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‘Now I can almost believe you are a schoolteacher when you look like that,’ he said mockingly as he took in her stiff stance. ‘Although with that hair and those eyes it’s almost impossible to comprehend.’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked furiously. ‘Schoolteachers are people; we come in all shapes and sizes.’
‘There aren’t many with a shape like yours,’ he countered quickly. ‘You can’t tell me you were short of male admirers when you were at university. I’ve been there; I know what a female like you about the place would do to the male population.’ There was some element in his voice she couldn’t place and she stared at him uncertainly for a moment.
‘I’ve had boyfriends, yes,’ she said slowly, disliking the way the conversation was going. ‘No more and no less than any other girl, I suppose.’
‘Anyone special?’ His voice was casual.
‘Look, I really don’t think that’s any of your business,’ she said sharply. ‘I’m here to discuss the school’s future—or lack of it,’ she added bitterly. ‘Shall we get on with it?’
‘Impatient little puss, aren’t you?’ he said mockingly, smiling slightly as she glared back at him. ‘But I suppose you were destined to be prickly and badtempered with hair the colour of fire.’
‘I am not prickly or bad-tempered—usually,’ she added pointedly, ‘and please cut the chit-chat. You won’t charm me, Mr Strythe, so don’t try.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he said cryptically.
It was some time later when Mrs Baines brought in the tea-trolley and by then Candy had to admit that putting money into the school in a business sense was like pouring it down the drain. She couldn’t justify Cameron’s continuing his father’s patronage in any financial argument, but then Colonel Strythe hadn’t looked on it as an investment in any other sense but a human one. He had known how much the villagers wanted their children taught locally, he had seen how happy their offspring were in familiar surroundings, and once he had satisfied himself that the academic standard was good enough he had been more than prepared to be magnanimous. He could afford it, he had once told Candy, and the amount he spared the school and village was lost in the Strythe finances. Obviously his son thought differently!
She glared at him now as he gravely thanked Mrs Baines and took the heavy trolley from her, opening the door for her to leave. He could be so sickeningly pleasant when he pleased, but he didn’t fool her for a minute. She had seen what loving him had done to her sister, and Colonel Strythe had never been the same again once his son had left. This man left devastation and havoc wherever he went. She wondered how many broken hearts were scattered across Australia.
‘I won’t say, “a penny for your thoughts”, because frankly I think I would be better not knowing,’ the deep, husky voice said cynically. She focused her eyes sharply, aware she had been gazing at him with her thoughts far away. ‘Help yourself to sandwiches and cake and please try to force yourself to eat, whatever you think of the present company. Mrs Baines will be most upset if most of this doesn’t disappear.’
Candy had always been blessed with a particularly robust appetite that rarely faltered whatever the circumstances, and the selection of wafer-thin sandwiches, temptingly filled rolls, tiny individual pork pies and mouth-watering homemade cakes was too good to resist. Cameron had pulled two easy-chairs closer to the fire before bringing the trolley to her side, switching on the television as he sat down. It was too cosy, too companionable, but she was hungry, and by concentrating on the flickering screen she found she had demolished a good proportion of the food by the time she was full. She looked up to find a pair of amused steel-blue eyes fixed on her face.
‘Good grief, girl, do you always eat like that?’ His gaze roved down her slender figure in wonder.
‘You did say to eat ... whatever I think of the present company.’ The last was added with wry defiance and she swung back her heavy fold of rich silky hair from her shoulders. ‘I had better be going now. You’ve made your point about the school; I really don’t think——’
‘I haven’t made any point as far as I’m aware and we most certainly have not finished this discussion,’ he said curtly as he rang the bell by the side of the fireplace. When Mrs Baines had cleared the remains of the meal, exclaiming in pleasure at the appreciation of her cooking, he closed the door behind her and moved back to his chair, turning off the television as he did so.
‘There is another point I want to discuss with you, Candy, so forget the school problem for a moment.’ She resented hearing her nickname on his lips almost as much as she had done when he had called her Candice. The poor man can’t win, she thought wryly, except that no one in their right mind would ever describe Cameron Strythe as a poor man.
‘Your father is the same age as mine, I understand?’ She stared at him blankly. What on earth had her father’s age to do with anything?
