by Penny Jordan
She could feel the warmth of his breath on the back of her neck. It sent a hot, sharp shiver running all the way down her spine.
Praying that he hadn’t noticed it, she kept her head bent as he released her, leaving her to put on her seatbelt while he walked round to the driver’s side of the vehicle. ‘There really is no need for you to do this,’ she protested again as he climbed in and switched on the engine. ‘And I’m going to need my car in the morning…’
‘Get a taxi and charge the cost to petty cash,’ he told her angrily. ‘Of course, none of this would be necessary if you were living in.’
‘I can’t live in,’ Courage reminded him. ‘My grand-mother needs me. That was the whole point of my moving back here.’
She could see that Gideon was frowning as he reversed the Range Rover and then headed for the drive and the main road.
‘Your grandmother… Yes… How is she, by the way?’
His question brought all the anxiety and concern Courage had been holding at bay during the day rushing back.
Biting down hard on her bottom lip to suppress the lump forming in her throat, she told him chokily, ‘I don’t know… She’s in hospital at the moment having tests. I had hoped to go and see her this evening… It seems that they may have to do more tests than they originally expected. I won’t really know any more until I’ve spoken to the specialist.’
‘She’s actually in hospital?’
‘Yes… I…’
‘Then you’d better take tomorrow off and go and see her.’ Before Courage could start to object he added grimly, ‘There’s no point in you coming to work suffering from both over-tiredness and anxiety… You’ll be more of a liability than an asset.’
Numbly Courage turned her head away from him and stared out of the window into the darkness, fighting to blink back her tears. His blunt, almost cruel comment had robbed his earlier apparent generosity of any real warmth or concern for her.
But then, why should he feel concern for her? And why should she care one way or another? Why should it bring her close to the edge of tears to know that the reason he was giving her some time off wasn’t one of kindness but because he judged that she was, as he had put it, more of a liability than an asset?
It was just tiredness and anxiety over Gran that was making her feel so emotionally vulnerable, she assured herself shakily. That was all.
It was very warm inside Gideon’s car, and there was something about being driven by someone else through the darkness of the silent countryside that made her feel… She searched for the right words to describe the unfamiliar feeling that was filling her. Pampered…protected…cared for… All of the feelings which, for an independent woman, no matter what name you gave to them, were highly dangerous.
Surreptitiously Courage glanced at Gideon. He was concentrating on his driving, barely aware, or so it seemed, that she was even in the car with him.
He was the last kind of man she wanted to feel emotionally drawn to; her instincts told her that. But she felt so alone… So afraid for Gran and for herself.
‘You’ll need to give me directions from here,’ Gideon informed her as he drove through the small village closest to her grandmother’s home.
As she did so, Courage was disconcerted to hear the soft, almost tremulous note in her voice.
It was a relief when Gideon finally pulled up outside the cottage, but to Courage’s dismay, instead of simply driving off, Gideon climbed out of the car, making it plain that he intended to accompany her right up to the front door.
‘It’s all right… I…I can manage,’ she started to protest, but Gideon was already opening the gate for her, a deep frown etched between his eyebrows as he studied the silent, empty countryside around the cottage. Courage could see the expression on his face quite clearly in the illumination of the cottage’s security lights—a precaution she had insisted on having installed for her grandmother, despite the latter’s protest.
‘How far away from your nearest neighbours are you here?’ Gideon asked her grimly.
‘A-about a couple of miles,’ Courage told him. ‘Why?’
‘If I were your grandmother’s specialist I doubt that I’d want her moving back to somewhere so isolated until I was sure she was well and truly recovered from her operation.’
Courage made no response. It was something she had been worrying about a great deal herself. She couldn’t be with her grandmother twenty-four hours a day, and they certainly couldn’t afford a private nurse, and her shoulders slumped dejectedly as Gideon’s comment reminded her of the anxiety she had tried to put to the back of her mind until she needed to worry about it.
It felt odd, walking along the narrow garden path with him beside her. In the night air the scent of the old-fashioned rambling rose that covered the front porch was sweetly strong. A shower of petals covered Gideon’s shoulders as he lowered his head to walk under the low porch lintel.
It was dark inside the porch, Gideon’s tall frame blocking out the light as Courage fumbled inside her handbag for her house keys, mentally cursing herself for not getting them out beforehand.
If only Gideon wouldn’t stand so close to her. She could smell the scent of .his skin, and the intimacy of that awareness was causing a discomfiting reaction within her body. She could feel her nipples tightening, swelling slightly against her cotton bra. Embarrassed colour burned her face as she bent her head, still searching frantically for her keys. Where on earth were they?
‘Look, there’s no need for you to wait. I’ll be fine now,’ she told Gideon jerkily, forced into lifting her head to look at him.
There was just enough light for her to see his face. She looked into his eyes, her own widening, her mouth suddenly going dry as her glance slid helplessly from his eyes to his mouth.
Without knowing she was doing so she swayed slightly towards him, overwhelmed by the unwanted burden of her own emotions, a telltale shudder visibly galvanising her body.
