'Giles, don't…'
'Nothing is going to stop me now,' he bit out. 'I've got to the end of my tether. I've waited long enough. It feels like a lifetime, not just a year. After Malcolm died, of course, I knew it was far too soon to even think about it…'
She froze, staring. 'What?' What had he just said? After Malcolm died? What did he mean, too soon to think about it? About what?
He didn't give her a chance to ask; he was talking fast, his face full of force. 'I told myself I'd wait a few months before getting in touch again, but when your mother told me you had gone to Italy on holiday I decided to take the risk of following you out there…'
'What?' she said again, incredulously, and saw a dark flush crawl up his face.
His voice deepened, roughened. 'Yes. I followed you. I could have sent someone else-there was no need for me to go myself—on that sales trip, but the fact that it was coming up just when you were over there seemed like an omen. I couldn't pass up the chance, so I went, and when I got to your hotel they told me you were out that day, on a trip to Ravenna, so I followed you there, and saw you, and although you were friendlier than you had ever been before you cried on my shoulder and it was obvious you were still grieving for Malcolm, I was being a fool, wasting my time, so I didn't hang around.'
She was so stunned by hearing that it had been no coincidence that he had turned up in Ravenna when he did that she couldn't think of anything to say and just stared at him.
He shifted restlessly, his mouth faintly sulky. He didn't like admitting all this—it was humiliating to confess his feelings—but he set his jaw obstinately, and ground out, 'So I flew back home, telling myself it was far too soon, and I settled down to wait as patiently as I could. I thought I'd give it another six months, and try again.' He laughed curtly. 'And then I found out you were pregnant! My God, that was a shock!' His mouth twisted. If Malcolm had known he would have laughed himself sick.'
She winced, watching him uneasily and seeing the glitter of jealousy in his grey eyes.
'I was shaken to the depths,' he said harshly. 'I couldn't help feeling as if Malcolm was reaching out of the grave, claiming you. I was actually jealous of my own brother, even after he was dead!'
Giles ran a rough hand over his face, sighing. 'I didn't know what to do about myself, but when the first reaction died down I realised I still loved you just as much, and wanted you, and the baby was part of you, so I was going to love it, too. I saw that the baby would change everything—for one thing, it gave me an excuse for seeing you and keeping in touch. I realised that the baby might be the bridge I had been looking for—a way of building common ground between us.'
She was bewildered; he was making her see the last year in a very different light and she wasn't sure how much of what he said she should believe.
'Of course, all my threats about being his guardian, taking him away from you, were moonshine! I could never have got any court to accept my claims, and I knew it—'
'You made all that up!' she gasped.
'I wanted you so desperately I would have said anything,' he admitted thickly. 'I didn't really expect you to fall for it; any lawyer would have told you I was talking rubbish, and no court would have taken your child away from you, or made me his guardian while you were alive, but I was thinking on my feet, anything to keep in touch with you and the baby, especially after you said you were moving in with Andrew Colpitt…'
She flushed crossly, 'I didn't say anything of the kind! That flat belonged to Andrew's mother; it was meant for him, but he didn't use it at the time because he lived in London, and as he was dating Angela he offered it to me! I keep telling you this—there was never anything between me and Andrew.'
He grimaced. 'OK, maybe there wasn't, but that doesn't mean he didn't fancy you. I've seen the way he looks at you, and I know what is on his mind. I ought to! It's always on my mind when I'm looking at you!'
Her eyes fell, and he sighed impatiently. 'Don't look that way! I've finished with lies and pretences, Leonie. From now on, I'm going to say what I really feel, even if you don't like it.'
'Frankly,' she said in a husky voice, 'I'm finding it hard to believe all this! You haven't given me any idea that you…'
She couldn't hold his eyes and looked down again, whispering, 'That you… liked me…'
'Liked you? My God, I've spent most of my waking hours trying to keep my hands off you!'
Her face burned. 'I felt it made you furious just to look at me!'
