Naive Awakening

by Cathy Williams

  ‘I know. You’ll be with Gerry at his parents’ house. Which is where I’ll be. With Nicholas.’ There was more than a hint of triumph in her smile now. ‘He absolutely insisted that I accompany him. Till tomorrow, then.’ And, with that, she swept outside, leaving Leigh rooted to the spot, and feeling very much as though she had won the battle but lost the war.

  She had no idea how long she remained standing there, one hand on her hip, the other intermittently brushing back her unruly hair away from her face, but eventually her legs seemed to return to normal, carrying her out of the lounge into the hall, although her mind was still buzzing with unanswered questions.

  She was heading up the stairs when the front door opened, and she automatically turned to see Nicholas striding in, divesting himself of his jacket, tugging at his tie until it was unloosened.

  ‘You!’ she said, inarticulate with anger.

  He looked at her with raised eyebrows. ‘Me. Yes. I live here, remember?’ He walked towards her and then stopped at the expression on her face. ‘I must say, you don’t seem in the best of moods.’

  Right now, she wanted to inform him, I could quite happily tear you limb from limb and feed you to the tigers in Regent’s Park zoo. How dared he cook up some plan with his girlfriend without telling her? Worse, some plan which doubtless had its roots in keeping his eye on her?

  ‘How perceptive,’ she hissed, furious that her anger was having no effect on him whatsoever.

  ‘Why don’t we have a drink? A whisky perhaps? Alcohol can be very soothing on the nerves.’ He took her by the elbow and she snatched her hand away.

  ‘I can think of better things to do with a bottle of whisky than having a drink from it,’ she said in a high voice. Like cracking it over that head of yours, she added silently.

  ‘Can you? I have to say you’ve lost me there.’ He pro-pelled her back into the lounge, pushing her into the sofa where she collapsed in an undignified heap.

  ‘So what’s this all about?’ he asked, pouring himself a drink, after she had refused one through gritted teeth.

  ‘I just had a visit from a certain friend of yours,’ she enunciated carefully. Hold the temper in check, she told herself. Histrionics weren’t going to win her too many points with this man.

  He frowned and sat down heavily next to her. Couldn’t he choose another chair? she thought angrily; the room was full of them, for goodness’ sake.

  ‘Are you going to tell me who, or do we continue with the guessing game?’

  ‘Your girlfriend.’

  ‘And what did she want?’

  ‘Oh, nothing much. Just to inform me that Gerry and I will be having company for the weekend.’

  ‘So you will,’ Nicholas agreed, and Leigh thought, You could at least look guilty.

  ‘And what gives you the right to…to barge into my plans without even consulting me?’ What she refused to mention was the fact that she was even more annoyed that he had begged his girlfriend to come along, that Lady Jessica had made very sure indeed to tell her that.

  ‘Don’t worry, I was going to fill you in as soon as I got home.’

  ‘Well, that sets my mind at rest!’

  ‘Good,’ he said and she could have screamed in frustration. It was difficult maintaining her anger when he refused to co-operate.

  He removed his tie completely, tossing it on to the coffee-table, and then undid his top buttons so that she could glimpse the bronzed, firm skin with its fine sprinkling of dark hair.

  ‘And do I deserve an explanation?’ she asked, averting her eyes from his chest, and trying to concentrate on the matter in hand.

  ‘I got the feeling that you weren’t over-keen on the idea of staying at the manor for the weekend with no one but Gerry around.’

  ‘Oh, you did, did you?’ She folded her arms, wishing that she could deny what he had said. ‘And since when did you become a mind-reader?’

  He laughed, and she pursed her lips a little tighter.

  ‘You look like an enraged spinster who has just had her virginity assaulted.’ There was definite amusement in his eyes now. It would be so much easier, so much safer, she thought, if he could just be antagonistic all of the time.

  ‘You’re insufferable!’

  He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You’re the first woman to use that adjective on me.’

