He took a cigarette from a box on the desk and lit it, half smiling at her through the ensuing blue haze, and Tara could feel the blood pounding at her temple and colouring her cheeks. She wished she had taken much longer over her shopping, or that she had waited for him in the car park instead of coming up here.
'He - he had a very efficient lady called Mrs. Barton,' she told him. She sounded breathless and nervous and she knew he had noticed it from the way he was smiling. 'It's much more important than anything else in business, surely 1'
'Of course,' he agreed quietly. 'But it's very nice if beauty and efficiency can be combined. Weren't you efficient?'
Tara lifted her chin, taking the challenge. 'I'm very good,' she declared firmly. 'I'd have done well, if I'd stayed on!'
'But Clifford persuaded you to leave?'
Tara nodded, smiling a little ruefully. 'Clifford can be very persuasive.'
'Wouldn't you like to go back to it?'
Tara blinked at him, unsure where this was leading,
but instinctively wary. His dark eyes were watching her steadily so that she found it difficult to concentrate on anything but the way her heart was hammering hard at her ribs, and making her feel quite lightheaded. Every little gesture he made seemed to affect her in some way.
'I - I suppose I wouldn't mind,' she admitted. 'But Clifford doesn't want me to.'
'If Clifford persists in being an artist you may have to,' he said. 'Has that occurred to you?'
Tara nodded, unwilling to admit it, although he must know she was aware of it, as he was himself. 'I know I may have to,' she allowed cautiously. 'But I'll face that problem when I get to it.'
He got up from his chair suddenly and came to sit on the edge of the desk, much too close for her comfort. Sitting where she was she could see one highly polished shoe swinging idly, back and forth with the hypnotic rhythm of a metronome. The grey trousers fitted smoothly over his lean hips and hugged the long muscular legs, his shirt falling open as he leaned forward, all things she tried not to notice, but most of all she was aware again of that exciting and dangerous aura of masculinity. Never before had she been so responsive to any man, even Clifford, and it disturbed her to realize that there was nothing she could do about it.
He sat looking down at her, the cigarette in one hand, a small, half smile touching one comer of his mouth. 'I need a secretary,' he said, so suddenly and unexpectedly that Tara stared at him for a moment.
T -1 don't understand,' she said.
'Don't you?' He narrowed his eyes against the rising smoke from the cigarette. 'I'm offering you the job, Tara, if you want it.'
'But - but why?' She stared at him still, trying to make sense of the offer, find some reason for his making it.
'Because I'm hoping to kill two birds with one stone!' His black eyes glistened at her good-humouredly, and the sound of his quiet laughter had the inevitable effect on her senses. 'I don't think you're as ready to live on the proceeds of Clifford's artistic talent as you'd have me beHeve, Tara. But if he does go on with it, then you'll need to work again, and if you're working for me there'll be no need for either of you to leave Fairvvinds.'
'I see.' Somehow his wanting her to work for him only so that Clifford would stay at Fairwinds came as something of a disappointment, but it was easy enough to follow his reasoning.
'I'm sure you do,' he said quietly. 'And I take your word that you're an efficient secretary.'
'You don't have to,' Tara retorted, resenting the tone of voice that pronounced everything cut and dried. 'I can - could get references, if I took the job, but I've no intention of working for you, Philip.'
He disliked her answer, that was obvious from the way his black eyes glittered, and she realized that it must be something of an innovation to have someone oppose his ideas. 'May I ask why?'
Tara shrugged, uneasy, despite her earnest desire to appear calm and collected about it. 'For one thing be-
cause I don't have to work at the moment.' She could guess what emotions lent that glitter to his eyes. Anger and frustration and possibly puzzlement too, for it was unlikely that anyone had ever spoken to him like that during his business career.
'It's your decision!' he said shortly, and got to his feet. Instinctively Tara got up too, and she was so close to him that her arm brushed against his, the hard, muscular warmth of it tingling on her skin like fire. 'Tara!'
She did not look up, even when he raised her chin with one finger, 'I'd - I'd like to go,' she said in a small unsteady voice.
