by Penny Jordan
She moaned in eager excitement as his hands slid up over her body, his touch, his gaze, his arousal showing his response to her.
As his hands cupped her breasts he leaned over her and kissed her mouth slowly, with gentle precision, and then she reached up to him and wound her arms round him, pulling him down against her with fierce, demanding desire.
‘Is this what you want, Rosy…? This…?’ he demanded urgently as he held her, touched her, filled her with the full power of his body.
‘Yes. Yes. Yes…’ Rosy told him compulsively as she clung to him and urged him physically and vocally to thrust even deeper within her.
‘You’re so small,’ Guard protested unsteadily. ‘So—’
‘I want you,’ Rosy repeated. ‘Please, Guard, please…I want all of you…’
She felt his body shudder as he tried to resist her and failed.
The sensation of his moving so gently and so deeply within her filled her with female joy and triumph. Her body, unlike his, might be untutored in such intimacy but it had its own power, its own strength, the strength to sustain the fierce maleness of Guard’s release and to match it.
Against her body she could feel the intense drumbeat of Guard’s heart starting to slow down slightly. His arms were wrapped around her as he held her tightly against him, his skin damp with sweat, like her own.
Now that the need, the desire which had driven her was sated, she suddenly felt very shy and unsure of herself.
Held fast in thrall to her physical and emotional yearnings, she had known only that she loved Guard and that she wanted him. And that he had wanted her. But now, suddenly, the enormity of those emotions evoked a sharp fear within her. Loving Guard was such a new concept for her. Wanting him—needing him—with so much passion and intensity made her feel very vulnerable.
She felt his lips brush her cheek in a light caress, his breath warm against her mouth. Panic overwhelmed her. Quickly she turned her head away, aware of the tension in his body as he withdrew slightly from her to look down at her.
‘Rosy! What…’
Rosy rushed nervously into speech, unsure if she wanted to hear what Guard might be going to say.
‘Well, at least now Edward isn’t going to be able to claim that our marriage isn’t legal.’
She felt Guard’s body stiffen.
‘Is that what all this was about?’ he demanded curtly, withdrawing completely from her. ‘Is that why—?’As he swore under his breath, Rosy flinched. ‘My God…and I actually thought—’
‘Guard?’ Rosy questioned uncertainly, but he wasn’t listening to her, he wasn’t even looking at her, she recognised unhappily as he moved over to the empty side of the bed and snapped off the light.
Keeping his back towards her, he told her grimly. ‘Go to sleep, Rosy. Just go to sleep…’
Miserably, Rosy curled her body into a small, tight ball. Her body ached slightly in unfamiliar places, her throat felt tight with tears and, ridiculously, after the wanton way in which she had begged Guard to make love to her, much as she longed to do so, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him how much, how very much she needed now to be held and reassured by him, to be told that he understood how she felt, that he knew how difficult it was for her to come to terms with the reality of her feelings for him…her love.
The words trembled on her lips and were suppressed as her eyes burned with hot tears.
Perhaps Guard wasn’t holding her…reassuring her…because what had happened between them didn’t mean the same to him. Because he didn’t feel the same way about her as she did about him.
Men were like that about sex, weren’t they? They could enjoy it without feeling any emotional involvement with the woman concerned.
But he must know how she felt. He must have recognised what had happened to her. After all, he knew her views on casual sex, he knew she would never—could never—give herself so completely to a man without…without loving him.
As the tears started to roll down her face, she bit down hard on her bottom lip to stop herself from making any noise.
Cautiously, Rosy opened her eyes, but it was all right. She was alone in the bed, alone in the room, apparently.
She sat up slowly, hugging the bedclothes protectively round her body, her face flushing as she recognised the cause of the slight ache deep within her body.
‘You’re so small,’ Guard had said, but the deep, compulsive thrusting of his body within her own hadn’t hurt her at all—in fact, the ache she felt now…
Caution was replaced by wistful longing as she looked at the empty space in the bed next to her.
