by Penny Jordan
‘I see.’
He moved slowly into the shadows of the room, withdrawing from the bed.
‘Well, there doesn’t seem to be much else to say does there? I thought we might be able to work it out—we both have something to give each other, but I can see I hadn’t taken everything into account. I think it’s probably best if I return to London—at least until we sort out what’s going to happen.’
‘This is your home,’ Brooke protested, feeling guilty in spite of herself. ‘I’ll leave. I’ll go back to the Lodge.’ With a pang she realised that she would have to sell the Lodge now; she couldn’t continue to live there after this. She would have to look for a new job as well, she realised on a sudden flood of near hysteria.
‘I have others.’ He pulled on his clothes, and Brooke watched him, unable to stop herself from admiring the fluid lines of his body, but the thought of that body against hers still made her shudder with self-loathing.
* * *
Of course, she couldn’t sleep, not even after she had heard Adam drive away. She was up early, wandering aimlessly from room to room of the newly restored Dower House. In other circumstances she knew she would have loved living in it, but right now…. Nothing felt real; she seemed to have wandered into a nightmare world where she cringed away from contact with everything.
Long walks with Balsebar did little to ease her tension. A week went by and she had still heard nothing from Adam. She went into town and arranged for the Lodge to be put up for sale. There was no point in delaying things, it wouldn’t serve any useful purpose.
Ten days after her wedding day it snowed; a crisp white blanket that lay a couple of inches deep over the countryside, and seeing it seemed to break through the ice in which she had encased herself. Brooke found herself crying painfully, suddenly and excruciatingly vulnerable to all the emotions she had held at bay so far.
Her crying jag left her with an aching head and sore eyes which she was bathing with cold water when she heard the front door bell. Her heart leapt, but it wasn’t Adam at the door, but Tod.
He looked worriedly at her as she let him in, bending absently to pat Balsebar’s black head.
‘So you are here,’ he said abruptly as he followed her into the drawing room. ‘I thought you might be. Look,’ he added, without preamble, ‘I don’t know what’s gone wrong between you and Adam but it’s tearing him apart….’
‘The man with the computer brain?’ Brooke derided.
Tod looked shocked. ‘Is that what you think? You haven’t seen him recently. He’s destroying himself, Brooke; working all hours God sends and then going back to that apartment of his to drink and….’
‘Drink?’
Tod’s mouth twisted derisively, ‘Why so surprised, isn’t it the traditional escape-route from pain for men who lose the woman they love.’
He saw her blench and stepped forward, to catch her as she swayed. ‘Look,’ he said roughly, ‘I don’t know what’s gone wrong between the pair of you, but it’s obvious that you’re crazily in love with one another….’
‘I might be in love with Adam, but he certainly isn’t with me,’ Brooke interrupted recklessly. ‘He still loves Susan, I’m just a substitute….’
‘He told you that?’ Tod sounded disbelieving.
‘No, but she did, and it all adds up when you really think about it. You said yourself that Adam had a chip on his shoulder because she hurt his pride….’
‘Adam loves you.’ He sounded positive. ‘I’m sure of it Brooke,’ he insisted. ‘Oh at first, I didn’t think so, but after seeing him for these last ten days…. He’s destroying himself,’ he told her softly, ‘if you don’t believe me, go and see for yourself.’
She wanted to refuse, but it was too late, hope had already taken a firm root in her heart. Could she have been wrong? She desperately wanted to believe that she might have been … too desperately, she cautioned herself, but Tod wasn’t giving her time to think.
‘Come back with me now,’ he insisted. ‘I’ll drive you up to London. Go and see Adam, talk to him openly and honestly….’
‘He’s never said anything about loving me….’
‘Have you ever told him how you feel about him?’ Tod countered. ‘Yes, long ago Susan did hurt him and because of it, he’s learned to hide his feelings, but he wouldn’t have married you if he hadn’t loved you Brooke.’
‘Not even to gain the right sort of wife?’ she asked grimacing.
‘Go and see him,’ Tod urged. ‘He needs you Brooke.’
