Fever

by Charlotte Lamb

  'You could try,' he said, smiling mockingly.

  She turned back to her work. 'Shove off!'

  'Charming,' he murmured. 'Just what I'd expected. Your manners are delightful.'

  She carefully inched in a fraction of slate-blue shadow on the wall and wondered if the client would remember that there was no shadow at dawn.

  It was going to take a long time to finish the wall, anyway. It was a natural perspective builder and already her picture was forming itself around it. She was shutting Nick Rawdon out of her head with an effort. If she ignored him he would go away in the end.

  He settled on the grass beside her, his head prop­ped on one hand, his lean body at ease. She knew he was watching her. She knew he was nibbling pen­sively at a long-stem of meadow grass. She even knew the name of it, identifying the sub-species out of the corner of her eye. She had made a study of grasses at art college. They made an interesting subject and were easy to collect and draw.

  'Your lashes are like gold wire,' he commented.

  She fluttered them at him, unable to resist the temptation, her sense of humour aroused.

  When she had returned to her work, he shifted slightly and began trailing a long piece of grass over her jeans.

  'I'm working,' she said, pausing again to glare at him. 'Unlike you, Mr Rawdon, I do have to work or I don't eat. It may be mundane of me, but I like to eat at least once a day.'

  'What makes you think I don't work?'

  'I'm sure you do,' she shrugged. 'It must be very tiring counting all that money.'

  'Why are you so obsessed by my money?'

  That stung. 'Who's obsessed? I don't give a damn.'

  'You talk about nothing else.'

  'I don't want to talk at all,' she said, because it annoyed her to admit he could be right. It was stupid of her to dwell on the subject of his money.

  'Neither do I,' he drawled softly with an eye on her profile.

  She felt the colour coming up under her skin at the implication, but she tried to concentrate on her work. She was puzzling over how he had got there, how he had known where to look.

  'How did you find me?' she asked at last.

  'You told me,' he informed her. 'The Fox and Grapes on the Scarborough Road.'

  'Simple,' she groaned. 'You ferreted that out of me, didn't you?'

  'Mmm,' he agreed. 'Easy as taking candy from a baby, or did you want me to find you?'

  She looked at him through her lashes. 'I did not!'

  'Sure?'

  'Positive,' she said with an edge to her voice.

  He moved again, settling himself comfortably, his hands under his head, the long lithe body sheathed in an open dark blue shirt and blue denim trou­sers. He had dropped a matching jacket on the grass.

  She couldn't resist a quick look at him. 'How can I work with you watching me?'

  He ostentatiously shut his eyes. 'Who's watching you?'

  She went on working, occasionally shooting him a look, but he kept his eyes shut, even the thick black lashes not moving against his hard cheeks. A fat-bodied bumble bee buzzed unsteadily towards him from a patch of clover and hovered around his black head. Sara whispered, 'Don't move. There's a bee near you.'

  'I'm not deaf,' he said, eyes still shut.

  The bee slowly droned away and Sara sat there, staring at him. My God, she thought, he's good-looking. The sunlight gleamed on his smooth brown skin, was reflected from the thick black hair. His mouth was twitching slightly. Suddenly he lunged and his hand curled round her ankle, pulling her off the stool and into his arms. He received her on his chest, holding her tight.

  She had given a yell of surprise, but it turned into laughter, her eyes close to his, seeing the brilliant blue at close quarters with a shock of pleasure.

  She lay on top of him, staring into his eyes, and his hand moved softly over her back, stroking the warm sunkissed skin exposed by her brief top.

  She ought to be angry, she told herself. This was sheer insanity. How was she going to convince him she wasn't interested if she let him behave like this?

  'Doesn't the word no mean anything to you?' she asked.

  'Not a lot,' he said with an insolent glance through his black lashes.

  He was playing with her hair now, twining his fingers through it, rubbing the soft strands between finger and thumb. 'Your hair looks like marigolds, but it feels like silk. It smells delicious, too.'

  'I have to wash it often,' she shrugged. 'It's so fine it drives me mad.'

