David, too, looked better, and had quickly settled down. It should have made Petra feel happier, but contrarily did not that all David now seemed bent on was staying here. It was amazing, if something not to be taken too seriously, the liking he seemed to be developing for the country. He was out and about all day, either with Neil or the cowboys on the ranch, and seemed to lose all inclination to spend much time with Petra. Fervently, in private, he begged Petra that they should stay.
‘It’s really nice here,’ he exclaimed. ‘But if Neil can’t do with us you could perhaps get a job in one of the towns. Wouldn’t it be just the same as working in England? Couldn’t we emigrate sort of officially? I’d much rather not go back to London again.’
When David pleaded like this, so innocently, she found it difficult to remind him that the future could be very bleak for both of them if Neil refused to help.
Daily she was getting to know Neil better, if sometimes she felt she knew him not at all. Each evening, after dinner, they talked, although occasionally he went to his study and worked. It was only then that Petra ever felt lonely, when he cut himself off from her abruptly and the door closed behind him. She found herself looking forward to his company more and more, as she gained confidence from it. Unconsciously, when she let herself imagine he really was her Cameron of the painting, she grew enchanted. But this was when he was in a good mood. When he changed, as he sometimes did, and the ruthless sharpness of his tongue hurt, then he became a stranger, and one she knew she would do well to be wary of. This was what, she was convinced, made her pulse race and her legs feel often unsteady when he came unexpectedly near her.
One evening, just before dinner, a visitor arrived. It was windy outside and they hadn’t heard the helicopter, nor did they know that anyone was there until the door opened and a young man walked in.
Startled, Petra turned her fair head to stare at him. He wasn’t as tall as Cameron or as well built, but altogether he seemed a very presentable young man with a rather pleasant, open face. Somewhere in his middle twenties, Petra guessed.
‘Hello, Neil,’ he grinned, striding across the room towards him. ‘I heard you had a visitor and my curiosity reached the stage of pains in my stomach. I wondered if it would be Mrs. Cameron and Janey, maybe with a guest, but Mrs. Allen tells me I’m wrong.’
Whether Neil was vexed or pleased by this newcomer’s appearance, Petra couldn’t guess. There was, as usual, nothing much in his face to indicate which way he was feeling. Laconically he viewed his eagerly smiling visitor. ‘Sorry you have to be disappointed,’ he drawled rather dryly. ‘If you thought it was Janey you certainly didn’t hurry,’ he added significantly, before effecting introductions.
Oliver Hurd was immediately taken with Petra. ‘Your cousin!’ His low, boyish whistle of surprise showed appreciation, but was nothing to the frank admiration betrayed by his eyes. He didn’t mention Janey again.
‘Nothing’s certain yet,’ Neil cautioned, his eyes sharply amused on Petra’s flushed cheeks. ‘Petronella, I’m afraid, is more enthusiastic than I. We happen to share an ancestor who came out here nearly two hundred years ago, but this shouldn’t discourage us from looking for something somewhere.’
‘You don’t say!’ Oliver still gazed at Petra, as if he very much liked what he saw. ‘We heard about your accident and were sorry.’
Neil slanted her a glance. ‘You see how news travels, Petronella?’
‘Yes,’ she laughed, thinking it was just like home. She tried to ignore an inner suspicion that her continued presence here might embarrass Neil in some way.
They talked a while, Oliver asking and Petra answering his questions while Neil drank sparingly and watched them. Oliver took little persuading to stay for dinner but left soon afterwards. Clearly he was entirely charmed with Petra and promised to return soon.
She didn’t believe he would, but he did come back twice during the following week, although whether specifically to see her she wasn’t sure. She found him agreeable and, because Neil was out so much, he was company, but this was all. He wasn’t a man she could ever fall in love with, but at least she didn’t feel nervous of him and he was very easy to get on with.
Neil might not hold her responsible for Oliver’s visits, but Petra doubted if he altogether approved. Oliver, he told her dryly, was supposed to be in love with his half-sister and both families wanted the match. Janey wanted it very much. Oliver didn’t strike her as a man led with a consuming passion, unless he was good at concealing it. He didn’t bother to do much more than nod when Neil told him Janey should be home within the next few weeks, maybe sooner.