'It did,' he said curtly. 'I was going crazy with frustration—of course I was angry! I had to wait so long, month after month…'
She was trembling at the emotion in his voice—if only she could believe him! If Giles loved her they could be happy, this marriage would be a real one at last. But what if he was tying?
'And since you had the baby,' he said bleakly, 'I've been afraid to move too fast, in case I drove you away altogether, but tonight I realised I was being a fool. I had to stand there and watch you flirting with other men—'
'I wasn't!'
He turned dark, angry eyes on her. 'Whatever you call it, I am not watching you smiling at Andrew Colpitt like that again!'
'Arc you sure you weren't jealous because he was with Steff?' she threw at him, out of her own jealousy, and he stared at her, his brows dragging together.
'Jealous over Steff?' He gave a short laugh. 'You're crazy. If I had ever been serious about Steff we wouldn't have broken up. I ended it because I knew it wasn't deep enough to matter, and it wasn't fair to her to go on seeing her when I knew I would never feel any different.'
Leonie couldn't stop the long sigh she gave, her body trembling in his arms.
Giles watched her intently. 'Leonie?' he asked with husky eagerness. 'Were you…did you mind… about Steff and me? Did it matter?'
She looked down, her lashes flickering against her flushed cheeks, and couldn't get out a word.
'Darling,' Giles said hoarsely, and kissed her neck, her cheek, her mouth, quick, brushing kisses which made her head swim. She still wasn't sure what was happening—what had he called her?
'Darling,' he said again, his voice shaky, and she looked up at him, her dark blue eyes searching his face for clues, for a sign that he meant it, that he wasn't just using the word lightly.
He picked her up in his arms and carried her to the bed, laying her on it tenderly, as if she were made of china and might break. As he knelt beside her on the bed, his hand smoothed her fine silvery hair back from her face.
'I've waited so long for this,' he whispered thickly. 'I'm half scared to touch you in case I wake up and find I was only dreaming. I've had this dream too many times; it can't be really happening at last.'
He softly stroked one finger down her face; over her forehead, nose, cheek, mouth, jaw, gazing all the time into her eyes. 'You're beautiful,' he said. 'So lovely that you took my breath away the first time I saw you—One look and I was crazy to have you. God, if only I'd met you first, instead of Malcolm, I used to think, but I knew I was being a fool, because it was obvious you didn't even like me.'
It was true, she thought, frowning. She hadn't liked him, even before they'd met. Malcolm had told her so much about his elder brother that turned her against him. Had that been deliberate? she wondered for the first time. Had Malcolm wanted to make them enemies?
Whether he had or did not, he hadn't lied, though, had he? He had said Giles didn't approve of his dating her, and that had been true, especially after Giles met her, on his own admission.
She had known Giles was angry; she hadn't guessed why, but she had picked up those vibrations in him, and resented them. Oh, she had told herself she would go out of her way to make friends with both Giles and Mrs Kent, but underneath that she had already been arming herself for conflict—and that had been what she'd met. Outright war.
Gently, she said, 'You didn't make it easy for me to like you, did you? You and your mother made it crystal-clear that I wasn't wanted!'
'O
h, you were wanted!' he muttered, his eyes dark with a mixture of passion and laughter.
His hands moving downward, he caressed her tenderly, looked at her body with an intensity that made her bones turn to water.
'That was the trouble!' he said thickly. 'I wanted you like hell, but I couldn't show it, I had to hide it, and it was driving me crazy. It hurt. I was too jealous to think straight. I couldn't let you guess how I felt, so I went to the other extreme, and was nasty to you whenever I saw you.'
'Yes, you were,' she said, smiling, and he gave her a look that made her catch her breath, then his head swooped down and his mouth took hers.
She kissed him back, her eyes closing and her arms going round his neck, and the hunger blazed up in both of them before she knew it. She clung, her hands clenching on his back, and Giles groaned against her yielding, parting lips.
