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She knew Jake was watching her, his dark brows drawn together in a frown of genuine concern, and as they walked to the lift, she fought a superhuman battle for control of her emotions and won. She hated him. She wanted nothing from him, especially his compassion.
They reached the ground floor and the doors opened silently, Jake standing aside to allow her to precede him.
Lisle said rapidly, ‘There’s a public telephone over there. Would you mind calling me a taxi, please.’
‘There’s no need for that,’ he said brusquely. ‘You’re coming with me.’
‘Oh, please!’ Just for a moment her tone veered towards slight hysteria. ‘How far do we have to carry this farce? Grandfather can’t see us now, or know that we’ve gone our separate ways.’
His brows lifted. ‘I was looking at the situation rather more practically. As we’re both going to the Priory, one vehicle is surely quite sufficient.’
She looked at him stupidly, his words registering in some distant recess of her mind. ‘You—you’re staying at the Priory?’
‘I told you I was staying there,’ he said impatiently.
‘I’d forgotten.’ She gave herself a mental shake. ‘Not that it matters. I can go to a hotel.’
‘Like hell you can,’ he said grimly. ‘The Petersons are expecting you, and your old room has been prepared. What am I to tell them if you don’t turn up? That your aversion to me is so great you can’t face spending a night or two under the same roof?’
‘You’re the one with the instant solutions to everyone’s problems,’ she shot at him. ‘You think of something.’
‘I already have,’ he returned. ‘You’re coming to the Priory with me, if it means I have to kick your charming backside every step of the way to the car.’
Lisle was going to say, ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ but the words shrivelled in her throat as she realised there was very little if anything that Jake Allard wouldn’t dare.
‘Very wise,’ he approved sardonically, reading her sudden silence with perfect accuracy. ‘What a tragedy you weren’t the man of the family. You have an infinitely better nose for danger than Gerard has. Now come on. Mrs Peterson promised she’d have supper waiting for us whatever time we got there.’
‘Oh, I’m sure she’s had her orders,’ Lisle said scornfully. ‘But don’t you think you’re being a little premature—coming on like the master of all you survey? You’re not in the driving seat yet.’
‘Perhaps not,’ he said silkily. ‘But when I am, my copper-haired vixen, you’re going to be the first one to know.’
Lisle tossed her head angrily, and giving him a look in which frustrated rebellion and sheer venom were mixed about equally, went ahead of him into the darkness.
The Priory was only a few miles’ drive away, and as the car drew up on the gravelled sweep in front of the house, Lisle could see the massive double doors already opening to reveal Mrs Peterson’s anxious figure in the stream of light from the hall.
‘Oh, Miss Lisle!’ Mrs Peterson’s arms clasped her to her ample bosom. ‘What a homecoming for you, my dear! But he’ll get over it, don’t you fret. He’ll see us all out, I shouldn’t wonder.’
Lisle smiled faintly as she kissed the plump cheek. ‘Sister says he’s a bonny fighter, Petey.’
‘Hasn’t he always been?’ Mrs Peterson smiled at Jake. ‘Good evening, sir, and thank you for bringing her. I’ve laid supper in the small dining room—it’s cosier for two. I’ll go and see to the soup while Peterson takes Miss Lisle’s case up to her room.’
Lisle had been about to intervene, and say she couldn’t eat a thing and would prefer to go straight to her room, but at the mention of soup, hunger betrayed her. She knew Petey’s soups of old, made from bone and marrow stock and thick with fresh vegetables. Even Jake’s presence across the table couldn’t take the edge off such delights, she thought, realising how empty she was. No wonder, really. All she’d consumed since a light lunch had been a gin and tonic, a few canapés, and a cup of coffee at the hospital.
She washed and tidied her hair in the downstairs cloakroom, but left her face innocent of make-up. The last thing she wanted was Jake Allard to think she was employing any deliberate arts to attract him.
When she went into the drawing room, he was standing in front of the log fire, whisky and soda in hand. He said, ‘May I get you something?’
‘The perfect host,’ she said on a jeering note. ‘No, thanks.’ Alcohol might help her to relax, she thought, but it was more important to keep all her wits about her.
He said, ‘You have a very beautiful home.’