She stiffened instinctively as she felt Gideon’s hands grip her arms as he closed the gap between them, his head lowering towards her own, his mouth seeking hers with the same precision and much the same fatal effect as a heat-seeking missile reaching its target.
That the explosion on impact was within herself, invisible and almost totally silent, apart from one soft, shocked gasp, made it no less devastating for her.
Never in her whole life had Courage experienced such a deeply sensual and experienced kiss. The knowledge in the lips caressing hers held a dark, dangerous allure, a hint of bitterness that sent tiny warning signals darting through her nervous system.
But they were too weak to withstand the power of the male possession of Gideon’s mouth.
If she had unwittingly initiated the kiss, there was no doubt about which one of them controlled it now. Courage felt as pliable and formless as a piece of fluid silk, moulded and shaped by Gideon’s power into whatever he wanted her to be.
She could feel her heart hammering against her ribs as he drew her against his body, one hand resting against the nape of her neck, caressing her, the other…
Suddenly realising what she was doing…what she had unwittingly invited… Courage broke the kiss, pushing Gideon away.
He released her immediately and, unlike hers, his breathing sounded perfectly composed and level, Courage noticed humiliatingly as she turned away from him, trying to hide her flushed face and trembling body.
As she moved she heard her keys rattling in her coat pocket. Quickly she removed them and turned to insert them in the front door.
What on earth had possessed her to behave so stupidly? No wonder Gideon was watching her with that look of cynical disdain in his eyes.
She very much doubted that she was the first woman to have virtually thrown herself into his arms and invited him to kiss her.
As she stumbled over a hurried goodnight, and let herself into the house without waiting for him to make any response, she wondered what he would have said if he had known that it
had not, in fact, been him she had been yearning for… not him she had been kissing. That what had actually motivated her had been the memory of having been kissed once before in the shadows of a night-silent garden, and that just for a heartbeat of time she had ached so much to recreate that past memory that she had allowed her emotions to overwhelm her common sense.
The real cause of her disastrous behaviour was not so much being alone with Gideon in the darkness of her grandmother’s porch, she told herself contemptuously, as the fact that for some unknown reason her body and her senses still continued to respond to an unfounded belief that they recognised him, instead of more sensibly accepting that they were wrong in confusing him with a man—the man—for whom they still yearned so foolishly.
Well, they must surely have learned their lesson now. There was nothing remotely similar in the way that he had kissed her—with passion and need, with tenderness and awe—and the way Gideon had kissed her… Nothing at all.
‘Courage…’
Courage halted her footsteps obediently as she heard the voice of one of her grandmother’s oldest friends.
‘How is your grandmother? It seems ages since we last saw her.’
‘She’s in hospital at the moment, Lady Sara,’ Courage explained, adding soothingly when the older woman started to express concern, ‘Just for tests at this stage, so that the specialist can establish just exactly what’s wrong.’
Lady Sara and her aunt had been friends for many years; they were both on the same charity committees and they played bridge together. Courage had often visited their home with her grandmother and now, knowing how much her gran would hate too much fuss being made of her illness, she deliberately played down its seriousness to the older woman.
‘Will you be able to stay for very long, or is this just a brief visit?’ Lady Sara asked her.
‘Well, actually, I’m working locally now,’ Courage told you.
‘Are you? Where?’
‘Hettingdean Manor…’
‘What? You mean you’re working for that dreadful Reynolds man?’ Lady Sara demanded, aghast. ‘He’s not the sort of person you should be working for at all, my dear. A young man—the nephew of some friends of friends of ours—was employed by him for a while and he treated him most dreadfully…’
Courage frowned. She knew that Lady Sara and her husband, Sir Brian, had been on Gideon’s invitation list for his cancelled dinner party, and she suspected that she also knew who the nephew of the friends of friends was.
‘Well, I haven’t worked for him for very long, but so far I haven’t any complaints,’ Courage told her lightly, firmly dismissing from her mind the memory of last night’s kiss.
That had been a mistake, and one she simply wasn’t going to dwell on or repeat. She couldn’t afford to, could she…? Not while she owed Gideon so much money. Money which, for her grandmother’s sake, she simply could not repay.
‘Of course, it’s different for a woman,’ Courage added. ‘Gideon Reynolds is very successful—and very wealthy. That’s bound to cause a certain amount of resentment among his own sex…’
‘Oh, yes… Of course… Quite…’ Lady Sara agreed. ‘He is very much a self-made man, though, isn’t he?’ she added questioningly.
‘His fortune is self-made,’ Courage agreed. ‘And certainly he doesn’t make any secret of that fact. But then I rather tend to admire that in a person. He’s a very sophisticated and intelligent man.’
‘Oh, I see… I rather had the impression that he was… Well, something of a rough diamond…’
‘On the contrary,’ Courage assured her. ‘And then, of course, his business does bring him into contact with… I don’t want to go into too much detail, but I believe he was contacted by a member of Prince Charles’ staff about a special environmental project the Prince wanted his advice on…’
Lady Sara was, as Courage had known she would be, properly impressed by this information, although she did look a little confused.