Last night she had been silly to let Guard turn away from her without telling him how she felt; today things would be different, she told herself optimistically. But where was Guard?
She pushed back the bedclothes and then frowned as she remembered that she didn’t have any clean clothes. She would have to put on her worn ones and go down to her bedroom. Her frown deepened as her gaze focused on a neat pile of white underclothes on one of the bedroom chairs. Her underclothes.
Someone, and it could only have been Guard, had anticipated her need. A small smile started to curl her mouth.
Guard was quite right, she decided half an hour later as she emerged from the bathroom, showered and dressed. Her girlish nightshirts were not really the thing for a married woman, and oh, so totally unnecessary when she had Guard next to her in bed to keep her warm.
A nightshirt, or indeed any other kind of nightwear, was not only unnecessary but unwelcome as well when it came between her and the sensual warmth of Guard’s skin, the touch of his hands and mouth, when—
Shakily Rosy tried to banish her wantonly erotic thoughts, but as she glanced in the mirror she suspected that her flushed face and shining eyes gave her away.
When Guard saw her, would he immediately be reminded of last night? Would he perhaps suggest that they come back upstairs and—?
Dizzily, Rosy opened the bedroom door and hurried towards the stairs. She had never imagined that loving someone would make her so physically aroused or so responsive, but then Guard was so very, very special. She drew in a small, ecstatically happy breath, her whole body glowing with pleasure and love.
As Rosy got to the bottom of the stairs, Mrs Frinton came out of the library.
‘Where’s Guard?’ Rosy asked her eagerly, a happy anticipatory smile already curling her mouth.
Mrs Frinton looked slightly perplexed by Rosy’s question, as though it had surprised her.
‘He’s gone out, Miss Rosy,’ she told her. ‘He said to let you sleep in as you’d had a disturbed night and to tell you that he wouldn’t be back until late this evening. Something about having dinner with an important client in London.’
Rosy’s face fell, her earlier joy turning to bewilderment.
Why hadn’t Guard woken her, said something? How could he leave her like that after last night, without a word? Without any kind of acknowledgement of what had happened? The day suddenly yawned emptily ahead of her, full of hours which would drag slowly past while she waited for Guard’s return.
‘Can I get you some breakfast?’ Mrs Frinton offered.
Silently, Rosy shook her head, swallowing back the hard lump blocking her throat.
Ten minutes later she was on her own in the library, standing staring disconsolately out of the window when the door opened. For a moment, she thought it was Guard, her spirits lifting, a welcoming smile warming her mouth as she turned round. But it wasn’t Guard who was walking into the room, it was Edward.
‘No Guard?’ Edward commented. ‘Well, don’t say I didn’t try to warn you. You do realise why he married you, don’t you, Rosy?’
Go away, Edward, Rosy wanted to tell him, but the words were stuck in her throat. Instead, she turned her head away from him, trying to silence him by ignoring him, but Edward simply laughed unkindly.
‘Don’t want to hear the truth, is that it? Can’t face up to it? Well, my dear Rosy, I�
��m afraid we all have to face up to unpleasant things from time to time. I found it extremely unpleasant, for instance, learning that I wasn’t going to inherit this place.’
‘You knew the terms of Grandfather’s will,’ Rosy told him unsteadily.
‘Oh, yes, indeed,’ Edward agreed nastily. ‘And I wasn’t the only person who knew then, was I, Rosy? Weren’t you the least little bit suspicious when Guard proposed to you? He’s known you long enough, after all. If he’d really wanted you he’d have—’
‘I don’t have to listen to any of this, Edward,’ Rosy protested angrily. ‘Guard’s and my feelings, our marriage, are private. They don’t have anything to do with you.’