‘Indeed I have,’ she agreed. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t persuaded Grandfather to sell it to you, along with everything else.’
Jake looked amused. ‘I still might.’
‘No, you won’t,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘The Priory comes to me in Grandfather’s will. Gerard gets his collection of pictures, the London flat and half the money. He showed us both when he drew the will up a few years ago.’
His brows rose in mocking acknowledgment. ‘Very businesslike. And how reassuring to know exactly where you stand.’
‘Indeed it is.’ Lisle drew a deep breath. ‘And I hope I don’t have to inherit for at least ten years, if not twenty.’
The mockery was wiped away. He said soberly, ‘I wouldn’t count on it, Lisle.’
‘Don’t say that.’ She shook her head in violent negation.
‘Like you, I hope he lives for ever,’ he said quietly. ‘But we need to be realistic.’
She didn’t want realism. She wanted the comfort and reassurance that her grandfather had represented since she was a small child. Without him, she thought confusedly, she would be totally bereft. If the worst did happen, she would leave London and come to live here in the house she loved. Her inheritance should ensure an adequate income, and she could live within it as long as she wasn’t extravagant. She wouldn’t really regret the loss of her job in the public relations department at Harlow Bannerman. She hadn’t been a roaring success there, although she’d often felt she might have been if she’d only been given a chance. But nothing exacting, nothing that might stretch her mind and get the best out of her had ever come her way. The Bannerman name had always been there like a barrier. They had treated her like an unpredictable toddler, treading warily round her, and feeding her the odd unimportant sweet to keep her quiet. They had written her off as useless before she had even got there, she thought resentfully, and no one had ever bothered to discover what her capabilities were since.
She thought, without surprise, that it was probably from the PR department that the rumours about her sexual favours to customers had first emanated. She couldn’t pretend that she was the flavour of the month with many of her colleagues. In fact, she heard herself described as ‘Lady Muck’ on more than one occasion when they thought she was out of the way. At the time, it had hurt, but she had made herself laugh it off. She was Lisle Bannerman, and nothing they could say could touch her.
Only now she knew differently. Mud had been thrown, and some of it had stuck as it had a habit of doing. The kind of things which had been said about her, the kind of implications which had been drawn from her behaviour made her feel unclean, and the thought that some of these vile rumours had found their way back to her grandfather and distressed him was intolerable. Yet he had never uttered one word of warning or reproach, she thought numbly.
Mrs Peterson’s soup was everything she had remembered and more, and the cold roast chicken which followed was accompanied by a salad made infinitely more exciting by a selection of exotic ingredients. Jake asked for cheese to follow, but Lisle succumbed to the blatant temptation of a slice of home-made treacle tart, accompanied by thickly whipped cream.
Afterwards, Mrs Peterson deposited a tray of coffee in the drawing room and wished them goodnight.
Lisle poured the coffee, conscious of a feeling of awkwardness. Supper had been easier than she anticipated, with Mrs Peterson bustling in and out, making sure they were enjoying their food, and that they had everything they needed.
But now they had been left almost pointedly alone, and it made Lisle uneasy.
Jake on the other hand looked perfectly at ease. He had removed his jacket and slung it over the back of the big leather chesterfield and loosened his tie, and now he was leaning back, waiting for his coffee.
She handed him his cup, almost slopping it into the saucer in her haste, then got up to add another log to the already adequate fire, and fussily adjust one of the ornaments on the mantelpiece.
Jake gave her a bored look. ‘Relax, for God’s sake,’ he told her. ‘Rape is not imminent.’
‘I never imagined it was,’ she snapped, re-seating herself behind the coffee tray, and adding cream to her own cup.
Jake grinned suddenly. It made him look younger, and even more attractive, and Lisle decided she preferred him scowling. ‘Then you should have,’ he said. ‘After all, we have the perfect set-up—a flickering fire, a beautiful girl, and damn all on television.’
In spite of loathing him, she felt her lips quiver. ‘Aren’t you the flatterer!’
‘Not usually,’ he said. He drank his coffee, and set the cup down on a table near his seat with a deliberation that she found slightly unnerving. He looked at her, and she thought confusedly that the lamplight had softened the colour of his eyes to silver. He held out his hand, and his voice was very gentle suddenly. ‘Come here.’
