This time, it was Nathan who hesitated before replying. 'Perhaps I needed to prove something to myself,' he said at last.
'And you had to run around naked with her, to do that?' she said scornfully.
'It seemed as good a way as any to make absolutely sure that I really didn't want her any more.'
It took her a couple of minutes to digest that remark, and consider all its implications. 'You kept telling me that you were sure,' she said finally, her tone still hostile.
'I was ninety-nine per cent sure. When you've been that deeply involved with someone, though, there's always the small fear that it might not be quite over. That there still might be some way they could get to you. That's why I stayed away from Jancis for such a long time. Part of me was always a little afraid of coming face to face with her again.'
Rose remembered him telling her that they both had problems that needed solving. She was beginning to understand now what he had meant by that.
'And what if she had still been able to get to you?' she asked, her voice more subdued now.
'I'd have told you,' he said at once. 'And, together, we would have had to decide whether we could cope with that extra complication. The question doesn't arise, though. She doesn't get to me. I proved that tonight, in the most positive way possible.'
Rose slowly began to believe what he was telling her. And with that belief came a sense of relief that was so strong that it almost overwhelmed her. 'I don't suppose Jancis was very pleased when she found she wasn't getting any response from you,' she said, almost cheerfully.
'No, she wasn't,' agreed Nathan drily.
'She really did want you, you know.'
'Yes, she finally did want me. But I don't think she'd have been so determined to get me if she hadn't thought that she'd also be getting some new material for her act at the same time. Jancis wants to be a star again. She wants to get back all the very pleasant trappings of success—the money, the adulation, the endless publicity. She thought I was the man who could make it happen for her.'
Rose could imagine how Jancis had reacted when she'd found that none of it was going to work out as she had planned. 'Is she back at the house?' she asked, unable to suppress a small shiver at the thought of having to see her again.
Nathan noted the shiver, and immediately put his arm around her. 'She should have left by now,' he told her. 'Jancis took it rather badly when her plan to seduce me didn't work out. There was quite a scene when we finally got back to the house. She showed the true side of her character for once—and it wasn't very pleasant,' he added, with a grimace. 'I'd had more than enough of her, by then. I realised that bringing her here in the first place hadn't been one of my better ideas. I'd thought it would help to solve the problems we'd been having, but instead it had simply driven you away. I told Jancis to phone for a taxi, and get out straight away.'
'At one o'clock in the morning?' said Rose, with raised eyebrows.
'I didn't care what time it was. I wanted her away from the house, and out of my life. You probably didn't notice, but a car passed us several minutes ago. Jancis should have been in it.'
Rose looked at him a little uncertainly. 'What should we do now, then?' she asked in a low voice.
'I think we should go home.'
Home—Rose savoured the word. And Lyncombe Manor did seem like home. At least, it would now that Jancis was no longer there. Nathan helped her out of the wreck of her car, and kept his arm firmly round her waist as he guided her over to his own car, which was just a few yards away. She sank into the front seat, gave a small sigh of tired relief, and never took her eyes from the pale outline of his face as he drove them back to Lyncombe Manor.
As they got out of the car and walked slowly towards the front entrance, her heart began to thump a lot faster than usual. And because his hand was tightly wrapped around her own, she could feel the answering beat of his own pulse.
Once they were inside the house, Nathan turned to her. 'Now that we've finally laid the ghost of Jancis, how do you suppose we should spend the rest of the night?' he said softly. Before Rose had a chance to answer, though, he suddenly lifted his head. 'Do you smell something?' he asked, much more sharply.
Now that he had drawn her attention to it, Rose could. An acrid smell, that seemed to be steadily getting stronger.
Nathan's face abruptly went very white, while his slate-grey eyes blazed with pure anger. 'The bitch!' he said in a savage tone. 'She warned me that she'd make me pay, and she has. She's set fire to the house!'
