She had heard of people being kissed like this, in anger and retaliation, but she had never imagined she would experience it. And then, shockingly, an odd lick of warmth began somewhere deep inside her, spreading insidiously through her veins. Her lips, ignoring the furious protest of her brain, softened as though in enjoyment of the fierce pressure caressing them, her body tensed, her eyes widening in shock.
Instantly Luke froze, pushing her away from him.
There was a dark stain of colour high upon his cheekbones, and his eyes were almost black. He stared at her, with an ugly smile twisting his mouth, his chest heaving as though he had been running.
‘Oh, no! I’m too old and too experienced to fall for that one,’ he told her brutally. ‘Finding your celibate life up here a bit of a strain, are you?’
His immediate awareness of her tentative response humiliated her beyond measure—sullying the sweetness of that unbidden reaction, but at least he didn’t realise that it was he himself who was responsible for it, rather than just an instinctive sexual need.
‘Get out of here!’ she spat the words at him in a low whisper that throbbed with the force of her emotions.
When he had gone, all she wanted to do was to curl up somewhere and die. She caught a glimpse of herself in the bedroom mirror and hot colour warmed her skin again as she saw the clearly discernible pointed thrust of her breasts pushing against the fine cloth of her blouse.
Physical arousal! It was not something with which she was overly familiar. A new and very unpleasant thought struck her. She wasn’t jealous of the fact that Cressy had spent the day with him, was she? Her anger had only been motivated by the fact that Luke had forgotten his promise to Tom, hadn’t it?
Anna didn’t work on Sundays, and Sara had already told Anna that she was quite happy to take over her chores.
She got up early, dressing casually in her jeans and a cool cotton top, since the day looked like being fine. Downstairs, she set about preparing breakfast trays for her grandmother and Cressy. Tom was still in bed, and so she had time to organise the table in the small dining-room.
There was a joint of beef in the fridge for lunch. She stopped what she was doing, not seeing the view beyond the kitchen window, but remembering instead Sundays in London when her father and Laura had been at home.
They had invariably invited a large crowd on Sundays. Sara had been instructed to prepare some food. Her father always had what looked like an endless supply of wine. The conversation had been witty and urbane, and yet she had never felt relaxed or comfortable with her father’s friends.
Luke walked in just as the coffee had finished perking. He looked surprised to see her.
‘It’s Anna’s day off,’ she told him by way of explanation, her nerves jumping as he came too close to her.
He gave her an irate look.
‘Yes, I know.’
He was dressed casually in jeans and an open-necked, short-sleeved white shirt. Sara could feel herself blushing as her glance inadvertently lingered on the muscled stretch of his legs.
She knew he was watching her, and she could well imagine the derision that would be in his eyes. What was the matter with her, for goodness’ sake? She had seen men wearing a well-fitting pair of jeans before. Many of them, in fact, but it was an unpalatable truth that none of them had had the effect on her that this man was having.
‘If you want to go through to the dining-room, I’ll bring in your breakfast.’ All her dislike and mistrust of him showed in her voice.
‘You’re making breakfast?’
His incredulous query checked her, her eyebrows lifting slightly as she told him briskly, ‘Yes, I am.’
He looked even more incredulous minutes later when she served him with a perfectly cooked English breakfast. He was probably wondering if she had put poison in it, Sara thought wryly, watching him from beneath demurely lowered lashes. If only she had!
He took a bite, and said grudgingly, ‘It’s good.’
Sara smiled sweetly at him and replied, ‘I believe arsenic always takes some time to take effect,’ and then she turned on her heel and left, going upstairs to wake Tom.
‘Luke’s been in to see me,’ Tom announced importantly, sitting up in bed and beaming at her. ‘He’s taking me fishing this afternoon.’
Well, she just hoped he stuck to his promise this time, Sara thought darkly as she urged Tom to get up.
A quick peep into her grandmother’s room showed her that she was already awake, although, when she looked in on her stepsister, Cressy was still deeply asleep.
