The Loving Slave

by Margaret Pargeter

Bending his dark head, he gently kissed her soft lips. 'I've been fond of you all your life, but I didn't suspect it was more than a mild affection until I had you in my arms, by the lake. Even then I didn't recognise it for what it was, not until I heard your father had died.'

  'My father?'

  'Yes,' he replied soberly. 'When my mother rang me in Australia and mentioned it, I couldn't think of anyone but you. I just dropped everything and came home, which caused quite a few raised eyebrows, I can tell you, but somehow I couldn't bear to think of you being all alone at a time like that. It was then that I realised I loved you and wanted to look after you.'

  With a grim half smile, his lips twisted as he met her widening eyes. 'I had only to see you again, of course, to be convinced I'd made a mistake. You were so young and antagonistic, and quite clearly you didn't love me. I sus­pected I could probably make you care for me, but it seemed suddenly inconceivable that you could make me a suitable wife. Oh, my darling,' he groaned against her cheek, 'if you've doubted me, I've been no better. I didn't feel I could trust you not to wreak havoc in my life. As you stood there, so small and untidy, defying me, I felt suddenly, terribly angry. I decided the only sensible thing to do was to get rid of you—but remember you fainted? I knew, as I carried you upstairs that night and sat by your bedside, that I couldn't send you away. But I hoped that the fire, the consuming need I felt for you, would soon burn itself out. I tried ignoring you, I even used Blanche Edgar as a sort of wedge between us, but it still didn't work.'

  'I thought you were going to marry her,' Gina whis­pered.

  'No, never,' he assured her, adding wryly, 'If I ever hinted, or gave you any other indication that I might care for her, it was only to make you jealous.'

  'You said you were trying to put me off?' Gina frowned.

  'That, too,' Quentin's brows rose derisively. 'I guess for a man who's always known his own mind, you had me pretty mixed up.'

  'You should have sent me away,' she sighed remorse­fully, only beginning to understand the trouble she had caused him.

  He caught the hand she pressed to his face and kissed it sensuously. 'I couldn't. I'd planned to buy you and your father a house in the village, but when he died I couldn't tolerate the idea of your living alone. I was almost at the end of my tether, though, with wanting you, when Charles told me he believed you were his granddaughter. Then I was devastated! When your grandfather men­tioned the time I'd spent proving you really were his granddaughter, he was wrong. I'd actually been trying to prove you were not, because I couldn't bear to part with you. The night I kissed you in the stables revealed to me the depth of my own feelings too clearly. But you were such a babe, you'd seen nothing of the world—or men— so how could I possibly keep you? I had to let you go, to spread your wings a little, give you time to grow up and know your own mind. During the year you were away I never completely lost sight of you, but it was the worst year I've ever spent. When you came home—I like to think, back to me, so beautiful and more assured—I had to have you. From then on I was determined!'

  Quentin had done most of the talking, but when he paused Gina believed she was the more breathless. 'You never said you loved me.'

  'I thought you didn't love me, and I seemed to have betrayed myself a hundred times over—always ringing you, asking you out, not being able to take my eyes off you.' He paused, his face pale as he stared at her. 'I helped Charles, when he was in financial difficulties chiefly because I loved you. When he begged me not to mention this, I agreed, but again because I was thinking more of myself, I'm afraid. I didn't want you marrying me out of gratitude, but I did think you were beginning to love me, until our infamous trip to Vienna.'

  'Oh, darling,' she murmured, contrite tears in her eyes, her heartbeats unsteady, 'I did love you. I wasn't just beginning to, but I thought you'd married me for my grandfather's money, after what. . .'

  'After what Blanche told you,' Quentin's voice was harsh as Gina hesitated. 'Most of which she made up, I imagine, from one or two rumours she had heard in the City. She certainly got nothing from me. Charles men­tioned what she'd said, this afternoon.'

  'I asked him not to.'

  'Well, he did. He was as worried as I was.'

  'Yes, I see.' Uncertainly she glanced at him. 'I'd better let him know nothing's happened to me.'

  'Hardy's already done that.' He gathered her closer to him. 'We'll go and see him tomorrow, before we set off on a proper honeymoon.'

  'Quentin!' she protested, her cheeks flushing, her limbs trembling as he suddenly picked her up, rug and all, in his arms. 'Where are you taking me?'

  'You mean for a honeymoon or now?' he teased gently.

  'Now—well, both, I suppose,' she stammered, though his immediate plans became very apparent as he strode with her from the room.

  'I love you,' he replied thickly, his face darkening, as if that should supply the answer.

  As he laid her on his bed and began kissing her, her pulse began racing. 'Quentin,' she pleaded, her breathing quickening with his, 'when you proposed to me at the cottage, you did it so abruptly. I couldn't believe you loved me.'

  His mouth, so near her own, went taut with re­membered pain. 'I wanted to give you time, but I found I couldn't wait—perhaps that was why I sounded so abrupt. It was all I could do to get myself out of there without making you completely mine. Didn't you guess?'

  Silently Gina shook her head. 'No, but I might have done, now. I mean,' the confusion in her eyes deepened adorably, as she bravely met his, 'after last night.'

  Lowering his head, Quentin kissed her very gently, then crushed her fiercely to him, neither his arms or mouth so gentle any more. Gruffly, against her lips he murmured, 'Did you mind, darling, about last night?'

  'Only some of the things you said afterwards, but I'll forgive you if…'

  'If what?'

  'If,' her eager arms curled around his neck possessively, 'if I don't always have to trip over in corridors in order to get into your bed!'

  He laughed and her bright smile flickered, before their teasing glances sobered almost instantly as passion took over.

  'Darling, my small torment, I love you,' he groaned, his mouth ardent on her lips, his hands on her body.

  'And I you,' she trembled, trying to control the waves of sensuous desire he was deliberately arousing and which were rapidly overpowering her. Breathlessly she managed to gasp, 'Didn't Hardy say something about dinner? Won't he be waiting?'

  'Let him wait,' Quentin replied, taking her mouth again with passionate indifference.

  And Hardy had to.