On Oliver’s next visit Petra was wandering by herself by the creek. ‘Don’t you swim?’ he asked when he found her and viewed her hot face. ‘Hasn’t Neil taken you to the lake? It’s quite warm enough now. It’s only earlier in the year that the water can be treacherous. The sun can be hot, but it’s like ice beneath the water.’
‘Hello!’ she smiled, even in her shabby jeans very lovely. Oliver’s ability to deliver a lengthy speech in seconds impressed her. ‘No, I’m not going in.’ She just hadn’t the nerve to confess she couldn’t, not while pretending her wrist still wasn’t strong enough. ‘David swims every day, now,’ she added quickly. ‘I usually sit and watch and I can see he enjoys it.’
‘Your kid brother certainly seems to be coming out of his shell.’ Oliver climbed down from the truck he had borrowed to come and find her. ‘How come you’re all alone?’ His glance flickered around as if searching for someone else. ‘How’d you get here? I can’t see your car.’
‘No.’ She didn’t want to think of the little red car, gathering dust in the corner of the huge hangar, nor of the bill that must be steadily mounting for its hire. ‘Neil dropped me off. They’re busy inoculating some calves which he said were missed in the spring. He promised to pick me up in an hour.’ She didn’t confess he had asked her to go with him but, because she was finding his presence more and more disturbing, she had refused.
‘Good for Neil,’ Oliver grumbled good-humouredly as he dropped to the ground beside her. ‘Some guys get all the breaks! Actually, Petra, I’m on my way to town and wondered if you’d come with me. If you won’t come for my sake there are always the shops. Being a woman you can’t possibly resist them!’
Petra gazed at him doubtfully, even apprehensively. It was kind of him to think of her—if kind was the right word. She couldn’t help guessing Oliver found her attractive—but his admiration should be kept for Janey. If she went to town with him Neil would probably accuse her of encouraging him. A sigh of regret passed her lips lightly. She didn’t doubt she would have enjoyed a trip out with Oliver. She didn’t find herself shrinking from him as she did from other men, as she still did sometimes with Neil. But she had to refuse him. He was smartly dressed, for one thing, and she had nothing to match him. Nor any money! ‘Some other time, perhaps,’ she hedged reluctantly.
‘Oh, come on, Petra!’ he laughed. ‘What’s to stop you? It’s only for a few hours. I’m not going to kidnap you, no matter how much I’d like to. You even look as if you needed a change. Neil’s place can sure match any of your British estates, but that doesn’t surely mean you can’t go anywhere else?’
‘I’d better not, Oliver.’ She found it very difficult not to give in when he looked at her so entreatingly.
‘You don’t like me!’ Surprising her, he sounded really unhappy.
‘It’s not because I don’t like you. I do—a lot,’ she cried indiscreetly, an unconscious awareness of Neil’s disapproval making her reckless. ‘Only David’s been out all day and when Neil takes me home I must see where he is. I can’t expect Mrs. Allen to be forever keeping an eye on him.’
For a moment it seemed that Oliver, as if seeing through the thinness of her excuse, was going to argue, but suddenly he subsided. ‘Okay, then.’ Disappointed, if not too obviously despairing, he agreed ruefully to accept her decision and said he must go. ‘I have one of the hands with
me,’ he explained. ‘He has some pressing family business in town and I have to take him. Now I’ll have nothing to do but hang around by myself until he’s ready to go home.’
‘I’m sorry, Oliver.’ While uncertain that she could wholly believe in such a woeful aspect, she looked gently up at him, as if seeking a way to soften the blow.
She didn’t realise how beautiful she was, her face upturned like some delicate flower, her eyes thickly fringed and mysterious, like two great shadowed moorland pools. Oliver seemed quite unable to resist what looked so clearly like an invitation. He bent his head and, before she could stop him, pulled her gently into his arms and kissed her lips. Neither of them saw Neil approaching in the distance.
