Storm Force

by Sara Craven

  ‘Of course,’ Maggie said curtly, still smarting from ‘under-developed’. ‘Why, do you want to splint your broken toe?’

  ‘No, I’m thinking of taping over your mouth,’ he said with a certain grimness. ‘As it happens, you’ve cut your forehead. It needs cleaning up.’

  ‘Cut?’ Maggie remembered the sharp pain after the collision and put up a hand, encountering a faint stickiness. ‘Is it bad?’

  ‘Plastic surgeons can do miracles these days,’ he said gravely. ‘But for now, let’s see how we go with some antiseptic and a sticking-plaster.’

  ‘Oh, stop it.’ She glared at him. ‘It’s all a big joke to you—but this has been one of the worst days and the worst nights of my life.’

  ‘Whereas my own existence is just perfect at the moment, of course.’ His mouth twisted. ‘But if you want to spend the next few days wallowing in gloom and self-pity, it’s all right with me. Shall I attend to that cut first, or would you prefer blood poisoning in your present mood?’

  She stood for a long mutinous minute, eyeing him, then trailed into the pantry and came back with the first-aid box. He was filling a basin with hot water from the kettle.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said stiltedly.

  ‘Don’t go overboard with the gratitude,’ he advised. ‘I promise this is going to hurt you far more than it hurts me.’

  She endured his ministrations with gritted teeth.

  ‘Does it need a stitch?’

  ‘Well, it certainly isn’t going to get one.’ He applied a small piece of plaster. ‘The bandages can come off in a fortnight.’ He emptied the basin. ‘And, by the way, I’m not going to add to your list of grievances against me by turning you out of your bed. I’ll sleep in the spare room.’

  She said quickly, ‘It’s all right. I don’t mind. Anyway, it’s rather too late to start changing sheets.’

  ‘Yours having been hopelessly contaminated by my fleeting presence, I suppose,’ he said, too evenly.

  ‘Not at all,’ Maggie protested unconvincingly, a betraying blush spreading up to her hairline.

  Jay gave her a bleak look. ‘You, lady, are something else,’ he said.

  He turned away and went up the stairs, and presently she heard the bedroom door bang.

  She went round the living-room, tidying things, extinguishing all the candles except the one she would take upstairs with her.

  And in spite of Jay’s avowal, she would still lock her door, she thought defiantly.

  She supposed grudgingly that he had been kind enough, after the accident, but it didn’t change a thing. She still despised him and everything he stood for. And although she might be obliged to give him sanctuary tonight, there was no way she was going to share a roof with him again tomorrow.

  Another fierce gust shook the house, and she shivered. Always supposing, she thought wryly, that there was any roof left to share.

  She paused as a further thought occurred to her, then crossed to the sink unit. Opening the drawer, she extracted the sharpest long-bladed kitchen knife she possessed. He had already shown he couldn’t be trusted, she told herself. And she was entitled to protect herself.

  She went slowly and gingerly up the stairs, protecting the candle-flame. Her room—his room—was in darkness, and she paused for a moment at the door, listening, wondering if he was safely asleep, anaesthetised by whisky.

  His voice reached her, quietly and mockingly, ‘Goodnight, Maggie Carlyle. Pleasant dreams.’

  She started so violently she nearly dropped the knife, and the candle-flame wavered and went out.

  Cursing under her breath, she felt her way along the landing to the spare room. She found a match and relit the candle, putting it on the small chest of drawers, before turning the key in the lock.

  The narrow single bed looked singularly uninviting. And there was a small solid hump in the middle of it.

  Maggie pulled back the duvet and found herself staring down at the stone hot water bottle. For a moment she stood, motionless, then she sat down on the edge of the bed, buried her face in her hands, and began to cry.

  It was an uncomfortable night. The noise of the storm was unabating, and several times Maggie was terrified that the window was going to blow in.

  In spite of the reassurance of the knife under her pillow, she was still uneasily on tenterhooks, wondering what she would do if he forced an entry to her room and she was actually obliged to use it.

  She was still debating the issue when she fell into an exhausted sleep just before dawn.

