by Kim Lawrence
The sight of his predatory face, all sharp angles and hard planes, etched itself permanently in her mind before he pressed his mouth to hers with slow deliberation. The slick, silky thrust of his tongue into her open mouth made her moan.
‘Do you want me now?’ The rasp of his erotic words sent shivers down to her toes. His mouth nuzzled against her earlobe.
Want! Want didn’t begin to cover the hunger of her starving senses. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ she asked in a tortured whisper. ‘Do you hate me that much? Your girlfriend—mistress—whatever, is only feet away, and you’re… What sort of man are you, Alex?’
She felt the convulsive tremor that rippled through his big body. He stood up abruptly and stared down into her face.
‘If sin had a face…’ he said harshly, then he shook his head, as if to dispel the image of her flushed, aroused features. ‘Goodnight.’
She might have managed to sleep for an hour at the most. Were they making love? Or was he sleeping in her arms? The torrid images persistently pervaded her mind. She didn’t want to hear the sounds of their love-making, but her ears strained anyway, to catch a tell-tale creak or moan.
She didn’t have any make-up in her bag to disguise the ravages of the night before, but fortunately she was blessed with the constitution of an ox. Her glow wasn’t quite as luminous as usual, but only the harshest of critics would have noticed. She teamed a short black Lycra skirt with a deep blue cashmere tunic. No one looking at her would have guessed she’d just had the most traumatic twenty-four hours in her life.
‘I was going to bring you tea,’ Rebecca exclaimed as Hope nimbly hopped into the kitchen. ‘How on earth did you get down the stairs?’ she asked, looking from the crutches under Hope’s arms to the plaster cast on her leg.
‘I shuffled on my behind,’ Hope confessed. She knew Alex was watching her over the rim of his coffee cup and she refused to let him see how much it shook her just to be in the same room as him. ‘I’ve plenty of padding,’ she joked with strained humour. She’d have flown if it meant she could avoid being held by Alex, and of course he’d known it.
‘Anxious to add your neck to the broken leg, are you?’
‘Worried about your insurance premiums again, Alex? I’m already suing him—did he tell you about that?’
‘I thought that was all settled.’
‘Maybe I want my day in court.’ She didn’t. She didn’t want to pursue it at all. But when Alex had pointed out it was ‘just business’ he hadn’t left her much option. Jonathan would probably have a fit when she distributed the money to charity.
‘I’d have thought you’d have had enough bad publicity for one year.’
Hope smiled between set teeth. ‘I’m not sure my agent makes fine distinctions like that. Overexposure is something he dreams about.’
‘You’re joking…right?’ Rebecca waited with a bewildered expression for her anxious query to be settled.
‘Now that’s an interesting question, Rebecca. Hope alternates between flinging my money back in my face and trying to screw me for all I’ve got.’
‘I’m feeling vindictive today.’ She let her deliberately ambiguous words hang in the air.
Rebecca looked quite relieved when the doorbell rang. ‘That’ll be my taxi. Goodbye, Hope, so nice to meet you. Thanks, Alex—and I do mean that,’ she said with special emphasis as he picked up her cases. She shrugged on an ankle-length trenchcoat trimmed with fake fur over the black tailored trouser suit she wore. This morning the older woman’s confidence was very apparent. There was nothing of the sentimental creature who’d begged to feed a baby lamb left today.
‘I’ll take you to the station.’
‘Don’t be silly, darling.’
‘Wasn’t there something you wanted to say to Rebecca?’
Hope blinked and shot Alex a startled glance. She hadn’t expected him to call her bluff. It was ironic. Whereas her veiled threat had been meant to intimidate him, he looked to be the only really relaxed person in the room.
‘Thank you, Rebecca, for all your kindness. Could I share your taxi?’ she added in a rush. ‘My sister lives the other side of the village.’ Her brain had been a bit slow working out the three minus one equation, but now it had she was in a state of blind panic.
