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Jane had had no intention of even attempting to put her clothes back on in front of Raff Quinlan, even if she hadn’t been hurting so badly that the nausea was never far away.
Perhaps the hospital just wasn’t busy, or maybe it was the time of night, but the X-rays were completed and a diagnosis given within a matter of minutes; there were no bones broken, only the severe bruising. But even that was enough to make Jane shudder at the thought of putting her clothes on again.
Some of her distress must have shown on the paleness of her face.
‘Of course, I think we should offer you a bed for the night,’ the young doctor smiled encouragingly. ‘If only as a precaution.’
For ‘offer her a bed’ Jane knew he meant admit her to the hospital, and she had no desire to spend the night in a hospital ward. But she was sure the doctor was as aware as she was that the address she had given them was that of a hotel, a hotel she had actually booked out of earlier today.
‘Is that really necessary?’ Far from leaving, Raff had gone with her to the X-ray department, and then stayed right by her side while the doctor gave her his verdict on her injuries. Now he spoke with a quiet authority. ‘As long as Miss Smith has someone to take care of her, couldn’t she be allowed to leave?’
The doctor looked slightly irritated by this interruption, obviously still not quite convinced of the other man’s innocence in the affair, although he was holding a tight check on any more even veiled accusations of that nature. ‘I suppose so,’ he accepted slowly. ‘But as she——’
‘Miss Smith has somewhere to go,’ Raff told him arrogantly.
Even Jane looked at him in some surprise. If that ‘somewhere’ was his home, then he could forget it; she may be weak but she wasn’t helpless.
But if seeming to agree to that suggestion would get her out of here without too much fuss she could always make other arrangements once they were outside. After all, she didn’t have to go anywhere, do anything she didn’t want to do. After years of being ordered around she was finally free to make her own choices. Even if the majority of them this last week had been a disaster!
‘Miss Smith? Miss Smith?’ The doctor repeated his query more firmly at her wandering attention.
She looked up to find them all looking at her—the nurse kindly, the doctor enquiringly, Raff Quinlan challengingly. It was the latter that now held her attention.
‘Is Mr Quinlan’s suggestion agreeable to you?’ the doctor persisted.
The poor man was still half convinced she had taken a beating from Raff Quinlan!
And Raff was still fully aware of the unspoken accusation.
‘Yes, it’s agreeable to me,’ Jane finally answered, much to Raff’s unspoken but felt relief, and the doctor’s chagrin.
But he seemed to be resigned to her decision as he stood up to leave. ‘If you have any further trouble, don’t hesitate to either come back here or see your own doctor,’ he advised.
‘By ‘‘further trouble’’, I suppose he meant any more beatings from me,’ Raff muttered grimly in the darkness, Jane now seated next to him in the Jaguar, their departure from the hospital made without further incident after the nurse had carefully helped her to dress.
In truth Jane felt slightly lethargic now, the doctor having prescribed pain-killers to at least help ease some of her discomfort. The last thing she felt like doing now was sorting out a hotel for the night. But it had to be done. Raff Quinlan’s ruffled feelings over the doctor’s implications was the least of her worries for the moment.
She looked about her in the darkness, realising they were fast leaving town—Raff’s home, wherever it was, seeming to be far from the hotels of London.
‘If you pull over at the next corner, I can get a taxi back to a hotel,’ she told him sleepily, those tablets, whatever they were, making her feel very tired.
He didn’t even glance at her. ‘I said you had somewhere to go,’ he said tersely. ‘And you do. You also have someone to ‘‘take care of you’’.’
‘You?’ Jane scorned, her lids becoming so heavy now she could barely keep them open.
‘If necessary,’ he nodded abruptly.
‘It isn’t,’ she said drily.
He gave her a scathing glance. ‘Forgive me if I disagree with you.’
Her mouth tightened at the insult. ‘No.’
‘My dear young lady …’
‘I’m not your dear anything,’ Jane snapped. ‘And I have no wish to go to your home.’
His mouth twisted. ‘You talk as if you usually expect your wishes to be carried out without question.’
Perhaps she did, but she had a feeling, from the little she had learnt of this man this evening, that he rarely considered anyone else’s wishes but his own!
‘I want you to stop the car immediately so that I don’t have too far to walk before I can get a taxi back into town,’ she told him firmly, although she was aware that her voice sounded less than convincing, and that she was feeling sleepier and sleepier by the moment.
Raff Quinlan laughed softly. ‘You don’t look capable of standing on your feet, let alone walking anywhere.’
‘I am—capable, of doing—whatever I have to—do …’
It was the last thing she remembered saying, sleep finally overcoming her as she slumped down in the car seat.
CHAPTER TWO
WHAT on earth …?
Where was she? Jane felt panicked as she awoke fully and didn’t recognise her surroundings. She had been on her way to a hotel—but this wasn’t a hotel, she felt sure of it.
God! The pain when she tried to move …
And with the pain came the return of her memory. The headlights of the car. The pain in her ankle as she turned to hurry back on to the pavement, then the terrible jarring of her hip as she made contact with the hard road.