'I love you. God, I love you.'
Happiness overwhelmed her—she felt as if she were floating, her body weightless, a radiance of light around her. It was like nothing she had ever felt before; it was like being in heaven, and she barely managed to get out a husky answer.
'I love you, Giles.'
He stiffened. 'Don't say it just because you know I want you to…'
'I fell in love with you weeks ago,' she said. 'I was horrified, I thought I must be out of my mind, falling for you when I was sure you hated me. I think I must have been in love with you before I married you—that was really why I said yes, not just because you blackmailed me.'
'I was desperate,' he said, his eyes grimly contrite. 'I'm so sorry, my love. I was afraid you would go off with someone else, afraid I would never get the chance to change your mind about me—I was talking wildly, I didn't know what I was saying, I made up any crazy threat to get you to marry me. If you had talked to a lawyer you would soon have realised what a fairy-tale I was spinning you. But even if it had been legally possible I wouldn't have taken Mal away from you, I swear it. But I'm sorry I frightened and upset you; it was a rotten way of trying to get what I wanted, and I'd deserve it if you refused to forgive me.'
'Yes, you would,' she said with wry irony because she knew he might say that he knew he deserved it, but he was still banking on her forgiving him.
He looked uncertain, reading her expression, and his own eyes wavering. 'Leonie? Are you very angry?'
She pretended to think about it. 'You would have to swear you'd never do anything like that to me again—'
'I swear,' he said, too quickly, but his face was drawn with anxiety and she had to relent, smiling at him.
'Well, I suppose I can't help myself—I love you too much to stay angry with you for long.'
His arms convulsively clutched her closer, he began kissing her wildly, her eyes, her cheeks, her hair, her neck, her mouth.
'Leonie, I love you… Leonie…my darling…'
She unbuttoned his shirt and began to tug it free of his trousers, and he breathed as if he had run a gruelling race, his face darkly flushed. Desire burnt high in both of them, their bodies moving restlessly against each other, their hands touching and caressing.
Giles shed his clothes in a fevered rush, and they kissed, bodies entwined, naked and warm on the bed—and then they heard the baby crying, and lay still, heads raised, listening.
'No,' Giles muttered, grimacing. 'Not now, Mal, for heaven's sake!' but the crying got louder, more determined, and Leonie giggled helplessly.
'He isn't going to stop!'
'Maybe Susan will hear him?' Giles suggested hopefully. 'Isn't it her turn to get up, anyway?'
'Yes, but after her late night yesterday she's probably sleeping like a log.' Leonie shifted reluctantly, sighing. 'I shall have to go!'
'Must you?' Giles groaned, kissing her bare shoulder. 'Let him cry! He may go off to sleep again if you leave him.'
'And he may just yell louder, and wake your mother!' Leonie gently detached herself from his possessive arms, and slid off the bed. She put on her dressing-gown and tied the belt firmly before she went to the nursery. She hadn't expected Giles to join her, but he did, a few minutes later, also in a dressing-gown, his tousled hair brushed down smoothly again.
She was sitting on a low chair, feeding the baby, and Giles quietly came over and knelt beside her, watching with every sign of fascination.
She smiled at him, touched by something in his face, a gentleness, a warmth, that was not for her alone, but for the baby in her arms. She had wondered if Giles might ever come to resent her love for his brother's child, but the look in his eyes was reassuring.
He put out a tender hand to touch the baby's hair, stroking it back from the perspiring little forehead, and Mal swivelled his eyes to look at Giles, then shut his eyes again and concentrated on his food, his small pink fingers possessively patting the warm swell of his mother's breast.
'I'm sorry he picked the wrong moment, Giles!' Leonie whispered.
'That's OK,' he said, his eyes passionate, as he bent to kiss the white breast at which the baby fed. 'I can wait. I've waited a long time for you, Leonie. I can wait another half an hour.'
If he could be patient, so could she—but it was the longest half-hour of Leonie's life.
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