by Lucy Gillen
He said nothing, but lifted the pile of papers on his desk and sorted them through from top to bottom until he found the missing letter. Without saying a word to her, he read it through, then sat down at his desk and began to make notes on a pad in front of him.
Tarin stared at him for a moment, her anger churning away inside her until she could resist it no longer. She looked at him down the length of her small nose as he sat behind the desk, veiling the look in her eyes with the thickness of her lashes.
‘I’m not in the habit of spying on my employers, Mr. Bruce,’ she told him in a small, tight voice.
He looked up swiftly and there was a glint of puzzled amusement in his eyes that made her wonder if his short temper of a few minutes ago had been her imagination. ‘Are you spoiling for a fight?’ he asked softly, and Tarin hastily looked away again, curling her fingers into her palms. It was infuriating how hard she found it to outface him, even when he was in the wrong.
‘No, of course I’m not!’ she denied firmly.
He leaned back in his chair, swinging it back and forth on its swivel as he spoke, his brown throat exposed when he tipped back his head to look up at her standing on the other side of his desk. ‘Of course you’re not!’ he mocked, still in that same soft, taunting voice. ‘You want me to apologise, is that it?’ he asked, and Tarin did not answer. ‘Well, Miss McCourt?’ he prompted gently.
‘You did accuse me,’ Tarin said huskily, and he smiled.
His long fingers were steepled under his chin, his elbows resting on the arms of his chair, and the brown eyes watched her steadily from under half-closed lids. It was a slow, slumberous and infinitely sensual gaze that sent little shivers of sensation along her spine like icy fingers.
‘Let’s get something straight, shall we?’ he said softly. ‘I’m not an easy man to work for, I admit it without qualification, but I am the boss around here, no matter what anyone else says or does. Deepwater is mine and if you want to work here you’d better realise from the word go, that what I say goes; what I do is my affair and no one else’s. Maybe you find my manners not up to your requirements, but frankly that doesn’t concern me one bit, Miss McCourt, I don’t set out to please anyone!’
‘Not even your paying guests?’ Tarin retorted, without stopping to think that she might be treading on thin ice.
She thought he resented her reference to paying guests, for there was a dark, angry look in his eyes for a moment before he replied. ‘The guests are no concern of yours,’ he informed her bluntly. ‘I’ve had no complaints so far.’
Tarin could well believe it, but she was unwilling to admit as much, and she felt an almost irresistible need to dig even further. ‘They wouldn’t dare!’ she retorted, and was somewhat disconcerted when he laughed.
He got up from behind the desk and her heart gave a sudden lurch of panic, although heaven knew what she expected him to do. Half the craggy face was in shadow and his eyes glinted at her darkly from below the dark brows.
‘I knew you’d come out fighting,’ he said, his wide mouth crooked into a smile. ‘Any other female would either have burst into tears or walked out and given up, but not you! Not one of the battling McCourts!’
It was a much more personal argument suddenly but far removed from the original cause. Tarin’s Scottish ancestry might have been submerged for most of her life, but at this moment it was uppermost, and the ancient feud was as real to her as it was to her uncle. She was determined not to let this ill-mannered, arrogant creature get the better of her and she stuck out her chin, her eyes sparkling and deep blue.
She was for the moment Jeanie McCourt, battling against her captor’s determined efforts to subdue her, and she realised with a start that Jeanie’s reactions were probably very much the same as hers were to Darrel Bruce. It was neither hate nor love that she felt, but a strange and disturbing mixture of both, combined with an instinctive desire to resist, and it made her tremble like a leaf as she faced him across the desk.
Then she gave herself a swift, mental shake and looked at him as coolly as her churning emotions would allow. ‘Is that what you’re trying to do, Mr. Bruce?’ she asked in a betrayingly shaky voice. ‘Make me give up the job?’
‘No.’
The short, and apparently truthful answer gave her a moment’s hesitation, then she shook her head. ‘Then ifâ’
‘Is it what you want to do?’ he countered, and the erratic stirrings that steady gaze aroused in her almost blinded her to the fact that she was shaking her head.
‘No, of course not!’ She shook her head even more vehemently and was quite sure she meant what she said, no matter how angry he made her.