‘Oh, yes, they do,’ Edward contradicted her bitterly. ‘Grow up, Rosy, and face facts. He married you for one reason and one reason only. He married you for Queen’s Meadow, but he won’t really be secure here until he’s got you pregnant, will he? Until he’s sure that his child will inherit. What’s wrong, Rosy?’ Edward taunted her. ‘Surely you didn’t really think that the reason he’s so keen to take you to bed is because he wants you? Grow up. If he’d wanted you that badly, he’d have had you years ago,’ he told her crudely, while Rosy gasped in shocked, distraught protest, all the colour leaving her face, and Edward reinforced his cruelty by adding, ‘Why should a man like him want you? He could have any woman he wanted—any woman…
‘I don’t want to hurt you, Rosy,’ Edward lied, abruptly changing tack, his voice becoming nauseatingly soft and wheedling. ‘I’m just trying to help you, protect you. You could leave him now, before it’s too late. Show him that you’ve seen through him. How can you stay with him, after all, knowing that he doesn’t really want you? You know that he doesn’t want you, don’t you, Rosy? If he did, he’d be here with you, wouldn’t he? Do you even know where he is or who he’s with?’
Rosy daren’t turn round and confront Edward. If she did he would see the hurt in her eyes.
Guard had married her for Queen’s Meadow. Of course he had…She knew that—had known it all along. How on earth could she have been so stupid to believe otherwise?
‘Edward, have you got a minute? I can’t seem to find my car keys.’
Rosy’s body sagged with relief as she heard Margaret’s timid voice from the doorway.
She could hear Edward’s irritable, carping voice as he followed his wife out into the hallway. Was it really only last night that she had been pitying Margaret for being married to a man who so obviously didn’t love her, wondering how on earth she could bear to stay married to him? How blindly and foolishly she had tempted fate. What was it the Greeks had called fate’s swift reprisal for such temerity? Nemesis, that was it…Nemesis.
Well, Guard was most definitely her nemesis. Guard and her helpless, pathetic, unwanted love for him.
Guard didn’t love her and she had been a fool ever to think he did—or that he could.
Just because her feelings for him had changed so dramatically, that didn’t mean that his for her had undergone a similar metamorphosis.
But he had made love to her, held her, touched her, caressed her and taken her to the heights of ecstasy and held her there…
A small sob forced its way past her lips.
Because she had begged him to, pleaded with him to. He was a man, after all, with a very potent male sex drive.
How could she have been so stupid? And how could she ever face him again now, knowing…? Thank God Edward had inadvertently made her realise the truth before she had actually told Guard that she loved him.
She gulped painfully. At least her pride would still be intact, even if her heart wasn’t.
If Guard said anything to her about what had happened, she would simply have to pretend that it had been the result of her fear, her panic that Edward might discover the truth.
CHAPTER TEN
‘ROSY.’
Rosy tensed as she heard Guard calling her name. She had almost reached the front door; could she possibly open it and escape? He was back early anyway. In the month they had been married he had worked late virtually every evening. She herself had planned to be out when he came in, just as she had been every evening this last week.
It had been a godsend when Ralph had asked her if she could possibly switch shifts with one of the other voluntary workers. She had not only agreed, she had opted to work several extra evenings as well.
She had seen the way Ralph frowned as he asked her, ‘Are you sure? Won’t Guard object?’
‘Guard’s very busy himself,’ Rosy had told him truthfully. Very busy with his work, or very busy avoiding her?
Her mouth curled in a small, bitterly painful smile. It seemed like a lifetime ago now since she had so naïvely worried about having to share a bed with Guard.
Then, when he had teased her about the effects of his proximity on her libido, it had never occurred to her just how prophetic his words might turn out to be. Why should it? She had been so unaware then, so unknowing.
Now…with Edward and Margaret still in the house they had no option but to continue to share a bedroom and a bed, but Guard always took care to make sure he stayed downstairs until she was asleep, or until he thought she was asleep and, out of pride, Rosy obligingly went along with the deceit. Lying there with her eyes closed while he moved about the bedroom and the bathroom, trying desperately to hold at bay the feelings, the needs, the emotions that were causing her so much pain.
