by Penny Jordan
‘You know, you amaze me at times! One minute the hardened sophisticate, the next, a shy innocent…’
Desperate to stop him probing, Susannah forced a brittle laugh. ‘That’s women for you. All of us a part-chameleon!’
‘I think I’d better take a look at the boiler.’ Hazard started moving away from her.
‘It’s all right for the moment. I stoked it while you were upstairs with the doctor. Which reminds me, I’d better do something about that chicken.’ She turned towards the fridge.
‘I’ll go outside and take a look at the river. Dr Barnes warned me that they’re expecting severe flooding in the village. If that happens, we’ll be marooned up here, because that’s the only road out.’ She didn’t turn round as Hazard opened the back door. It felt odd being alone here with him—odd and exciting! It was extraordinary how easily she had been able to overcome her initial hostility to him.
The chicken was a plump, large one, and Emma’s cupboards proved to be as well stocked as she had promised. A cold, stone pantry yielded enough apples for a pie, and she was just coring and slicing the fruit when Hazard came back in.
‘It isn’t looking good,’ he told her. ‘If this rain doesn’t let up in the next half an hour or so, I think we’re definitely going to be cut off.’
‘Well, we won’t starve. Emma has enough food in for a siege. Oh no, you don’t!’ She rapped Hazard briefly over the knuckles as he pinched a piece of apple. ‘Those are for my pie.’
‘Mmm… And what are these for?’
She had found some plump raisins which would add a slightly more spicy touch to her pie.
‘They’re for the pie as well, so hands off,’ she told him succinctly. ‘I’ll go up and check on Emma once I’ve finished here.’
‘Mm…’ Hazard filched another slice of apple, munching it with relish. ‘I suppose we ought to give some thought to where we’re going to sleep, and when. Dr Barnes mentioned that there might be a possibility of Emma suffering from exposure, which suggests that one of us ought to be with her all night.’
‘We’ll have to take it in turns. When I go up to see her, I’ll make up our beds. There should be time before our meal’s ready.’
She didn’t look at Hazard as she spoke, but her hands shook betrayingly.
‘Hey.’ Slowly, he turned her round to face him, ignoring her protests about her floury hands. ‘Is that really what you think of me? That I’m crass enough to expect you spend tonight with me? Maybe in different circumstances, if we’d both had enough time together first to relax; and only then if it was a mutual decision. I’m not going to pretend that I don’t want you, Susannah. You know better than that. But the first time we go to bed together I want it to be something special, not something rushed and furtive.’
His words were so sincere, his expression so ruefully tender, that she didn’t even try to resist the impulse to put her head on his shoulder.
‘You must think me such a fool.’
‘For not rushing into bed with me? No, Susannah. I’d be more inclined to think you a fool if you did. Let’s get one thing clear. I’ve had my moments; I’m no saint, I’m afraid, but I’m not promiscuous, either. No one with any degree of self-worth can afford to be these days. Now isn’t our time, but it will come, I promise you that.’
Gently he kissed her, his hands cupping Susannah’s face, his lips teasing hers until a small sound of frustration made his hold on her tighten and his mouth claim hers in fierce male responsiveness.
All the things she couldn’t tell him in words—her trust, her love, her inexperience—she tried to communicate to him in that kiss. When he eventually set her free, she was flushed, her eyes brilliant with arousal. What price now caution or lack of experience? If he were to pick her up in his arms and…
‘Don’t! Don’t look at me like that,’ he groaned, catching hold of her wrist and lifting her hand, palm upwards, to his mouth.
The sensation of his lips moving against her tender skin, his teeth nibbling the base of her fingers, made her weak with desire.
‘I must go and see Emma.’
Reluctantly, she stepped back from him as he let her go.
‘Yes. I think you must,’ he responded gravely. ‘Don’t trust too much to my self-control, Susannah,’ he warned her as she headed for the stairs. ‘It’s been one hell of a long time since I’ve wanted a woman the way I want you.’