  It was daylight when she finally opened bleary eyes on the world. The sky outside the window looked grey and angry, she realised shuddering, and the wind was still blowing fiercely.

  She crawled out of bed and dragged on the trousers and sweater she had been wearing the previous night. Along with her bed, she had also sacrificed the washbasin, she realised crossly. She would have to perform her morning ablutions downstairs in the sink.

  She had a lot to do today, she thought sombrely. She would have to notify Mr Grice about the fallen tree, and get him to phone the local garage to take her car away. She would also need to contact her insurance company.

  And taking absolute priority over all these was the necessity to get Jay Delaney out of the cottage, and out of her life.

  He wasn’t in the living-room when she went downstairs, and she seized the opportunity of the unexpected privacy to wash her face and hands and clean her teeth. When he had gone, she decided, she would lock the door, draw the curtains and get out the tin bath.

  She was ashamed of the crying jag she had embarked on last night, she thought, as she filled the kettle and set it to boil, but in a way it was understandable. She had built such hopes and such dreams on that trip to Mauritius—and on her first night alone with Robin—that the situation at World’s End seemed a brutal anti-climax.

  And if she was honest, finding the hot water bottle like that had been the final straw. An unlooked-for kindness from an unexpected source. An unwanted kindness, too, she reminded herself. If Jay Delaney thought he could creep into her good graces by such means, then he could think again.

  He said from the doorway, ‘Have you got any weedkiller?’ making her jump all over again.

  ‘What for?’ she demanded suspiciously, when her heartbeat had settled down.

  ‘How about a suicide pact?’ he said pleasantly. ‘Actually, I thought I’d have a go at the nettles round the john. Going for a pee in this establishment is like embarking on a survival course with the SAS.’

  Maggie’s lips were parting to say, ‘Well, no one else has ever complained,’ when he added, ‘Thank goodness Sebastian warned me what to expect,’ and she had to switch smartly to Plan B.

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t provide the gold-plated five-star amenities you’re accustomed to,’ she said sweetly.

  ‘The service is lousy too,’ he said. ‘I’m used to coffee in bed.’

  ‘You’ll have to wait till I find the weedkiller.’

  ‘I wish I could think you were joking.’ He paused. ‘You’ve lost quite a few tiles off the roof. If it starts to rain, you could be in trouble.’

  ‘I think I have enough problems already.’ She went outside to check, and whistled in dismay. ‘Damnation. I spent a fortune on that roof only a few months ago.’

  ‘What rank ingratitude these inanimate objects often display,’ he said sympathetically.

  ‘Very amusing—when it’s not your roof.’ She picked up an unbroken tile and eyed it and then him with a certain amount of speculation. ‘It’s possible, you know, to make running repairs, by—pushing tiles back into place.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you need incredibly long arms?’

  Maggie gave him a brief, flat smile. ‘Try a medium-sized ladder instead. There’s one in the lean-to.’

  Jay’s brows lifted. ‘Am I hearing this properly? Are you suggesting I should go up on your roof and stick back these loose tiles?’

  ‘Right first time.’

  ‘No
way.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m scared of heights.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ she said roundly. ‘I’m told Hal McGuire is always leaping round other people’s roofs, a hundred feet up in the air.’

  ‘Hal McGuire’s stunt man, certainly. I can’t even bear to watch all that stuff. I stay in the caravan, and learn my lines.’

  ‘You’re a wimp.’

  ‘I’m an actor. A very expensive, very successful, classically trained actor. Ask me to fight a duel for you, and I’ll astound you.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Maggie said shortly. ‘Honestly, it isn’t even a very high roof.’

  ‘I get vertigo on chairs. Besides, a broken toe is one thing. A broken neck can be serious.’

  ‘Could you bring yourself to hold the ladder for me, then?’

  ‘If I’m allowed to keep my eyes shut.’

  ‘Oh, for Pete’s sake,’ Maggie exploded in disgust and stalked off to fetch the ladder.

  Jay followed and took it from her. ‘I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll risk terminal terror in exchange for scrambled eggs and coffee. But they’d better be good.’