‘Rebecca is in a hurry—she’ll miss her train,’ Alex interjected smoothly before the other woman could speak. Hope glared at him in resentment as he ushered the older woman out of the room. He put his head back round the door. ‘I admire your restraint. And you’d only have embarrassed yourself if you’d told her.’
When he returned she had seated herself at the table and was sipping coffee with a casual nonchalance she wasn’t feeling.
‘That was quite a display,’ he observed. ‘Does frustration always make you so tetchy, or is this the real Hope?’ Alex crammed some bread in the toaster. ‘You should eat.’
‘I rarely do what I should.’
‘I noticed that.’
‘Where does Rebecca work?’
‘London. She’s a banker.’
She ought to have made the connection before— Anna’s lady banker. If Alex made a habit of sleeping with other women that would explain the tension Anna had noticed in her. Though Hope hadn’t noticed any signs of stress. ‘Is the distance convenient or inconvenient?’
‘If you’re trying to get a display of guilt or remorse you’re wasting your time. You didn’t know Rebecca existed the night we spent together…’
‘Too right I didn’t!’
‘Last night you did.’ Hope flushed under the intensity of his stare. ‘And yet you’d have let me make love to you with her in the same house.’
‘In your dreams,’ she lied wildly. She couldn’t escape the sobering reality of his words.
He caught the toast as it shot out. ‘Perhaps we should compare those some time.’ He intercepted her blank look. ‘Dreams,’ he elaborated. ‘Marmalade or honey?’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Honey I think,’ he responded, as though she’d not spoken. ‘As my mother would say, you look peaky.’
‘I don’t. I look quite good.’
‘Granted. It really is effortless for you, isn’t it? Women would hate you in their droves if they suspected how little work you put into your appearance.’ The warm expression in his eyes as he bent over and placed the plate before her made her stomach muscles quiver violently. ‘Eat anyway.’
She bit into the toast. ‘I thought your mother was dead, Alex,’ she said tentatively, wondering whether his choice of tense had been accidental.
‘Dead! Hell, no, when the old man traded her in she moved back home to Yorkshire.’ His lips thinned at the memory and his eyes were bleakly resentful.
‘But you lived with him.’
‘He was the one with the money. She thought it would be better for me.’
‘And was it?’ Separated from his mother at a tender age—her heart ached with sympathy. It had been a long time since she’d taken her own stable and happy childhood for granted. Now she knew how rare those magical years had been
‘Speculation is a pointless exercise. I prefer to reserve my energies for things I can alter.’
Focus was something Alex was generously endowed with, she silently reflected. ‘Do you see her much now?’
‘Not as often as I’d like. I’ve asked her to move down here, but she’s a very stubborn, proud lady.’
‘She must have hated him,’ Hope mused.
‘Actually she never stopped loving him. But then there’s nowt so queer as folk.’
‘Another quote?’ There was a blighting bitterness in his words that made her squirm uncomfortably in her seat. Alex the domineering monster was much easier to learn to hate than a man who’d known loneliness and bewilderment as a child.
‘Derivative, but every one a gem.’
‘Do you stay in contact with your stepmother?’
‘Eva?’ He looked amused at he thought. ‘Not since I bough
t out her shares in the company.’
‘Was she very…?’
‘Wicked? Evil and cruel?’ He laughed. It was a hard sound. ‘I hate to wipe that very fetching light of sympathy from your eyes, Hope, but Eva barely noticed I was there—at least not when I was a child.’
‘But you’re more friendly now?’
‘I didn’t mean a special bond developed, Hope. I meant that once I became adult—barely—I became a lot more interesting to her.’
Hope’s eyes opened wide with shock ‘You don’t mean…?’
‘I mean Eva has always been a woman who needs constant reassurance that she’s attractive. This takes the form of seducing the male of the species.’
‘Did she…?’ Embarrassed, she looked away from the cynical gleam in his grey eyes.
‘I held out—just.’ To her surprise he recalled the past with wry humour rather than psychological trauma. ‘She was a very attractive woman and I had hormones coming out of my ears. My mother winkled the truth out of me and threatened to inform Dad. I had no more trouble with Eva.’
