by Penny Jordan
She shook her head, unable to bring herself to make the denial. Why should she when there was nothing to deny?
Instead, she turned her head away from him and reminded him fiercely, ‘I didn’t want to come here, Guard.’
‘Maybe not, but you are here. We are here, and while we’re here—’
As she started to walk away from him, he moved towards her, barring her way to the bedroom door.
‘Look at me, Rosy,’ he commanded. ‘You aren’t a child any more, to be indulged by being allowed to walk away from an argument to save face when you know you can’t win it.’
‘An argument?’ Rosy gave him a bitter look. ‘When has anyone ever been allowed to argue with you, Guard? I thought you were omnipotent—all-seeing, all-knowing. So…go on…While we’re here, what? I can sit like an obedient child playing gooseberry whilst you and Madame—’
‘There is nothing between Madame la Comtesse and me,’ Guard told her grimly, emphasising the older woman’s title.
‘Maybe not, but she would like there to be,’ Rosy guessed intuitively.
‘I repeat, there is nothing between us,’ Guard continued, ignoring Rosy’s comment. ‘But even if there were…’
‘It would be none of my business,’ Rosy supplied sarcastically.
‘Perhaps not,’ Guard agreed levelly. ‘But that was not what I was going to say. What I was going to say, Rosy, was that you should at least try to put your antagonism towards me to one side occasionally and apply the laws of logic and rationality, instead of giving way to those over-imaginative emotions of yours.
‘The reason I insisted that you come with me on this trip was to give us both time to adjust to our new…status. To have done that and then brought you into the presence of my lover would hardly make much sense, would it?
‘The time to worry, my dear, is not when I insist on your accompanying me on business trips, but when I start making excuses not to take you.’
For some reason he was smiling, a fact which infuriated Rosy so much that she could feel her face starting to burn with angry colour.
‘So much passion and so little outlet for it,’ Guard mocked her, touching one hot cheek with a cool fingertip.
‘Stop patronising me, Guard,’ Rosy demanded heatedly. ‘I’m not a child.’
‘No?’ The smile disappeared, to be replaced by an assessingly level look. ‘If only that were true.’
‘No, thank you. No more wine for me,’ Rosy refused, shaking her head and valiantly trying to suppress a yawn.
Guard had not exaggerated Madame’s culinary talents, but Rosy had not really enjoyed the meal. The way Madame had deliberately excluded her from the conversation and concentrated exclusively on Guard had at first amused and then later irked her.
To be fair, she had to admit that Guard had done his best to reverse Madame’s bad manners, making a point of bringing Rosy into their discussions, but Rosy had grown tired of the game and longed to make her excuses and escape to her bed.
‘In fact, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go to bed,’ she added quietly, standing up before Guard could say anything and formally thanking their hostess, and complimenting her on the meal.
Guard’s quiet and totally unexpected, ‘I think I’ll come with you,’ shocked her into protesting.
‘No, you stay here.’ But Guard was already slipping his hand under her elbow and adding his thanks to hers as he walked with her to the door.
‘You didn’t have to do that,’ Rosy snapped once they were in the hallway. ‘You could have stayed.’
‘What, and leave my new bride on her own?’ Guard drawled mockingly.
Rosy glowered at him, compressing her lips.
‘There’s no need to be so sarcastic,’ she told him crossly. ‘I’m not a complete fool, Guard. I know quite well that you—’
When she stopped, he prompted, ‘That I what?’ But Rosy refused to be drawn, shaking her head. What was the point in saying what they both knew? That she was the last person that Guard would want to marry—and the last person to want to marry him?
‘I don’t know why you brought me here,’ she repeated untruthfully, her temper suddenly exploding. ‘What am I supposed to do with myself while you’re in Brussels. Ask Madame to give me some cooking tips?’
‘You won’t be staying here,’ Guard told her promptly. ‘You’re coming with me.’
‘What?’ Rosy stared at him.
‘I think you’ll find Monsieur Dubois rather interesting and, since he doesn’t speak English and my French is rather on the pedestrian side, I’d certainly appreciate your assistance.’