It was a plea she knew she couldn’t resist. Leaving Tod with Balsebar she hurried upstairs, quickly flinging clothes into a small case, her heart hammering with nervous excitement and relief.
Suddenly, gloriously she was free of the dark spell Susan had woven round her; suddenly she could remember how she had felt in Adam’s arms; how much she wanted him; her body pulsed hungrily and all at once she ached for the physical act of his possession. Colour swept up under her skin, and she laughed at herself in her mirror, deriding her reflection, half-amused and half-ashamed of the sudden surge of feeling taking over her body.
* * *
‘I’ll have to drop you here,’ Tod apologised, stopping outside the apartment block. ‘I can’t get into the car park because I don’t have a pass.’ He leaned across her to open her door, and whispered, ‘Good luck.’ Brooke smiled hesitantly back at him. Now that she was here, so close to Adam, she was beginning to have second thoughts. How could she face him? How would he react to her? Did he really care about her, or was Tod wrong?’
‘Isn’t he worth fighting for,’ Tod asked softly watching her. ‘He’s a proud man Brooke, and I’m not promising that it will be easy….’
‘No….’ She sighed and straightened her shoulders, as she got out of the car walking quickly towards the door and into the foyer.
It was completely deserted as she rang the bell for the lift. It carried her smoothly upwards and then stopped.
As Brooke stepped out, a cloud of butterflies beat their wings stormily inside her stomach. Almost as though fate had decided to give her a helping hand Adam’s door was slightly open. She pushed it and walked in, curling her fingers into her palms as she tried to control her nervousness.
As she stepped into the living room the carpet muffled the sound of her footsteps.
Adam was standing in the middle of the room, but he wasn’t alone. Susan was with him. Not just with him Brooke thought bitterly but in his arms, both of them too involved with one another to even notice her arrival.
So much for Tod’s claim that Adam loved her, she thought achingly, turning to go, shocked by the sudden rush of betraying tears stinging her eyes.
‘Brooke.’
She froze as she heard Adam’s imperative command, and then turned her head in obedience to it. His face looked pale, his eyes very dark and slightly sunken, throwing his cheek bones into prominence. A smear of Susan’s lipstick smudged his mouth, the sight of it too much for Brooke’s shattered self-control. Deliberately breaking contact with Adam’s eyes, she turned away, ignoring his fierce demand for her to stay.
The lift was there, as she had left it and she plunged wildly into it, pressing the button. The doors closed just as Adam reached them; anger, bitterness, etched into his face as he stared at her.
She took that image of him back to Abbot’s Meade with her. The phone was ringing as she walked in but she ignored it, calmly gathering up her clothes and collecting Balsebar. She couldn’t spend another night in the Dower House; she couldn’t lie in the bed which had obviously been intended for both of them, picturing Adam with Susan.
Suddenly she wanted to be violently ill. She reached the bathroom just in time, emerging white-faced and grim. This sickness was a new thing for her, brought on she had thought by nerves and anguish, but what if there was another reason? That would be the final irony she thought grimly; to have conceived Adam’s child in those few nights they had spent together.
She had no en
ergy left to worry about that possibility now. All she wanted to do was to escape from this house.
The Lodge was cold and musty. Balsebar whined pathetically while she lit the fire, making it plain that he didn’t exactly care for this sudden change of lifestyle.
‘Too bad,’ she told him unfeelingly, pushing him away from the hearth.
An icy coldness had invaded her body; a pain which she had tried to lock away and couldn’t hide from any longer. Adam and Susan. Adam…. She shivered and then tensed as she heard footsteps outside the house. She had locked the front door when she came in. The bell rang and she waited, refusing to move. The sound died away and so did the retreating footsteps. Her reaction had been an illogical one, but right now she couldn’t cope with anyone else, it was as much as she could do to cope with herself.
In the kitchen Balsebar barked and then fell silent but she remained where she was, kneeling in front of the fire. Something damp dropped on to her knee soaking through the fine wool of her skirt. Wondering she examined it and then touched her face. She was crying, and yet she hadn’t known it. From now on her life would be pain.