  'It could drive me mad too,' he murmured, the blue gleam of his eyes mocking. 'There are a lot of things about you that could drive me mad.'

  'Fight it,' she said, looking at him with teasing eyes, and mentally kicking herself because she should be giving him the frozen glare of offence, not grinning at him like an infatuated idiot.

  The trouble was, in his casual denim he looked almost human and the sunlight was giving a danger­ous gilding to his undoubted good looks. It was a somnolent, meltingly lovely afternoon, and she was finding the movements of his long hands far too en­joyable.

  'Why should I?' he enquired lazily. 'You're quite delectable and I've been waiting for what seems like years to kiss you again.'

  He was in no hurry as his hand pulled her head down. She could have jerked away. She could have struggled. She didn't. It was reckless and idiotic, but she would think about the dangers later. Just now she wanted to find out exactly what effect the touch of his mouth would have on her. The first time he kissed her, he had been angry. He had meant to hurt. This time was going to be different, she knew that.

  It was earthshaking. His mouth moved lazily, sen­sually, teasing and playing with her, until it suddenly grew urgent, the hand pressing down on her head taking a grip on her neck to pull her closer, his kiss deepening into a hot, drugging sweet­ness that was unlike anything she had ever known. She was floating on air, her head empty of every­thing but a growing physical excitement. His fingers pushed her hair back from her neck and his mouth moved down her cheek to crawl slowly, softly, over every inch of her throat until it was moving on the soft underside of her chin. She had her head tilted back at the command of his hand and she was almost whimpering with pleasure, soft broken little moans breathing through her bruised mouth.

  He suddenly rolled, taking her with him, and now she lay on the grass with Nick above her and he was exploring the coiled crevice of her ears, his tongue and lips intimate. Sara made no attempt to protest. She was lying with her eyes wide open, star­ing at the blue sky, a dazed expression on her face.

  He drifted his lips from her ears across her face, touching her skin lightly, taking his time, as though he wanted, needed, to touch and taste every part of her. She sensed that the caresses were deliberately prolonged, a careful seduction, but although her mind still cried out in warning, her body craved what he was doing to her. It was a sensual experi­ence that she could not resist.

  The languorous sensations he was arousing held her like a soporific drug. He took her hands, glanc­ing at her with narrowed eyes, and placed them on his chest. 'Touch me, Sara,' he whispered.

  It was then she should have drawn back, pushed him away, but she didn't. Her hands flattened on his chest, began undoing his shirt, and he watched her, breathing fast, the lids well down over the glit­tering blue eyes. The sun poured down over them, bringing the scent of crushed grass to her nostrils. . The wind moved lightly in the trees, making them whistle like shocked observers. When her fingers slid over his bare chest Nick groaned pleasurable. 'Yes,' he said. 'Yes.'

  Their mouths were suddenly moving hotly against each other although she did not remember him moving. Her hands ran hungrily up his body to clasp his head and Nick pushed his own hands under her brief sun-top to close them over the thrust of her breasts, pausing at the hoarse cry she gave as he touched them.

  'You want me. Admit it,' he said thickly.

  'Yes,' she said, although the sound was muffled because her lips felt hot and swollen as though pas­sio
n was altering her cell structure.

  'Not now,' he said, as though reluctant to admit that. 'Tonight. Will you come back to my hotel?'

  He had lost her in that instant. She stiffened, go­ing cold, because suddenly all the magic went out of the hot afternoon and she remembered what she had forgotten, her mind taking control again, her stupid treacherous body forced back into submis­sion.

  She caught him off guard. He had been so certain of her, so triumphant, that he had relaxed and while he was lazily surveying her with the glint of the conqueror, she suddenly pushed him off and sat up before he could recover his balance. She was standing as he slowly got to his feet, staring at her.

  Sara reverted to her usual barrier, a flippant little smile on her face.

  'Thanks, but no, thanks, Mr. Rawdon,' she drawled lightly. 'It's a tempting prospect, of course, but Greg wouldn't like it.'

  The lazy amusement had gone out of his face. He was looking at her with savage anger, his eyes bit­ing.