  Maggie bit her lip. The last thing she had planned on doing was cooking for her unwanted guest. Getting him up on the roof had seemed simply a way of keeping him occupied while she walked over the fields to the farm and made arrangements for his departure.

  But if he seriously intended to replace some of the fallen tiles, she supposed reluctantly that she owed him some breakfast in return.

  She nodded abruptly. ‘All right. It’s a deal.’ She paused. ‘I’d better go to the car and get those supplies.’

  She shrugged on a quilted jacket, collected her keys and set off down the track. It wasn’t easy. Every step of the way was littered with fallen branches and other debris. She moved as much as she could back towards the hedge, but some of the larger branches defeated her. She was hot and out of breath by the time she reached the car and got the boot open.

  She was lifting out the first box when she heard a man’s voice call to her.

  Looking up, she saw Mr Grice coming down the track on the far side of the tree.

  ‘Good morning,’ she called back. ‘Terrible storm, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Worse than that, seemingly,’ the farmer said as he reached her. ‘They’re calling it a hurricane. There’s been people killed—houses blown down, and fallen trees everywhere. My lads have gone out with the tractor to lend a hand on the main road. The missus said she thought she’d seen a car, although she wasn’t sure it were yourn, come down here yesterday, so I reckoned I’d come and check—see you were all right.’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine, apart from the Metro.’ It must have been Sebastian’s hired car Mrs Grice had spotted. ‘Mr Grice, could I come up later—use the phone?’

  He chuckled. ‘You’ll be lucky, m’dear. Phone’s dead as a doornail, and all the power’s off. No one seems to know rightly when it’ll be back on either.’

  ‘But I’ve got to contact a garage,’ Maggie said desperately. ‘My car needs to be towed away, and I want transport back to London urgently.’

  ‘You forget all about that,’ Mr Grice said firmly. ‘No one with any sense is going to London today, or anywhere else either. Why, London’s been hit worse than anywhere. They reckon not even trains can get in. And all the roads round here are blocked.’ He shook his head. ‘Terrible, it is. You’d best bide where you are, till things get easier. The missus and I won’t let you starve. I’ll get young Dave to bring you over some meat and a few veg. How’s that?’

  Maggie slumped weakly against the rear of the car. ‘But I’ve got to get out of here. You don’t understand …’

  ‘It’s you that doesn’t understand, m’dear. There’s an emergency on. People have been hurt—lost their homes, and police are advising everyone not to travel. And it’ll be a day or two before we can get round to clearing this track anyway, I reckon, so you’ll just have to be patient. I’ll send Dave down later with your food.’

  He thinks I’m just making a silly feminine fuss about nothing, Maggie thought wretchedly as Mr Grice strode off.

  But I’m not, she wanted to scream after him. I’m trapped here with a man—a stranger, who’s facing a charge of rape already—and I’m scared stiff. I don’t want to be alone with him for another night. I don’t.

  Yet it seemed the choice was no longer hers. Maggie looked up at the grey, threatening sky, and shivered.

  Oh, lord, she thought frantically, what am I going to do?

  CHAPTER THREE

  SCRAMBLED EGGS WERE not Maggie’s forte, but these seemed to have turned out better than usual, she thought, as she served them on to the warm plates, and placed them on the table with the cafetiere.

  ‘Ready,’ she said shortly to Jay, who was washing his hands at the sink.

  ‘Thank you.’ As he sat down, Jay reached across and deftly swapped her plate for his.

  ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Just a precaution,’ he said equably. ‘You’re a formidable young woman, Ms Carlyle. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.’

  But I didn’t think of doctoring his food, Maggie thought grimly, as she tackled her eggs. Why didn’t I think of it? And why don’t I have a medicine cabinet full of sleeping-pills or strong laxatives to do it with?

  As they ate, she found she was studying him covertly under her lashes. So this was the image of heroism in the eighties, she thought contemptuously. He was by no means conventionally handsome. He had a tough, arrogant face, the strong lines of his mouth and jaw accentuated by the obligatory designer stubble. His chestnut hair was overlong, she thought disapprovingly, waving, as it did, below the collar of his checked shirt, which, typically, had one button too many undone, reviving memories she would prefer to banish forever.