What did Guard mean? She’d find Monsieur Dubois interesting? Guard’s business involved providing extremely detailed and complex computer programs, a subject about which Rosy knew very little, as Guard well knew.
‘Monsieur Dubois is a keen environmentalist,’ Guard continued, correctly reading her mind. ‘He is the spokesperson for a very influential group lobbying the EEC for better and tighter controls over the destruction of the natural vegetation of the countryside and, since that’s something I know you take a keen interest in, you should have a lot in common.’
It was so unlike Guard to make a comment to her that did not include mockery of one sort or another that for once Rosy could think of nothing to say.
‘And, of course, having you to translate for me will save me the cost of hiring an interpreter,’ Guard added.
Rosy flashed him an indignant look. Just for a second she had almost been deceived into thinking that for once he was treating her as an equal, an adult. She was so irritated that she was almost tempted to refuse to go with him, but the alternative of staying at the château was not an appealing one.
‘I’ve got some notes I need to read up,’ Guard told her as he unlocked their suite door, ‘so if you want to use the bathroom first…’
Rosy knew she ought to feel grateful to him for his tact, but instead she felt ruffled and awkward, like a child sent to bed to be out of the way of the adults. Was Guard’s claim that he wanted to do some work simply a ruse to get rid of her so that he could go back downstairs to rejoin Madame?
If Guard wanted to be with the Frenchwoman, then he had no need to lie to her, Rosy decided angrily. He was a perfectly free agent in that respect; they both were.
So why did the thought of Guard and Madame, their dark heads close together while Madame’s scarlet, pouting mouth whispered in Guard’s ear, cause her such an uncomfortable and unpleasant sensation in the pit of her stomach?
Its cause, Rosy decided, thoroughly disgruntled, was surely not so much an emotional reaction to the thought of Madame’s overpainted, full red mouth against Guard’s ear, but rather a physical reaction to the reality of Madame’s over-rich food in her stomach!
When she had first agreed with Peter to try to save the house she had not fully realised exactly what she was letting herself in for, she admitted bleakly as she undressed and stepped into the huge, claw-footed bath. The last couple of weeks had been far more stressful than she had expected—than she wanted to admit.
There had been a moment at the wedding breakfast when she had looked at the familiar faces around her and suddenly and sharply ached for the comforting and familiar presence of her father and grandfather.
Mortified by her own weakness and the tears which had filled her eyes and choked her throat, she had quickly bent her head over her plate, hoping that no one had noticed. Guard had been safely engaged in conversation with Edward’s wife, or so she had thought, which had made it even more humiliating when he had pushed a large, clean handkerchief into her hand and told her quietly, ‘I miss them too, Rosy. That at least is something that we do share.’
Unexpectedly, tears filled her eyes now. Crossly she blinked them away. What was the matter with her these days? She had never been the crying type.
Madame might be generous with her food, but she was mean with her hot water, Rosy decided as she washed herself quickly and jumped out of the bath
, wrapping herself in a thick, white towel and then rubbing her body briskly with it—as much to banish her too-intrusive memories as to dry her skin.
As she pulled on her cotton T-shirt, with its cartoon drawings on the front, she grimaced at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.
No one seeing her now would ever be deceived into believing she was a rapturously happy bride, she acknowledged.
When and if Guard did marry, she doubted that it would be to a woman—a girl—who wore cotton T-shirts to bed and plain white underwear. She doubted that Madame, for instance, even possessed such garments.
Picking up her discarded clothes, she headed for the bedroom, calling out as she entered it, ‘Guard, I’ve finished in the bathroom now.’
Silence. Had he heard her? She frowned, nibbling at her bottom lip as she stared at the closed bedroom door, glancing uncertainly from it to the bed and then back again. The last thing she wanted was to be woken up by Guard rapping on the door to find out where she was.
Sighing under her breath, she walked over to the door and opened it.