Luke came back into the kitchen as she was preparing her grandmother’s tray. Sara was surprised to see that he had carried out his own used dishes. Her father would never have dreamed of doing anything so domestic.
‘Who are these for?’ He looked at the two prettily arranged trays.
‘Gran and Cressy.’
‘Cressy?’ His glance sharpened, a slight frown furrowing his forehead.
‘Yes, do you want to take it up for her?’ she asked him evenly. She had promised herself last night that all this nonsense in the way she was reacting to him had to stop. She must accept, as she had thought she had already taught herself to accept, that Cressy was the type of woman who appealed to men, and she was not.
Cressy was like Louise, her cousin, or so her grandmother had said. Naturally, Luke would be drawn to a woman who was similar to the wife he had loved and lost.
‘What exactly are you implying?’ he asked her coldly. ‘That your stepsister and I are lovers?’ His unexpected attack puzzled her until he said softly, ‘Cressy warned me that you would probably try to discredit her in the eyes of your grandmother. She says you’re very good at playing the role of the hard-done-by little Cinderella.’
A hard lump of pain lodged in her throat, almost choking her. How could Cressy have spoken about her like that?
‘How despicable you are, Sara, playing on an old woman’s very natural yearning for the grandchild she had never known; the only grandchild she had left. No wonder your father tied up his money so that you can’t touch it. Oh, yes. Cressy told me why you were so determined to hold on to Tom! I know that she offered to take him to California with her, but of course you couldn’t afford to let him go, could you? If you did, you would lose the income that comes from the trust your father set up—an income which is only payable to whichever of you looks after Tom.’
Sara was stunned—and then very angry! What on earth had Cressy told him?
‘I’ll take Alice’s tray up,’ he told her grimly. ‘And don’t worry, Sara. I’m not going to tell her the truth about her dearly loved grandchild—for her sake, not yours.’
He was gone before she could find the breath to deny his allegations. Allegations that were based on the web of lies Cressy had spun for him.
Sara waited until she was sure Cressy would be awake before going to see her stepsister.
Cressy frowned when she walked in, waving away the breakfast tray.
‘God, you know I hate food in the morning,’ she said petulantly. ‘What time is it? I want Luke to take me somewhere decent for lunch. What a hole this place is! I don’t know how you can stand it…’
‘Cressy, what have you been telling Luke?’ Sara interrupted quietly.
It hurt her to see the evasion in Cressy’s eyes, and she knew that she had been right in suspecting that her stepsister had lied to Luke about her.
She said as much, and Cressy didn’t attempt to deny it, shrugging and then yawning with bored indolence.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Sara, grow up. Luke is an extremely rich man. I want to marry him.’
‘Marry him?’ Sara goggled at her. This was the last thing she had expected to hear. Cressy had never made any secret of her contempt of the married state. ‘But your career…’
‘Will flourish much better once I have a wealthy and influential husband to support me.’
‘But you were doing so well. You were going to California…’
‘Were being the operative word,’ Cressy told her acidly. ‘The California thing’s off. I’m broke, Sara, and I need to marry Luke… Once I’ve got my career established, I can ditch him, of course.’ She shrugged again, patently indifferent to Sara’s shocked response to her disclosures.
Why, when he had treated her so badly, did she feel acutely sorry for the man? Sara wondered soberly. She had always known that Cressy was self-centred, but she had never dreamed that her stepsister would go to these lengths.
‘I still don’t understand,’ she protested. ‘Why discredit me?’
‘Oh, just to make sure you aren’t any competition. Wise up, darling,’ she said mockingly. ‘A man like Luke enjoys protecting what he still idiotically believes to be the weaker sex. How do you think it’s felt for me all these years, Sara, with you constantly held up in front of me as some sickening model of perfection. I must confess, when I first suggested you come here, it was just so that I could get you and Tom out of my hair. But it’s turned out even better than I imagined.’ She gave a small gurgle of laughter. ‘Honestly, you wouldn’t believe how pathetically eager Luke is to believe the worst of you. Seems he blames you for not getting in touch with your grandparents before now. Of course, I haven’t done anything to disillusion him, and neither must you, darling.’