  'You changed your mind pretty quickly.'

  "I didn't change a thing,' she tossed, her chin up.

  'Oh, yes,' he said between his teeth. 'That wasn't play-acting. I had you and you know it.'

  'You'll never have me, Mr. Rawdon,' she said furiously, feeling her face burning.

  He pushed his hands into his pockets, his black head angrily set. 'We'll sec about that.'

  'Do you want it in writing? I'm not on offer.'

  He moved closer, his eyes glittering between the heavy lids. 'Halliday need never know, if that's what's bothering you.'

  Her flush deepened. She couldn't now repeat that she and Greg were not lovers. For her own protec­tion he had to believe they were or she would be under siege until she gave in to him.

  'What a charming suggestion,' she said instead contemptuously. 'You think I'm that despicable?'

  'I think you want me as much as I want you,' he told her with his blue eyes burning on her face.

  'No!'

  'Don't lie to me. I could have taken you just now without a struggle—you admitted it yourself. You said yes. You know damned well you did.'

  'You have no scruples about taking a woman from the man you believe she loves?' The scornful flick of her eyes made him look angry, his face toughening into a hard mask.

  'I'd take you from my own brother,' he said, and he meant it. 'I don't give a damn how I get you so long as I do.'

  She looked at him in appalled understanding, suddenly seeing the forceful tenacious lines of his face in a new light. He would stop at nothing, she thought. He was a total bastard.

  'I can see you make a great banker,' she told him icily. 'I wouldn't borrow a bent pin from you. Your interest rates are prohibitive.'

  'Make up your mind to it, Sara,' he merely said harshly. 'I want you and I'm going to have you. I wanted you the moment I set eyes on you,' He moved his shoulders as though arming himself for a long struggle, his mouth tautly determined. 'Any­one in the City will tell you that I always reach my objective.'

  'Get lost,' she said, suddenly frightened. 'I never want to set eyes on you again!'

  'That's too bad,' Nick shrugged. 'Because I'll be back.' He bent and picked up his jacket, slung it over one shoulder, the lean graceful lines of his body making her heart miss a beat. Anger at her own weakness gave a sharpness to her voice.

  'I expect Greg any day now.'

  He looked at her sharply, a cold smile on his mouth. 'Going to ring him and have him running up here to fend me off, are you?'

  She lied. 'He was coining anyway.'

  Nick didn't believe her, of course. He shook his black head, the hard mouth amused. 'Try again, Sara. I know a fairy tale when I hear it. It makes no difference, anyway. A dozen Greg Hallidays wouldn't stop me.'

  She looked into his face with a terrified belief that it was true. His face was impervious, dressed in steely authority. The blue eyes held menace, cer­tainty, immovable willpower.

  'Not even knowing that I love him?' she asked as a last resort.

  She saw his face change. 'So he is your lover? You admit that now?'

  She silently nodded, swallowing.

  'Why lie, then? Do you think I didn't notice the way you couldn't take your eyes off him at that party?'

  'It was none of your business,' she said huskily.

  He stared at her, his eyes searching her flushed face, his mouth straight and angry.

  'At least we've got the truth now,' he said with a cold intonation. 'I prefer to know where I stand. Why don't you marry him?'

  'Greg doesn't believe in marriage,' she managed to say, although the strain of standing here lying was making her feel miserable and sick. She won­dered how she was going to explain all this to Greg. He wouldn't be very pleased when he knew the He she had saddled hint with, but what other option had she had?

  'Do you?' Nick asked tersely.

  She couldn't quite meet his eyes. 'No,' she said feebly, aware that her evasion was glaringly ap­parent.

  'You don't sound very certain about that,' he said with a cool derision. 'Won't he make an honest woman of you, is that it?'

  'Greg loves me,' she said, and that was true, so she could lift her head and look him straight in the eyes again.

  'Not very much, it seems.'

  'You swine,' she whispered shakily.

  His mouth twisted. 'Sorry if the truth hurts.'

  'You wouldn't know the truth if it came up and bit you.'