Guard was seated at the desk in front of the window, his head bent over the papers spread over it. Rosy watched him for a few, brief seconds. It was a very rare experience for her to have the opportunity to study him unobserved. He was a very handsome man, a very charismatic man, she acknowledged with a tiny thud of her heart. A man most women would love to be married to. But she was not one of them, she told herself hastily. When she married…
‘What’s wrong, Rosy?’
The calm question, asked without Guard’s lifting his head or looking at her, made it plain that he was not, as she had imagined, oblivious to her presence at all.
‘If you’re going to tell me that you can’t sleep without your favourite teddy bear,’ he added grimly, ‘then I’m afraid…’
Anger darkened Rosy’s eyes. She hadn’t slept with her teddy bear for years. Well, not until these last few weeks, when she had felt so devastated by the double loss of her grandfather and father.
‘I came to tell you that the bathroom’s free,’ she informed him with awful dignity.
‘Would you like a nightcap before you go to bed?’
His question took her by surprise, her eyes widening slightly and her skin flushing as he put down the papers he had been studying and turned towards her.
She would like a drink, Rosy recognised, but she was acutely conscious of the fact that she was in her nightshirt.
‘I—I’d better go and get my dressing-gown,’ she told him uncomfortably. ‘I—’
She tensed as he stood up, the dark eyebrows lifting sardonically as he came towards her.
‘That’s very considerate of you, Rosy,’ he told her sardonically. ‘But hardly necessary. I think I have enough control over my manly passions not to succumb to a fit of lust at the sight of you in your nightwear. After all, it’s hardly the most seductive of garments, is it? Not exactly bridal…’
‘I suppose when you go to bed you wear silk pyjamas,’ Rosy defended herself wildly, remembering reading a book in which the hero had been thus clad. ‘But for your information—’
She stopped abruptly as Guard started laughing. She had rarely seen him laugh before and for some reason the sight and sound of him doing so now caused a hard, sharp pain to pierce the middle of her chest.
‘What is it? Why are you laughing?’ she demanded suspiciously.
‘No, Rosy,’ Guard told her, shaking his head, mirth lightening his eyes so that they seemed more amber than their normal formidable eagle-gold, ‘I do not wear silk pyjamas. In fact,’ he added dulcetly, watching her closely, ‘I don’t wear anything at all.’
Rosy couldn’t help it; she could feel herself blushing, a betraying wave of scarlet colour washing up over her body and engulfing her in humiliating, self-conscious embarrassment…Not just because of what Guard had said, nor even because of his laughter, but because, unbelievably, unwantedly and untenably, she had just had the most appallingly clear mental image of Guard’s naked body—a body which, in that brief, illuminatory vision, had been both arrogantly male and erotically aroused…
She swallowed hard, too caught up in her own emotional shock to be aware of the way Guard’s amusement had turned to frowning scrutiny of her suddenly over-pale face and harrowed expression.
‘Go to bed, Rosy,’ she heard Guard telling her abruptly. ‘You’ve been under a lot of strain recently, and a good night’s sleep—’
Suddenly it was all too much for Rosy.
‘I’m not a child, Guard,’ she told him chokingly. ‘I’m a woman, an adult, and it’s time you recognised that fact and treated me as one.’
Angrily she blinked away the temper-tears blurring her vision, only to hear Guard saying warningly to her, ‘Don’t tempt me, Rosy. Don’t tempt me.’
CHAPTER SIX
‘MADAME… So Guard has married at last. I cannot say I blame him,’ Monsieur Dubois told Rosy with warm appreciation in his eyes as he shook her hand in response to Guard’s introductions.
‘And so, how long have you been married, my friend?’ he asked Guard in his careful English.
‘Not very long,’ Guard told him. ‘Not very long at all.’
‘How angry you must be with me, madame,’ Monsieur Dubois apologised to Rosy. ‘But not so angry as Guard, I suspect. But he is the only person I could trust to do this all-important work for us. It is vital that when we present our case to the authorities we have all the information at our fingertips. These days one doesn’t just need knowledge and eloquence, one must have facts, figures, graphs. One must be computer literate or risk the consequences.