He was moving even as he spoke, breaking into a run. Rose blinked in dazed disbelief for a few moments. Then she gathered her wits together and ran after him.
Nathan swiftly made his way along the corridor that led to the east wing. At the far end, he came to an abrupt halt. There was no need to look any further for the source of the fire. Smoke was visibly seeping from under one of the closed doors, creating a steadily thickening fog in the corridor. He seized hold of Rose. 'There's a fire extinguisher in the great hall,' he said rapidly. 'I'll use it to try and contain the fire. Go and ring for the fire brigade. Then get the extinguisher in the kitchen, and bring it here as quickly as you can.'
'Be careful,' begged Rose.
He gave her a none too gentle push. 'Get to the phone—now!'
She didn't need to be told again. She rushed to the nearest extension and, with trembling fingers, phoned the emergency number. To her relief, they answered almost at once. She gabbled the replies to the quick questions they asked her. Then, once she was sure they were on their way, she dashed to the kitchen to fetch the other extinguisher.
It was too heavy for her to carry. Gasping for breath, she dragged it along to the corridor to where Nathan was already tackling the blaze. The door where the smoke had been seeping out was open now, and the room beyond seemed to be filled with heat and flames. Rose stared at in horror. How could they possibly hope to do anything aboutit? It would be like throwing a bucket of water on to a forest fire!
The fire extinguisher was empty now, and Nathan tossed it to one side. As he took the second one from Rose, he spoke to her very rapidly. 'It looks worse than it is. It's already beginning to get a good hold, though. If we let it get away from us, then the whole house could go up.'
'What can we do?' she asked in a frightened voice.
'I want to get some of that combustible material out of there.'
'You'll be burnt to death!'
'No, I won't,' he said firmly. 'I'll toss what I can out to you. Make sure none of it's smouldering. We don't want to start another fire in the corridor!'
Using the second fire extinguisher to keep the area around him free from flames, he advanced slowly into the room. Rose could hardly bear to watch. She wouldn't be able to stand it if anything happened to him. Nathan pulled down the heavy curtains and threw them over to her. They were already beginning to smoulder around the edges, and Rose hastily stamped on them until the small flames were extinguished. Next, he threw out cushions, magazines, a couple of small wooden tables, anything that would help to feed the fire.
It was a battle that he couldn't hope to win, though. The flames slowly began to advance on him, and Rose's blood ran cold as she realised that he was almost surrounded now by those bright, flickering tongues.
'Get out of there!' she yelled at him in sudden panic. And when he didn't seem to hear her, she dashed into the room, grabbed hold of his shirt and physically dragged him towards the door.
Only seconds later, a sheet of flame flashed right across the spot where he had been standing. Nathan stared at it blankly for a few seconds, as if slowly realising just how much danger he had been in. Then he seemed to pull himself together again, and quickly turned towards her.
'Is there a hose in that shed where all the garden equipment's kept?' he asked, coughing now as the smoke began to get down his lungs.
Rose tried to remember if she had seen one. 'I think so,' she said at last.
'Go and take a look. If you find it, fix it to the ta
p in the kitchen. And hurry!'
She hated to leave him. She was afraid of what he might do to try and save this house. The second extinguisher must be almost empty, and they didn't know how much longer it would be until the fire brigade arrived. Rose tore through the house and out across the courtyard. When she finally reached the shed, she was dismayed to find it in total darkness. Why hadn't she thought to bring a torch? No time to go back and fetch one, she told herself shakily. Just find that hose!
She scrambled among the lawnmowers, spades, rakes and shears, cracked her ankle on the wheelbarrow, and tripped over a broom. Her eyes had adjusted slightly to the lack of light, but it was still difficult to see anything clearly. In the end, she simply groped around, praying that her grubby, bruised fingers would finally find something that felt like a hose. More by luck than anything else, she found it only seconds later. Then she almost wept in frustration, because it was a long hose, and too heavy for her to carry more than a short distance.
