by Penny Jordan
It was late when they left the restaurant. Because he was driving Saul had insisted that Lucy finished off the champagne, and on top of the wine they had had with their meal and the brandy after it, it had made her feel faintly tipsy.
Sauls’ hand closed over hers as they walked to the car, his arms coming round her as they stopped beside it, his mouth warm as it feathered softly on hers.
The urge to cling to him and go on clinging almost overwhelmed her and she had to fight to remind herself that they were standing in a public car park, and to step away from him as his mouth completed its languorous exploration of hers.
‘Very wise,’ he teased softly, letting her go. ‘Otherwise I might have forgotten all my good intentions.’
‘Maybe that’s what I’d like you to do—somewhere more private.’ She could hardly believe the provocatively husky words had come from her tongue, but they had, and judging by Saul’s arrested expression and glinting eyes, he was nowhere near as shocked by them as she was herself. Quite the contrary.
‘One day, not very far from now, I’m going to remind you of those words,’ he promised her, releasing her to unlock the car door.
They were more than halfway back before the heated excitement had faded from her blood. She wanted him quite desperately, she recognised, to the extent that if he took her home with him now, she would willingly go with him.
The Dower House was reached all too quickly. Neither of them had spoken since getting in the car, but words had been completely unnecessary. As Saul brought the car to a halt, Lucy hesitated.
‘Do I get invited in for a nightcap?’
Her eyes flew to his face. Had he guessed how reluctant she was for the evening to end? As she met the look he turned on her face she knew that he had.
There was something subtly exciting about knowing that beneath the surface conventionality of the trite remark ran a deep and dangerously powerful current of desire, something exhilarating and faintly wicked in playing this game, to respond casually to his teasing comment and invite him in, as though almost bored by his suggestion.
The house was in darkness and as he followed her into the hall while she fumbled for the light switch she was intensely aware of him standing behind her. Her fingers reached for the switch, her mind tormenting her with vivid mental images of Saul reaching out towards her, turning her, enfolding her in his arms.
‘Having trouble?’
The calm casualness of his question was shatteringly down to earth. As his hand reached unnerringly for the switch, by-passing hers to do so, she wondered if she was suffering from some sort of self-delusion. There was nothing remotely lover-like in his voice now, or in the way he was looking at her.
At least there hadn’t been. She tried to swallow as she saw the look in his eyes and found that she couldn’t.
‘Lucy…’
Her name was a tormented cry of wanting breathed against her lips, his mouth smothering any verbal response she might have made. One of them was shaking violently—or was it both of them?—the hot urgency of their kiss overwhelmingly intimate. It got harder and harder for her to breathe, but to tear her mouth from Saul’s was to die. Her body leaned on the strength of his, warmed and supported by it, frustrated by the barrier of their clothes. His mouth released hers, his tongue tip touching her full lips.
‘Coming inside with you was an idiotic idea,’ Saul whispered against her mouth. ‘I should have known what would happen.’
His words made her go cold with rejection.
‘You were the one who…’
‘I know… I know…’ The softness of his voice soothed her defensive protest. ‘I want you like hell, Lucy,’ he told her rawly, ‘And I know damn well that when I leave here I’ll spend the rest of the night lying awake wishing you were with me, but we’ve got to take it slowly before we become completely blinded by physical desire. I want to know you as a person as well as a woman. Does that make any sense to you?’
It made beautiful sense, humbling and disconcerting her, making her throat close up on a wave of emotional vulnerability.
‘I want more from you than sex,’ he added huskily, ‘Much, much more.’
He leaned forward, his mouth gently brushing first her eyes and then her mouth, and then he released her. Her eyes opened reluctantly.
‘Now, how about that nightcap, and while we’re drinking it we can reminisce about old times, and then, when I have drunk the cup of coffee you’re going to make me, I shall get up and say good night and go home to my lonely bed!’
And that’s the way it was. And later on, sleepless and too wound up emotionally and physically to care, Lucy was torn between the happiness of knowing that Saul wanted more for them than a relationship based only on sex, and an aching disappointment that his self-control was so resolute—far more resolute than her own, she acknowledged, feeling the heat beat up through her body once more as she re-lived his good-night kiss.
There had been a moment then when she had sensed that it would take very little to push him over the edge, to incite him to abandon caution.
His hand had touched her breast, unerringly finding its taut peak, and she had sighed her pleasure against his mouth, feeling in the fierce clench of his muscles and the slow, reluctant way he drew away from her, how difficult it was for him.
If she had refused to let him go they would have been lovers by now, but Saul was right; their relationship, their feelings and trust of one another were too new for them to plunge into the heady waters of passion together yet. Tonight they would be alone again.
She fell asleep on that thought, clutching it to her while her features curved into an expression of anticipatory bliss.
∗ ∗ ∗
Following her discussions with her editor, Lucy had decided to make use of her unexpected day of freedom from looking after the children working on her second novel.
After a skimpy breakfast of coffee and toast, all she could manage in her present highly emotional state, she collected her notebooks and portable typewriter and made her way to the main house.