‘Guard has told you something of our work?’ he asked Rosy, as he guided them into his large office overlooking the business centre of the city.
‘Something,’ Rosy agreed, reluctantly admitting to herself that she was rather enjoying herself. It felt good to be using her brain, her linguistic abilities, and it felt even better knowing she had a skill that Guard could not quite match, she acknowledged ruefully.
As Guard had said, Monsieur Dubois’s English was very limited and many of the technical terms he used when he started enthusiastically to explain to her the needs of his organisation were unfamiliar even to her, although she was quickly able to interpret their meaning.
While Guard was following their conversation, she could see from his frowns that he was having difficulties. Without really knowing why, she found herself gently stopping Monsieur Dubois and then turning to Guard, quickly explaining to him what was being said, unaware as she did so of the quiet air of authority and self-assurance in her manner and voice or the maturity it gave her.
When Monsieur Dubois eventually glanced at his watch and exclaimed over the length of time he had kept them, Rosy was surprised to discover how quickly the hours had flown and how much she had enjoyed what she was doing, despite the fact that she had always claimed to her father and to Guard that computers and all that went with them were just not her thing and she was more than happy to keep matters that way.
As they got up to go, Monsieur Dubois turned to Guard and told him, ‘My wife and I are giving a small family party this evening. Nothing of any great merit, a simple affair to celebrate our elder daughter’s attainment of her degree. I should be delighted if you could both join us, but perhaps you have other plans…?’
‘None,’ Guard responded promptly. ‘What time would you like us to arrive?’
As soon as they were alone, Rosy turned to Guard and protested, ‘I can’t go to a party, Guard. I haven’t brought anything suitable with me to wear.’
‘So? Brussels is not on another planet,’ he told her drily. ‘It does have shops, some very good ones too, I believe. Although I must warn you, Rosy, Monsieur Dubois is the rather old-fashioned sort and I suspect that his obviously very high opinion of you would suffer somewhat were you to dress in something you have liberated from disinterment. He would, I suspect, take it rather as an insult if you turned up at his daughte
r’s party wearing something from a charity shop.’
Rosy turned on him angrily.
‘I don’t need any lectures from you, Guard, on what I should and should not wear,’ she snapped. At home in her wardrobe she had two formal ‘little black dresses’ bought specifically to wear when she went out with her father or grandfather to various social events. She might prefer the comfort of her leggings or the sumptuous feel of the velvets and silks she snapped up from sales and markets, but she would not for the world have upset or embarrassed either of them by wearing something she knew would make them feel uncomfortable.
Guard, though, was a very different matter.
However, she had liked Monsieur Dubois and had recognised for herself, without having to be told by Guard, that he was the old-fashioned sort.
‘Unfortunately, I have another meeting this afternoon,’ Guard told her, glancing at his watch. ‘Otherwise I’d come with you.’
‘No, thanks,’ Rosy told him curtly. The last thing she wanted was to have Guard standing over her in some dress shop telling her what she should buy.
‘What about lunch?’ Guard asked her.
‘I’m not hungry,’ Rosy lied. The euphoria and pleasure she had felt earlier had now gone. Guard hadn’t just made her angry with his comments about her clothes, he had—He had what? Offended her? Hurt her? Impossible. Nothing Guard could say could ever do that. He simply didn’t have that kind of power over her.
‘If you need some money, Rosy…’ Guard offered, but Rosy shook her head.
‘I can afford to pay for my own clothes, Guard,’ she told him fiercely.
‘Yes, I know. You know, Rosy, when you eventually find this perfect, wonderful man of yours, I hope you’ll try to remember what prehistoric creatures we males still are in many ways.’
‘What do you mean?’ Rosy asked him suspiciously.
‘I mean that, despite the fact that I cannot think of anything more abhorrent than the kind of clinging woman who wraps herself around you with all the stranglehold of a piece of ivy, we men still enjoy the pleasure of feeling that we can spoil and indulge our woman.’