Just in time, she remembered the wheelbarrow. Frantically, she began to pile the coils in. Then she staggered back to the house, her lungs wheezing and gasping by the time she had finally pushed that heavy weight as far as the kitchen.
To her relief, Nathan came through the door only seconds later. Between the two of them, they managed to get the hose hooked up to the tap in a remarkably short time. Then Nathan swiftly began to . haul its length through the house, to the source of the fire.
Rose stayed in the kitchen, to turn on the tap at his shouted command. And when she finally rejoined him, she was alarmed to see how much fiercer the fire had become.
The water that gushed out of the hose seemed to have frighteningly little effect. As fast as the flames were doused in one area, they sprang up in another.
Nathan suddenly seemed to realise that she was standing beside him. 'I want you to get out of here,' he told her in a grim voice. 'Right out,of the house, Rose. It's too dangerous for you to stay here any longer.'
'I'm not going until you do,' she said stubbornly.
'It isn't safe!'
'I don't care. I'm not going to leave you!'
He looked as if he was going to argue fiercely with her. Instead, though, to her complete astonishment, he suddenly.turned and gave her a swift, hard kiss.
At almost the same time, above the crackle and roar of the flames, Rose heard the sound of the fire brigade arriving.
It seemed only seconds later that everything was taken out of their hands. They were shunted unceremoniously outside, leaving the fire in the capable hands of the professionals. The firemen doused it in a remarkably short time. Then they began a thorough search of the house, to make sure that nothing had been left to smoulder and perhaps flare up again later. A couple of hours later, it was at last all over. Rose could hardly believe that this long night was finally coming to an end, that they were both safe and uninjured, and that the main part of the house had escaped with very little damage.
One of the firemen had already lectured them on the dangers of trying to fight a fire without the proper equipment. Then he had relaxed a little, and told them that their efforts had probably saved the house from extensive damage. As it was, the room where the fire had started and a couple of rooms above it had suffered quite severely. There had also been quite a lot of smoke damage in the east wing. Everything could be restored in time, though, and Rose knew they were very lucky that the entire house hadn't gone up in flames.
The fireman had also wanted her and Nathan to go to the hospital, for a routine check-up. They had both refused. All they had wanted by that time was to be left alone, at Lyncombe Manor.
The last of the fire engines finally rolled away, and an air of peace began to return to the house. Nathan and Rose made their way to the great hall, which had been completely untouched by the fire. Then they just stood and looked at each other for a couple of minutes.
'You saved my life,' Nathan said at last. 'If you hadn't pulled me out of that room, I'd have been burned to a cinder by that sheet of flame.'
Rose shivered as she remembered how the fire had suddenly swept across the very spot where he had been standing. 'I don't want to think about it,' she said in an unsteady voice. 'Not right now.' She looked at him. 'What will happen to Jancis?'
'Nothing, I should think,' Nathan said in a hard tone. 'We both know that she started that fire, but it would be almost impossible to prove it in a court of law.'
'Then she'll get away with it?'
'With the fire—yes.'
'Do you think that it was just a coincidence that it started in the east wing?'
asked Rose, with another shiver. 'The wing where I was staying?'
'Of course not. Jancis has a very vindictive streak. And it certainly showed itself tonight.' The line of Nathan's mouth tightened. 'But there are ways to make her pay for what she did.'
Rose looked at him. 'How?'
'I still have a lot of influential contacts in the music business. That particular lady is going to find it very hard to pursue her career, from now on. She'll find that promoters won't want to book her, none of the top agents will want to take her on, and record companies will be even less enthusiastic to offer her a new recording contract than they are right now. Up until now, her career's been on a gentle downhill slide,' he said grimly. 'From now on, it's going to take a spectacular plunge.'
She bit her lip. 'Is it fair to do that to her?' she said at last. Nathan stared at her incredulously. 'After tonight, how can you say that? One—or even both—of us could easily have been killed. She started that fire quite deliberately. She wanted to destroy this house, and she didn't particularly care if she also destroyed us in the process.'
