'You know damn well that your beauty matches the landscape round here.'
'I knew you only saw me as part of the scenery,' she batted back airily, and had then been terrified suddenly when his look sharpened.
'You want me to see you as something more?' he had asked, frowning.
'God forbid!' she had exclaimed, lying in her teeth. 'All I want from you, dear man, is that you wash the breakfast things and don't leave them for me to come back to.'
Blane had made no reply to that. Nor had he had anything else to say. And she had been delayed only to have him press more unwanted money on her, then she had gone to the village, unable to feel any way but uplifted that it looked as though Blane did not want her to leave.
She had wanted to believe that was how it was. Even if, quite plainly, he would have been alarmed if he thought she wanted him to see her as more than a part of the furniture.
All thoughts of getting back to Hills View departed, and she had raced to get her shopping done, the sooner to get back to the man who thought she was as beautiful as the scenery.
Wow! she had thought on her return journey, never more pleased with the breathtaking views. Only just did she remember to slow down as she neared the cottage. Beautiful or no, she didn't fancy being yanked unceremoniously from the car a second time, or being roughly shaken.
She had hoped that the upswing she thought she had seen in Blane would continue. But she had soon found that it had not been maintained. For whatever thoughts had gone on in his head in her absence, clearly, she saw, they had not been happy ones.
'You barely missed me, did you?' she asked, carrying a loaded carton into the kitchen where he was wiping down the cooker.
Horrified to hear that her voice had come out sounding choky and not at all as teasing as she had meant it to be, as his dark look swept over her, she was suddenly terrified that he might glean just how badly she had wanted him to miss her.
'You haven't been gone an hour,' he replied curtly, managing to make it sound as if should she be away a year, it would not have bothered him.
Arden should have gone then. She should have just dumped the groceries and then left him to it, she thought, recalling that yesterday he had been impossible.
There had been no fight, no argument, just an impossible silence in him that there had been no getting through. Not that she had tried. Yesterday, for the first time she had looked at that faraway look of him, and knowing he was still warring with his private battle, she had been too defeated to want to do anything but let him get on with it.
It hadn't helped either her or him that the rain had bucketed down continually so that the chance of taking herself off for a spirit reviving walk had been denied her.
But it isn't raining now, Arden thought, evidence of that in that the sun was doing its best to shine, and that a fine wind was blowing to dry up the waterlogged areas yesterday's elements had produced.
Needing to be outside, her sights set on a walk, she lost no more time. Leaving her perch by the window, with a look of some purpose, she closed her bedroom door and tripped lightly down the stairs to collect her jacket.
'Where are you going?'
Spinning round, she saw that Blane had come silently out into the hall and was watching her. 'For a walk,' she replied shortly. And, aggravated, annoyed that he should calmly reach for his own jacket, 'I want to go alone,' she snapped.
She saw his jacket go back to its peg, his hand return to his side, a mocking look coming to him she hadn't seen in a long day, as softly he drawled:
'Going temperamental on me, Arden?'
'Me temperamental?' Staggered by his nerve, she was almost gasping. But when he did not answer, she snapped, 'This is supposed to be my holiday!' And when he still wasn't answering, but stared at her, at the anger she had suppressed for so long, she was flaring out of control as she stormed, 'And contrary to popular opinion around here—I want to enjoy it!'
'Am I to take it from that,' he enquired, 'that for some reason you aren't enjoying my company?'
He wasn't that short on intelligence. 'Don't tempt me,' she replied. 'If ever I got started on what I think of your company, I'd be committing myself to another month of it before I was through. Suffice it to say that if you're practising for turning into a miserable old devil when you reach old age, you're doing a magnificent job!'
Rather pleased with her comments, Arden had soon left the cottage far behind. That Blane had let her go off on her own had to mean that he was on the way to trusting her, she thought, much as she had thought on the day he'd let her go shopping without giving her more than the briefest grilling.
Perhaps it had done her good to let off a little steam, she mused as she tramped over still damp grass, careless that her shoes were getting soaked. Perhaps she should let off steam more often. It certainly made her feel better.
It didn't seem to have done Blane much harm either, she considered. He hadn't folded at her acid remarks, had he? Maybe she had been wrong to sit quiet when she had thought he wanted to be quiet. Maybe it might jerk him out of his thoughts if she acted how she felt rather than docilely putting up with his black moods, she thought as, deciding it was time she made tracks back, she turned about.
She was dwelling on the counter-argument that perhaps, like before, she might say too much if she didn't watch every word she said to him, when the cottage came into view. Yet, on the other hand, she pondered as she went, if she were not in love with Blane —and oh, how mightily she wished love for him had not come to undermine her—would she so quietly have put up with the impossible way he had been all this week if she did not love him?
She let herself into the house, remembering how deeply shocked he had been that lifetime away when she had first met him. So far as she knew, he no longer suffered from nightmares, but that did not mean to say that there was not some shock still in him.
Not certain how she was going to act with him in future, Arden went into the kitchen. She guessed Blane was in the sitting room and that he had not made himself a cup of tea. She guessed too, since it was dark now, that he would be sitting there in the semi-darkness staring into the gloom.
