by Anne Mather
‘You mean—’ Sara’s voice was scarcely more than a whisper as she gestured disbelievingly towards the door, and he nodded.
‘Does it surprise you? It shouldn’t. The way we live here is a source of curiosity to the whole village, I believe.’
Sara moved her head helplessly, not knowing how to answer him, and as she stood there, trying to dismiss what he had said, he came to stand in front of her. At once his nearness initiated a backward step, but this time his fingers closed around her wrist, and the pressure he exerted prevented her from moving away from him.
‘You said—’ she began indignantly, and his eyebrows arched provocatively.
‘What?’
‘—that—that you—wouldn’t—’
‘Wouldn’t what?’ There was a certain line of cruelty about his mouth as he looked down at her. ‘Touch you? Ah, but didn’t I also say that you were inexperienced? And innocent?’ His lower lip protruded. ‘To that I’ll add—susceptible.’
‘You swine!’ Sara gazed up at him helplessly, still aware that Mrs Penworthy might be outside the door listening and not wanting to incite any more gossip, and his lips twitched in reluctant sympathy.
‘Yes, I am, aren’t I?’ he agreed, imprisoning both her wrists with one of his, and stroking her instantly averted cheek with the other. ‘But then a man in my position has to take his chances when they’re offered.’
With her heart pounding madly in her ears, Sara wondered how much of this she could honestly take, before something irrevocable happened. For so long her mother had protected her against any kind of raw emotion, but when Michael was close to her as he was now, there was no way on earth she could fight the excitement he was arousing. Nor did she want to, truthfully; only common sense and the need for self-preservation forced her to make the effort.
Her futile struggles were to no avail. Almost in slow motion, his hand moved to the collar of her shirt, loosening the buttons at the neckline and exposing the fluttering pulse he could see beating there.
‘Why are you frightened of me?’ he demanded huskily, bending his head to touch that revealing pulse with his tongue. ‘Mmm, so much energy expended for so little. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that such defencelessness incites the brute in a man?’
‘You—you would know about that better than me,’ she got out jerkily, and he made a sound of impatience.
‘Stop fighting me,’ he commanded, finding the fastening of her waistcoat and separating it easily. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, so why not enjoy it?’
‘Think of England, you mean?’ she spat, gazing up at him angrily, and his eyes mirrored his aggravation.
‘Why do you persist in doing this?’ he exhorted, staring down at her frustratedly. ‘You may be inexperienced, but I’m not, and I know you want me as much as I want you!’
Sara gasped. ‘I do not! Women—women are not like men—’
‘Some women aren’t, I know. But you’re not one of them.’
‘What do you mean?’
For a moment he did not reply, and her tautness and apprehension became almost unbearable. Then, allowing a careless finger to stroke an imaginary line from just below her ear, across her throat to the dusky hollow between her breasts, he said:
‘Some women don’t enjoy sex. Some women would like to, but can’t. You,’ his eyes softened sensuously, ‘you’re not like them.’
Her face blazed. ‘Don’t talk like that!’
‘Why not?’
‘Because…’ All her childish inhibitions came back to her. ‘Because—it’s not right.’
‘Why isn’t it right?’ He was annoyingly persistent. ‘What have you been taught? That one shouldn’t discuss these things?’
‘Yes!’
‘Why? Isn’t it better to be honest with one another?’
‘Honest?’ She gulped. ‘I wouldn’t call it that.’ She summoned all her small store of confidence, and continued: ‘You—you know you wouldn’t talk that way to—to anyone else—’
‘True.’
‘—only to me. Because—because you think I’m gullible.’
‘I’ve never said that.’
‘You said I was susceptible,’ she accused, and he nodded.
‘You are. Particularly to your emotions.’ He allowed his roving finger to probe further, finding the rounded swell of her breasts, the hardening nipples that responded eagerly to his caress. His voice thickened. ‘You don’t really object to me touching you, Sara,’ he muttered, looking down at the result of his explorations. ‘Your body gives you away. So why don’t you kiss me, and stop wasting so much time!’
