by Penny Jordan
Why was he telling her this? She frowned. ‘Do you have much trouble with that sort of thing?’
‘Occasionally, which is why I like to have it checked at the outset. I’m not asking you to play private detective, don’t think that, I just don’t want you getting the wrong idea. I don’t turn a blind eye to anything illegal on my sites, and so I don’t expect you to do so, either.’
‘It seems to me that I’m going to have a very busy two months,’ Gemma said wryly. ‘Where will you be when you’re not on hand then? Screening the débutantes?’
His eyebrows rose, and she felt that her remark had been too acid, but all he said was, ‘You’re going to take the job, then?’
Was she? She had to admit that it sounded fascinating; a real challenge, the sort of thing that appealed immensely to her. Add to that two months in the Caribbean. How could she refuse?
But Gemma was by nature cautious, and so she said slowly instead, ‘I’d like to think about it if you don’t mind, Luke. It’s a marvellous opportunity, but I want to check that I’ll be up to it, do a little bit on the sort of courses you need to run, the availability of text books, etc.’
‘You’ve got three days,’ he told her curtly. ‘At the end of the week I fly back to the Caribbean and if you take the job you’ll be coming with me.’
‘Where were you yesterday afternoon, by the way? I called round to talk to you about this then, but you were out.’
It never occurred to her to dissemble. ‘I went for a walk, and ended up in our clearing.’
A curious look crossed his face. ‘Sentimental of me, wasn’t it?’ she said lightly, not sure how to interpret his silence. ‘Do you ever wish you could turn the clock back, Luke?’
She must be going insane. What on earth had made her ask that? He looked at her for a moment and then said drily, ‘Not if it means going back to take a bath in the river. These days I prefer a warm shower.’
Illuminatingly she had an appallingly clear picture of him emerging from the river, his skin streaked with water, brown and hard where it lay over his muscles. He would still look like that now. And although she hadn’t known before that she had even been aware of it, she could suddenly recall the clean male scent of him and the feel of his skin beneath her hand.
‘We’d better get back,’ he told her abruptly. ‘Otherwise Hardman might come looking for you.’
‘There’s no reason why he should.’
‘Come off it, Gemma, he was looking at you this afternoon like a dog guarding a particularly juicy bone. Remember,’ he told her when they reached the gate that opened into her parents’ garden, ‘you’ve got three days to make up your mind, that’s all.’
Her father saw them coming up through the garden together and came over to them, detaching Luke and telling him that he had some friends he wanted him to meet.
‘Your mother’s been looking for you,’ he told Gemma, frowning slightly as he added, ‘Where have you been?’
‘I’ve just been trying to persuade Gemma to give up her job and come and work for me,’ Luke interposed carelessly.
No wonder her father looked shocked, Gemma reflected. She had been more than a little stunned herself.
‘Work for you? But Gemma’s a teacher.’
Economically and quickly Luke explained why he felt that Gemma could be of use to him.
‘You’re far too soft on your workers, Luke,’ her father protested with a frown. ‘You’re spoiling them. The minute you educate them they’ll turn on you and start demanding higher wages. It’s the old story.’
‘I don’t think so. My workforce is already well paid. I believe in giving a man a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.’
‘You’re a revolutionary … do you know that?’
Gemma left them to it. Although his success meant that her father was forced to bow to Luke’s view, she could see that he didn’t wholly approve of what Luke was doing. As far as her father was concerned, an unbridgeable gap existed between himself and his workforce, and that was the way he preferred it to be.
* * *
Sophy was remaining in her wedding dress for the evening, but everyone else seemed to be getting changed. Her mother had wanted to buy Gemma a new ballgown, but she had reminded her that she still had the dress she had worn for her own twenty-first birthday and reluctantly her mother agreed that she could wear it.
Her mother still wanted to show her off, just as she had done when she was a little girl, Gemma thought wryly as she went upstairs to change. And just as she had when she was a child, she was prepared to pet and fuss her in public, but in private she knew that the alienation between them was still very strong. The problem was that she and her mother had so little in common.
The dress she had had for her twenty-first was made of soft apricot raw silk. It had off-the-shoulder sleeves and a tight bodice, with a full length bell-shaped skirt.
It hung a little loosely on her waist now because she had lost a little weight, but the apricot silk flattered her skin, and the light bodice showed off the feminine shape of her breasts.
She gathered her hair back in a soft knot, and tucked a silk flower attached to a comb into it.
She was the first one back downstairs. A maintenance firm was busily picking up debris from the lawns, returning them to their earlier pristine splendour ready for the returning evening guests. The band had arrived and Gemma could hear them tuning up through the open french windows.
‘Ah, there you are, darling. Daddy won’t be long.’ Her mother patted delicately at her prettily made-up eyes with a handkerchief. ‘I can hardly believe it: my little boy married.’
David and Sophy had retired to their own new house to prepare for the evening celebrations amid bawdy amusement from the younger guests.
