by Penny Jordan
‘No … No, I don’t suppose they would,’ she agreed stiffly, her voice dull.
As she replaced the receiver she heard him call out sharply, ‘Nell … Nell …’
But she refused to respond, or to answer the telephone when it shrilled imperatively five minutes later.
She was behaving emotionally, idiotically, given the circumstances of their engagement and forthcoming marriage, but surely for once in her life she was entitled to throw aside her great-aunt’s teaching and respond to her own inner emotions.
She slept badly and woke up with a pounding head, exacerbated by the smell of paint which was slowly permeating the house.
Her mood, a combination of dread, pain and irritation, seemed to have afflicted the rest of the household as well as herself.
‘Wedding nerves,’ Liz told her philosophically when she telephoned her later in the day. ‘How are things going apart from that?’
‘Not too bad,’ Nell told her. ‘The master bedroom is nearly finished. Mrs Knowles is bringing the new curtains today and the carpets should be back by the end of the week.’
Thanks to Liz she had found a concern in London that specialised in cleaning antique rugs and carpets.
‘Is everything all right, Nell?’ Liz interjected quietly. ‘You sound very tense.’
‘I’m fine,’ she lied brittly.
But she wasn’t and she suspected they both knew it. How on earth was she going to cope with the reality of being married to Joss when merely the thought of it was enough to have this kind of effect on her?
‘It isn’t too late to change your mind, you know,’ Liz told her slowly.
Nell bit her lip. Change her mind … how could she? And yet, for one wild, panicky moment, she was sorely tempted. It was too much … Joss was too much but then sanity reasserted itself and she said huskily, ‘Liz, I can’t. I’ve given Joss my word, and besides, there’s the house.’
‘Nell, Nell … for once in your life put yourself first. And as for the house, Robert was saying only the other night that you could probably raise a bank loan on the security of it to pay off the death-duties … Nell, I’m so worried about you. Feeling the way you do about Joss, marriage to him will be hell for you …’
‘Yes,’ she acknowledged sadly, but, as she had told Liz, it was too late for her to change her mind. Too many arrangements had been made … too many things set in train. And then there was Joss himself. He would never forgive her if she humiliated him by ending their engagement now. He would never understand that she had done it because she loved him.
‘Mrs Knowles, they look marvellous,’ Nell praised as both she and the seamstress stood back to admire the newly hung curtains.
Mrs Knowles had been as good as her word, and she and her girls had arrived after lunch to hang the new curtains up at the master bedroom windows.
The rich colours glowed against the newly decorated walls, highlighting the delicate colour Nell had chosen for them.
From all over the house, Nell had culled the best of the most suitable antique furniture for the suite of rooms. A pretty inlaid bureau, which had been a favourite of her grandmother’s, stood against one wall, a heavy chest of drawers against another. The bed itself had been polished until it shone, and a new mattress ordered to replace the ancient, bumpy one which Nell guessed must have been at least forty years old. Now the mattress was obscured by the fabric heaped upon it. Not only had Mrs Knowles completed the curtains as she had promised, but the eiderdown, bedspread, pillow-shams and chair-slips were also ready.
‘We should have the sofa-covers done by the middle of the week, as well as the curtains for the sitting-room, but I thought we’d better see how these looked up first.’
‘They look wonderful,’ Nell told her truthfully, glad now that she had followed her advice and bought the extra yardage of fabric to allow for extra width, as she saw how beautifully the curtains draped.
She remained in the room long after everyone else had left.
The estate workers had almost finished decorating the downstairs rooms, and the silence that followed their departure was almost eerie. Nell had grown used to the bustle and noise of having them around, and now she remembered how lonely the house had often seemed to her as a child. She must make sure that her child never felt like that. This house needed more than one small baby to fill it. It needed a family.
Of its own accord, her heart fluttered shallowly in her breast, her stomach muscles cramping.
A family … yes, that was what she craved more than anything else: the sense of belonging that came from being part of an enclosed family unit; the pleasure of giving and receiving love.
‘Nell?’
She tensed as she heard Joss’s voice outside the bedroom door.
Joss was in America … What was he doing here? Confused and nervous, one hand crept to her throat as she stood up and stared at the door.
She saw him frown and check as he walked in, saying abruptly, ‘Mrs Booth said you were up here …’
While his attention was on the room and not on her, she had the chance to compose herself, to control the soft responsiveness of her body and the eager warmth in her eyes.
‘Yes … we’ve just finished hanging the curtains.’
He looked at her then, his frown deepening.
‘We?’ he queried. ‘Mrs Booth told me that you’d been up here on your own for nearly an hour. From the way she said it, I suspect she imagines you were indulging in some sort of romantic bridal fantasy.’
Nell had to turn away to hide the stain of colour surging into her face.
‘Has it really been an hour?’ she said unsteadily. ‘I had no idea. I’d better go down.’
She started to walk past him, and then tensed as he reached out and stopped her, catching hold of her wrist with his fingers. She saw him look down at her clenched hand.
‘Nervous, Nell?’
Something in the way he looked at her made the nerves flutter under her skin.