‘Did your father ever find out?’
Alex laughed. ‘Dad was too busy pleasing her and trying to influence the people who mattered,’ he observed ironically. ‘In some ways his preoccupation with Eva took the pressure off me. My father wasn’t an easy man to please. After I’d worked for him for a few years I went to university to study design, and from there to Italy. Car design was always my first love.
‘Dear God, woman!’ he exploded suddenly. ‘How the hell do you survive out there with all that empathy?’ Looking at the soft sympathy in her eyes infuriated him. Every time he put this woman into a neat compartment she bashed down the bloody walls. It was driving him crazy!
‘I don’t know what…’ she began in a bewildered voice.
‘Are you a sucker for every hard luck story? People take sympathy and use it.’
‘Are you suggesting I become as hard and impersonal as you?’
‘I certainly don’t take what people tell me at face-value.’
‘You start with the assumption that people are out to mislead you.’ This attitude horrified her. ‘Caution’s OK, but pathological mistrust is ridiculous. I’m not an idiot, Alex, I know most people aren’t saints.’
‘You think there are some saints, then?’
‘You can laugh,’ she responded, stung by the mockery in his manner. ‘But I’ll carry on giving people the benefit of the doubt.’
‘My God, you’re a closet romantic!’
‘Am not!’
‘Are too.’
Their sudden laughter was strangely companionable. Hope found herself loving the way the laughter lines around his eyes deepened, driving the austerity from his strong face. He looked so approachable it would have been easy to forget…
‘How do you know I’ve not been making up my deprived childhood to get you back into my bed?’
The laughter died abruptly from Hope’s face. Talk about being brought back to reality with a bump. ‘I’d be surprised that you’d go to so much trouble. I thought your arrogance was so supreme you’d think a nod is all it would take. Besides, what about the barge-pole?’
Alex looked at her blankly.
‘The one you wouldn’t touch me with,’ she reminded him softly.
‘Oh, that barge-pole. I haven’t forgotten it,’ he assured her.
‘I’m relieved to hear it. I’ll call Adam—he’ll pick me up.’ She pushed aside her half-eaten toast. Her stomach rebelled just looking at it.
‘There’s no need. I’m going into town anyway. I’ll have to stock up on essentials; the last time we had a major thaw the river broke its banks and I was stranded for three days. I’ll just feed the birds first.’ He turned and pulled a plate of steak from the fridge. ‘Unless you’re going to donate Daphne for their breakfast?’
The memory of the cruel beak and talons made Hope shudder. ‘Have you got more than one bird?’
‘Besides the falcon, a harrier hawk and a barn owl. A friend of mine runs a falconry centre about twenty miles away. He’s developed a sanctuary there for sick and injured birds of prey. You’d be surprised how many of those there are. He persuaded me to go hunting with him a while back, and now I’ve got three of his orphans. A bit like you and Daphne.’
‘Hardly. It’s cruel.’
‘What is? Keeping wild creatures or letting them hunt? Falconry is an ancient sport. The birds would be dead if Jim hadn’t taken them in. There is no master-servant relationship with birds of prey—that’s what I like about it. They could survive in the wild if they wanted to; they stay because it suits them. Why don’t you come and see for yourself?’
He looked surprised he’d made the offer.
‘All right.’ Curiosity overcame her caution.
The large wooden structures were in the sheltered courtyard of stone outbuildings at the back of the Mill House.
‘Watch the ice,’ Alex warned as she manoeuvred herself over the slippery cobbles. The snow was fast becoming slushy, but Alex had shovelled pathways through. She watched as he fed the two birds. Their claws looked amazingly large and powerful compared to their light bodies as they tore at their food. They were cruel, but very beautiful.
‘You’ve met Hector—this one’s Prospero.’ He indicated the smaller bird. ‘He’s a Merlin.’
‘He’s so tiny,’ she marvelled.
