by Penny Jordan
Was it only this morning she had wondered what it would be like to be kissed by him? Well, now she knew, and she wished to God she did not have that knowledge, because she knew already, intuitively, irreversibly, that the memory of that one kiss would remain with her for the rest of her life.
And yet why—why should the touch of one man’s lips affect her so powerfully? It wasn’t even as though she liked Carter or admired him. It wasn’t as though there was any kind of trust or respect between them.
There had been a moment before he’d kissed her when she had been given an unexpected glimpse into his past, when she had realised that the tough and very grown-up male she remembered had been nothing of the kind. With that knowledge had come a second’s fleeting sadness that she had been too young to understand and know him better. Was that why she had responded to him, so shockingly?
It must be, she tried to comfort herself as she finished dressing and hurried back to the house. After all, there had to be some kind of explanation; the man was only human for heaven’s sake and not some kind of sorcerer with the power to…to what? Make her desire him? Uncomfortably she recalled how peculiarly aware of him she had been well before he’d kissed her. It was just because he was so different from Peter, she reassured herself; because she herself was so unused to men who were so…so male. So what was she admitting? That she had turned into marshmallow in his arms simply because she was turned on by him physically?
Little as she liked to admit that she was capable of anything so out of character and extraordinary, it did seem to be the only feasible explanation. She firmly ignored the small voice that pointed out dulcetly to her that all through her teenage years she had been surrounded by well-muscled young men, and that she had never once felt anything like that shocking desire for them which she had just experienced with Carter.
It was a case of arrested development, she told herself tartly, and of course it meant nothing; absolutely nothing at all, and just to prove it she would telephone Peter when she got in and ask him if he could manage to tag an extra couple of days on to his weekend so that they could spend more time together. That would show Carter just how little that kiss had meant to her.
Heavens, from the way he had turned his back on her and been so obviously eager to escape, anyone would think that he was terrified she might try to turn that kiss into something far more important than it had actually been. Men were so vain—especially men like Carter. And besides, he had no right to go round kissing women like that, when it plainly meant nothing whatsoever to him. It would serve him right if she did allow him to believe that she was attracted to him. If it weren’t for the fact that she had too much pride, too much self-respect to invite any further humiliation, it might almost have been worthwhile doing so, and watching him squirm as he tried to tell her that he didn’t want her. And then of course there was Peter. Of course, as an almost engaged woman, she couldn’t do anything so foolish. But that was what Carter had been banking on when he’d kissed her, she decided scornfully. Knowing that she was committed to another man, he had thought it safe to kiss her…
By the time she was actually back in the kitchen, she had managed to subdue the rebellious and disconcerting sensations she had experienced in Carter’s arms to such an extent that she had almost convinced herself that she had never experienced them at all. Almost.
Sadly, when she went up to her borrowed bedroom to change into something more suitable, as she stood in her parents’ bathroom stripping off her clothes she caught sight of her reflection in one of the wall mirrors. Her face was slightly flushed, her mouth surely a deeper red than usual, her hair windblown and softly tousled.
She paused, and then on an impulse she didn’t want to name quickly removed her skirt, studying herself in the mirror as Carter must have seen her as she’d stood in the stream.
A small shudder of shock went through her as she recognised how provocative she must have appeared. Her silk shirt, so respectable when worn tucked into her skirt suit, somehow or other took on a decidedly wanton allure when it was all that she was wearing, and when furthermore it revealed the entire length of her legs virtually from the top of her thighs. Had the silk always clung so…so lovingly almost to the curves of her breasts, almost as though the fabric loved its contact with them? And why had she never noticed before how very far from demure the neat row of buttons that marched up to her throat actually was, almost visibly enticing a man to slide them free and lay bare the flesh they covered.
A sudden startling awareness that within a few more seconds she would actually be mentally visualising a male hand caressing her flesh brought her abruptly back to reality. It was Peter she had been thinking of, of course, she assured herself feverishly as she turned her back on the mirror and quickly dressed. It had been the thought of seeing him next weekend which had sparked off that sudden spiral of heat inside her, that tiny aching, yearning of her suddenly restless body.
This time when she dressed she took no chances, firmly donning a pair of jeans and a workmanlike cotton shirt.
It was only when she went downstairs to telephone Peter that she realised that she was going to have to insist on Carter’s finding somewhere else to stay the weekend of Peter’s visit. The house only had two furnished bedrooms. She would deal with that problem later, she told herself uncomfortably. After all, it was no concern of Carter’s whether or not she and Peter shared the same bed, and there was certainly no reason for her to feel awkward and reluctant to let him know that they did not.