The faint purr of a threat entered the last few words. Sara stared at her stepsister in dismay. This was a Cressy she hadn’t known existed, and she could only listen to her disclosures in shocked silence.
‘Luke, although he doesn’t know it, is very vulnerable,’ Cressy continued, smiling at her. ‘He’s a man to whom the idea of marriage and a family has an intense appeal. He’s also the old-fashioned sort,’ she added shrewdly. ‘Oh, I’m not saying he hasn’t had his moments,’ she admitted frankly. ‘No man as physically attractive as he is couldn’t have done. All I have to do is to convince him that I need his protection, and to do that, what better than to adopt your poor little “Martha” role, my dear?’
‘Cressy, you can’t mean any of this!’ Sara objected painfully.
‘Oh, but I do, and don’t get any stupid ideas in your head about warning Luke of what’s in store for him. He won’t believe you, you know.’
Sara knew Cressy was telling the truth. Luke would never believe anything she might have to say, still less any wild and apparently impossible claims she might make about Cressy’s determination to marry him.
‘Cressy, please think,’ she implored. ‘He’s already been hurt once…’
‘Oh, dear, you’re not falling in love with him, are you, darling?’ Cressy gave a malicious trill of laughter as she delivered the gibe.
Sara denied it instantly. Of course she wasn’t falling in love with the man! She disliked him just as much as he disliked her!
Thoroughly infuriated by Cressy’s taunt, Sara went back downstairs. She told herself that she ought to be highly delighted that Luke was going to get his come-uppance, but somehow she wasn’t!
She tried to concentrate pleasurably on his reaction when he discovered that Cressy had married him merely for his wealth and as a means to promoting her career but, instead of pleasure, all she could feel was dismay. Dismay on Luke’s behalf. She must be going mad.
She knew her stepsister well enough to know Cressy hadn’t lied when she said she would ultimately leave him. Cressy would never commit herself to another human being. She didn’t have that sort of personality. She was completely dedicated to her own future success.
Despite the fact that Sara had taken immense pains with it, Sunday lunch was not a success.
There was nothing wrong with the food, but Cressy sulked all the way through the meal because Luke had refused to take her out somewhere. Sara could see that her stepsister’s snide, bitter remarks were causing her grandmother to look tired and strained.
Only Tom seemed to be relaxed as he bubbled over with excitement about the afternoon’s planned fishing.
They owned a small stretch of river locally, her grandmother explained to Sara once the two males had gone, Tom carefully protected against the water with his wellingtons.
Although she was trying not to show it, she was anxious about Tom’s welfare. What if something should happen while they were out to bring on one of his attacks?
‘Stop worrying,’ her grandmother chided her gently. ‘Tom is in the best of hands. Luke will take proper care of him.’
Cressy was still sulking, and had retired to her room with some glossy magazines Luke had bought her in Chester.
She had announced to Sara that the West End play she was in would be closing at the end of the month, and Sara suspected that she fully intended to inveigle either Sara or Luke himself to invite her to stay on in Cheshire.
Sara was in a quandary. The old habit of loyalty died hard, and Cressy was her stepsister. On the other hand, it was plain that her grandmother didn’t like her and, in her delicate state of health, Sara felt she owed it to Alice to keep them apart.
The Armstrongs arrived later in the afternoon, having been driven over by their nephew, who turned out to be a very pleasant young man, several years older than Sara.
Andrew was an entertaining raconteur, with a fund of stories about various cases in which he’d been involved, while working in London. Sara discovered that they shared a love of chamber music and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the afternoon seemed to fly past.
It was five o’clock before Luke and Tom got back, Tom bursting with pride as he told them of the tiddlers he had caught. ‘We had to throw them back, though,’ he told Sara seriously. ‘Luke said they had some more growing to do yet, and that it wasn’t fair to kill them.’