Although Sara moved her head urgently from side to side, his mouth found hers with unerring accuracy. However, his hand holding both of hers was between them, preventing a closer embrace, and she pressed her lips together tightly, determined not to prove his theory. She guessed he would not set her free while she continued to fight him, and in spite of the suffocating pressure of his lips she had to remain unresponsive.
She heard his indrawn frustration, felt the increasing hardness of his mouth, and his fingers at her nape digging almost cruelly into her skin. The hand imprisoning hers tightened its grip also, and as he forced her nearer to him her thumbs dug into the hard muscles of his thigh.
It was almost her undoing. As she felt those taut muscles against her fingers, all desire to resist went out of her, but even as her lips softened, he tore his mouth away from hers.
‘Why?’ he snapped savagely. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘I—why—’
‘Did pretending to be Diane give you some kind of kick, or something?’ he demanded. ‘God! I’ve known some women in my time, but not one of them was like you!’
Sara was trembling, but his words about Diane had dispelled her momentary weakness. It was a horrible thing to suggest, and she was disgusted. How dared he suggest she was some kind of pervert, only able to respond under certain stimulation?
‘You can’t believe you don’t attract me, can you?’ she got out, equally savagely. ‘You’re so sure of yourself that you actually believe you’re irresistible! Well, let me tell you—’
‘Don’t bother!’ His lips twisting bitterly, he brushed past her and opened the door. ‘Go and write your stories! Go and live in that imaginary world you’ve created for yourself! Because, sure as hell, you’re not a part of this one!’
She turned, not prepared to let him have the last word, but he had gone, striding across the hall and presently she heard the front door slam behind him. He had walked out on her once more, and all her resentment and indignation gave way to the most ridiculous desire to burst into tears.
‘Will you have your coffee now, miss?’
Even Mrs Penworthy’s voice right behind her did not startle her, though it did initiate the speculation as to where the housekeeper had been during her exchange with Michael. Turning, she realised belatedly that her shirt was still halfway unbuttoned, her waistcoat hanging loosely on her shoulders, and that Mrs Penworthy was hardly likely to miss the fact.
Running a hand inside the collar of her shirt, she said: ‘I’ll have my coffee in the study, if I may, Mrs Penworthy. It—er—it’s rather stuffy in the library.’
She didn’t know if Mrs Penworthy believed her. In her position, she thought she would probably have had her doubts. But she had successfully spiked any question as to why she should have unfastened her shirt.
In the study, however, she left the coffee untouched, rummaging in her handbag for her medication. Weariness, like a wave of lethargy, was sweeping over her, and as she dissolved the tablet under her tongue she felt a deepening sense of despair. Every time she was with Michael, every time he touched her or kissed her, the feelings of resentment at her weakness increased, and right now she felt a sense of self-disgust that was almost suicidal.
Realising there was no point in trying to work in this mood, she waited until Mrs Penworthy had left the house and then emerged from the study. Pacing restlessly fr
om room to room, she tried to find a measure of the self-possession she had always sustained, but it would not come. The sense of weakness had not left her, but her mind was too agitated to allow her to rest, and when she pressed a hand to her heart she could feel its uneven palpitation. She felt sick, and a little dizzy, and she knew the best thing for her to do would be to go to bed, but the idea of lying there, picturing Michael’s possible reactions to her rejection, picturing him with another woman, did not bear consideration. He had said she wanted him, and she did, desperately, so desperately in fact that she felt ill with the knowledge that she had denied it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHE OPENED her eyes to find Michael’s lean anxious face suspended above her. Convinced she must be dreaming, she lifted her hand, almost tentatively at first, to touch his tanned cheek, and then felt her cold fingers engulfed by the enveloping warmth of his. He moved her hand along his jawline, over the roughening stubble of his beard to his mouth, pressing her palm to his lips with convulsive urgency. His touch aroused sensations that were very far from dreamlike, and she blinked rapidly, realising suddenly she was lying on her bed. But it was daylight outside, and judging by the angle of the sun, not yet too late in the afternoon, and yet when she tried to remember what happened, her mind was a complete blank.