Petra found herself almost gasping with dismay as Oliver at last let her go, as if he was, in reality, rather scared of his own daring. His face flushed as he muttered, ‘Goodbye, sweetheart,’ and within seconds he was gone, his borrowed truck disappearing in a cloud of dust. Not even then did he notice Neil.
Petra did, though. She was aware of him in the time it took him to grind to a halt. She didn’t fail to see, as he stepped out beside her, how his eyes lingered contemptuously on her softly coloured cheeks, her trembling, rose-red mouth.
‘Who was that?’ he hissed quietly, his eyes almost cutting her in two.
Petra suspected he knew very well! She also recalled, her nerves jumping, everything he had said about Oliver and his sister. ‘Oliver,’ she stammered helplessly, ‘just called to ask if I’d like to go to town.’ Oliver’s brief kiss had upset her, but Neil’s icy demeanour, she found, made her feel much worse.
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘I don’t know. At least,’ she lowered her eyes, unable to meet the brilliant coldness of his, ‘I might have done, but my clothes are getting a bit tatty, as I didn’t bring so many.’
‘I’m well aware of the precise state of your wardrobe,’ he enlightened her disconcertingly. ‘In town you might have had the opportunity to replenish it to some extent.’
Petra realised it was what anyone under normal circumstances would have done. She could only flush unhappily and stare at her toes.
‘Oliver might even have bought you a few articles of clothing,’ Cameron went on outrageously, utterly daunting her with his taunting grin. ‘That outfit you have on is enough to encourage any red-blooded man.’
‘It’s been washed too many times,’ she defended the rather shrunken cotton shirt and pants which clung too revealingly to every taut line of her slim, provocative figure.
‘I must see if you can’t be persuaded to come shopping with me, Petronella.’ His glance, sharply calculating, slid over her again. ‘I don’t mind what I see myself, but I don’t want others enjoying the same privileges.’
She couldn’t take him seriously, although his hand cynicism hurt beyond belief. Maybe he was just trying to drive her away. Did he think a few insults would do the trick? Desperately she wished she could afford to slap his handsome, mocking face, but she knew she must listen when every instinct warned her against it. She lifted her head, staring past him towards the tumbling sparkling waters of the creek, knowing only a terrible desolation.
‘I think Oliver only meant to be neighbourly,’ she said weakly, looking too slender and fragile to be wholly convincing.
Neil seemed to soften a little, if wryly, as if something of her inner conflict got through to him, ‘I don’t want to quarrel with you, Petronella, especially as you happen to be my guest. I don’t particularly want to remind you that I told you Oliver was not to be encouraged.’
So he had seen that too! ‘I didn’t encourage him,’ she flushed painfully scarlet. ‘He did kiss me, I’ll admit, but a kiss is nothing!’
‘So he didn’t make an impression? Or is it that you regard kisses lightly? Two a penny, with little regard of any possible effect’
‘If only I could convince you!’ She was moved by a sense of urgency she could put no name to. Neil towered over her and she was suddenly aware, through the open front of his shirt, of the pulse beating strongly over his heart. It seemed to indicate a slightly explosive quality only partly held in check. Fright moved turbulently through her, like a dark summer wind before a storm. ‘I don’t even like being kissed,’ she flung at him breathlessly.
He said roughly, on ruthless laughter, ‘No girl should make such silly statements, Petronella. What man could resist such a challenge?’
‘No!’ There was terror in her voice as she knew he was going to follow Oliver’s example, but with Oliver she hadn’t known the old, consuming fear. With Oliver she had known nothing, and from other men she had fled. With Neil she found herself reacting differently again. Perhaps, because he moved so deliberately, it seemed she could only wait numbly for whatever kind of punishment he chose to deal out.
As if aware that she found herself unable to move he took his time. His hands came only slowly to draw her closer as he bent his tall head. He took her lips slowly too, with a punishing sweetness and, as if intent on savouring to the full all she had to offer, forced them apart, exploring the soft contours of her mouth with a sensual technique she knew nothing of. When the first molten waves of sensation began to hit her, a low, anguished moan escaped her, but not even then did he relax his hold. One hand merely threaded through her hair to bring her even closer while his other curved tightly over her pounding breast.