  ‘You mean Lady Jessica finds you all sweetness and light?’

  At the mention of her name, his lips tightened, but he didn’t take her up on her observation, instead getting up to pour himself another drink.

  ‘Admit it,’ he said, with his back half turned away from her, ‘you didn’t fancy the thought of the weekend, did you? Just the two of you. Maybe you thought that he might make a pass?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Leigh countered, ‘he already has.’

  Nicholas walked across to her slowly and sat back down, his body only inches away from hers. ‘And has he?’

  She found herself mesmerised by his grey eyes pierced with specks of green.

  ‘Has he what?’ she whispered, unable to look away, aware that she was dangerously close to revealing how attracted she was to him.

  ‘Made a pass at you,’ Nicholas rasped, breaking the electrifying current running through them to drink from his glass of whisky.

  ‘That would confirm your impression of me if he had, wouldn’t it?’ she asked tightly. ‘I’m surprised that you thought I didn’t want to spend the weekend with him, when you’ve assumed that I can’t wait to take advantage of the poor, unsuspecting soul because he’s a meal ticket. Oh, and a quick way to repairing the cottage in Yorkshire.’

  ‘I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt.’

  ‘That was very big of you.’

  ‘Besides,’ he relaxed back in the sofa, staring at the ceiling where only a short while before Lady Jessica had been directing her spirals of smoke, ‘I need a break.’

  Leigh looked at him, noticing for the first time that he really did look very tired. Maybe, she decided, attempting to stifle her feelings of sympathy, it came from burning the candle at both ends. After all, he had not been around much recently. Although…She frowned, remembering what Lady Jessica had told her: that she hadn’t seen much of Nicholas recently either.

  She had an alarming impulse to reach out and stroke away the lines of weariness on his forehead, which she stifled almost as soon as it surfaced. Her instincts warned her that it was dangerous to let down her defences, for whatever reason.

  ‘Do you?’ she asked lightly. ‘You disappoint me. I thought you never fell victim to such human things as tiredness.’

  He shot her an amused grin and looked at her from under his thick black lashes.

  ‘You thought I ran on batteries, perhaps?’ he mocked, but there were no barbed insults in his words. She felt a few more of her defences come tumbling down.

  ‘Long-lasting ones,’ she agreed, falling into his mood even though she realised the implicit danger in doing so. ‘And you think a weekend in the country is going to revive you? Or do you think that Lady Jessica will do that?’

  He gave her a hard, speculative look. ‘You talk about her a lot. If I didn’t know better, I would be tempted to say that there was a bit of jealousy behind that.’

  ‘Jealousy? Ha!’ Leigh shot back in the sofa. Jealous, of Lady Jessica? The idea was ludicrous. ‘I just don’t like her very much, and the feeling’s mutual,’ she said stiltedly.

  ‘She invited herself along,’ Nicholas said, and she got the feeling that he was talking his thoughts aloud, almost forgetting that she was in the room with him, ‘and it might be just the time to get a few things out in the open between us.’

  Doesn’t he mean out in the bedroom? she thought acidly. She thought of the two of them together and the image was so disturbing that her heart skipped a beat. What’s happening here? she asked herself, but she didn’t want to pursue that line of thought.

  ‘What fun for you,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘I really must go a
nd freshen up before Gerry comes…’

  ‘He’s not coming. I’m taking you up tomorrow.’

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘Taking you up tomorrow,’ Nicholas repeated.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, you’re not attracted to him. And I thought that things might get a bit uncomfortable for you if he took advantage of the situation to make a pass.’

  ‘Or maybe,’ Leigh said, breathing heavily, ‘you just wanted to keep an eye on me?’

  Nicholas shrugged, a dark flush staining his cheeks.

  ‘My knight in shining armour,’ she said sarcastically. ‘I think I could do with that drink after all.’

  ‘What will it be? Whisky and soda?’

  Whisky? She had never tasted the stuff in her life. She nodded and sat back down, feeling thoroughly drained.