Mrs Isaacs greeted her cheerfully as she went in the back way. ‘Mr Saul told me to expect you,’ she announced. ‘Said you would be working in the library, but that I was to make sure I dragged you away for some lunch. He’s had to go out himself, but he said to tell you he’d be back at twelve.’
Saul seemed to be doing a fair amount of ‘going out’ at the moment. On business connected with the house perhaps? As yet they had not talked about the Manor and Saul’s plans for it—they had been far too busy talking about more important things. He would have to sell it, of course, and finding a buyer might be difficult. The thought of the house going out of the family did cause her a faint pang, but it was only faint. Houses as large and old as this one was were too much of a burden for anyone less than a multi-millionaire to own and run. However, no doubt Saul would be anxious to settle his affairs and get back home to his job.
Ridiculously they hadn’t even discussed what he did for a living. A small smile touched her mouth. Whatever it was it was scarcely important as long as it made him happy. Everything he had said to her implied that when he did return to America he would ask her to go with him, and she knew that she would have some hard thinking ahead of her if he did. She had a responsibility to Oliver and Tara from which she could not wholly abdicate, but she was no suffering martyr and had no intentions of sacrificing her own happiness to assume the duties which should by rights be Fanny’s.
No, something could be worked out. It would have to be, she decided grimly, her full lips tightening briefly as she dwelt on the scenes that were likely to occur with her emotional stepmother. It didn’t matter what scenes Fanny caused; her love for Saul came first.
Love! The taste of the word made her go dizzy with pleasure. Her feelings for Saul had transformed her from a level-headed young woman into a starry-eyed child, full of wonderment and joy. Her hitherto sedate view of what happiness was had been totally overthrown. It was like disc
overing that the rare, shimmering mirage was real after all and moreover could be reached out to and touched.
Reluctantly she dragged her mind away from Saul and on to her work, and yet, as she concentrated on the outline for her second book, with maddening insistence her central male character kept appearing to her as Saul.
In the end she gave in to her desire to paint a verbal portrait of him, knowing when she had finished and read through what she had just written that she had breathed so much life into the character that no one could ever believe he was simply a work of fiction.
True to his promise Saul was back for twelve and she was out of her seat and halfway towards the library door the moment she heard his footsteps outside.
The phone rang while he was kissing her and he disengaged reluctantly, holding her within the curve of his arm as he picked up the receiver.
As she watched his mouth grew taut, his eyebrows drawing together in a faint frown.
‘OK Ma, I get the picture,’ he said abruptly at last. ‘But it’s impossible for me to get back right now.’
He was silent again, listening to whatever it was his mother had to say. His mother! Lucy had never met her father’s sister. Were they alike at all? What would she think of Saul’s involvement with her? Was she one of those impressively organised American matriachs who already had a suitable partner picked out for her son?
‘No, I don’t know how long I’ll be—as long as it takes.’ He listened again briefly, and then replaced the receiver.
‘Problems?’ Lucy asked him worriedly.
Her weight was supported against his body and she liked that, liked the feeling of permanence and safety that emanated from him. He felt as steady as a rock—and as hard. The thought briefly made her feel cold. Saul would be a dangerous man to cross, she recognised, seeing in the way he was frowning the irritation of a man used to making his own decisions about his life, without having them queried or crossed.
‘A hiccup in my stepfather’s business affairs and my mother wants me to return home to sort them out.’
He saw her faint frown and explained, ‘I work for him.’
That explained how he was able to take so much time off, Lucy realised, wondering again what it was that he did.
‘I’m an accountant—of sorts,’ he added curtly, and she realised that his work was not something he wanted to discuss.
‘Will you have to go back?’
‘Not right away.’
The tension in the muscles of his arm where it lay against her body comforted and yet alarmed her. He didn’t want to upset her by saying he might have to go, but she sensed that it was quite possible.
It was still too soon for him to ask her to go with him—at least as his lover—and she prayed feverishly that whatever the problem was at home, it would be solved without the necessity of him having to rush back.
‘Are you any closer to finding a buyer for this place?’ she asked him, trying to change the subject. Disposing of the Manor must be a burden to him when he obviously had so many responsibilities at home.
‘There are one or two possibilities,’ he told her cautiously, ‘but one always has to be aware as a foreigner that the locals might be trying to gain an advantage. How do you really feel about losing this place, Lucy?’ he asked her abruptly. ‘You must feel some attachment to it.’
‘Yes, but probably only in the way that you do,’ she agreed mildly. ‘After all it isn’t as though it really belongs…’ She broke off, appalled by her near indiscretion. How close she had been then to blurting out the secret of Oliver’s birth. She risked a look into Saul’s face, anticipating his curiosity, but instead his expression was curiously blank, his arm instantly slackening to release her.
As he turned away from her he said evenly, ‘How delightfully British you are at times, Lucy. I see that you do after all consider me something of an interloper here.’
She was horrified by the way he had misinterpreted her words. ‘No… no, Saul,’ she appealed to him. ‘You’re quite wrong. I don’t see you as an interloper at all.’
‘But neither do you see me as the rightful owner here, is that it?’