‘I’ve no idea. I suppose they must be close in age; they grew up together, after all.’
‘Well, at sixty I think your father deserves some years without having the responsibility of what is a very taxing job on his shoulders. If Dad had taken it easier he might still be here now.’
She stared at him as the meaning of his words filtered through to her brain. ‘You aren’t going to sack him? You can’t!’ She rose abruptly to her feet, her eyes tragic.
‘Don’t be so ridiculous, woman.’ His voice cut through her like a razor. ‘I’m talking about retirement.’
‘Retirement?’ she mumbled. ‘But he doesn’t want to retire. The cottage and everything—where would they live?’ This last tack had taken her by surprise and for a moment she couldn’t get her mind to function properly, and then, as hot, blinding rage took over, she took a step towards him, drawing him to his feet by her fury.
‘You swine; you total, absolute swine!’ She was too enraged to see how white his face had gone and how those cold eyes had become positively arctic. ‘You come back here after all this time and what do you do?’ She was almost incoherent in her anger. ‘First you are going to close down the school and I don’t know what Kevin will do...’ She gave a gasping sob as she took breath. ‘And then Dad: you’re going to take out your spite on Dad as well. And what have we done to you? It was you who messed up our lives; you’ve had a rare old time ... making your fortune in Australia, and now everything is yours——’
‘Stop it.’ He had reached her side in one stride and took her arms in his hands, shaking her slightly as her voice rose to the edge of hysteria. ‘Control yourself.’
‘Control myself?’ Her voice was a shriek, but she couldn’t have stopped the avalanche if she had wanted to and she didn’t want to. She wanted to scream and yell at him, wanted to claw his face with her hands. She hated him, oh, she did, so much.
As his hand came across her face in a sharp slap the surprise of it cut off her voice as though with a knife and then the next minute he had pulled her into his arms, holding her shaking figure close as he talked in quiet, reasonable tones. ‘I’m sorry, Candy, but I had to do that; you were going to make yourself ill.’ She wanted to struggle, wanted to fight him, but suddenly the adrenalin had all gone and it was only his hands on her body keeping her upright.
‘You haven’t given me a chance to explain, to make you understand.’ He was speaking into the soft silk of her hair, her head pressed into the front of his chest, and now he lifted her face with one hand, gazing down into the tear-drenched huge eyes. ‘How can anyone so beautiful be so obstinate?’ There was a note in his voice she didn’t dare dwell on, but it made her want to cry even more. ‘What is it with you, carrot-tops?’
As his mouth came down on hers she knew she ought to resist. This was Cameron, who had used her sister so badly and now was ripping her safe little world apart, but with a sense of horror she realised she had been waiting for this since the first time she had seen him again. He was so different to any other man she had ever met, so...
As the kiss deepened his probing lips opened hers with effortless ease, speaking of his practised seduction, but although she recognised his expertise she was powerless to stop him. It was a kiss, only a kiss, and yet he had her whole body trembling and aching as though they had been making love for hours. She had always laughed at those books that spoke of the heroine becoming helpless under the hero’s passion, but she was experiencing it now!
‘So sweet, so very, very sweet ...’ His breath was hot and clean as his mouth moved to her throat, kissing the pulse beating so frantically until she thought she would faint with the thrill of it. He had her pressed close into his body, moulding her shape to his, and as she became aware of his arousal she knew a moment’s bitter-sweet satisfaction that he wanted her; he wanted her and he couldn’t hide the fact.
As his tongue ravaged the secret places of her mouth she knew a sensual pleasure she had never experienced before, hardly conscious that he was moving down her throat and still down to the soft swell of her breasts, moving aside her blouse with practised ease. His hands and mouth were both tender and forceful and she was mesmerised by it all, by this delicious intoxication that had taken over her whole body.
Somewhere, dimly, she heard a telephone ringing, but that was in another world. Her world was here in this room, with a growing, whirling crescendo of feeling, and the soft, crackling glow of the fire red against her closed eyelids.
The tap on the door and Mrs Baines’s voice acted like a draught of cold water. She jerked violently out of Cameron’s arms, glancing wildly at the closed door, and then became fully aware of the state of her undress as she stood swaying and dazed in the middle of the room.