The tray laid, feeling better for her walk, Arden picked it up and pushed her way into the sitting room. It was dark in there, but she fully expected Blane to be where every afternoon this week had seen him. Her surmise that he was sitting there and had not bothered to turn on the light was, she discovered, way off course.
At first it did not bother her that he was not in the sitting room. He had probably gone upstairs for something, she thought. But, five minutes later, not a sound to be heard in the house, she found she could not settle to drink her tea.
Another few minutes passed, then she noticed that Blane had placed the fireguard in front of the fire—a normal enough action when anyone left a room where there was an open fire—but all her instincts were knotting together to tell her that he had gone out.
He never goes out without me! she thought, trying to hold down panic. But if he had only gone upstairs for a lie-down—something he had never done before—or if he would think she was fussing, nothing would do for her then but that she went to check.
Not only did Arden check the room at the far end of the landing, but as alarm started to rip through her, she checked every other room in the house as well. All to no avail.
Thanking her lucky stars that the Colonel had left behind a torch, she took it with her into the darkness outside and checked the outbuilding. When that yielded no sign of Blane either, her panic just refused to be quieted.
Calling his name, she set off to search for him. As she fanned the torch to the right, to the left, way out in front, her fear for him mounted. Blane had been ill, was still ill, had been severely shocked, and was probably still deeply shocked. Please God, let him be safe, she prayed as she remembered how he had been, how he had spent hours in deep dark thought, how he still loved the dead Delcine, and how, for all he had said he was not suicide-minded, he had also sai
d, 'I need to find peace'.
'Blane!' she called at the top of her lungs, terror ripping as she splashed uncaring through the stream and reached the wood where once, in silence, they had walked together. She wouldn't mind his silence, moody or otherwise, one little bit if he was safe, she thought. She would never open her mouth again if that was what he wanted.
'Blane!' she called again, swinging her torch around, dread in her heart that, unable to find that peace he so badly wanted, he had thought to join Delcine—death being the only way out for him.
Oh God, no, cried everything in her, her heart breaking that she had ever said an angry word to him. Oh, how could she have lost her temper with him!
How long she searched and called his name she didn't know. Had the torch batteries not given out, she would have carried on searching. But, defeated, not able to see a thing in the dark, she felt a small hope start to kindle that perhaps Blane had returned home in her absence. She clung to that hope as she stumbled back the way she had come. Hope refusing to budge even while her mind was going on that should he not be there, she would be joining a search party as soon as she'd got the old Morris Traveller to the nearest phone.
But clinging to the hope that she would not have to race to phone the police, as she reached the spot where in daylight she should see the cottage, Arden's eyes caught a beacon of light.
Unable to remember turning the lights off when she'd set off, she hurried up her steps. He's got to be there, she thought, he's got to!
But Blane was not there. And call his name though she might, there was no Blane to answer her. Choking back a sob, Arden went into the kitchen, feverishly opening drawers and cupboards as she searched for new batteries for her torch. Then suddenly she froze.
'Do you usually leave the front door wide on a winter's night?' asked a calm sarcastic voice she would know anywhere.
Slowly, just in case the terrible trauma she had been in ever since he had gone missing was making her hear things, Arden turned, and in doing so was met with the incredulous exclamation:
'Good God! What happened to you?'
'B-Blane,' said Arden faintly.
Overwhelming relief took her then. She was unaware of the mud-splattered sight she looked as Blane took a step forward. But so almighty was her relief, it found release in the most violent feeling of anger she had ever experienced.
'Where the hell have you been?' she shrieked, the white look of her, the shrill sound of her voice stopping him dead.
'You're sounding like a wife,' was his calm reply, a hint of humour there she would have been glad to have heard at any other time. 'You'll have to watch that, Arden,' he said, his voice mild, soothing.
But, wrung dry emotionally as she was, to see him calmly standing in front of her, to her mind jibing, when she had been terrified of coming across him dead, Arden was in no mind to hear his soothing tones.
'You insufferable swine!' she yelled, her face working. 'You've had me worried to death this past…'
'Worried!' An alert look came to him as he cut in, a look she wasn't seeing either. 'You've been worried— about me?'
'Of course I've been worried about you!' she shouted, not sure how she was keeping her hands off him, the need to physically set about him threatening to get the better of her. 'I came home to find the cottage empty and you nowhere to be seen,' she raged, 'what was I supposed to think?'
'That maybe I'd taken a walk myself,' he inserted, still in that same calming tone that wasn't reaching her.
'You never go anywhere without me,' she flew on furiously. 'You've been ill, shocked, overwrought about Delcine's death. You could have been laying dead yourself out there for all I knew!'
'You thought I'd committed suicide!' It was his turn to be shaken. But he was far more quickly over his surprise than was Arden in coming out from the nightmare of her experience. And his voice was gentle, when softly he said, 'I'm sorry, my dear.'
As far as she was concerned, that 'my dear' was the very last straw. It was a mistake too for him to take those few steps that brought him within striking distance.