  I should never have come here, she thought. If I had never come to London, my life would still be trundling along in its own merry way, without all these uninvited complications. She tried to conjure up a picture of her life before Nicholas had barged his way into it, and found that she couldn’t. She felt a sudden stab of panic. I don’t like the man, at least not very often, and he certainly doesn’t like or approve of me, so why then couldn’t she imagine life without him?

  He handed her her glass and she gulped the contents, feeling the alcohol rush to her head like fire.

  ‘Was that wise?’ he asked, inspecting the empty glass.

  ‘You drive me to drink!’ she snapped. She raised her eyes to his and then decided that it might be safer not to do that, because his dark, cynical sexiness, combined with the drink, had a disconcertingly destabilising effect on her senses.

  In fact, she felt as though she had been dropped into the middle of the ocean, without a clue as to where the shoreline was.

  She knew that the best thing she could do was leave the room, but something magnetic in his presence kept her glued to the chair, even though warning bells were clanging noisily in her head.

  ‘If you need a break,’ she said, dragging the subject back to safe waters, ‘why don’t you take a holiday? Go abroad somewhere?’

  Nicholas gave the matter some thought. ‘I should, I suppose, but work has a habit of building up until the possibility of being away from it for too long is no longer feasible.’

  ‘That sounds rather dreary.’

  ‘And do you think I am?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dreary.’ He was looking at her with an expression of half-amusement, half-seriousness, and her heart gave another flip.

  ‘Does it matter what I think of you?’ she said evasively.

  ‘Have I told you that you have a knack of answering a question with a question? You definitely should be in the legal profession. I can’t imagine how you stuck it out working in a library for so long.’

  ‘I like books,’ Leigh informed him, looking at him furtively. He really was devastating, she thought, when he was like this—at ease and not subjecting her to the brunt of his aggression. Addictively devastating. She lowered her eyes nervously.

  ‘T-there’s something very soothing about being surrounded by books,’ she stammered, when he showed no inclination to break the silence between them.

  ‘But not very exciting,’ he derided, his sharp eyes taking in the wave of pink that coloured her face.

  ‘I can do without excitement in my life,’ Leigh told him firmly.

  ‘That makes you sound like a nun. Besides—’ he

  drained his glass but didn’t get up to pour another ‘—I know you don’t mean that. I think you rather like excitement. I think that underneath it all you’re as red-hot as that hair of yours.’

  Her heart was definitely doing odd things in her chest now and her skin felt as though it was covered with goose-bumps.

  There was no answer to what he had said, and she remained silent. He was sitting close to her now, and she edged away, throwing a desperate glance towards the door. He followed the line of her gaze and said softly, ‘No, you don’t. You’re not running away just yet.’

  She knew that things were escalating way out of control and she laughed nervously, tempted to try to convince him that running away was the furthest thing from her mind, that all she wanted to do was to revitalise her make-up before Gerry came. Then she remembered that Gerry wasn’t coming after all, and it struck her that an evening with an amorous Gerry was far better than an hour in the company of someone whose charm was far more lethal.

  Where were Sir John and her brother anyway? No doubt playing chess, a pastime which recently consumed all of their time. They should be here, she thought, rescuing me from this situation.

  Nicholas stretched out his arm behind her and she stared fixedly at one of the pictures on the wall.

  ‘However much I suspect your motives,’ he said huskily, ‘you’re still a very tempting woman. Maybe it’s because you’re so damned full of contradictions.’

  Leigh felt herself breathing quickly, like someone short of oxygen. I’ll fight this, she thought fiercely, with every inch of my body. He lightly stroked the back of her neck and she pulled away.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ she whispered, looking at him and then wishing that she hadn’t.

  His brooding expression was having a drugging effect on her, making her head swim and shifting everything out of focus. This is insane, she thought wildly, remember what he is, who he is. Remember your common sense—But just now it seemed to have deserted her.