‘Just a moment, Mrs Baines.’ Cameron’s voice was unforgivably cool, and she knew a second’s intense, burning humiliation as he waited for her to fasten the tiny silver buttons of her blouse and straighten her tumbled hair before moving across the room. She heard Mrs Baines’s voice, but couldn’t distinguish what she said through the drumming in her ears. What had she done? What had she done? To fall into his arms like that! After everything she had said, after everything he had done!
She glanced frantically at the closed door and heard Cameron’s voice, low and controlled, talking to someone in the hall. He must be on the telephone. How was she going to face him again? How was she going to endure the cool, sardonic mockery that those ice-blue eyes managed so well?
She looked towards the window hidden behind thick velvet full-length curtains. She knew the dining-room windows led on to the bowling-green-smooth lawns at the back of the house. How often she had played there as a young child while the rest of the two families socialised inside, running in and out with garlands of daisies and handfuls of buttercups picked from the small copse beyond the lawns, and later she had often sat in the shade of the big oak bordering the lawns with Uncle Charles while Mrs Baines served them tea.
She didn’t think about her actions; she just knew she had to escape before Cameron returned. It was easy to slip out through the full-length windows, shutting them carefully behind her, and then she ran like a young deer across the lawns until she reached the drive, only feeling safe once she was on the road that skirted the village. She was halfway home, keeping to the shadows, before she realised she had left her bag with its mass of homework corrections sitting by the side of her chair in the dining-room. ‘Damn, damn, damn...’ She ground her teeth angrily. Well, she couldn’t go back now. There was no way she was facing him again tonight. She would rather walk through fire backwards.
There was only Jasper to greet her when she reached home, for which she was supremely thankful. After fixing herself a cup of coffee, she carried it with her into her bedroom, drinking it down in hot, reviving gulps as she ran a warm, scented bath. She needed to soak, soak away the seductive memory of his hands and mouth on her flesh, the sense of burning betrayal of Michelle she was feeling that had her gazing wide-eyed at her reflection in the mirror as though staring at a stranger.
‘How could you, Candy? How could you do that?’ The white-faced girl looking back at her could give her no answer.
As she stepped into the bath she heard the phone ring stridently downstairs and her stomach jumped into her mouth. She paused, with one leg in the water, relaxing only when it stopped and all was quiet again. Within minutes she heard Jasper barking delightedly and her father’s voice, and then seconds later, as she was washing her hair, digging her fingers into her scalp until it hurt, the phone rang again.
‘Candy?’ Her mother’s voice sounded outside the bathroom door. ‘Cam’s on the phone. Can you take it?’
‘No, sorry.’ Her voice sounded amazingly normal. ‘I’ve just got in the bath.’
‘Oh, right.’ Her mother’s voice sounded faintly perplexed but she heard footsteps padding downstairs and she was left in peace again.
As she lay in the thick, scented water, the bubbles covering her arms and legs, hot resentment took the place of the crushing humiliation that had had her in its grip. He had tried that little seduction scene on purpose; he must think she was crazy! How low could a man get? She sat up straight in her anger, the water running in diamond rivulets down her back. He was going to close the school and sack her father, however he wanted to dress it up. That was what it amounted to, and he thought that bit of cheap lovemaking could ease the blow. Maybe he thought that having got one sister twisted round his little finger so many years ago he would have no trouble with the other one. She ground her teeth in helpless frustration. And she hadn’t exactly led him to believe differently, had she? She groaned and slid under the water for a few seconds, holding her breath as the hot water washed across her face.
What else was he going to do now he was back and so powerful? He had virtually written poor Kevin’s mother off without a penny; he obviously didn’t care about the village, the people, anything. There was no reason why he should, but surely a little compassion wouldn’t hurt too much? As she came up for air she realised her mind was going round in circles and climbed wearily out of the bath.
She would fight him—more than ever now she would fight him—but one thing she had learnt tonight. He fought dirty and if she wanted to win she had to fight dirtier still. She squared her shoulders under the thick, fleecy towelling-robe as her eyes glinted with the light of battle. ‘So be it, Cameron Strythe,’ she muttered into the steamy, damp room. ‘No holds barred, just the way you want it.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘AND where the hell did you get to last night?’ Candy had expected mockery or cool indifference, but nothing had prepared her for the furious, rapier-sharp voice that speared her as she sat at her desk at lunchtime with the sound of the children’s laughter echoing in from the playground.