'So you damn well should be!' she exploded, and unable to contain her anger, she lashed out at him, hitting his shoulders furiously, albeit ineffectually, with small bunched fists. 'I've been out of my mind about you!' she cried, tears she could do nothing about spurting to her eyes, and as anger suddenly deserted her, 'And you're just not worth it,' she added.
His arm coming about her shoulders, Blane took charge of her as he soothed, 'I know I'm not,' and gently ushered her into the sitting room, tears spilling down her face as he led her to sit down on the settee.
She was still wildly out of control when he left her for a few moments to throw a couple of logs on the fire and went to get a towel. Arden was nowhere any nearer pulling herself together when, having removed her shoes and rubbed her feet dry, Blane stood over her.
'You're nothing but a—a pain in the neck,' she said, her voice catching.
'I know,' he agreed.
'You don't deserve that anybody should worry over you.'
'I don't,' he agreed again.
'And stop agreeing with me!' she snapped, then sniffed, and thought she had done with tears.
But that was until she raised moist eyes to his dear face that was trying to coax a smile out of her. And, 'Oh Blane!' she cried suddenly. The next moment the floodgates opened, and Arden was weeping in earnest.
Great heaving sobs took her—sobs that would not stop even when Blane came and sat next to her, or when his arms came about her as he cradled her to him.
'I've looked everywhere f-for you,' she wept on. 'Everywhere we've ever w-walked, I've searched.'
She felt his light kiss touch her hair, and a great shuddering sob took her as quietly he talked all the trauma out of her system. 'You came back to see if I'd returned?'
She gave a shake of her head resting against his shoulder. 'The batteries in the torch ran out. I c-came home to look for some more be-before I went to ring the police.'
'Police!' he exclaimed. Then getting over this fresh surprise, he held her to him, as, finding she was on the defensive suddenly, Arden excused:
'Well, I didn't know what had happened to you. You could have…'
Only then beginning to feel that she had made an utter fool of herself, she pushed away from him, her face wet as those tears inside her dried.
But Blane insisted on keeping a hold of her with one hand, while with the other he took out his handkerchief and mopped her up, his tone the most gentle she had ever heard as, looking into her velvet eyes, he said kindly:
'When your imagination takes off, it really takes off, doesn't it, little darling?'
And gentle still he leaned forward and placed a kiss on each of her eyes. Kindly still when she just sat and stared at him, not thinking of moving, as he said:
'Are you going to forgive me for…' It was unusual for him to hesitate, but, mesmerised by him again, by his gentle kisses on her eyes, Arden was going nowhere, and had all the time in the world to wait for him to finish. 'For,' he resumed, 'feeling lonely without you here?' Going on to tell her, 'I decided I would take a walk too—only I went a way we'd never walked before and…' the smile he gave her just about finished Arden off, 'and got myself lost in the dark on the way back.'
'Serves you right,' she said. But there was no heat in her as, weakly, she gave him the smile he had put himself out to charm from her. Though suddenly she realised that she had been far too open with him. Arden was then having to think very rapidly. 'You don't deserve me as your guardian,' she told him, hoping he would glean from that that her concern was only such as that of anyone who had taken on the role of head cook and bottle-washer.
'Yes, Nurse,' said Blane. And with a very definite grin showing, that was beautiful for her to see even if there was light mockery there, he asked, 'Are you going to give me a kiss to show you forgive me?'
Knowing he was teasing, she thought that to kiss him lightly was probably a very good wa
y of showing him that her feelings were no more deeply involved than that. That her frantic worry over him was natural in the circumstances of what he had been through.
'Don't do it again,' she told him lightly, reaching forward, knowing he could not know about her heart hammering away inside her as she placed her mouth against his.
It was a mistake to kiss him—a mistake Arden knew about the moment she felt the movement of his mouth against hers. And the worst of it was that, knowing she should pull back, when she felt his hand come to her other arm—she could not pull back.
That Blane was not pushing her away was of no help. Nor was it of any help that when he took his mouth from hers it was only for the smallest fraction of time. Time in which he looked into her eyes before he was bringing his mouth back to hers.
And Arden was just not thinking at all when she felt the thrill of his hands moving from her arms as he gathered her into the full circle of his warm strength.
His kisses were gentle, Blane's hold on her was gentle, at first. But when, unable to deny herself this closeness, Arden raised her arms and placed them around him, she felt his strong arms bind her more firmly to him. And the next time he kissed her, it was a kiss such as she had never known.
By then his hands were gently caressing her back, and Arden never wanted him to stop. A fire had been set to roaring within her as one of his hands then came to caress her shoulder inside the neck of her shirt.
'Beautiful Arden,' he said softly, and kissed her again. Her response was instant—a moan of pleasure left her when that hand caressed further, and she felt his warmth cup her naked breast in his hand.
Powerless to stop him, she did not want to. When he unbuttoned her shirt the better to touch, to see her firm swollen curves, she had no objection to make. She only wondered when, taking her with him, he moved her to lie alongside him on the settee, and heard him groan with desire.
Her face flushed, she wanted this closeness. Wanted that he should be closer. Needing him, she pressed to get closer still, joy hers as another sound of his wanting her left him.
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