It took her several minutes to get through to Peter, and, when she told him why she was ringing, he seemed to hesitate before saying cautiously, ‘Well, it should be possible, although I’d rather promised Mother that I’d spend a couple of days with them next month. She wants to clear out the loft and I’ve promised her I’ll lend a hand. How are you coping?’
Quickly she explained about Carter, stumbling a little over her description of how astonished she had been to find him in residence and how unsuccessful had been her attempts to get him to leave. ‘In the end I thought it might be easier to keep an eye on him and find out exactly what he’s up to if I let him stay,’ she added lamely.
‘You mean he’s actually staying there? Living in your parents’ home unsupervised? Your parents really are totally irresponsible, Elspeth. It’s just as well you are there to keep an eye on him.’
Wondering why on earth she should feel so irritated and angry that it was her parents’ business Peter was concerned for and not her, Elspeth reminded herself that theirs was a relationship founded on mutual trust and that the last thing she would have wanted was Peter breathing fire and brimstone like a jealous lover, demanding to know what the hell she was doing living under the same roof as another man.
‘So you’ll let me know, then, about next weekend?’ she asked him, sensing his anxiety to conclude their conversation.
‘Yes, of course; and Elspeth… Next time perhaps you’d ring me in the evening at home. You know how I feel about personal calls at my chambers…’
Swallowing the small, rebellious spurt of resentment, Elspeth duly apologised and replaced the receiver. And then, for no reason she could think of, she said very fiercely and out aloud, ‘Damn Carter.’
‘Let’s have a nice cup of tea.’
The sound of her mother’s soothing, soft voice behind her made her spin round in astonishment, but the room was empty. Apart from Jasper the parrot, she realised as she caught sight of the bird staring devilishly at her.
‘Good chap, Carter,’ he told her, faithfully imitating her father’s voice and causing her to say peevishly,
‘No, he isn’t. He’s…he’s a snake in the grass,’ she told the parrot irately, but Jasper wasn’t listening to her any more.
CHAPTER SIX
CARTER hadn’t returned for any lunch, which didn’t bother her in the least, Elspeth told herself firmly, as she made plans for how to spend her afternoon.
It was tempting to pick up the new paperback
she had found in the sitting-room and spend the rest of the day sitting outside in her mother’s pretty garden; after all, officially at least, she was on holiday.
With a start she realised how little thought she had actually given to her work. Normally whenever she was absent from the office she was itching to get back, suffering something approaching withdrawal symptoms, but this time Carter and his invidious behaviour had taken up so many of her thoughts that there hadn’t been any room to spare for worrying about work.
And of course she wasn’t going to idle away her time while she was here. Briskly she decided that she would spend the afternoon in her father’s office sorting out his paperwork. Something she doubted he would thank her for, but her orderly, efficient mind could not bear to see the state in which he managed to reduce even the most simple accounting procedures.
Firmly resisting the temptation of the sunshine outside, she made herself a fresh cup of coffee and headed for the office.
Behind, Jasper was saying in her father’s voice, ‘Is there any tea going, love?’ and then somehow or other producing the sound of someone pouring tea into a mug.
‘Show-off,’ she criticised under her breath as she opened the door into the office and stepped inside.
For a moment she thought she must have come into the wrong room. She stared at her father’s desk, which was somehow smaller and less familiar without its normal burden of scattered papers filed haphazardly in a selection of cardboard boxes that meant nothing to anyone but him.
Behind the desk on the shelves that normally held untidy piles of out-of-date Field and Horse and Hound were a dozen or more neatly indexed filing boxes.
But most astounding of all, sitting squarely on the pristine neatness of her father’s desk was a brand-new, up-to-date computer terminal complete with screen and printer.
Elspeth literally could not believe her eyes. She remembered the number of occasions on which she had virtually pleaded with her father to bring himself into the nineties with the purchase of such equipment.
How he had argued, prevaricated, claimed that he had no use for such new-fangled nonsense, and even when her mother had wryly informed her that it was his fear of the technicality of such equipment that was making him stick so rigidly to his determination not to get one, Elspeth had still not been able to convince him that he would master the technique of using it within weeks.
She had even offered to teach him herself, to set up a series of easy systems for him to use, and, when that failed, she had actually threatened to buy him the equipment and book him on to one of the many excellent computer familiarisation programmes run all over the country.
Still he had remained obdurate, stubbornly so, almost to the point where he had actually become annoyed with her. Which was totally unlike her gentle, mild-mannered father. So much so that she had reluctantly dropped the subject, even though nothing could convince her that with a little patience he would not soon have mastered the art, and that, as a result, the dreaded monthly chore of working on the accounts could have been reduced to a task of manageable proportions.