Her heart was pounding by the time she got upstairs, whether from his words or from the exertion she wasn’t sure, but she suspected the former.
Emma was deeply asleep. Closing her door gently, Susannah investigated the other bedrooms. There were three of them, all of them large and all with comfortable-looking double beds.
She decided she would have the one closest to Emma’s room. Hazard had driven them all the way up here; he was bound to be tired later, and Susannah was determined that she was the one who would sit with Emma during the night. If she had the room next to her, it would be that little bit easier to convince Hazard that she was right.
She made up both the bed in that room, and that in the room next to the bathroom.
She found the nightdress Emma had offered her, and smoothed out the soft cotton with amazed fingers. It was Victorian, the cotton soft and smooth, its yoke and cuffs lavishly adorned with lace.
Had some long-ago Victorian girl dreamed of the man to whom she would give her love as she sewed this nightgown? Telling herself this was no time to start day-dreaming, Susannah sighed and placed it reverently on her bed.
She was half-way downstairs when the lights started to flicker. She had put them on because the overcast sky had made the afternoon dark.
‘I think this is where Dr Barnes’s prophecy concerning the power cut comes true,’ Hazard called up to her.
‘I suspect you may be right.’
‘So where do we find the oil lamps, I wonder?’
‘They’re in an outbuilding next to the fuel store. I saw them when I was looking for the fuel.’
‘Right, and I’ll go out and get them, and bring them in.’
‘I think that might be a good idea,’ Susannah agreed as the lights flickered wildly.
Emma’s range seemed a good deal less temperamental than her aunt’s Aga. As she checked on the chicken and her pie, Susannah found herself wondering what sort of bread it made, her mouth watering tormentingly. The last time she had eaten had been at breakfast. She had only had coffee on the way, since the original idea had been that they would have lunch with Emma. Lunch was more likely to be served at a time favoured by Yorkshire folk for high tea.
‘This takes me back to my summer camp days,’ Hazard announced walking in with the lamps and some fuel.
‘Summer camp?’ Susannah queried.
‘An American institution,’ he told her with a grin. ‘Invented to spare parents the necessity of entertaining their offspring during the long summer holidays. In point of fact it’s an excellent idea, and allows the kids to let off steam and learn independence at the same time.’
‘You’re American, but you don’t have much of an accent.’
‘Wrong. I’m British, but my parents emigrated to Australia when I was about seven.’
‘Australia?’
‘Mmm. Later, my parents were divorced and I went with my mother to America.’
‘Does she still live there?’
Almost instantly, she was aware of having trodden on forbidden territory. His hands stilled, his whole stance tense and defensive. ‘Yes,’ he told her harshly, turning away from her. ‘I think we’re going to need some matches to get these things lit. Have you seen any?’
Obviously the subject of his mother was not one she was going to be allowed to pursue, Susannah realised, taking the hint, but still hurt by it.
She remembered what Claire had said about him virtually being brought up by Mac, and wondered how true it was. He would have been younger than Caroline by several years, of course. Strange that Richard had said nothing abou
t their relationship when he had announced that Hazard was to take over from him, but perhaps he had felt that Hazard himself might not want details of his personal life bruited around the office. He was obviously very sensitive about it.
‘There are some matches over there.’ She was determined not to let him see how much his withdrawal had hurt her.
‘Well, at least we know they work,’ Hazard announced when he had tested the lamps to his satisfaction. ‘How long before we eat? I’m beginning to feel very empty.’
Taking her cue from him, Susannah responded equally lightly. It was pointless letting him see how hurt she had been by the barrier he had thrown up. Later, perhaps, when they knew one another better, he might feel more able to confide in her. Men were notorious for not liking to talk about their innermost feelings.