And the shattering thing was that it would have been the easiest thing in the world to have got out of that chair and gone to him. It was unbelievable that she could feel that way, but she did. He was her enemy, and she hated him. He had insulted her and outraged all her feelings ever since he had walked into her life, and yet she remembered the way his mouth had scorched her hand, and knew that, in his arms, her whole body could turn to living flame.
And remembered too, just in time, that he thought she was the worst kind of tramp.
She said huskily, ‘I’ll see you in hell first.’
‘Heaven might be more enjoyable,’ he suggested, but she could hear the cynical note. He thought she was just playing hard to get, and that sooner rather than later she would let him make love to her.
She rose to her feet with a faint smile. ‘Heaven?’ she queried. ‘Now you’re flattering yourself, Mr Allard. I’ll leave you to your fantasies, and go to bed. Alone.’
‘What a waste,’ he said softly. ‘You wouldn’t be disappointed. I’m sure my performance would reach the standard you’ve come to expect.’
‘A personal guarantee,’ she marvelled. ‘Now there’s a novelty! But I’m still not tempted. Goodnight.’
‘One thing I would guarantee.’ His voice was silky. ‘That—come the dawn—at least you’d remember my bloody name. There’s another novelty.’
Lisle, walked to the door, nerves jumping at every step, in case he came after her. Because in spite of everything that had happened, she wasn’t sure how she would react if he touched her, seriously wanted her. She hoped she would kick and bite and scratch to be free, behave like the vixen he’d called her, but she wasn’t issuing any guarantees at all, and she knew she wouldn’t feel safe until she was safely up in her room behind a door which, for the first time in her life, she would lock.
CHAPTER THREE
LISLE woke with a start in the pitch dark, remembering she had forgotten to telephone Gerard. Well, not forgotten, simply had no opportunity to do so without Jake guessing what she was up to. And she didn’t want him to know. She wanted to be able to speak to Gerard in perfect privacy without Jake being able to overhear so much as a word.
Not for the first time, she sighed over Murray’s intransigence on the subject of phone extensions in bedrooms. He thought they were immoral, a blatant temptation to people to be idle and run up enormous bills at the same time.
‘A telephone’s place is in the library,’ he said. ‘Let people make their calls at a civilised hour or not at all.’
The middle of the night was hardly a civilised time, Lisle thought ruefully, but it was all that was available.
She had fallen asleep at once, behind that safely locked door, so she hadn’t heard Jake pass her room on his way to bed, but he would be sound asleep by now.
She sighed as she pushed back the covers and reached reluctantly for her robe. The first thing she would have to do was go to Gerard’s own room, find his address book, and hope that Carla Foxton’s Barbados villa was in it. If that address book ever fell into the wrong hands, it would probably be grounds for a dozen divorces, she thought as she padded softly across the carpet to the door. She stood for a moment on the landing, listening intently, but the house was at peace, not a light showing anywhere.
She found the address book in Gerard’s bureau, and slid it into the pocket of her robe, before beginning the journey downstairs.
The drawing room door was open when she reached the hall, and she could see the remaining embers of the logs still glowing red in the wide hearth. She wondered if Jake had remembered to set the spark guard in front of the fire, and decided she would see to it on the way back.
She closed the library door behind her noiselessly, and switched on the light, blinking for a few seconds at the sudden glare. Murray’s big desk was set in the window recess, and the telephone was perched on one corner of it, trim scarlet lines looking strangely out of place among the antiques and rubbed leather which surrounded it.
After some initial difficulty in dialling, she managed to get through to the villa. The phone rang for a long time, and she was just about to give it up as a bad job, when the receiver was lifted and a woman’s voice said, ‘Yes?’
Lisle spoke politely, ‘Good evening, Mrs Foxton. I wonder if I could speak to Gerard Bannerman.’
Silence crackled at her. Then, ‘Who is this?’
‘I’m his sister, Lisle. We met once, actually, at the Hargreaves’ dinner party.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Carla Foxton’s voice conveyed complete indifference. ‘Well, what makes you think Gerard’s here, Miss Bannerman?’