'I think--' Rose hesitated, and then began again. 'I think that losing you—and losing your songs—is probably punishment enough.'
'You're too soft,' he said, with a shake of his head. Then his mouth slowly began to relax into the faintest shadow of a smile. 'But that's probably one of the things that makes me want to stay with you. And if that's what you really want--'
'Yes, it is. I hate her,' she confessed, 'but I don't want to be like her in any way. To ruin a career that's already almost over—that would mean we'd be behaving just as vindictively as she did.'
Nathan shrugged in resigned acceptance. 'Then I won't make any of those phone calls. And we'll try not to mention her name again for the rest of our lives.'
The rest of their lives—that sounded to Rose as if he had some fairly far-reaching plans for their future. And after tonight, she was finally willing to believe that that future did exist.
'Are you telling me that you want me to stay here with you, at Lyncombe Manor?' she asked a little shyly.
'As a matter of fact, I intend to give you the house as a wedding present,' he said casually. 'Of course, it's a rather damaged present, at the moment. It shouldn't take more than a few weeks to put right, though.'
Rose stared at him in wide-eyed astonishment. 'Did you say—a wedding present?' she blurted out, at last.
'You're the kind of girl who needs security,' he told her. 'And I want to give you that security.'
'But—you haven't even told me that you—well, that you love me,' she stuttered.
'No, I haven't,' he agreed. 'But I expect I'll eventually get round to it.'
'I didn't know—that is, I never expected—I didn't know you thought of me in that way,' she finally managed to get out.
'In what way?' Nathan enquired, his tone lightly teasing now.
'Well—as something permanent in your life.'
Now it was his turn to look surprised. 'I thought you understood how I felt about you? All right, so we went through all that nonsense over Jancis, but you must have known that I'd decided that you were the one I wanted?'
'I was never really sure,' Rose admitted. 'I still kept feeling as if I were only second best. I know it was silly, but I just couldn't help it. I suppose the real trouble was that I wanted you to feel about me the same way you felt about
her.'
'But that's exactly what I didn't want,' Nathan said firmly. 'I don't want to feel like that ever again in my entire life. It was a temporary madness. All I want from now on is what we've found together. Something that we can build on. Something that's very solid and real and lasting.'
'Put like that, it also sounds a little dull,' she said with a wry grimace. Nathan seized hold of her, pulled her very close, and kissed her extremely thoroughly. By the time he had finished, they were both breathing rather erratically, and Rose felt slightly dizzy.
'Did that feel dull?' he demanded.
Rose shook her head, not quite sure she could say anything coherent yet.
'Did that night we spent in bed together seem dull?' he questioned her fiercely.
'No,' she said at once, managing to find her voice again.
'Good,' he said, with some satisfaction. Then he gave a crooked smile. 'I've been accused of quite a few things in my time, but never of being dull!'
'Oh, you're not!' said Rose, with some feeling. 'Life has been full of surprises ever since I first bumped into you, and you locked me in the cellar!'
'And I dare say there are a few more surprises still to come,' he warned her, his eyes glinting. Then his face became more serious. 'But just so we can get this straight once and for all, I want you to know a couple of things. I wanted Jancis. It was a purely physical desire, though. I showed you how that felt,'
he reminded her, 'and you didn't like it. I didn't like it, either, but for a long time I couldn't seem to do anything about it. I don't know why. I suppose men have less control over their sex drives than women. I don't want her any more, though, and I'm never going to want her again. But I do want you. More than that, though, I need you. And I love you. I don't know how it happened, and I don't think I particularly want to know. I just thank God that you came crashing into my life and then decided to stick around. Now. do you want to marry me, or not?'
'Yes,' she said at once, without even thinking about it.
'Good,' he said, with some satisfaction. Then he looked at her, and grinned.
'You're filthy.'
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