‘Brooke?’
She turned round to face the door, her eyes rounding with disbelief. Adam stood there.
‘The back door was unlocked,’ he told her grimly as she glanced past him into the kitchen.
‘Anyone could have walked in here and found you,’ he added, making her shiver with the intensity of his anger.
‘At least they would have found me alone.’
She could have bitten her tongue out for that comment, but it was too late. Adam dropped to his knees next to her, grasping her chin, turning her to face him.
‘Why are you crying?’ he asked abruptly, ‘And why did you come to see me this evening?’
‘I wanted to talk to you about our divorce.’
‘Does that answer both questions?’
Something about him had changed, Brooke couldn’t tell what it was, but she sensed an elation about him at variance with the grimness of his expression and her heart dropped heavily in pain. Had Susan changed her mind; broken off her engagement so that…. Her thoughts churned to a chaotic muddle as Adam gently touched her damp face with his fingers.
‘You look pale, and you’ve lost more weight.’
‘I could say the same thing about you.’
‘Perhaps we’re both suffering from the same malady.’ He said it casually but it came too close to what Tod had told her and the hopeless joy she had felt afterwards for her to be able to bear it with equanimity. Fresh tears welled and fell. She tried to pull away, telling herself that it was undignified and offensive for a woman of her age and height to dissolve into tears like a baby, but Adam wouldn’t release her. His fingers slid along her jaw and into her hair, smoothing the strands almost tenderly away from her face.
‘Tell me again why you don’t want to be married to me?’ he demanded watching her. His fingers winding through her hair stopped her from moving away and she swallowed tensely. ‘You know why…. Because I know the truth….’
‘What truth?’
Unbelievably, he was smiling faintly, his eyes registering the betraying rapidity of the pulse in her throat. He touched it gently with one finger, trailing it upwards along her jaw, tracing the outline of her mouth almost lazily as he watched her.
How could he do this so soon after she had seen him with Susan in his arms, and why?
‘What truth, Brooke?’ His finger ceased tormenting her vulnerable mouth, but just as she drew in a faint sigh of relief he bent his head, capturing her parted lips and caressing them with his mouth, kissing her with a slow seductiveness that turned her whole body fluid. The sheer unexpectedness of it alone was enough to overwhelm her starved senses. Her lips softened and clung, wanting, needing the touch of his, her eyes closing as she trembled with the tidal flood of aching hunger pouring through her.
‘Please….’ She managed to pull away from him. ‘Please don’t do that.’
‘Why, because it makes you sick?’
The words were calm, almost thoughtful but they jerked Brooke back into awareness.
‘I don’t know why you’re doing this, Adam,’ she said painfully, ‘what game you’re playing, but I won’t be used as a substitute for Susan.’
‘Who told you you could ever be that?’
The sheer cruelty of the careless words murmured almost absently made her ache and grit her teeth, determined not to let him see the damage he had done.
‘Susan did,’ she responded huskily. ‘She told me why you married me Adam. Did you come here tonight to tell me that she’s changed her mind; that she wants you after all?’
‘She’s always wanted me.’ A smile tugged at the corners of Adam’s mouth and Brooke stared at him incredulously, before shock gave way to reality.
‘As a lover, yes,’ she agreed. ‘I’m talking about wanting you as a husband.’
‘I’m married to you,’ he reminded her avoiding the question. ‘Tod rang me.’
He added on the last three words thoughtfully, and Brooke realised that he was watching her. Her whole body started to tremble. Dear God surely Tod hadn’t told him….
‘He’s been very concerned about you.’ How banal the words sounded.
‘Has he? He didn’t sound it. He wanted to know what I’d been doing to make you so unhappy. That’s something I haven’t stopped asking myself since the day we got married, but tonight’s the first time I’ve come anywhere near knowing the answer.
‘Do you remember what I said to you the first time you came here?’
The sudden abrupt change of subject startled her. ‘You told me you weren’t interested in virgins.’ Brooke responded drily.
‘Not per se,’ he agreed, getting to his feet, and looking down at her. ‘I’m beginning to think that was when I made my first big mistake.’