Lisle prayed for patience. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m not sure where he is, Mrs Foxton. I hoped you might be able to help me. You see, there’s rather a crisis here. My grandfather has had a severe heart attack, and I feel Gerard should come back immediately, for a number of reasons.’ She paused, but there was no response from the other woman. ‘So, if you do happen to know where he is, perhaps you could pass on a message for me.’
Another lengthy pause, then Carla Foxton said curtly, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ And rang off.
Lisle sighed as she replaced her own receiver more slowly. It occurred to her that really she liked very few of Gerard’s women, and Carla Foxton probably least of all. She was petite, black-haired and beautiful in a voluptuous way which spoke of the Latin-American blood in her recent ancestry, and Gerard had been frankly besotted with her for several months. Carla was some fifteen years younger than her wealthy indulgent husband, and although Gerard was undoubtedly more to her taste as a lover, their affair had been carried on fairly discreetly. Carla much preferred to have the best of both worlds, and was shrewd enough to ensure that she did so. Lisle could understand her caution on the phone, but not the lack of humanity she had displayed.
Dispiritedly, she walked to the door, and stepped out into the hall, pausing as her hand reached for the switch to plunge the library back into its former peaceful darkness.
‘Walking in your sleep?’ Jake asked.
She nearly screamed, her hand flying to her mouth just in time to stifle the sound, so that it emerged instead as a kind of strangled squeak.
He was lounging in the doorway to the drawing room, his hand clasped round a tumbler of whisky. His head was thrown back slightly, and the grey eyes were narrowed as he looked at her.
Lisle said faintly, ‘You—you startled me.’
‘You startled me,’ he returned pleasantly. ‘When I saw you go past the door, I thought for a moment you were the resident ghost.’ A faint appreciative smile twisted the corners of his mouth. ‘But if you were, of course, I’d be able to see right through you, instead of merely through that pretty nonsense you’re wearing.’
Lisle realised with embarrassed dismay that, standing in the strong light streaming from the room behind her, she was providing him with a frank revelation of the outline of her body through the thin nightdress and robe. Hastily her hand moved to the switch again, snapping it to the ‘off’ position.
‘What are you doing down here?’ she asked. Apart from a couple of extra buttons unfastened on his shirt, he was dressed exactly as when she had left him. It didn’t seem as if he’d been to bed at all.
‘Thinking,’ he said. ‘And drinking.’ He held up the tumbler of whisky in a kind of mocking salute.
‘You find alcohol aids your thought processes?’
‘I find that sometimes it blocks them out altogether, which can be equally useful. May I ask, in return, what you’re doing down here?’
‘I—I couldn’t sleep,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Worrying about Grandfather, I suppose.’ She gestured towards the doorway behind her. ‘I came down to get a book.’
He looked past her into the shadowed room with its tier upon tier of booklined shelves, then back to her empty hands. He began to laugh.
‘But you couldn’t find one. Or have you read them all before?’
She glared at him. ‘Only I decided I’d rather have some hot milk instead. I was just going to get it.’
‘Hot milk,’ he said softly. ‘How very girlish. May I recommend my own personal anodyne instead?’
‘Whisky, I suppose.’ Lisle pulled a small, jeering face.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not whisky.’ And his eyes slid down her body from head to foot, assessing her in a slow deliberate sensual scrutiny, which left her oddly breathless and as vulnerable as if it had been his hands which had stripped her and left her naked beneath his hungry gaze.
She said on a little gasp, ‘You’re disgusting!’
‘And you’re a hypocrite,’ he said derisively. ‘You know what to expect when you flaunt yourself in front of a man with hardly a stitch on. And I’m not interested in your fables about books and hot milk either. There’s a very good reason why we should both be roaming the house at two in the morning suffering from insomnia, and I’m sure I don’t have to spell it out to you.’
She swallowed. ‘It isn’t what you think. …’
‘As I’ve already told you, I’ve stopped thinking.’ Jake put the glass down on the huge carved chest which stood against the wall next to him. ‘I suggest you do the same. Just let your feelings take over. We may not like each other, Lisle, but I’m ready to bet any money that we have a common meeting ground just the same.’
He walked towards her, watching her, missing nothing, she thought desperately as she tried to steady her breathing, to control the hurry of her small breasts under the lace bodice of her nightdress.