‘Just a little tense, that’s all,’ she fibbed, adding desperately when he refused to let her look away from him, ‘There’s been a lot to do.’
With her free hand she indicated their surroundings, and to her relief he looked away from her and said calmly, ‘Yes. You’ve done very well in here.’ He looked at the bed and added quietly, ‘I trust you realise that we shall be sharing this room, Nell.’
She couldn’t help it. A wild surge of colour flooded her skin and she looked desperately away from Joss himself, trying to focus on something—anything that meant she did not have to look at him.
She heard him laugh, a soft, very male sound that sent tiny frissons of sensation coursing over her skin, and into the silence that followed she poured a torrent of husky, nervous words in a voice so unlike her normal one that she barely recognised it herself.
‘I didn’t think you’d be back so soon … What was the flight like? You must be tired. When did you get back?’
‘I came back ahead of schedule, the flight was fine. Yes, I am a little tired,’ Joss responded imperturbably, before cutting across another spate of nervous questions by saying quietly, ‘Nell, I’ve been thinking. You’re right. It would be better for both our sakes, as you said, if we allowed the rest of the world to believe that this is a love-match.’
She focused on him then, too stunned to do anything else. She had expected that that tiny, betraying plea of hers would never be referred to again, and to have Joss bring it up and, what was more, approve of it, made her forget her embarrassment.
‘There is just one thing, though,’ he added almost musingly. His fingers were still circling her wrist, and now subtly their pressure increased, and became almost caressing as they found the place where her pulse beat frantically against her blue-veined skin. ‘At the moment I doubt we’d be able to convince anyone that we’re in love. Lovers carry with them an aura of intimacy that’s very easy to discern. Lovers touch and kiss.’
Imperceptibly he had drawn her closer to h
im, and Nell trembled as she felt the heat and power of his body against her own.
She opened her mouth to protest, saying his name with a quick, husky breath.
‘It’s all right, Nell. I’m only going to kiss you. We want to convince the world that we’re in love, remember.’
He touched her mouth with his own, a light, caressing movement of warm flesh against flesh which demanded nothing but which still made her tremble wildly as she fought the aching need inside her to throw caution aside and kiss him back.
His mouth left hers, and slowly caressed the soft skin of her throat.
‘Nell.’ How husky his voice sounded against her ear, almost as though he was as affected by caressing her as she was by his touch. ‘We want to convince the world that we’re in love—remember? When I kiss you, open your mouth.’
His lips were so close to her ear, she could feel their touch. The warmth of his breath made her shiver, tiny waves of sensation tingling through her body.
‘Joss,’ she protested weakly, ‘I ought to go downstairs. Mrs Booth will wonder …’
‘If we’re making love?’
Her face burned. That wasn’t what she had intended to say at all. Joss saw the shock in her eyes and his mouth curled cynically.
‘How illuminating those eyes of yours are, Nell. I wonder how I’m going to like being married to a woman who can’t quite hide her distaste of me.’
His accusation stunned her. Incautiously she responded immediately, ‘Joss, that isn’t true.’
‘Isn’t it? Then kiss me properly, Nell. Not like a little girl obliged to kiss a much disliked relative.’
His head bent towards her and she quivered tensely, closing her eyes. She felt the warmth of his breath against her lips and tremulously allowed them to part, waiting for the warm pressure of his mouth against her own, willing herself not to make a complete fool of herself and responded wildly to it. But nothing happened.
Her eyelids fluttered and opened. Joss was watching her, the golden eyes gleaming fire.
‘No, Nell,’ he said softly. ‘This time, you kiss me.’
Her shock showed in her face.
‘Poor Nell … There’s no need to look so terrified.’
His taunt stung, and before she could think properly she flung tartly at him, ‘I suppose the next thing you’ll be telling me is that you don’t bite.’
She saw his face change, his expression suddenly predatory and alien.
‘Ah, but I do.’
Something in her face must have given her away, because she saw his eyes darken and blaze.
‘Shall I show you, Nell?’ he demanded thickly. ‘Is that what you want? Underneath that cool, icy disdain do you really ache, just like the rest of us? Shall I find out?’
She was shivering, but not from fear or cold.
And then his mouth was on hers. Not gently or lightly, but hotly, demandingly, his tongue probing the parted outline of her lips and tasting the sweetness within.
All her senses came alive at once, her body singing with pleasure, her decision never to allow him to see how he affected her swept away as though it had never been.
Her hands gripped his shoulders, smoothing their powerful breadth as they slid beneath his jacket; she felt him tense and then gather her in against his body so that she was aware of its physical arousal.
The knowledge both surprised and thrilled her.
‘Ah, Joss … there you are.’
The cool, female voice tore into her fragile fantasy and, although it was Nell who pulled back first at the sound of Fiona Howard’s voice, it was Joss who regained control first, his body apparently fully under control, while hers shivered and ached.
‘You said there were some letters you wanted to get off tonight, so I thought I’d better come and find you. There’s that reception this evening as well …’
She was speaking to Joss but she was looking at Nell, her eyes hardening as she looked deliberately at the swollen fullness of her mouth.