For a moment he did nothing and her senses reeled with anticipation, then he brushed his lips lightly against her forehead. 'You won't trust me, will you?' he said softly, and sounded regretful. 'Come along, I'll take you home.'
Tara walked to the car with him in something of a daze. Perhaps she need not have refused his offer so adamantly, for it would, after all, solve both their problems, but she felt sure she could never face spending every day and all day in Philip's company, he was far too disturbing to her peace of mind.
Philip drove a sleek, black open-topped car and Tara relished the breeze it created, thankfully, for her head felt as if it was on fire. It did nothing to restore her calm either, to watch the strong brown hands that handled the big car so easily on the winding, tricky road.
There was something almost sensual about the bare
brown muscular arms and long, powerful hands that evoked desires in her she had never known before and which alarmed her with their intensity. She had never in her life reacted so intensely to a man, not even Clifford, and she despaired of the prospect before her, of the whole summer under the same roof with him.
He turned his head suddenly and smiled at her over his shoulders, his black eyes deep and unfathomable. From his smile, she thought he might almost have guessed the train of her thoughts, and she hastily lowered her eyes. 'O.K.?' he asked, and Tara nodded.
'Yes, thank you.'
'You're not sorry you came?'
She shook her head, although he must realize that she had some regrets. 'No - should I be?'
'Because you didn't like me offering you a job?'
Tara shook her head again, 'I - I know you meant well, Philip, and I'm grateful that you thought of it.'
'It was as much for my benefit as yours,' he told her. 'But I was thinking about Clifford too. You didn't like seeing him get the worst of it at lunch time, did you?'
It would be difficult, she thought ruefully, to try and conceal anything from Philip. 'No, I didn't,' she admitted. 'I'm not vengeful as a rule, and Cliff only wanted to get on with some work.'
'His painting?'
'It is going to be his work,' she said quietly. 'Whether you treat it as a joke or not.'
Philip laughed shortly and swung the big car round a bend in the road that made her stomach flutter ner-
vously, despite his driving skill. 'I certainly don't treat it as a joke,' he denied firmly. 'It means too much to me to have him in the firm for me to treat it lightly.'
She realized it would, of course, and shook her head regretfully. 'I'm - I'm sorry, Philip.'
'Are you?' Another sharp bend in the road threw her into contact with him again, but he glanced at her, for all the control he needed for the car. 'Then why don't you do something about it?'
'I mean I'm sorr>' about - well, about him not joining the firm when I know how badly you want him to, but—' She sought for the right words and found them incredibly hard to come by. 'I've told you, and Clifford too, that I won't take sides in a purely family affair, and I mean it, Philip.'
'That,' Philip said softly, 'is what gives me cause to hope.'
Tara looked at him curiously, putting a hand to the fluttery sensation in her stomach when she looked at the strong, dark profile with its high forehead and wide mouth. 'Why should it give you cause to hope?' she asked, and he smiled.
'Because I thought you would unquestioningly side with Clifford. I would expect it in his place.' When she did not answer, he turn
ed his head again briefly and raised a brow in question. 'Does that mean you're no more in favour of his artistic plans than I am?' he asked. 'But you just won't admit it?'
Tara considered for a moment. 'It means that I think a man should be allowed to go his own way,' she told him. 'If Cliff wants to paint, then I shan't do
anything to persuade him against it, I'll go along with whatever Cliff wants to do.'
'And regret it for the rest of your life!'
'Not necessarily!' Tara objected, although she knew it was probably true and all the more hurtful for that. 'You should give him a chance to prove what he can do, Philip. I wish you would!'
There was a note of appeal in her voice, but just the same she saw his mouth tighten and the hard, uncompromising glitter shine in his black eyes. 'I'd see his point of view in a minute, if he was being reasonable,' he told her. 'But it isn't reasonable to take two big strides at once when he's only just out of school.'
'University,' she corrected him.
'Either way, he's still not capable of running before he can walk,' he said shortly, resenting the correction. 'He's heading for disaster, but he's so damned pigheaded he won't see it!'