He touched her face, his thumb caressing the soft curve of her cheek, his fingers discovering the delicacy of her jawline.
He said quietly, ‘If it’s any consolation, I never intended this to happen either.’
He took her quite gently into his arms, not kissing her, just holding her against the hard, lean length of him, and deep within her a pang of desire began a crescendo into real pain.
She was bewildered by it. It was too new to her experience, too sharp, and too urgent for her to know how to deal with it, although in some dim recess of her mind, something told her that she should pull away now while she still had some will to do so.
She knew by the pressure of Jake’s body against hers that he was deeply and hotly aroused, and in the past she had always found that faintly disturbing, even alarming. Evidence, she had thought, of passions and emotions which seemed to pass her by, and which she had no wish to share.
Now, suddenly, it was exciting to know that she was wanted, and she evinced no kind of protest as his hands slid down her body to her slender hips, moulding her against him, because she knew that she wanted to be even closer still.
His hands moved on her without haste, his fingers stroking her body through the thin nightdress, the silky material creating a sweet erotic friction against her skin. She was silent, eyes closed, within the circle of his arms, conscious only of this new sensual clamour in her blood, the uneven race of her pulse.
A few hours before, the thought of his kiss had filled her with tension, but now, when his hand gently cupped her throat, tipping her head back slightly so that his mouth could find hers, she reached for him with blind eagerness, like a parched flower thirsting for rain. His lips were warm and incredibly sensuous, demanding and winning an equally passionate response from her. Her hands locked behind his dark head, she felt her senses swim, her body melt in quivering eagerness.
Still kissing her, Jake slid an arm beneath her knees, lifting her bodily off the floor, then carried her across the hall to the warm shadows of the drawing room.
He knelt, lowering her gently to the huge fur rug spread in front of the fire, sliding the robe from her shoulders as he did so. The breath caught in her throat as she looked up at him, saw the grey eyes glittering suddenly, and hungrily intent. With the first sign of impatience he had shown, he pushed down the straps of her nightgown, baring the small rounded breasts, and Lisle gasped, lifting her hands instinctively to cover herself.
His fingers gripped her wrists, tugging her hands away. He said in a low voice, ‘You’re too beautiful to hide yourself. Let me look at you. I want to see every perfect inch.’
He freed her arms, and pulled the nightdress down from her body. In an agony of shyness, Lisle closed her eyes as she felt the soft silk slither away. There was little light in the room, but she’d never been naked in front of a man before, and it was a shattering experience for her, the cool reserve, which had always been her safeguard, broken in pieces.
Jake kissed her deeply and hotly, the aching thrust of his lips against hers exciting her feverishly. His hands closed on her breasts, his fingertips stroking their sensitive peaks, and she gave a little husky moan, her mind blanking out at a point between desire and panic.
He pulled away from her, and she knew by his movements, from the small telltale rustling noises, that he was taking his clothes off. When he took her in his arms again, the point of no return would have been reached, she knew, and it wouldn’t be long after that before he was aware of her woeful lack of experience, and a long inward shudder gripped her as she wondered weakly what his reaction would be, recognising the fact that he could well be angry. After all, a willing woman was what he wanted, was expecting. A frightened virgin would make a poor substitute.
His lips brushed her eyelids. ‘Falling asleep?’ he sounded mocking. ‘You can’t be shy.’
Can’t I? she thought, her body thrilling involuntarily at the touch of his skin against hers.
‘Open your eyes,’ he ordered huskily. ‘You won’t be turned to stone.’ His hand moved down her body, moulding and tracing every supple fluent line as if he was learning her by heart, and she swallowed, her breath thickening as his fingers lingered intimately on her thigh, their subtle pressure luring her to a new and devastating submission. He was kissing her body, his mouth moving slowly and pleasurably on her skin, his head dark as night against her whiteness. She was dissolving in waves of delight, poised on the edge of yielding totally, letting those diabolically experienced hands explore her in any way he wished.
The sudden violent thresh of the telephone bell was like the shock of an electric current, a whiplash across her senses. Jake swore, levering himself away from her, the swift dark anger in his face turning to ruefulness as he looked down at her.