Not even when she was sure that Guard himself was asleep did she allow herself the luxury of tears. She dared not. If Guard should wake up and find her crying…
Once or twice in the week after that night, she had been aware of him watching her and, on several occasions, she had sensed that he was going to say something about what had happened, but each time her own fear of what he might actually be going to say caused her to evade the subject.
The worst time had been the night after they had made love.
Rosy had gone to bed early, knowing that there was no way she could possibly sleep, and knowing as well that there was no way that she could stay downstairs with Guard.
She had been pretending to be asleep when he came into the bedroom, but she had obviously not deceived him, because he came over to her and told her softly, ‘I know you’re awake, Rosy. We have to talk.’
‘No,’ she had denied in panic, guessing what it was he wanted to say. He wanted to tell her that he had guessed how much she loved him but that he did not love her. He wanted to remind her of the terms of their marriage, to shatter the illusion of their lovemaking that she was clinging on to so desperately by telling her that, to him, it had been nothing other than a mere sexual encounter, that the emotion, the intensity, the closeness and commitment she had felt had all been fabricated by her own imagination and need.
‘No…I don’t want to talk,’ she had told him fiercely, adding childishly, ‘There isn’t anything to talk about.’
She had tensed a little as she saw the muscle beating angrily in his jaw, but he hadn’t argued with her or pressed the matter, simply saying heavily, ‘Very well, Rosy, if that’s what you really want.’
She hadn’t responded. How could she? Instead, she had turned her face away from him as he walked away from her, curling herself into a small, miserable ball. What she really wanted was him—his love, his loving. What she really wanted was for him to take her in his arms and tell her that he loved her, that he wanted her, that he couldn’t and wouldn’t live without her.
‘Rosy,’ Guard called again, his voice ominously sharp.
It was too late for her to take flight now, Rosy recognised; he was already in the hall.
‘What is it, Guard?’ she asked him, without looking directly at him. ‘I was just on my way out. I’m working at the shelter this evening. I must go, otherwise I’m going to be late.’
‘No,’ Guard told her softly. ‘Tonight you’re not working anywhere, Rosy. Tonight you and I are going to talk.’
‘But I can’t let Ralph down.’
Rosy panicked. ‘He’s expecting me and they’re already short-staffed because of all these meetings Ralph’s been having about renewing the lease.’
Their landlord at the shelter had recently announced that he intended to sell the building when the lease ran out. Ralph was trying to find a way of raising enough money for them to buy the building themselves, but so far he had not had much luck. He had even asked to suggest to Guard that he buy the building for them.
‘No. I can’t do that, Ralph,’ Rosy had told him uncomfortably.
And nor could she provide the money herself, since her capital was all tied up in various trusts.
‘We can talk tomorrow,’ she suggested now.
‘Can we?’ Guard asked her sardonically. ‘Are you sure that by the time tomorrow comes you won’t have found something far more important to do? No, Rosy. I’m not the most patient of men at the best of times but, given the situation, I accept that things aren’t easy for you. But running away never solved anything, you know.
‘When you and I married, we made a bargain and that bargain was that, as far as anyone else was concerned, our marriage would appear perfectly normal. It isn’t normal, Rosy, for a couple who’ve only been married a month to spend so little time together, especially when one of that couple makes it plain that she—’
‘You’re the one who’s always working late,’ Rosy interrupted him dangerously.
‘Am I? And how would you know what time I come home, Rosy, since you’re never here?’
Rosy stared at him. She knew because Edward had taken good care to make sure that she did, never missing an opportunity to comment pointedly on the fact that Guard had not arrived home until gone eight or nine and, certainly when Rosy returned home from her shift at the shelter after eleven, he was invariably shut in the library still working.
‘We made a bargain,’ Guard repeated grimly. ‘But you aren’t making any attempt to keep your side of it, are you? You’d rather spend all your time at the shelter.’
‘It seemed the best thing to do,’ Rosy told him woodenly.