A trace of laughter still lingered in his eyes and he folded both arms across the broadness of his chest while he looked at her. ‘You promise to do as you’re told and not start a fight every time I give you an order?’ he asked softly, and Tarin flushed at the obvious effort to anger her again.
‘I’ll do my job to the best of my ability, Mr. Bruce,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve never had any complaints about my work or my behaviour from other people I’ve worked for. If you’d looked at my referencesâ’
A large hand dismissed such ideas contemptuously. ‘I don’t need references, I prefer to trust my own judgment,’ he told her, ‘Especially somebody I’ve known all my life.’
Tarin blinked, startled to notice how intimate the words sounded. ‘Have you?’ she asked huskily, and her eyes were wide and very deep blue as she looked across at him. ‘Known me all your life,’ she explained when he looked briefly puzzled.
‘It seems as if I have,’ he said seriously. ‘And I know the reputation of the McCourts well enough, you may be touchy, but you’re honest andâ’
‘It didn’t sound as if you thought so, just now!’ Tarin retorted, unable to resist it, but a large hand dismissed her objection.
‘Touchy, as I said,’ he repeated, ‘but honest enough. I remember you when you were at school,’ he went on, blandly unaware of the curl of embarrassment she experienced when she was reminded yet again of her own youthful folly. His brown eyes looked across at her steadily and there was a glint of malice in their depths, she would have sworn. ‘You always seemed to be around,’ he said.
‘Only for three or four weeks in the summer,’ Tarin said, refusing to look at him. ‘When I was on holiday from school.’
‘Was that all it was?’ he asked apparently surprised. ‘I thought you were here all summer, you seemed to be about for a long time.’
Instinctively she was on the defensive again, her eyes bright with’ embarrassment for her youthful adoration of him, knowing he must at last be aware of her discomfiture and hating him for adding to it. ‘I’m sorry I got under your feet,’ she said shortly, not stopping to choose her words. ‘I was only a schoolgirl and not very bright when it came to hero-worship !’
She had not meant to be quite so frank about it, to confirm what he must have already been pretty sure of, but it was out now and there was a glint in his eyes that recognised her slip and enjoyed it.
‘So you did have a schoolgirl passion for me?’ he said softly. ‘I thought it must be that because you always happened to be at the same spot I happened to be.’ His gaze slid slowly over her from the top of her head to the soft curves that showed above the edge of his desk. ‘What a pity it’s worn off,’ he added even more softly, and flicked a dark brow upwards. ‘Or has it?’
Tarin caught her breath, not knowing whether she was more angry or embarrassed. She had never in her life had to cope with a man as devastating or as unnerving as Darrel Bruce and she found herself at a loss to know what to say or do next. Her more usual self-confidence seemed to have deserted her for the moment and she felt again like that adoring, tongue-tied schoolgirl.
‘IâI wishâ’ she began, and licked her lips nervously. ‘Mr. Bruce, I wantâ’
‘Now you’re not going to change your mind and walk out on me after all, are you?’ he asked, his e
yes gleaming, and she shook her head, her spirit roused again by the suggestion that she was running away.
‘Oh no, I’m not going to let you drive me to the point of walking out,’ she told him in a small, determined voice. ‘If you want to get rid of me, Mr. Bruce, you’re going to have to sack me, and that could cost you money for wrongful dismissal!’
He stared at her for a minute in silence, as she stood small and defiant facing him across the big desk, then he threw back his head and laughed. It was a full, deep sound that did strangely disturbing things to her pulses and she clenched her hands as she stared at him, unsure just what to make of her own reactions. Then he leaned forward and rested his hands on the top of the desk until his face was only inches from hers.
‘So you’d sue me, would you?’ he asked softly.
Tarin angled her chin defiantly. ‘I wouldâyou deserve it !’
The brown eyes glittered at her darkly and she could feel her heart hammering furiously hard in her breast as she held his gaze for as long as she could. ‘I believe you would,’ he breathed softly at last, and reached out with one hand to touch her cheek with his fingertips, a touch that was almost sensual in its gentleness. ‘You’d better watch your step, Tarin McCourt,’ he said in a deep, quiet voice. ‘You might have met your match!’