‘Here, put this on.’ Hope froze in surprise as Alex slid a leather gauntlet on her wrist, but she wasn’t too alarmed—both birds were in their pens. ‘Lean against me,’ he instructed as he took one crutch from her grasp. Her back to him, she automatically leaned against him for support. ‘You’re cold. You should have put on a coat.’
Hope felt breathless. ‘You didn’t give me much chance.’
‘Now, hold your hand above your head. A bird will land on the highest point, and you don’t want that to be your head.’ Hope glanced around in bewilderment as Alex raised her hand.
The size took her by surprise. She’d never seen an owl up close before. The wing span as the bird sailed majestically towards her took her breath away. The creature’s snowy plumage put the snow to shame.
‘I didn’t hear a thing,’ she gasped.
‘The wings are soft, so she’s lethally silent. She’s quite heavy,’ Alex warned as the talons found a purchase on the leather.
‘Where did she come from?’ Hope whispered, unable to take her eyes from the magnificent creature.
‘She hunts at night, but she nests free—the other side of the house. I’ll offer her some food. Are you all right?’
‘She’s beautiful, Alex,’ she whispered in an awed voice.
‘I know.’ His eyes were not on the half-wild creature.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘IS IT done?’ Hope opened one eye and looked hopefully at her brother-in-law.
‘Quite done,’ he confirmed.
‘I didn’t feel a thing,’ she marvelled. Critically she looked down at her pale leg and wriggled her toes. ‘That thing makes an awful noise,’ she said, grimacing at the small mechanised saw he had just put down.
‘You big baby,’ he teased. ‘I hope you appreciate I don’t normally participate in such mundane tasks.’
‘I’m honoured,’ she responded drily.
‘You’re a terrible patient. It’s obviously genetic.’
‘Anna’s much worse,’ Hope objected.
‘As I said, it’s genetic. Are you going straight up to London?’
‘You can’t wait to get rid of me, can you?’ she teased.
‘That’s it, throw my hospitality back in my face.’
Hope grinned. ‘Actually, I have packed, but I thought I’d stop off at the farm on the way to see how the work’s coming along. I’m reading for the part in the morning.’
‘The West End, eh? Are you nervous?’
‘Terrified,’ she confided, ‘but excited.’ The idea of working on the stage was thrilling, and it was something she’d always drea
mt about. She still couldn’t believe that she was being given an opportunity.
‘Wouldn’t the understudy normally have stepped into the breach when one of the leading ladies’ appendix pops?’ Adam asked curiously.
‘Normally she would, and she is at the moment, but she has got a bad case of morning sickness that wasn’t planned for—the sort that lasts twenty-four hours a day by all accounts. She can hardly stand up, let alone play the main support.
‘I’m probably making a big mistake here,’ she mused out loud. ‘Not content with taking over from a successful and highly popular actress, I’m going to muscle in on a company who all know one another. Me! Who has no stage credibility at all! I’m stark, staring mad. At least I know the lines—the local amateur dramatic company did a production in my last year with them.’
‘You’ll do fine,’ Adam said, with the hearty conviction of someone who didn’t have to prove the point himself. ‘I didn’t know you acted back in your teens.’
‘Not act, exactly, more scene-shift. I was too tall for all the local male leads by the time I was thirteen, but I did learn everybody’s lines in the hope of a flu epidemic,’ she confessed wryly. ‘I also tripped over a lot.’ It’s to be hoped I’ve grown out of that, she thought with a strained smile. There was only one way to find out.
Driving her own car again was bliss. It was marvellous not being reliant on anyone else. The morning was crisp and clear, she was young and healthy, and she had the rest of her life to look forward to. Only one thing marred the perfect picture. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop the memory of Alex blighting otherwise perfect moments like this.
She parked in the courtyard of the farmhouse. There was only one van parked there. She couldn’t remember who was meant to be working today. The new carpets were being fitted on Friday, and she hoped everything was going according to plan. The schedule had been tight.