Why on earth did this suggestive humour still cling to weddings? Gemma wondered. Surely there could be few couples these days who went to the altar sexually ignorant of one another?
‘Daddy has just been telling me that Luke has offered you a job. Are you going to take it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well it’s a wonderful opportunity for you, darling, two months in the Caribbean, but …’ Her mother twisted her rings round nervously. ‘Well, Daddy and I think we ought to give you a little warning. Luke does have something of a reputation where women are concerned, you know, and we wouldn’t want you …’
Her mother didn’t want her to take the job, Gemma recognised. It was all right for her to pair her off with him here at home where she could keep an eye on them, but if Luke took her to the Caribbean …
‘Oh, I think I’m safe enough from any advances from him, Mother,’ Gemma said coolly. ‘I hardly think I’m his type.’
She could see that her mother wanted to press the subject, as she smiled at her and said instead, ‘I hadn’t realised that Tom Hardman was going to be one of the guests.’
Immediately her mother fell for the red herring and started to expound at length on Tom’s virtues.
CHAPTER FIVE
SHE might have soothed down her mother’s fears, Gemma reflected half an hour later as she absently watched the dancers, but her own were still dangerously ruffled. She wasn’t a child any more, for God’s sake, and if she wanted to go and work for Luke then she damned well would.
It infuriated her that her mother couldn’t see behind her petty snobbishness to the real world that lay beyond it. Her mother looked down on Luke because he ‘wasn’t one of us’. Gemma had precious little doubt that, had it been Tom who wanted to employ her, she would have been practically thrown into his arms.
Was it really the loss of her virtue that her mother feared, or the public coupling of her name with Luke’s? Gemma was no fool; she was perfectly well aware that if she went to work for him there would be some gossip. In such a small village it was naïve to assume that there wouldn’t be, but once she and Luke had gone the gossip would die down.
The more she dwelt on her mother’s objections, the firm
er became her conviction that she wanted to accept Luke’s job offer. As always, she railed mentally against the narrowness of her mother’s views, and her total lack of awareness of how obvious she made them to others.
She was still standing in a corner of the marquee watching the dancers when her father came over to join her.
Conversation between the two of them was nearly always fraught with constriction, but on this occasion she could see the frowning tension in her father’s eyes even before he spoke.
‘Your mother and I have just been discussing O’Rourke’s suggestion that you work for him,’ he began without preamble, his frown deepening as he watched the faintly betraying tightening of her mouth. ‘Now look, Gemma, your mother and I have been very patient with you. Heaven knows you’ve caused enough gossip with this teaching thing … but this … I hope you told him that you won’t accept the job.’
‘As a matter of fact …’ She was just about to tell her father that she hadn’t considered it properly when he went on before she could speak.
‘He’s not one of us, you know, Gemma. And I’m afraid his reputation with women … well, quite frankly it’s distinctly unsavoury.’
‘Really? But that doesn’t seem to have stopped you from wanting to go into business with him, or Mother from inviting him here to dine.’
She could see that she had annoyed her father. His face was slowly turning a dark puce, always a sign that he was about to lose his temper.
‘As far as I’m concerned his affairs are his own concern. The type of women he takes up with seem to know what life’s all about. I dare say they know he’s a man who won’t make any commitment to them, but I won’t have my daughter put in the same class as them.’
‘I think you’re letting your imagination run away with you.’ Gemma told him angrily. ‘Luke has offered me a job, and that job does not include sharing his bed.’
She could see that she had shocked him, and inwardly she was torn between tears and laughter. Her parents were so ridiculously old-fashioned. Of course people would gossip, but did they really believe that her supposed reputation was more at risk in Luke’s company than it would have been had her employer been Tom, for instance? And did they also think that she was no more than a puppet doll, incapable of making her own decisions about her life? It was up to her who became her lover—only she could make that choice and only she would. Oh, good heavens! The whole thing was getting out of hand. Luke had offered her a job, not the position of maîtresse en titre!
‘It’s just not on, Gemma, and you’ll have to tell him so. There’s no need for you to have a job at all, you know. In fact, your mother could do with your help at home. You’ve always been a rebellious and difficult child. Why can’t you be more like Marjorie Walters?’
Marjorie Walters was the daughter of her father’s architect: a languid blonde, who lived in a converted garage flat adjoining her parents’ house.
What would her father say if she told him that Marjorie had lost her virginity at the age of sixteen to her father’s trainee assistant, and that since then there had been a succession of men through her life?
He wouldn’t believe her, Gemma thought bitterly.
‘Well, Gemma, do I have your promise that you will tell O’Rourke that you won’t be accepting his offer?’
It took Gemma several seconds to control the rush of anger she could feel surging through her body.
With commendable calm she faced her father and said quietly, ‘No, Father, I’m afraid you don’t. You see, I have every intention of working for Luke, and I’m going to tell him so right away.’
She walked off before he could stop her, shocked to discover that she was literally shaking with rage. She would not have her life manipulated in this way. She would make her own decision, live her own way.
She was so blinded by anger that she almost walked right into Luke.