Already his appetite had improved, Sara noticed, remembering how before it had sometimes been necessary to coax him to finish a meal.
Cressy was leaving after they had eaten. Listening to her conversation with Luke, Sara realised that she was still preserving the fiction of going out to California. No doubt she hoped to push him into committing himself to her with the threat of her absence, Sara acknowledged cynically.
She wasn’t surprised to hear them making plans to meet in London during the week, but what did surprise her was her own reaction to it.
There was no reason at all why she should feel so hurt by Luke’s continued misjudgement of her; rather, she should feel contempt for him in his inability to see past Cressy’s pretty face.
She went upstairs with Cressy to help her pack, and was stunned when the other girl turned on her and said vitriolically, ‘Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on! Your grandmother’s trying to pair you off with Luke.’ She laughed acidly, and Sara was struck by the unpleasantness of the sound. ‘He wouldn’t look at you in a month of Sundays.’
Was her grandmother trying to pair her off with Luke? Surely not? Surely she was far too sensible? But she was also a very frail lady, from a different generation; a generation when families had had far more influence over the partners their children chose. Sara already knew how much her grandmother thought of Luke. But surely she must see how ill-suited they would be? Why, every time he came to within speaking distance of her, she could feel her muscles tense. He despised her, and she disliked him. But she had an unwary memory of that brief softening of her lips while he’d inflicted his harsh punishment on her, and a fine shiver of unfamiliar sensation tracked across her sensitive skin.
‘I hardly know why Cressida bothered to come up here,’ Sara heard her grandmother remarking mildly, once she had gone. ‘She didn’t spend much time at all with Sara, or Tom.’
‘Perhaps because she wasn’t given the chance to,’ Luke retorted in a clipped voice. He looked across at Sara, his eyes cold and hard as he added, ‘I feel it was rather unkind of you to refuse to allow Cressy to borrow any of your new clothes. It would only have been for a couple of days.’
Sara refused to try to defend herself, although she could have hugged Tom when he turned to Luke with a puzzled expression in his eyes and s
aid uncertainly, ‘Why would Cressy want to wear Sara’s clothes? She says they’re nothing but rags and fit for the dustbin.’
Cressy had said something of the sort, but Sara hadn’t realised that Tom must have overheard her.
There was a small, uncomfortable silence, during which Tom looked worriedly from Sara’s quiet face to Luke’s hard one.
‘Can we go fishing some other time?’
His voice quavered slightly, just as it used to when he tried to engage their father’s interest, Sara recognised. She waited, tense with dread that Luke might reject him, expelling her pent-up breath only when Luke said quietly, ‘I don’t see why not.’
‘I think it’s time you were getting ready for bed,’ Sara inserted. ‘Why don’t you say goodnight, and then go up and get ready?’
‘And then will you come up and tell me a story?’ He looked at Luke and told him proudly, ‘Sara tells really exciting stories…’
She ought to have been pleased by the frown that furrowed the tanned forehead. She could see that Luke was puzzled by the rapport between Tom and herself. No doubt it didn’t fit in with the picture Cressy had drawn for him. Well, she wasn’t going to make any explanations, she decided fiercely.
It was only when she was upstairs, pulling the sheet up round Tom as he fell asleep that she admitted to herself that, for a man she was supposed to despise and dislike, Luke was occupying far too many of her thoughts.
She wished he would go back to Australia and stay there, she decided despairingly as she walked back into the sitting-room.
Luke was sitting next to her grandmother. Both of them looked up as she walked in.
‘Tom is very lucky to have you, my dear,’ her grandmother praised her warmly. ‘He’s such an attractive child. It’s a pity about his asthma.’
‘There’s every chance that he might grow out of it,’ Sara defended automatically, a quick flush colouring her skin as she caught her grandmother’s surprised look.
She hadn’t been criticising Tom, Sara recognised, but she was so used to her father’s unkind attitude to the little boy that she had instinctively rushed to his defence.
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