she wouldn’t have had the baby and, selfish or not, she was still gloriously happy about the child she carried. It was a part of him he couldn’t deny her.
They only had to walk a couple of hundred yards before they reached a sunny spot by the edge of the stream. �
�Very pretty,’ she pronounced. ‘Is the house far from here?’
He spread the rug. ‘About a mile.’
She lowered herself down and kicked off her mules with relief, while Dane stretched sensuously in the sunlight, making her smile again. Opened, the hamper revealed a wealth of sophisticated picnic fare.
‘Thompson must have been very busy,’ she whispered, in awe of such delights in an outdoor setting.
‘He’s been hell to live with since I came back from the Caribbean without you. He approved of you.’ He uncorked the bottle of champagne and extracted two glasses. ‘If he could have got candles in here, I dare say he would have,’ he mocked. ‘He’s a real romantic at heart. I know damned fine that he thinks the split was over something I did. And here you are, my wife, who left me for another man. A midget, no less.’
‘Dane,’ she whispered.
He passed her a fluted crystal glass. ‘To live in abject poverty with her lover. I mean, no one would believe that without thinking what a monster of depravity I must have been,’ he intoned sardonically. ‘Still, one mustn’t repine.’
‘It wouldn’t work, Dane,’ she said very quietly. Tears clogged her throat as the champagne bubbles tickled her nose. ‘And you don’t owe me anything.’
Please, please, please make him stop trying to persuade me! She wasn’t a plaster saint. Every second she spent in his company made denial all the more painful. It made her wonder if it could really do so much harm to say yes … and that was dangerous.
‘Meaning that I’m not necessary now that you’ve attained motherhood?’
Seared by his contempt, she paled and drank deep before half whispering, ‘Why can’t you be honest?’
‘Too much honesty can be risky.’ His slow drawl carried a perceptible chill of warning as he leant back on one elbow to watch her.