  'It seems I know a lot more about it than you do. At least I was honest about my intentions. You lied to me about Halliday. I knew you lied, but that doesn't let you off the hook. Lie about one thing and you'll lie about another. You're lying when you say you don't want me, and one day I'll make you admit that, too.' He looked at her as he finished speaking, then he turned and walked away across the sunlit grass.

  Sara debated, of course, whether to ring Greg or not, but the thought of asking him to drive all the way up to Yorkshire to fend off Nick Rawdon for her was so embarrassing that she decided she couldn't do it. Some instinct told her that Nick wouldn't be back this time. There had been a chill light in those blue eyes before he turned and walked away.

  She turned out to be right. Nick did not show up again during her time in Yorkshire. She painted steadily without further interruption, but although her days were tranquil and unbroken, her nights were not. She couldn't sleep. She turned over and over like a restless dog in a new house, fighting to stop her treacherous mind from dwelling on things she preferred to ignore.

  How seriously had he meant his threat to her peace of mind? He had shown her a passion she had never seen before, but he had changed when she brought Greg into the picture. Had her admission that she loved Greg driven him away?

  It was what she wanted. She reminded herself of that again and again. She wasn't going to be stupid enough to let a reckless mood sweep her into an affair with Nick Rawdon, She had always hated reading a book to which she knew the ending, and every instinct she possessed warned her precisely what end there would be to any relationship with Nick.

  At their first meeting she had only been aware of him as a dark, hostile presence, and that hostility had been present again when he came to her house next day. It had vanished during her lunch with him in his suite. Somehow, without her meaning to let it happen, she had felt a precarious growth be­tween them; a slow, subtle development rather like the putting down of roots in the dark which took place each spring. These roots of feeling were ten­tative as yet. Pale, fragile threads groping from one to the other and easily snapped at present. Perhaps they had been snapped by what happened in the meadow; Sara wasn't certain about that. The silent, heated passion they had exchanged was something else. She had been mindless as she lay in his arms, but she was intelligent enough to know that her reactions to him had not been based on emotion. Nick had touched a spring of desire in her, but it had been purely physical, something quite apart from the hesitant, delicate stirring of feeling which had been going on at the same time
.

  She had always felt that love, when it happened to her, would combine the two, but she did not want them to flower for Nick Rawdon. That could only be disastrous for her.

  As day followed day and there was no sign of him, she told herself how glad she was, but she found herself hard to convince. She persuaded herself that he had entirely passed out of her mind, but when the slate blue shadows thickened on the stone walls she found herself thinking of his blue eyes darken­ing with passion, and when she went into York to get some more paints she found herself looking over her shoulder all the time.

  Her picture did not suffer, however. Her mental turmoil did not seem to harm her capacity, indeed she felt vaguely that she had somehow acquired a new depth. Certainly, the client was delighted. Sara had painted his hillside with a loving perception which brought a beam to his face. She hated hand­ing it over to him. Although she would not face the fact, she had painted into the canvas something of the feelings she had experienced in the meadow that day. The green hillside, the trees, the spilling shadows, were permeated with memories for her now, and it showed. How could she keep it out? The client, of course, was blithely unaware of any hidden depths. He looked at the landscape and he saw what he had always seen and was contented.

  She drove back to London and Greg looked sharply at her as she walked into the house. He didn't say anything, but Sara felt oddly conspicu­ous, as though what was happening inside her was written in letters ten feet high on her face.

  Greg was observant. He knew her very well. And he missed very little with those melancholy brown eyes.

  They had dinner with Lucy and Rob the follow­ing night. Lucy had gone to town on the meal and the food was so superb that Sara sat back after din-ner, sighing, 'I shall have to diet for a week now!'

  'You need some flesh,' said Rob, eyeing her. 'When you arrived I thought you were a stick in­sect in those trousers.'

  She fluttered her lashes coyly at him. 'I've been told I look very sexy in them.' That was true. The black trouser suit was made of a crepe material which lovingly followed every curve of her body, the tiny tunic fringed with black and silver threads.