  She stared at the sensuous shape of his mouth, holding her breath as it came nearer, expelling a small moan of rejection before it found hers. His kiss was soft and assured, teasing her into an unwilling response, then, as she parted her lips to accommodate it, he kissed her harder, with more hunger, pressing down against her so that she was pushed back slightly on the sofa.

  Her reason seemed to shut down completely. Her hands found his black head and her fingers coiled into his hair, pulling him against her so that their kiss deepened until she felt as though she was drowning in it. Under her feverish fingers, she traced the contours of his powerful shoulders, feeling the rippling of his muscles under the thin shirt, then she slipped them under the light material to caress the firm skin.

  Nicholas was kissing her urgently, his hand moving to stroke her breast, then finding the smooth skin of her stomach under her jumper. Leigh felt as though any minute she was going to explode. She knew that she had never experienced this unparallelled sensation of freedom and excitement, that in some strange way she had almost been waiting for it ever since he had first touched her.

  His hand moved downwards to unzip her trousers and deftly tug them down her thighs, then slipped underneath her lacy briefs to touch her in places which had before been uncharted territory.

  She could hear him breathing roughly as his body burnt against hers.

  He’s going to make love to me, she thought, right here, in this room, and, as soon as she had silently admitted that, she suddenly thought, How have I allowed this to happen? Only minutes previously she had been determined to fight him, to fight herself, with every ounce of will-power she possessed.

  And it wasn’t exactly a lifetime ago that she had lectured herself on the necessity of learning a valuable lesson from her response to him the last time he had touched her.

  The realisation took place in a split second, and her body immediately went cold. She had been reckless, but there was still time to stop this from happening, and she knew that, however frustrated it might leave her, nothing could be less satisfying than to know that she had let him make love to her because he fancied her. It would be sex without emotion, angry sex because he would have stifled his dislike to satiate his passion.

  It was a knowledge that she knew she would never be able to live with.

  Her body went limp and she withdrew her hands from where they had been clasped around his neck.

  There was nothing so sickening as the sudden death of passion before that passion had had time to reach its
climax. She struggled up, pulling her trousers over her legs, zipping herself back into some semblance of propriety, even though her heart was still thumping in her chest.

  ‘What is it?’ Nicholas asked, his eyes still drowsy with desire, and she turned away.

  ‘This is disgusting,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe I was crazy enough to let you get this far.’

  ‘Let me get this far?’ There was controlled anger in his voice as he straightened to stare down at her. ‘Let me get this far? I didn’t exactly have to beat back barriers of reluctance!’

  ‘Which is why I said that I must have been crazy!’

  She got up and he dragged her back on to the sofa.

  ‘I don’t like little teases,’ he grated.

  ‘And I don’t much care for men who can go to bed with a woman purely through lust! Maybe you think that gold-diggers are fair game. Is that it?’ Her anger was as much fuelled by her self-disgust as by him. ‘And let’s not mention that you seem to have forgotten that you have a girlfriend, and a very possessive one at that. Doesn’t that make you think twice before you…you try your hand somewhere else?’

  She had rearranged her clothes but she knew that the picture she presented was far from controlled. Her hair was tousled, her lips swollen, and she didn’t have to look in a mirror to know that her face was burning with the tell-tale signs of their lovemaking.

  Oh, a fine picture you present, she thought, a shining example of a woman in control of her destiny. She wanted to weep.

  ‘Jessica and I aren’t married,’ he began, raking his fingers through his hair, his voice hard. ‘We owe each other nothing.’

  This time Leigh did turn to face him, her eyes flashing. ‘I see,’ she said coldly. ‘Well, you have to excuse me if I’m not accustomed to your kind of easy relationships. You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t agree to take up bed-hopping as a pastime!’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ he said grimly.

  ‘I understand better than you think! I may be from the back of beyond, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve got cotton wool between my ears! Oh, I understand perfectly well, so please don’t patronise me!’