CHAPTER FOUR
The next three weeks seemed to go by in a dream for Tarin, although she was kept busy enough. She had not realised just how much correspondence was involved in running a hotel, and she took quite a lot of dictation every morning? not all of it to do with the hotel.
Darrel Bruce seemed to have a lot more business interests than she had realised and, judging by the brief glimpses she had of the mail, most of them were profitable. After what her uncle had told her about his financial straits after his father’s death, she could not help but admire his subsequent efforts to put things right.
One of his greatest admirers was Mrs. Smith, the housekeeper. She had been housekeeper at Deepwater during his father’s lifetime and when the house became a hotel had remained with Darrel to act in a similar capacity. She was a gentle but firm-willed old woman and she and Tarin had hit it off from the beginning.
She stood no nonsense either from the guests, whom she was inclined to regard as interlopers however wealthy they might be, or from the staff under her command, and the smooth efficiency with which Deepwater was run was a credit to her methods. Darrel Bruce was the only man she seemed to stand in awe of, and to some extent Tarin could understand that, for he was a man not to be taken lightly in any capacity.
It was the housekeeper who saw to it that Tarin had her coffee just the way she liked it, and it was she too who revealed the reason for her predecessor’s departure. Apparently the poor girl had been unable to stand her employer’s impatience with certain discrepancies in her work and she had departed one day in tears.
‘She’d not the stamina for the work,’ Mrs. Smith had declared, and gave the impression that she expected better of Tarin.
It was Mrs. Smith who was responsible for Tarin getting her first glimpse of Duncan Bruce too, although in the circumstances Tarin was doubtful about the wisdom of taking such liberties in the absence of her employer. ‘Won’t Mr. Bruce object?’ she asked as she followed the indomitable old lady to the huge room that had once been the banqueting hall and now served as dining-room for the hotel’s guests.
‘Don’t worry,’ Mrs. Smith assured her. ‘After all, you’ve a right in a way to see the man. He was connected with your family too.’
‘I suppose so,’ Tarin allowed uneasily, and paused in the doorway to gaze around her.
She had never seen any of the other rooms at Deepwater, and this one was unexpectedly impressive. It was, she suspected, unchanged since Duncan’s day except for certain refinements, concessions to modern comfort which wealthy visitors would expect. But in character it had changed little.
The room was huge with massive beams supporting the arched ceiling in an intricate and deceptively delicate pattern. White walls gave it a cool and rather stark look and were hung with innumerable portraits of past Bruces, all of them having that distinctive red hair and fierce dark eyes. Most of them were bearded and looked wild and arrogant enough to overawe anyone, especially a young, seventeen-year-old girl like Jeanie McCourt had been at the time of her abduction.
‘Yonder he is,’ Mrs. Smith told her, and indicated a portrait hung immediately above the huge fireplace. Her shrewd eyes studied Tarin’s reaction for a moment. ‘He’s a braw man, is he not?’ she asked softly.
Tarin stood in silence for a moment, unable to speak because her heart was beating furiously hard and making her breathless. Duncan Bruce, the man who all those years ago had snatched a young girl from her family and started a seemingly endless feud, looked down at her from his ornate gilt frame and it was almost like recognising someone she had known all her life.
Brown eyes, alarmingly familiar, had a bright, challenging look and his jaw, only poorly disguised by a fierce red beard, thrust out as if in defiance of her opinion, or anyone else’s. His hair was red and thick and fell partly over a broad brow in a way she was familiar with in another face, and Tarin found she was smiling to herself.
‘Is he what you expected?’ the housekeeper asked, and watched her closely as she put the question.
Tarin nodded. ‘Exactly as I expected.’ she said with a hint of irony. ‘Take away that beard and you have the present Bruceâyes, he’s exactly as I expected him to be.’
‘He was a fine man, was he not?’ Mrs. Smith pressed for further approval, and it was obvious that she too saw the resemblance to her employer in the painted features of Duncan Bruce, hence her admiration.
‘Physically he obviously was a fine man,’ Tarin agreed readily enough. ‘But his morals surely left much to be desired, didn’t they?’