The fire which was sweeping through her veins was swiftly consuming the last remnants of her resistance. It was even stronger than all the fears which had beset her until now. If the fear was still there it was reduced ruthlessly to something negligible by the experienced, superior force of Neil’s mouth and arms. There seemed no limit to the feeling which flared through her slight, vulnerable body until every part of her was completely responsive. She knew only a burning desire to be held even closer, to know more, to be able to satisfy him as he was doing her. That it might only end in a singing, blinding release.
The intensity of unconscious longing was such that sensitive tears forced their way at last through her heavily closed lids. Only then did Neil lift his hard mouth from hers, and then it was more like punishment than relief.
He didn’t let her go immediately. She heard his sharp intake of breath, but he held her as the ground reeled beneath her, as he traced her bruised lips with one undoubtedly satisfied finger.
‘Neil,’ she whispered entreatingly, wanting only to turn her mouth into his hand, pleading silently for more of this indescribable kind of lovemaking she could put no name to. She had been half a child until this moment, but Neil had changed all that in fewer minutes than her drugged mind could contemplate. If she hadn’t known full awakening it could only be a matter of time. Something smouldering in the back of his eyes promised it.
‘Yes, call me Neil. Remember it!’ he uttered, his voice coolly devastating. ‘You don’t have to beg, Petronella, I could go on kissing you until you begged for mercy; and I’m not even sure I would grant it. I have to remember, though, that you could be considered my responsibility. A little salutary lesson, however, could never be held against me. I think you were badly in need of it, my child.’
CHAPTER FIVE
Neil Cameron, like some dark-faced replica of his ancient Scottish ancestor, hustled Petra into his truck with a kind of tersely restrained air about him. Almost, Petra decided, feeling on the brink of mild hysteria, as if she was a child who had been chastised enough for one day but who might still prove fractious. He slammed her door before walking around and lowering himself in beside her. Unexpectedly he turned his head, unfairly, she thought, as he caught her watching him despairingly, her wide grey eyes smudged with the aftermath of too much emotion.
As she waited for some impersonal comment, perhaps about the creek they were just leaving, his next words took her somewhat by surprise.
‘We’re supposed to be civilised, Petronella. Most times I could swear we are, but it’s still a wild country in parts. Don’t expect men around here to be
gentle lovers. I’d advise you to think carefully, little one, before you plunge out of your depth.’
‘I wasn’t considering doing anything of the kind.’ Tearing her gaze from his, she stared straight ahead, not wanting him to guess she felt as if she were already in, head over heels. If the state of her pulse was anything to go by she might even be irretrievably sunk!
‘You’d do well to consider, all the same,’ he drawled. ‘Oliver Hurd, now, he’s a man given rashly to sudden impulses. You might not have got off so lightly if he hadn’t been in a hurry. Not if you’d shown him the same degree of response you showed me.’
Pain flicked cruelly as she realised his mocking tones must reflect his opinion of her. Stung, she retorted hotly, ‘At least he was gentle, which was acceptable!’
Neil’s lips curled derisively. ‘With all that Italian blood in your veins how long do you think that would satisfy you?’
Petra’s chin went up as she swung around to him again, her heart thudding, not caring to be a target for his savage amusement. ‘I thought we were discussing Oliver?’
‘You, too, if you’re thinking of getting involved in any way.’ His eyes slanted from the track to her face, stopping dead on her beautiful mouth before reverting front again. ‘You’d be wise to understand he might merely have been laying the bait. I’ve seen him at work before. He enjoys an amorous flirtation as well as the next man, but he always returns to Janey.’
‘Fine!’ Petra felt so got at, it made her reckless. Staring at his profile, with its strong, jutting chin, she almost hated him. Defiantly she asked, ‘How old is Janey?’
‘Twenty-five. You might remember she can give you a year or two.’
A Man Called Cameron Page 8