‘An environmental project…? But I thought… That is…we understood that he…that his business was mainly concerned with the supply of guns—all that sort of thing!’
Now it was Courage’s turn to be surprised. No wonder Gideon’s dinner invitations had been refused if that was the sort of rumour that had been spread about him.
‘Good heavens, no,’ she said firmly now. ‘He’s actually an expert in landscape architecture.’
‘Really?’ Lady Sara looked very impressed. ‘In that case Brian would no doubt love to meet him. He has been complaining all summer about the state of the south lawn… He’s tried everything, but there’s still a huge bald patch right in the middle of it. I must tell him what you’ve said, Courage. In fact, we really ought to invite Mr Reynolds over to lunch… Do give our love to your grandmother, my dear… How long will she be in hospital? I’d like to visit her.’
‘I’m not sure, but I’ll get in touch with you and let you know once I’ve seen the specialist,’ Courage offered. ‘I’m just on my way to see him now.’
‘Oh, yes, please do…’
Well, at least she had solved the mystery of why local society had refused Gideon’s invitations, Courage decided as she hurried towards the entrance to the hospital. She ought to have guessed it would have something to do with Chris Elliott.
She had little doubt that Lady Sara would be as good as her word and invite Gideon over for lunch. But whether or not he would thank her for her interference on his behalf, if he ever got to know about it—which, if she had anything to do with it, he most definitely would not—was another matter. Because Lady Sara was notoriously mean and would no doubt expect him to pay for his lunch by giving Sir Brian free advice about his lawn.
A wryly amused smile touched her lips, but it disappeared very quickly as she glanced across the road at the bulk of the hospital.
The specialist had sounded very serious when he had rung her at home this morning, asking her to call and see him after she had seen her grandmother.
It was just as well that Gideon had given her some time off, even if his generosity had caught her off-guard.
That was twice now that he had gone out of his way to help her, and yet she still had the feeling that somehow there was something about her that he almost actively disliked. But if that was the case, surely he wouldn’t have employed her in the first place. She was being hypersensitive, she told herself firmly.
The real problem was probably the fact that she did not like being so deeply in debt to him. It would have worried her knowing that she owed anyone such a very large sum of money and she was constantly aware of it.
It was the sound of a motorist’s car horn blaring warn-ingly at her as she unwittingly stepped out into the road without looking properly that made Courage realise what she was doing.
Apologetically she stepped back on to the pavement.
She was still in a state of semi-shock, she acknowledged. Her grandmother had looked so well when she had gone in to see her that to hear the specialist tell her so gravely that the tests had revealed her condition to be far worse than they had first suspected had hit her like a sickening blow in the stomach.
‘The problem is that this particular condition is highly unpredictable. It can remain static for years then suddenly accelerate for no apparent reason. In your grand-mother’s case… Well, let’s just say that in terms of world-class athletics its acceleration would have qualified it for a gold medal.’
He had waited sympathetically for Courage to take in what he was telling her.
‘How… how much time does she have?’ Courage had asked him shakily, once she was able to speak.
‘Without an operation…?’ He had shaken his head. ‘Not very long at all, I’m afraid. But that is the dark side of the picture. Your grandmother basically has a very strong constitution, and we know that this particular operation, although complex and lengthy, does have a very high success rate. There is no reason why, once she has fully recovered from it, she should not go
on to enjoy one and possibly two more decades of good health.
‘A lot, of course, will depend on the way the postoperative period is managed. I should very much like her to go into a specialised nursing home for at least a month, possibly two months, after the operation.’
‘Two months…’ Courage had whispered, wondering how on earth she was going to manage to cover the extra expenses that that would cause…
‘I’m sorry to have to give you such bad news,’ the specialist had told her. ‘But try to look on the bright side. As I’ve already said, this particular operation has a very high success rate. Obviously, in view of the deterioration in your grandmother’s condition, we will want to keep her in and schedule the operation just as early as we possibly can.’
‘When?’ Courage had asked him, dry-mouthed.
‘Possibly the end of this week, or maybe the beginning of next,’ he had told her consideringly. ‘We want to stabilise her system as much as we can first, and that will mean putting her on a course of special drugs.’
‘Have you told her? Does she know?’
‘Not yet,’ the specialist had informed her. ‘I wanted to speak with you first.’
‘Can I…? I…I want to be with her when you tell her,’ Courage had insisted firmly.
‘Yes, of course,’ the surgeon had agreed.
To Courage’s relief her grandmother had taken the news far better than she had expected. Her system had still contained some of the sedatives they had given her before doing the tests, the specialist had informed Courage.
Whatever they were, she wished she might have some of them, Courage decided shakily now, as she double-checked before attempting to cross the road a second time.
She felt uncomfortably light-headed and nauseous, her brain thick and woolly with all the information she was trying to assimilate. Tears of shock and fear clogged the back of her throat. The last time she had felt this afraid and alone had been just after that incident in the garden…
Afterwards Courage was never quite sure how she managed to drive safely from the hospital to Hettingdean Manor, or why she had chosen to go there instead of going back to her grandmother’s cottage.