‘That’s a harsh judgment!’
The voice behind her was unexpected and Tarin swung round hastily, a breath caught in her throat. Her reaction was, she recognised, only partly due to being caught by her employer in the act, so to speak. Her heart was thudding wildly in her breast and she felt herself between two stools, with Duncan’s portrait glowering down at her from one side and his equally disturbing descendant on the other.
Mrs. Smith was smiling tolerantly, not in the least alarmed at being discovered by him in the act of showing his secretary around the house when she should have been working. ‘I’d a mind to show Miss McCourt the portrait, sir,’ she explained. ‘I knew you’d not mind.’
‘Not in the least,’ Darrel agreed, and perched himself on the edge of the huge table that ran half the length of the room.
Cream trousers fitted closely to his long legs and a white shirt revealed powerful brown arms below the short sleeves. A glimpse of tanned flesh showed where the open neck gaped across his broad chest, and Tarin wondered rather dazedly if he ever did more than casually comb his thatch of reddish hair.
His brown eyes had the same bright, challenging look as those of the man in the portrait, and Tarin felt an involuntary shiver slip along her spine when she met their gaze briefly. Her knees were trembling and she told herself she was behaving quite idiotically in the circumstances.
‘What do you really think of him?’ he asked quietly, and she shook her head uncertainly.
‘You’d scarcely expect me to be an admirer, would you?’ she asked.
‘I don’t see why not,’ Darrel told her. ‘After all, he’s over two hundred years old now, and most of our female visitors seem to find him quiteâattractive. ‘
Tarin met his eyes again briefly, aware of the housekeeper watching with interest and showing no sign of returning to her own duties, even though her employer obviously meant to carry on as guide.
‘They can probably see the likeness to you, that’s why,’ she replied, and only realised how her words could be interpreted when she saw the way one dark brow flicked upwards into that thick swathe of hair across his forehead.
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‘A compliment?’ he suggested softly, and the brown eyes were bright with laughter.
Tarin shrugged with exaggerated carelessness, and again met his eyes for a moment. ‘If you like,’ she said. ‘I don’t imagine you suffer from any false modesty, Mr. Bruce.’
‘Would you want me to?’
The words were a definite challenge and Tarin looked uneasily at the housekeeper before she answered. Yet again she could feel herself getting out of her depth with him, and she was reluctant to have Mrs. Smith’s shrewd eyes witness her obvious discomfiture.
‘In the vernacular,’ she said in as cool a voice as she could summon, ‘I couldn’t care less what you do. Mr. Bruce.’
Her reaction had been sheer defensiveness, nothing more, and she already regretted it, as she so often did on these occasions. For a moment he said nothing, but she had seen the swift, dark glitter that came into his eyes, and the tightening of his mouth.
‘You just can’t resist it, can you?’ he said softly. ‘You’re as determined to keep it up as your uncle is!’
‘I didn’t meanâ’
‘You meant me to be put firmly in my place!’ He interrupted her relentlessly, and Tarin felt a small cold, shrinking sensation in her stomach. Even Mrs. Smith showed resentment for her manner, and her round, homely face showed plain indignation that her employer should be spoken to in such a way.
‘If you’ll excuse me, sir,’ she said with a brief, disapproving look at Tarin, ‘I’ll away back to my work.’
‘You do that, Mrs. Smith!’ He spared the housekeeper a glance and a reassuring grin, then turned his attention to Tarin again. ‘I can take care of Miss McCourt.’
Mrs. Smith’s shrewd old eyes had a definite glint in them when she looked at him. ‘Aye, sir,’ she said quietly, ‘I’ve no doubt you can.’
Left alone with him, Tarin was appalled to find herself so nervous that she licked her lips with the tip of her tongue and held her hands clasped tightly together. For a long time the brown eyes studied her, then he smiled. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘shall I sack you for insubordination, or let you get away with it?’ He laughed softly, then reached out and touched her cheek. ‘I’m a fool,’ he said softly, ‘but I think I’ll keep you.’ Her attempted interruption he silenced with a finger to her lips. ‘Don’t,’ he said.