‘We’d better organise something for tonight. One of us will have to stay with Emma…’
‘It’s all taken care of. I’m sleeping in the room next to hers, and I’ll spend the night with her. There’s a very comfortable chair in her room, and I’m only a light sleeper.’ She saw that he was about to argue with her and said quickly, ‘Hazard, you drove us here. Please let me do my bit… It won’t be the first time I’ve done a nursing stint. My aunt broke her arm several years ago, and there were complications.’
‘Several years ago? You must have been very young. Didn’t your parents…?’
He stopped and she said quietly, ‘My parents were killed when I was very young—before my first birthday, in fact. Aunt Emily brought me up. She’s really my father’s aunt, very strict and a stickler for duty and doing the right thing, but she’s also very kind and generous. If it hadn’t been for her, I expect I’d have grown up in a foster home, or worse still in an institution. Not that I’m suggesting they aren’t excellent at what they do, but there’s no substitute for the sort of love and care Aunt Emily gave me.’
‘Yes. I know what you mean.’
For a second she thought he was about to go on, but then he got up and moved restlessly around the large kitchen.
‘What happened to you, Susannah? From the sort of background you describe, I should have thought you’d be the type of girl who would marry young and spend her life caring for her family. Did you rebel against your aunt’s authority? Was that how you ended up with a married lover?’
All of a sudden his voice was harsh, the antagonism back as they stared at one another, and then Susannah said evenly. ‘No. That had nothing to do with Aunt Emily—or rebellion. And you’re wrong. Aunt Emily might have taught me all the old-fashioned domestic skills, but she taught me them for my own benefit, not so that I would become someone’s wife. Before she retired, Aunt Emily was a librarian. She encouraged me to do well at school and have my own career. In fact, in many ways, I suspect she’s something of a feminist.’ A small reminiscent smile curled her mouth. ‘She certainly doesn’t subscribe to the view that man is superior to woman…far from it.’
She was trying to recapture their previous light-hearted mood. She didn’t want to talk about David, nor to have to explain. To explain meant going into things she still felt too insecure to discuss. Like the fact that she never felt totally at ease with her peers…like the fact that David, being older and less aggressively sexual, had put her at her ease, made her feel comfortable and unthreatened. She couldn’t tell Hazard yet how naïve she had been; how she had never even guessed that David was married. If she did, he might guess at her total lack of knowledge of his sex, and with that knowledge might come the realisation of how inexperienced she was. Sexually inhibited, so she had been told. Was it true? Certainly once she might have accepted that it was, but now…knowing how she felt the moment Hazard touched her, she was beginning to wonder. He made her experience an intensity of need she hadn’t known could exist.
‘You’re offended, and rightly so. I shouldn’t have brought up the subject of your affair. Is it really over, Susannah?’
Her heart overflowed with love and humility as she caught the uncertainty in his voice. He hadn’t been sitting in moral judgement, he had simply been jealous.
‘Yes,’ she told him simply and honestly. ‘And it…’
And it wasn’t even really an affair, she had been about to admit, driven to make a clean breast of her deception by a growing need to feel that there were no barriers between them.
‘No,’ Hazard interrupted her harshly. ‘Don’t tell me any more. I’m starving. How long before we eat?’
Accepting his cue, Susannah walked across to the range and investigated its contents.
‘Whenever you’re ready. I’d better go and check on Emma, though.’
‘My turn.’ She couldn’t escape from the feeling that he wanted to put some distance between them—and it hurt, no matter how much she tried to be logical and calm.
He was gone for about five minutes and, as Susannah had already guessed before he returned, he announced that Emma was now awake.
‘She’s still very dopey, though. She says we’re to make ourselves completely at home, and apologised for causing us any trouble. She doesn’t want anything to eat just yet.’
‘I’d thought of making some soup from the chicken carcass. If I cut off all the flesh tonight, I could make the soup for her supper.’
‘Home-made soup?’ His eyebrows lifted.
‘Aunt Emily abhorred waste,’ Susannah told him, mock primly.
‘Mmm… I think I’m going to want to meet Aunt Emily, if only to see that she exists and that you’re not sending me up.’