‘God!’ Michael’s harsh ejaculation attracted her attention, and she watched almost detachedly as he strove to control his relief. ‘I thought you were never going to come round. Don’t ever do that to me again, do you hear? I don’t think I could stand it.’
Sara gazed up at him a trifle perplexedly. ‘Come round?’ she echoed, her earlier sense of wellbeing evaporating a little. ‘Did I—did I pass out?’
‘You must have done.’ Michael removed her hand from his lips, holding it between both of his, unaware of the pressure in his grasp. ‘I came in and found you lying in the hall. I thought at first you’d fallen down the stairs, but there isn’t a mark on you, and the way you were lying—well, I don’t think you fell.’
‘No.’ Sara had to take his word for it, trying desperately to remember why she should have collapsed. She seemed to recall having been in the library, but after that everything was blacked out. ‘I—I must have fainted. I didn’t mean to frighten you.’
‘Frighten me! God!’ Michael’s eyes were dark and tormented. ‘Sara, when I came in and found you, for one awful moment I thought you were dead! I don’t know what I’d have done if that had been so. Killed myself, I think,’ he finished flatly.
‘Michael!’ Sara’s eyes widened to startled orbs. ‘Don’t say things like that.’ She extricated her hand from his and levered herself up on her elbows. ‘I’m all right now, really I am. It—it was nothing, honestly. Just a faint, that’s all. Nothing to get so uptight about.’
Michael stared at her for a long disturbing moment, and as their eyes met, Sara began to remember why she had been so upset earlier. Blurred images of herself and Michael, locked in combat of a different kind, invaded the outer limits of her consciousness, bringing with them the memory of feelings, suppressed and dangerous. She began to tremble, and Michael, seeing the goose-bumps on her skin, smothered an oath.
‘You’ve probably caught your death of cold, lying on the floor!’ he muttered, getting up from the bed and looking down at her with open concern. ‘Perhaps I ought to call Gwithian. He at least could give you something to check any infection—’
‘No!’ Sara stretched a hand towards him imploring him not to continue. ‘Michael, you’re exaggerating this out of all proportion. I don’t need a doctor. I—I’ve probably been overworking, that’s all.’
She offered a silent prayer for forgiveness for this latter statement, but somehow she had to divert him. She could not have Doctor Gwithian coming here, discovering her secret. Not when she was succeeding so well.
Michael’s taut features showed his indecision. He was probably torn between satisfying himself that she was unharmed, and the obvious complications that introducing her to the local doctor would create. Somehow she had to reassure him, and taking a deep breath, she swung her feet to the floor and sat up. Her head swam a little, but that was not unnatural after losing consciousness, and ignoring this evidence of her weakness, she got to her feet.
‘Hey!’ Michael caught her arm as she swayed, and she was glad of his support, even though he stared at her rather impatiently. ‘You don’t have to prove your point,’ he muttered. ‘I can see you look much better already. But you won’t, if you don’t take it easy.’
Sara couldn’t prevent herself from slanting a look up at him. He was showing such concern, and half provocatively she finger-walked up his lapel to touch his neck. ‘You looked pretty sick yourself when I opened my eyes,’ she murmured. ‘As if you’d seen a ghost.’
‘I thought I had,’ he retorted huskily, and as he removed her fingers from his shoulder she remembered how he had left her.
‘You went—out,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Why did you come back?’
It was Michael who hesitated now, putting her away from him and going around the end of the bed, resting his arms on the curved iron rail. ‘Would you believe—to apologise?’ he offered at last, and her lips parted in an unbelieving gasp.
‘No…’
‘Why not?’
She shook her head helplessly. ‘I—why—you were angry when you left here. Furiously angry. I—I don’t believe you’d come back to apologise for that.’