After all that she had been through, to see the untidiness of his office restructured into this model of modern technology neatness almost took her breath away. She blinked several times as though half believing that she might be hallucinating. To say that she was flabbergasted came nowhere near describing what she was feeling.
What on earth had happened to persuade her father to change his mind, and to have gone ahead and got the equipment without consulting her? Like a tiny maggot gnawing away at her initial delight that her father had at last seen sense was a brief flaring of chagrin that he had not consulted her. She dismissed it quickly as idiocy. Of course it didn’t matter that he hadn’t consulted her. What mattered was that he had finally done something about putting his bookwork in proper order.
She walked round the desk and studied the computer more closely, relieved to see that it was one of the most reliable models on the market; that in fact it was the very model she would have probably recommended herself.
She heard the back door open and turned around. Carter must be back. For some reason she suddenly felt extremely flustered and acutely uncomfortable. If anyone was feeling uncomfortable it ought to be him, she reminded herself grittily. He was the one who had instituted that kiss, not her.
But he wasn’t the one who had allowed it to get out of control, who had encouraged and abetted it in getting out of control, she acknowledged guiltily.
She had a moment’s cowardly temptation to close the study door and stay where she was, but it wasn’t in her nature to run away from unpleasant situations, and so, squaring her shoulders, she walked quickly towards the kitchen.
After all, she was going to have to face him sooner or later, and she wasn’t going to have him thinking that she had been affected by the kiss. No, her best plan of action was to behave as though it had never happened, to ignore the whole thing. And if he should mention it—should apologise, for instance—well, then she could simply say airily that she had forgotten the whole affair. All she had to do was to remind herself that she was committed to Peter and that Carter knew that fact.
As she walked into the kitchen she was stunned to hear her own voice saying almost desperately, ‘But Peter, I need you.’
It was several seconds before she realised that the parrot had overheard her telephone conversation and was mimicking her.
Her colour high, she pushed open the kitchen door. Carter was just filling the kettle. He was frowning, she noticed.
‘Did you manage to get the rotavating done?’ she asked him, trying to sound casual and normal.
‘Most of it. We had to knock off to come back and start the watering. Which reminds me, if you’ve got the time it might be an idea if you came and watched. It’s too much for John or Simon to manage alone, and since I’m not going to be here for a couple of afternoons…’
‘That would be fine,’ she assured him, quite pleased with herself for managing to sound so businesslike and detached. That was the right way to behave, to pretend he was simply a very distant acquaintance with whom she had to be polite for form’s sake, a stranger with whom she had been thrown into unwanted intimacy but who would soon be gone from her life.
‘I was going to spend the afternoon sorting out Dad’s accounts, but I see that he’s taken my advice at last and bought himself a computer.’
It was a casual, throw-away remark, meant only to fill the yawning gap of dangerous silence which she felt threatening, but instantly Carter tensed, carefully turning his head away from her. For a moment she was completely puzzled, wondering what on earth it was she had said to warrant that watchful, fragile silence, and then she knew.
‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ she demanded, abandoning discretion and caution. ‘You persuaded him to buy it. Oh, I might have known,’ she added bitterly. ‘It doesn’t matter what I say to him. I’m only a daughter—a female. But let some fellow male come along, some member of his own sex, and suddenly it’s all different.’
‘Look, it wasn’t like that. As a matter of fact your father remains as obdurately convinced that computers are an alien species as he’s always been. Actually, it’s your mother who uses the equipment. She’s proved remarkably adept at doing so.’ He gave a warm chuckle. ‘She says it’s doing wonders to help her with her cataloguing.’
‘My mother!’ Now Elspeth was astonished.
‘Why so surprised?’ She heard the faintly critical note in his voice. ‘Your mother’s a very intelligent woman.’
‘Yes. Yes, I know she is,’ Elspeth agreed, suddenly discovering that she would very much like to sit down. Her head was spinning with shock. Why had she never realised that her mother was interested in learning to operate a computer? Why had her mother never said anything to her? Why had she confided in Carter—a stranger? Was no member of her sex immune to him? she wondered savagely. What Machiavellian power did he possess to make women so vulnerable to him?
She had always considered that she and her parents—both her parents—were close, and yet here was this man, this stranger, telling her things about them that confounded that belief. Things like her parents’ plans for expansion, her mother’s skill with the computer… Why had she not been a privy to these things?
She pushed these questions aside, not wanting to dwell on them, not wanting to believe that her parents could have confided more readily in Carter than they had in her.
‘These auctions,’ she asked him abruptly. ‘You never said exactly when they were to take place.’
‘There’s one tomorrow afternoon, and the other’s next week.’
‘Oh. And the land—is it local?’