‘Oh, she exists,’ Susannah told him wryly. ‘And, if you do meet her, she’ll bombard you with a hundred questions about what you do and who your parents were.’ She grimaced faintly, remembering the tongue-tied silence to which her formidable aunt had reduced her first adolescent boyfriends.
She had never taken David home. Once she’d realised he was married she hadn’t been able to, knowing how her aunt would have felt about their relationship.
The kitchen was the old farmhouse type with a large scrubbed table. Hazard found cutlery in one of its drawers, while Susannah put the finishing touches to the sauce she had made for the chicken.
‘I won’t ask you to carve it,’ she told him when she lifted it out of the range. She had cooked it in the way Aunt Emily had taught her years ago; its flesh looked moist and succulent, ready to fall off the bones.
‘Roast potatoes? Marvellous,’ Hazard approved hungrily.
‘I’m afraid it won’t be anything like what you’re used to eating.’ She remembered how she had seen him dining at the Connaught and quailed a little.
‘No, it won’t,’ he agreed wryly. ‘You don’t know how tired I am of restaurant meals. This will be a real treat for me.’
Susannah drained the vegetables, and placed them on the serving dish with the chicken and potatoes. Putting it on the table, she deftly transferred the sauce into the waiting boat.
‘If you enjoy the pleasures of home cooking so much, I’m surprised you haven’t married,’ she remarked as she sat at the table. She was fishing and she knew it, but she was curious to know how a man of his age and eligibility had managed to remain single so long.
Hazard passed her the serving dish, replying seriously, ‘After my parents’ divorce, I swore I’d never get married unless I was sure it was going to last.’
Yes, she could understand that the sundering of his parents’ marriage could have that effect on an intelligent pre-adolescent.
‘What about you? Or are you a committed career woman?’
‘I enjoy my career, yes. But these days it’s perfectly possible for a woman to have both a career and a husband and family.’
‘You want children?’
Susannah paused for a moment. ‘Yes, I think so.’
I want your children, she wanted to say, and the intensity with which that need gripped her made her insides tremble and ache.
‘And you?’
‘There’s a certain primitive part of me that says
yes; a basic male desire to fulfil the role nature fitted me for. Yes. But modern war, seen at close hand, makes one fearful of what the future might hold for all children. In Beirut, they know more about bombs and guns than they do about fairy-tales and Father Christmas.’
Did that mean he did or did not want a family? Susannah still wasn’t quite sure.
‘You are a wonderful cook,’ he complimented her, pushing away his empty plate. ‘One day, you must let me cook a meal for you, although I doubt I could cook anything on that monster.’
‘Oh, it’s quite friendly, really. Would you like some pie?’
‘Please.’
There was a certain dangerous appeal in watching a hungry man devour food you’d prepared especially for him, Susannah reflected wryly. Mother Nature was clever and cunning in her determination to have her own way!
‘Now it’s your turn to sit down,’ Hazard told her when he had finished. ‘I’ll make us both some coffee, and then I’ll do the washing up.’
He had just returned to the table when the lights flickered and then abruptly went out.
‘I think we just lost the electricity. Pity, I was looking forward to a nice hot shower tonight.’
‘You can still have that. The boiler heats the water,’ Susannah told him, adding teasingly, ‘You really are a city boy, aren’t you? No electricity, and you think the world’s come to an end.’
‘Not really. There were times when Ma and I had it pretty rough after Dad left. We were living in Sydney at the time, in a rented house. Ma didn’t work, she never had and couldn’t really. There was no way she could pay the rent, so we had to move out and into rooms.’ His face grew shadowed and Susannah could see that his memories weren’t happy ones.
‘What did you do?’ she encouraged softly, sensing that he wanted to talk, and yet that he was at the same time reluctant to do so.
‘I got a job delivering newspapers, only I cut out the middle man.’ His face grew shuttered. ‘I’d better go and light those lamps. It’s getting dark.’