‘Then you tell me,’ he suggested, with narrowing eyes, and she thought what a fool she was to start this over again,
‘To—to pack your things, perhaps,’ she ventured now, her voice gathering strength as it gathered confidence. ‘I—I think you intended to leave. In fact, I’m sure of it. You may have hoped I’d try to stop you, but that was your intention, wasn’t it?’
Michael rested his chin on his arm and regarded her through his lashes. ‘Very clever,’ he complimented her. ‘How very astute.’ He lifted his head. ‘All right, I admit it. Leaving did cross my mind. But I was going to speak to you first.’
‘Were you?’
She sounded sceptical, but he inclined his head towards her. ‘Of course. I wouldn’t have just walked out on you. But it didn’t happen that way.’
He stared at her for several more disruptive seconds, and then walked purposefully towards the door. His hand closed on the handle, but before he could open it Sara had taken a couple of steps after him, grasping the bedpost for support, and demanding huskily: ‘Where—where are you going now?’
He turned, surveying her broodingly. ‘Well, I’m not leaving, if that’s what you’re concerned about,’ he replied tersely. ‘But you should rest, and I thought I’d drive into Torleven to get some cigars. I’ve run out.’
‘Take me with you!’
The words were out before she could prevent them, and besides, she didn’t want to prevent them. She wanted to go with him. She wanted to be with him. And right now, she didn’t much care what he might think.
‘Sara…’ He wrenched open the door, as if by destroying the room’s intimacy he could destroy the intimacy between them. ‘Why do you want to come with me? You—don’t even like me.’
‘I do, I do.’ She took another step towards him, realising as she stepped off the bedside rug that he had removed her boots. ‘Michael! Michael, please! Let me come.’
‘Sara, Torleven is a matter of two miles, no more!’
‘So what? I need some fresh air—Mrs Penworthy said so. Please!’
His eyes darkened, and he turned abruptly away. ‘I can’t stop you…’ he muttered, and went out of the room.
Putting on boots with hasty fingers was a nerve-racking performance. Time after time, she caught the leather in the zip, and she was thoroughly exhausted by the time she had completed the task. Then she had to find her coat, and she stumbled down the stairs some minutes later, half afraid he might have gone without her.
He appeared from the drawing room as she reached the hall, however,
his lips tightening impatiently at the dewing of sweat along her brow. ‘Don’t you have any more sense?’ he demanded, glaring at her angrily, and then turned away again when she gave an apologetic shrug.
The car was an elderly Jaguar, old-fashioned in design, but scarcely used. ‘Adam’s,’ he remarked laconically, settling her into the front seat beside his. ‘Or Diane’s, just as you care to believe.’
Sara’s shoulders sagged against the soft upholstery. She was glad to rest her head back and allow her trembling limbs to relax, but when Michael came to take the seat beside her, his expression revealed he was not unaware of her weariness.
‘You’re crazy, do you know that?’ he demanded, putting the car into gear and turning down the drive. ‘Why couldn’t you have stayed at the house until I got back? You’re not fit to be walking around.’
‘But I’m not walking around, am I?’ she countered softly, and he muttered an expletive as they reached the coast road.
Torleven was an attractive place on a sunny afternoon. A fishing boat had just come in, and several people were gathered on the quayside, waiting for the catch to be unloaded. Swarms of gulls soared overhead, just waiting for the fish to be gutted, and several cats preened on the sea wall, licking their whiskers.
A row of small shops fronted the quay, and the streets that ran up from the harbour were narrow and cobblestoned. All the cottages were painted white, which added to the village’s air of cleanliness, the tulips and geraniums growing in window-boxes adding vivid splashes of colour.
Michael parked the car outside one of the shops on the quay, and left her to get his cigars. While he was gone, Sara watched the unloading of the fishing boat, and some of the people gathered there turned to stare at her. They probably recognised the car, she guessed wryly, but she was glad when Michael returned and they drove away.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, noticing the colour in her cheeks. ‘Too much attention? I warned you there was talk about us. And you’re too beautiful to be ignored.’