'Pig-headedness seems to be a family failing!' Tara retaliated, and bit her lip hastily when he turned his head swiftly and frowned. The hands on the wheel were taut and somehow cruel-looking.
'You think so?' he asked shortly, but gave her no time to reply. 'Well, at least I had more sense when I left university than to try and branch out on my own, and consider getting married to a girl I'd known only two months! That simply isn't behaving rationally!'
Tara clenched her hands tightly in her lap. She had been wondering how long it would be before one of the autocratic Hautains remarked on how short a time she had known Clifford, but she had rather expected it to be
Madame Hautain. She should have guessed it would be Philip.
'I wondered when you'd get around to that,' she said at last, and was appalled to hear how husky and un--steady her voice sounded. 'I suppose you think I'm some scheming little gold-digger, out to trap a rich husband?'
'You might be,' Phihp replied calmly. 'But I don't think you are, somehow.'
'Thank you!'
He smiled then, casting her another brief glance over his shoulder, bringing on that strange, curling sensation in her stomach again. 'Did you really think I had such an opinion of you?' he asked, and Tara shrugged, feeling very small and vulnerable suddenly.
'I - I don't know you well enough to judge,' she said. 'I don't even know ClifT as well as I thought I did.'
'Then why on earth did you get engaged to him?' he asked, and Tara sighed.
'We - we just sort of drifted into it.'
'And you're having second thoughts?' She did not imagine that slight steely edge on his voice, she thought, and glanced at him through her lashes curiously.
'No,' she said, but with enough uncertainty in her answer to make him frown.
'When's the big day to be?'
Tara looked down at the restless hands in her lap, uneasily aware of how reluctant she was to be committed to anything as final as a wedding date. It was the first time she had recognized her own reluctance
and it disturbed her strangely. 'I - I don't know,' she said. 'There's no special hurry, is there?'
He glanced at her over his shoulder and the look in his dark eyes suggested so many things that she felt the colour in her cheeks, 'I can't think that Clifford agrees with that,' he told her softly. 'I wouldn't let you keep me in suspense like that!'
'It isn't only me who isn't in a hurry,' Tara insisted. 'Neither is ClifT.'
She looked at him uncertainly and curiously when he drove the car off the road and on to a layby, and cut the engine, a wild flutter of panic in her breast as she sought a reason for his action. When he turned in his seat and looked at her, he was much too discomfitingly close, and her hands were trembling so that she held them tightly together.
'You wouldn't be thinking of backing out, would you, Tara?' he asked softly, and she glanced up hastily.
'No, of course not!'
His dark eyes studied her for a moment relentlessly. 'I'm glad to hear it,' he said.
She stared at him uncertainly, mistrusting that soft voiced opinion. 'Are you?' she asked. 'I thought you might have hoped I was backing out, giving you a clear run, the chance to bring pressure to bear on ClifT to make him join the firm!'
Philip shook his head. He had one hand still on the steering wheel and the other elbow resting on the back of the seat, his fingers shding caressingly over the soft flesh of her upper arm. 'I don't want him hurt,' he said
quietly. 'Even if he is being stubborn, I'm still very fond of my kid brother, and if I thought you were having second thoughts now that he's likely to be not so well off as you thought—' His wide mouth smiled, hinting at all manner of things. 'I'd personally break your delectable neck for you, my lovely.'
His strong fingers slid round her neck under her hair, and his thumb pressed hard for a brief moment on her throat, so that she drew back hastily, her eyes huge and startled. 'PhiUp!'
Then he laughed, and his eyes glittered at her darkly as she put a hand to her throat, her heart pounding hard in her breast. 'You think I wouldn't?' he asked softly.
'I - I think you would,' she whispered, then shook her head, a movement inhibited by the caressing fingers that still curved about her slender neck. 'But you haven't even thought, have you, that it might be the other way round?' He looked puzzled and she went on to explain. 'Suppose - suppose it's Cliff that changes his mind about me. Then what will you do?'