To Brooke’s surprise he bent down and picked her up.
‘Adam….’
Her protest was ignored as he moved determinedly towards the stairs.
‘Adam, put me down,’ she demanded urgently as he thrust open her bedroom door.
‘As Madame wishes.’ He was smiling at her as he deposited her on the bed.
Brooke couldn’t understand what was going on; why Adam was here or what purpose he had in mind. She stared at him as he calmly started to undress, unable to believe her eyes. Only when he moved towards the bed was she galvanised into action, too late to avoid the firm hands quickly stripping her body of its covering, in direct contradiction of all her heated protests.
‘Now….’ Something warm and tender glinted in his eyes as he looked down at her, his fingers curling round her upper arms. ‘I’m beginning to think I’ve wasted a hell of a lot of time and caused us both untold misery by not listening to my instincts first time round.’
Brooke tensed as he lifted her, holding her in his arms as he sat down on her bed. Her fingers clutched at his shoulders for support as he lay down, taking her with him, holding her against his body. Its heat and strength seemed to envelop her, sapping her will. She could feel her tense muscles relaxing, her skin soothed by the intimate contact with his.
‘The very first time I saw you I wanted to make love to you, but I knew it would be dangerous.’ He was tracing tiny kisses along her cheek bone and Brooke had to fight to listen to what he was saying. ‘I thought I could resist the temptation, but I was only deceiving myself.’
‘You wanted me so much that when I was staying at your apartment you sent me away.’ Brooke reminded him, forcing herself to remember all the anguish he had caused her, trying to ignore the seductive stroke of his fingers against her skin and the growing heat of their combined need.
‘The last dying throes of the male animal fighting for freedom,’ Adam mocked. ‘I came after you, didn’t I?’ he whispered against her mouth, feathering it lightly with his own until her lips became soft and moist clinging to his and then opening beneath them.
His kiss was leisurel
y, seductive, and unhurried, teasing and tantalising until Brooke’s tongue probed exploratively between the hard warmth of his lips. He groaned deep in his throat, the sound primitive and exciting, his hands urgent as they moved over her, and she melted under the impact of his mouth.
‘Because Susan had refused you,’ Brooke murmured painfully when he had released her. How could she think sensibly when he was assaulting her defences so skilfully. Her body cried out for him, demanding that she ignore the warnings of her mind.
‘Susan never had the chance to refuse me,’ he derided, stunning her. ‘Come on Brooke,’ he added tautly. ‘Do you really think I would want a woman like her as my wife? She’s avaricious and vain, shallow to an extent that almost defies imagination.’
‘You loved her.’ Her voice broke over the words.
‘I was infatuated with her once, when I was little more than a boy. She hurt me badly, it’s true, but it was my pride she left raw, not my heart. I’ve never loved her; and certainly did not marry you because I couldn’t have her.’
He was nibbling her throat, dizzying her senses, seducing her away from reason. Her fingertips trembled against his chest and she felt the sudden urgent tension in his body as she touched him. He wanted her; that at least was real.
‘Why didn’t you say something then, the night of our wedding, when I told you that I knew the truth?’
Somehow Brooke managed to gasp out the words despite her body’s response to him.
‘Because I thought we were discussing a different truth.’
His words puzzled Brooke and she drew away slightly so that she could look into his face. It looked guarded and yet curiously vulnerable.
‘What truth?’
‘This truth.’
He said it quietly, drawing her back into his arms and kissing her with a hungry, aching urgency that made her senses sing and her body cling to the shuddering heat of his.
‘I thought you’d guessed that I love you,’ he muttered against her ear. ‘I thought you couldn’t bear to touch me because you didn’t want that love. Those few words destroyed weeks of careful plotting and scheming. You see I was so sure that you must feel something for me. You responded to me sexually so intensely that I couldn’t believe it was merely physical desire. I’d hoped that once we were married those feelings would grow into love. I knew you didn’t trust me, and I couldn’t endure the trauma of a long courtship; always worrying about losing you. That was why I made love to you in France.’