‘I beg your pardon?’ She rounded indignantly to find Cameron standing in the doorway like before, but this time his face was dark with anger and his eyes were as cold as ice.
‘You will beg; before I’m finished with you I can assure you you will beg!’ His voice was a low snarl and if she hadn’t been seated she was sure her legs would have given way at the savagery in his face as he flung her bag on the floor.
‘I searched the grounds for you and then the village. I didn’t know where you’d gone, you little idiot!’
‘Home, of course.’ She glared at him angrily. ‘You phoned, didn’t you? You know that.’
‘You’ve got a nerve. You Baker sisters take some beating for sheer, cold-blooded nerve.’ She realised with a start of surprise that his voice was fairly shaking with anger and something else she couldn’t fathom.
‘What?’ He’d lost her here.
‘Nothing.’ He waved away her question with a weary gesture of contempt. ‘I don’t believe this; I don’t believe I’m actually bothering to talk to you instead of taking you over my knee and giving you the thrashing of your life.’
‘You just try it!’ She reared up like a small tigress and his eyes narrowed with hated amusement.
‘Don’t tempt me, just don’t tempt me.’
She had been wondering all morning how she would face him again after the travesty of the night before, but at least that hurdle was over, she reflected wryly as she watched him pace the room. It was comforting somehow that he wasn’t his normal cool, sardonic self, although she couldn’t have explained why. His anger was preferable to that mocking coldness that chilled her blood.
‘If you ever, ever do anything like that again I won’t be responsible for my actions.’ He had come to stand in front of her desk and she stared at him from behind its comforting bulk.
‘I don’t think that sort of situation will ever arise again, so you needn’t worry yourself on that score,’ she said tightly. ‘If you will go around leaping on women you should expect——’
‘Leaping on you?’ He stared at her astounded for a moment and then she was furious to see him throw back his head and bellow a peal of laughter that echoed round the high ceiling. ‘Is that what you’ve decided happened in that busy little brain of yours?’ He had stopped laughing now, but there was a cruel twist to his mouth. ‘Listen, sweetheart, I was there; I know what happened and so do you.’ His voice was punishingly hard. ‘I’ve no intention of labouring the point, but you enjoyed it as much as I did—and I did.’ He eyed her up and down in insulting slowness. ‘Yes, I sure did. You pack quite a punch after that touch-me-not act.’
She felt the hot colour start in her toes and work upwards. She’d asked for this, but how he was enjoying it! She maintained an icy silence, staring him straight in the eye, and he shook his head slowly as he turned away and walked to the door.
‘I haven’t worked all this out yet, but I will,’ he said coolly. ‘And if it’s as I think then some people have got a hell of a lot of explaining to do.’
‘What?’ She stared after him, baffled. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘And in the meantime,’ he continued as though she hadn’t spoken, ‘you’ll keep a civil tongue in your head, young lady.’
‘You can’t tell me what to do,’ she fired back quickly, her brown eyes glowing with rage.
‘No?’ He paused in the doorway with a cynical smile touching his lips. ‘Think again. You want the school to stay open and you want your father to keep his job?’
‘You...’ Words failed her, but the message in her eyes was piercingly eloquent.
‘Exactly. I’m the lowest thing that ever drew breath, so just remember that when you feel like defying me.’ She had thought she couldn’t hate him any more, but she was finding new boundaries to her emotions every day.
‘I’m having a small dinner party at the end of the week to break the ice with old friends and you’ll be there.’ He looked at her unsmilingly. ‘You’ll be sweet and you’ll be charming and absolutely delighted to have me home. Understand?’
‘That’s blackmail.’ Her voice was a disgusted whisper.
‘Not quite the word I would have chosen, but I see you get my drift,’ he said caustically. ‘You have done nothing but provoke and insult me since I got back and one thing you need to learn fairly rapidly is that I won’t tolerate it. This can be learnt relatively painlessly or the hard way, and frankly I don’t care which way you choose, but, Candy...’ he eyed her coldly ‘. . . you will learn it.’
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