What could she say? Legally he was the rightful owner, but she knew he did not have the soul-deep feeling for the place that her father had had and which he had passed on to Oliver, in whom she sensed the same emotion, young though he was. But how could she break the promise she had made to her father and tell Saul this? And what good would it do anyway? Saul might even think she was trying to manipulate him into doing something for Oliver.
When she was silent he laughed shortly, turning round to glare at her as he said harshly, ‘What a pity you didn’t fulfil your father’s hopes for you, Lucy, and marry money.’ He saw her expression and jeered softly. ‘Oh come on, surely you aren’t going to tell me you don’t know? Even my mother knew, although she flatly refused to help him when he asked her to launch you on the American season and introduce you to a few potential millionaires. The days are gone when they were willing to part with their money in exchange for an aristocratic wife. No doubt he was hoping that your wealthy husband would buy this place from me after his demise, thus securing it for his grandchildren.’
Lucy was completely stunned by what he was saying. He was making it up, he must be; her father had never once said a word of this to her.
‘You think I’m lying don’t you?’ Saul demanded almost savagely. ‘Well I’m not—ask my mother. I think you were about seventeen when your father made his first approach.’
Seventeen! Lucy thought back weakly. Fanny had still been married then. And who knew? Perhaps her father, who had always had a penchant for crazy schemes, had dreamed up something along the lines Saul was suggesting.
‘I don’t think you’re lying Saul.’ She said it quietly so that he wouldn’t mistake the conviction in her voice. ‘It sounds just like the sort of thing my father would do. If I seemed disbelieving it was because he never mentioned any of this to me. I know he hoped Fanny would give him a son; and as you say he was almost obsessed with the idea of keeping the house for his own heirs.’
‘Almost?’ Saul derided bitterly.
‘Very well then, totally.’
A certain bleakness shadowed her eyes as she remembered how she had suffered from her father’s obsession. A sensitive child, it had not taken her long to recognise that she was not the child he had wanted—not a son.
As though he knew her thoughts Saul gave a kind of groan and came towards her, taking her in his arms, holding her fiercely.
‘Forgive me. I had no right to say any of those things to you. The plain fact is that I’m jealous—jealous of the loyalty you give your father—and half scared to death that I’ll have to go home before I can persuade you to come with me.’
His admission soothed away the hurt. She turned her face up eagerly, her lips parting in soft invitation.
It was a long time before he released her, his voice faintly shaky as he asked, ‘Do I take it that that means that you would come?’
‘Anywhere—with you,’ Lucy told him, sighing the words against his throat, her eyes closing in bliss as she tasted the masculine flavour of him. It was true. She would follow him to the ends of the earth if he asked it of her. It was too late for pretence now. She was deeply, crazily in love with him—he was the only thing that mattered and if he left her now she thought she might go crazy with the agony of losing him. It was a novel sensation for her, and one that would once have terrified her, but which she now revelled in, knowing that she wasn’t alone, that he shared her feelings.
Over lunch he told her a little more about his stepfather, explaining that he was in his seventies and in rather poor health. ‘My mother adores him, although you’d never realise it. He has two daughters from his first marriage and five grandchildren; my mother’s always complaining that it’s time I produced some, too.’
‘And your father,’ Lucy pressed. Do you see much of him?’
‘A little. He lives in
Boston now. He married the daughter of a newspaper magnate and he has a second family. Everything’s very amicable but in many ways I feel closer to Harry. After all, he was the one who was there during the time I was growing up. He paid for me to go to college and later on to qualify as an accountant—housed and fed me, gave me a job. In fact he was far more of a father to me than my own ever was—and made a better job of it, I suspect, when I see my two half-brothers. My father’s a workaholic. Always was and always will be. That’s what led to my parents’ divorce in the first place.’
He went on to tell her about the old winery his parents had bought in California and the lifestyle they lived there, and when he excused himself after lunch, explaining that there were some phone calls he had to make, if only to set his mother’s mind at rest, Lucy made her way back to the library feeling that she now knew far more about him.
At two o’clock he put his head round the door and announced that he had some papers he wanted to catch the post and that he intended to drive into Winchester to make sure they did.
‘Mrs Isaacs is leaving us something cold for supper and I’ll bring some steaks back with me,’ he told her, coming into the room to draw her up into his arms and kiss her thoroughly.
‘You know,’ he muttered seconds later, sensually nuzzling the tender skin of her throat, ‘in view of the developments at home, I’m beginning to wonder if a long, slow courtship’s such a good idea after all… particularly when there’s nothing, but nothing, I’d like more right now that to take you to bed.’
She couldn’t control the quiver that ran through her and knew when he laughed softly that he had felt it, too, and knew its origins.
‘Very flattering,’ he whispered, his breath tickling her ear. ‘I’m almost tempted not to bother with the post.’
‘Mrs Isaacs is still here,’ Lucy pointed out demurely, but her eyes were a deep sparkling brown, her skin flushed with colour, her body melting, eager for all that he was promising.
‘Later,’ he growled mock-threateningly as he released her. ‘Later I’ll make you sorry for that—when she isn’t here to protect you.’