There was no apology for interrupting them, Nell noticed angrily; no question of her right to invade their privacy … no doubt in her mind about which of them held the most power … the most influence, and Nell recognised that in refusing to allow her to mastermind the wedding … in snubbing her, she had made herself a bitter enemy.
But they would have been enemies anyway. Yes, but she could have been more subtle … could have hidden her own jealousy, she acknowledged wryly. Now, as Fiona continued her unsubtle scrutiny, she tilted her chin proudly, her eyes cool as she stepped past her and said distantly to Joss, ‘I’d better go down. I promised I’d go over the menu with Mrs Booth.’
‘I see you’ve had interior designers in, after all,’ Fiona commented as she and Joss fell into step beside her. Fiona was standing much closer to Joss than she was, Nell noticed miserably, but she allowed no trace of what she was feeling to show in her face.
She had already betrayed herself enough for one day. She just hoped that Joss would put her response down to pure sexual arousal and not guess at her real feelings. The fact that he had been aroused himself might incline him to such a conclusion.
The speed of his arousal had been something which had surprised her. Surely a man of his experience … Or perhaps he had wanted her to believe that he desired her. Perhaps he had even deliberately manufactured a physical response to her. The thought made her feel faintly sick, and she didn’t bother responding to Fiona’s taunt.
Joss did, however, turning to his secretary and saying calmly, ‘You’re wrong, Fiona. Nell organised all this herself. It seems my fiancée has hidden talents.’ He turned to look at her and Nell felt her whole body go hot under the sensual inspection of his scrutiny.
Fiona was obviously aware of it too, because, when Joss excused himself to collect some papers he had left in the library, she turned to Nell and hissed acidly, ‘I hope you’re not going to be stupid enough to fall in love with him. The last thing Joss wants hanging around his neck is a doting little wife.’
Angry and unnerved by the extent of her physical response to him, Nell responded sharply, ‘Fall in love with Joss? Oh, I don’t think so.’
And then she turned on her heel and prepared to leave, only to stop as she saw Joss himself standing just inside the door.
There was no doubt that he must have heard her. His mouth was compressed into a thin, angry line. For a moment she was tempted to go to him and explain, but she stopped herself. She wasn’t going to say anything while Fiona was there, watching gloatingly.
But why was he so angry? She knew they had agreed that they would at least attempt to pretend that their marriage was based on love, but his secretary was hardly like to be deceived, especially not since she and Joss had been, and probably still were, lovers.
Tensing her body proudly, she walked past him, saying coolly, ‘Since you’ve so much work to do, Joss, I’d better not keep you.’
It was only her early training instilled into her by her great-aunt that prevented her from going upstairs and shutting herself away in her room.
Instead, she very pointedly escorted them both to the front door and then, when they had gone, she went upstairs to her room and sat and stared at her wedding dress in its dustproof covering, and wondered how on earth she was going to get through the rest of her life.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AFTER JOSS had gone, the day suddenly seemed flat, despite the fact that she had not been anticipating seeing him. She wondered what had made him cut short his business trip, and then admitted to herself that she was scarcely likely to find out.
When he had initially proposed to her, she had harboured in some deep recess of her imagination the illusion that, even if he could never come to love her, they could develop a deep and enduring friendship; she had allowed herself to daydream of quiet, intimate evenings when he would unburden himself to her and discuss with her the problems of his business life. Now she recognised how idiotic she had been. Joss had no need of her to unburden himself to;
if fact, he should want to do something so out of character, anyway, he had his faithful secretary.
Nell’s mouth tightened. She had as good as made a rod for her own back by announcing to him that his relationship with Fiona was not her concern. Now she regretted those hasty words. How on earth could he even pretend to want to create an illusion that they were marrying for love, when he was having an affair with someone else?
That kiss … that passion … had they been for her?
She felt physically sick and got up unsteadily. In less than a fortnight this familiar room she had slept in since childhood would no longer be hers. Instead she would be sharing the master suite with Joss. Sleeping next to him in the huge old bed that had been in the family since the days of Charles II.
She would not be the first female member of her family to enter a loveless marriage—far from it, and even these days, in moneyed and powerful circles, marriage were often still very much parentally instituted and approved, no matter how much this might be glossed over. So why did her heart rebel against what she knew was an eminently sensible course; why did she so wish that she could simply walk away?
If she was plain Nell Smith and not Lady Eleanor de Tressail, with no particular family pedigree, no title, no history stretching back over the decades, nothing to offer Joss other than herself, would he then want to marry her?
She knew the answer, and, more gallingly, she suspected everyone else would know it as well.
For her pride’s sake, she ought to tell him that the wedding was off, but even as the thought formed she knew she wouldn’t. She loved him too much. That knowledge terrified her. How could she even think of putting herself through what she was going to have to endure as his wife?
Oh, he would never be publicly or deliberately hurtful to her; he wasn’t that kind of man. No, her pain would all be of her own making; it would come from knowing that, when he made love to her, it was out of duty … out of his need for her to conceive. That when he pretended to care for her, it was because he wanted others to believe it. There had been no pretence when he proposed to her; no attempt to persuade her that he might genuinely care for her as a person.