Philip smiled, that slow and infinitely disturbing smile, and leaned forward, his mouth pressing briefly but firmly on hers. 'Then,' he said softly, 'I'll marry you myself!'
'I wish you'd taken me into Glandewin,' Tara told Clifford the following day when they were alone.
They were walking in the garden, Clifford having decided that he could spare some time for her company at last, and he squeezed her hand, smiling down at her.
'Didn't you like going with Philip?' he asked. 'I can't think why you bother about him so much, he won't eat you, and he's much too ethical to thmk of poaching you from me!'
'Clifford!' It crossed her mind to wonder in that moment just how well Clifford really knew his brother. Or indeed how well anyone knew the enigma that was Philip Hautain. For herself she knew only too well the effect he always had on her, and the havoc that beautiful voice could cause, but she would not attempt to interpret his intentions, only vow never to be in his exclusive company again.
'I suppose he tried to persuade you to talk me round?' Clifford asked, and Tara shook her head.
'Not really, no.'
Clifford looked surprised, even a little disappointed. 'That's odd, I thought he'd see it as an excellent opportunity to try again '
'An opportunity that you handed to him on a plate,' Tara retorted, and he laughed as he hugged her close.
'Actually, darling,' he said, 'I rather hoped I was handing you an opportunity on a plate. I hoped you might decide against staying neutral and have a quiet word in his ear on my behalf.'
Tara saw his reason at last and frowned over it. 'Do you mean to say that you deliberately manoeuvred me into going with him?'
'But of course, darling! Would I have turned you down for any but a very good cause?'
Tara's anger almost exploded when she thought of
that nerve-racking trip with Phihp and she clenched her hands tightly together to control her temper. 'Sometimes I wonder about you, Clifford,' she told him fiercely. 'It was a nasty sneaky thing to do, and I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I didn't do anything on your behalf!'
'Darling-'
'Also,' Tara went on, relishing the moment. 'Philip thinks you're mad, not only for wanting to be an artist, but also for wanting to marry a girl you've known only two months!'
Even that did not deflate him, and Tara began to wonder if anything would; he was as self-
possessed in his own way as his brother was. 'He would V he declared.
'He also said he'd break my neck if I walked out on you, at the last minute,' Tara told him, without the slightest twinge of conscience.
Clifford stared at her for a moment. 'He said what?'
'Actually he said he'd break my delectable neck,' she amended, and gave him a provocative look through her lashes.
'Did he?' He laughed and kissed her just below her right ear. 'Well, it is a delectable neck,' he murmured, his voice muffled by her hair. 'In fact you're a very delectable little package altogether, Tara Villiers, and I love you.'
'Then why don't you spend some time with me?' she suggested mildly. 'Instead of sitting all day, poring over that wretched easel!'
Clifford smiled, winking one eye and bending to lightly kiss her mouth. 'Because I want Philip to see how deadly serious I am about it,' he told her. 'Even to the exclusion of you, my lovely.' He kissed her again. 'When he sees that, he'll know I mean business!'
'And in the meantime you go on ignoring me?'
'Oh, darling, am I?' He hugged her close, pulling his good-looking face into an apologetic grimace. Til tell you what, my lovely - we'll go to Midlipp tomorrow, how's that?'
'It sounds fine,' Tara smiled, quickly mollified. She hated complaining about the way he was treating her, and she was only too willing to comply with anything he suggested.
He turned her to face him and kissed her mouth lightly before burying his face in the softness of her hair, his Ups warm against her neck, his arms tightly around her. 'I deserve to have you nag me,' he told her, his breath tickling her ear. 'I have neglected you lately; I'll bet even Philip's noticed it, hasn't he?'
Tara raised her head and looked at him curiously. 'I don't know,' she said cautiously. 'What makes you ask that?'
He looked at her steadily for a moment, in a way that reminded her of PhiUp, then he shook his head. Thilip wants me to join Hautain and Sons,' he said. 'And, fond as I am of my brother, I know he'll do pretty well anything to make things go his way, and -well, I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd been trying to drive in a wedge, just so that he'd stand more chance of isolating me and putting on more pressure.'
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