‘Hey, what’s the matter? Had a quarrel with the boyfriend?’
‘Boyfriend? I don’t have a boyfriend,’ she said flatly, adding impatiently, ‘Luke, I have to talk to you.’
‘You’re doing that.’
‘No, not here. Somewhere more private.’ She thought for a moment. ‘The summerhouse. Come on.’
At any other time she would have been amused at her own presumption in expecting him to follow her. Even as a younger man, Luke had never been someone who could be ordered around.
The summerhouse was on the far side of the garden from the marquee. Octagonal and open on three sides, it was a copy of the pretty Chinese follies favoured during the Regency era.
Normally the wooden seats were covered in a Chinesey chintz-covered padded seat, but this had been put away by the gardener so that it wouldn’t spoil with dew; Gemma was unaware of the hard dampness of the wooden seat as she sat down on it.
‘All right, what’s bugging you?’
‘I’ve decided that I want to accept your job.’
She couldn’t look at him, but kept her eyes fixed on her tensed curled hands.
‘I thought you wanted time to consider things.’
She could tell that he was frowning and her heart suddenly leaped like a stranded fish. Had he changed his mind? Didn’t he want her after all?
She said as much, and the cool amusement in his voice as he told her softly, ‘Oh yes, I still want you,’ drew her eyes to his face, but there was nothing she could read there to reinforce the faint twinge of disquiet the mocking words aroused.
‘But why the sudden decision? Or can I guess? Had a quarrel with the boyfriend, have you?’
The boyfriend? Her forehead creased.
‘Hardman,’ he told her laconically. ‘I saw you talking with him earlier. I’m not that naïve, Gemma. There has to be some reason for this oh, so sudden decision.’
No, he wasn’t naïve, and if she denied that Tom was her boyfriend, he would keep on pressing her until he had the truth, and Gemma knew that no matter how much they might deserve it, she couldn’t expose her parents’ petty snobbery to him. It would be easier and simpler to let him believe that he was right and that Tom was the reason she had made up her mind so quickly.
‘Does it matter what the reason is, as long as you have my decision?’
She could feel him watching her, and the sombreness of his regard made tiny prickles of sensation lift on her skin: not fear exactly, not excitement either, but something that was a combination of the two.
‘Maybe not, but I warn you, now that you have given me your decision I won’t allow you to back out. So I’ll ask you again, are you sure?’
Was she? She had the sensation of stepping off the known and firm ground beneath her and on to something unknown, alien, and quite possibly dangerous, but she didn’t hesitate.
‘I want to come with you, Luke.’
‘Very well.’ He stood up, and she stood up with him. Even with her heels on he was still much taller than her, and much broader, too. He obviously didn’t sit in an office all day long.
‘Now, we’d better go back and join the others before your father comes looking for me with a shotgun.’
‘You say that as though you’re speaking from previous experience,’ Gemma teased, striving to introduce a lighter note into their conversation.
‘Maybe. Any man with money soon discovers that he’s a target for females on the lookout for a meal ticket for life, and despite the progress of the women’s movement there are still plenty about.’
‘You don’t want to get married then, Luke?’
‘Why should I?’ he drawled mockingly. ‘You know what they say about marriage—and I did my share of living in an institution when I was a kid.’
For some reason she felt oddly depressed, although his remark was no more than she had expected. She couldn’t really see Luke as a married man, tied down with a wife and children. He was too independent, too much an animal who walked alone. She wondered if he would ever allow anyone to get close enough to him to endanger that precious solitude.
T
hey had walked through the trees and were now within sight of the marquee, but before she could move any further Gemma suddenly felt his hand on her arm constraining her.
As she turned to look at him, she saw the white flash of his smile illuminated by the moon.
‘Not yet. We still have to seal our contract.’
‘What contract? You haven’t given me one yet.’
‘Oh, yes, I have, and now you’ve accepted it—even if it is only verbal. And, remember, I intend to keep you to it, Gemma. There was a time in the past when a kiss was a pledge, not so much of sexual desire, but of trust and loyalty.’
She had known all the time what he was leading up to and there had been ample opportunity for her to draw away, but somehow she couldn’t; somehow she had remained standing still so that he was able to draw her fully within the circle of his arms, her eyes as mesmerised as a firefly caught in a bright light as she stood staring up at him, waiting for his hard, warm mouth to come down over hers, her body tense with nervous excitement.
It was just before his mouth claimed hers that she remembered how she had felt that first time he kissed her. Every detail of those few seconds came back to her as though they had happened only minutes before.
She felt his mouth move on hers, warm and sure, his tongue slowly probing at her closed lips until, unable to resist the delicious torment, they opened eagerly to his command.
He was straining her against his body now, and she was helping him, enjoying the electric tension in her breasts as they pressed against the hard wall of his chest. Even through his evening jacket she could feel the heavy thud of his heart. His hands slid slowly down her back, cupping her gently and easing her against the hardness of his thighs, while his mouth continued to coax and seduce hers into eager surrender.