  His eyes were his best feature, vividly blue and long-lashed, but she still found it impossible to understand why he was regarded as a sex symbol, or why McGuire was so often at the top of the TV ratings.

  He was pale beneath his tan, and looked faintly haggard altogether this morning, she thought. Suffering a hangover from all the previous night’s whisky, no doubt. What a pity his adoring fans couldn’t see him now.

  He looked up suddenly, and caught her watching him. Embarrassed, Maggie hurried into speech.

  ‘Have you finished on the roof?’

  ‘I certainly hope so. I’d say it was temporarily watertight again, but you’ll need to get an expert to look at it.’

  ‘I think all the roofing contractors are going to have more work than they can handle for the foreseeable future. I seem to have got off relatively lightly.’ Maggie paused. ‘I’ve been listening to the radio. All the news is terrible. They say Kew Gardens has been devastated—all kinds of rare trees and shrubs destroyed.’

  Jay grimaced as he poured himself some coffee. ‘A veritable ill wind,’ he commented. ‘What’s the situation locally? Do we know?’

  ‘I spoke to the farmer.’ Maggie looked down at her plate. ‘Apparently the police are advising people to stay where they are. The roads are blocked, and there aren’t any trains either. No one can get in or out.’

  ‘Then we stay here,’ he said with a faint shrug.

  ‘As simple as that,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘Whinging won’t improve matters.’

  ‘I am not whinging.’ Maggie hit the table with her fist, making the crockery rattle. ‘I came here because I wanted to be alone.’

  ‘So did I. But fate decreed otherwise.’

  ‘Fate be damned,’ she said stormily. ‘I have Sebastian to thank for all this.’

  ‘You can hardly blame him entirely. After all, he thought you were going to be in Mauritius, and that the cottage would be standing empty.’

  ‘He didn’t even have the decency to ask my permission.’

  ‘Probably because he knew it wouldn’t be given.’ Jay pushed his empty plate away from him, and gave her a straight look. ‘Even before we
met, I was hardly the flavour of the month with you. Was I?’

  ‘You could hardly expect to be. I dislike men who have no respect for women.’

  ‘And I believe respect has to be earned, no matter what gender you are,’ Jay retorted flatly. ‘I’m also in favour of giving people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that’s something you should consider.’

  ‘I have no doubts about you,’ she said. ‘Not any more. Not after the despicable way you treated me last night.’

  ‘I thought I hadn’t heard the last of that,’ he said reflectively. ‘As I told you, I intended to teach you a mild lesson, no more. The fact that it could have easily become very much more was as much a surprise to me as it was to you.’

  ‘How dare you?’

  ‘I dare quite easily. I stopped touching you last night, lady, because I found I was enjoying it far too much, which wasn’t the purpose of the exercise at all. Your skin is like warm silk, Maggie Carlyle. Has no one ever told you that? I wanted to run my hands over every inch of you.’ He paused. ‘And that was just for starters.’

  ‘You are—disgusting,’ she said thickly.

  Jay shrugged. ‘I’m honest. What you discovered last night, Ms Carlyle, is that the brain can’t always control the body’s more basic reactions.’ He smiled reminiscently. ‘You were like a kid in a candy store,’ he said softly. ‘Wanting everything around you.’

  ‘That’s not true.’ Her voice cracked in outrage.

  ‘Isn’t it? So, let’s test your candour. If I’d obeyed my baser instincts last night and carried on with what I was doing—if I’d seriously tried to undress you—kissed you—at what point would you have called a halt?’

  ‘At once.’

  ‘Really?’ His grin was totally cynical. ‘Care to prove your brave words by repeating the experiment?’

  ‘No, I would not,’ Maggie said between her teeth. ‘I found the whole incident nauseating.’

  He poured himself some more coffee, eyeing her meditatively. ‘An interesting reaction. Is it sex in general which turns you off, or the prospect of having it with me?’