Raff Quinlan …
She remembered everything about him too now—the way he towered over her in the darkness, his arrogance, his rudeness, the way he had insisted on bringing her to his home despite her protests …
She was almost afraid to look beneath the bedclothes, had a feeling she already knew what she was going to find. Nevertheless she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and lifted the sheet.
Naked.
Completely.
Even the peach-coloured underwear was missing now.
There was something vaguely disturbing about the thought of someone undressing her when she was unconscious from the effect of pain-killers and tiredness because of shock—unfair somehow, and it gave Raff Quinlan an advantage over her that she didn’t like. At the hospital she had been wearing no less than if she had been on a beach, but being stripped naked when she could do nothing to prevent it was—well, it was underhand.
And Raff Quinlan was responsible, somehow she felt sure of that. After all, he had admitted he didn’t have a wife who could have done it.
She looked up sharply as the bedroom door opened after a brief knock.
‘Ah, good morning, my dear!’ A tall woman in a tailored blue dress with a pristine white collar bustled into the room carrying a silver tray that held what looked like a pot of coffee. ‘I hope I didn’t wake you.’ She smiled brightly before putting the tray down on the bedside-table and straightening, a perplexed frown appearing between her eyes as she looked down at Jane.
‘I didn’t realise—— For a moment you looked so much like——’ She broke off, shaking her head. ‘I’m sorry, for a moment you looked so much like—someone I used to know.’
Her smile was only a little strained now. ‘I haven’t even introduced myself,’ she scolded self-derisively. ‘I’m Mrs Howard, Mr Quinlan’s housekeeper.’
And she had obviously never seen Jane before this moment, confirming that she hadn’t been the one to undress her the evening before!
But, remembering the evening before, Jane realised she had started a deception with Raff Quinlan that she would now have to carry on. ‘Jane Smith,’ she supplied gruffly.
‘Cream and sugar?’
‘Sorry?’ She looked up with a frown, the frown clearing as she realised the housekeeper was pouring her a cup of coffee. ‘Oh. Both. Thank you,’ she accepted with a tight smile.
What was that saying, ‘When first you practise to deceive’ …?
Sitting up to actually take the offered cup of coffee wasn’t as easy as it should have been, either. Every movement caused her pain, and there was her nakedness to consider. Not that she was at all shy about that, she just didn’t know what explanation Raff had given this woman for her being here, and her nakedness might look a bit suspect, in the circumstances. If Raff had felt he owed his housekeeper an explanation at all! Somehow she doubted it.
‘Jane Smith?’
Her frown returned as she looked up from securing the sheet more firmly about her breasts, not quite as awake as she would have liked to have been, the pain-killers seeming to have left her with a slightly muzzy feeling in her head.
She took the coffee-cup from the other woman, spilling some of the hot liquid into the saucer as her hand shook slightly. ‘Sorry,’ she grimaced. ‘This is much appreciated.’ And it was, for her mouth felt like sandpaper.
She decided to ignore the reference to her name; it had already been discussed enough, one way or another! But sipping the coffee made her realise she had a sudden urgency to find a bathroom!
Her suitcase was just visible behind the bedroom chair, and she had no reason to suppose any of her things had been unpacked and placed in the spacious drawers of the dresser. And, unfortunately, the last time she had seen the wrap she had brought with her it had been strewn across the road soaking up muddy water like a sponge. In fact, most of her clothes had been doing the same thing. But she could hardly stay in this bed forever!
In fact, she couldn’t stay in it another minute longer, with her predicament becoming more and more desperate by the second!
‘My dear?’ Mrs Howard seemed to sense her discomfort, if not the reason for it.
Jane’s smile was strained. ‘I don’t seem to be wearing a nightgown, and—well, I need to …’
‘Oh, my dear, how thoughtless of me!’ The other woman instantly looked contrite. ‘Your things are all laundered downstairs. Mr Quinlan explained about the catch breaking on your case, and all your beautiful clothes getting muddy. I’ll just pop down and get them,’ she reassured her.
Jane waited only as long as it took the other woman to leave the room before struggling out of bed and into what she could see was the adjoining bathroom.
She was more than a little shaky on her legs, and each movement across the room was an agony, but she finally made it, her relief immense once she had done so.
She could think clearer now too and, although her accident the night before had delayed her returning home to Jordan, it had only done so for that one night; now she would have no choice but to go back. She had been so sure she could succeed on her own a week ago, but now she was defeated, knew he was right—that she needed him and the money to survive.
She closed her eyes in shame at the pained memories of the last week—of one rejection after another, one humiliation after another. She had been so sure she could look after and support herself, and instead she had found how ill-fitted she was to do the latter, at least. And without the qualifications and means to support herself she wasn’t capable of being independent.
Of course, there were a lot of young women in London who couldn’t get a legitimate job and who therefore found some other means of supporting themselves, but even going back to Jordan had to be better than that alternative. Better the devil she knew than ones she didn’t know, she had decided last night when she’d packed up to go home. Much as she hated the thought of Jordan’s gloating self-satisfaction in being proved right about her dependence upon him.
The housekeeper still hadn’t returned to the bedroom by the time she had finished in the bathroom, and so Jane hobbled as best she could across the room, giving a gasp of horror as she caught sight of her reflection in the dressing-table mirror. Her hip seemed to have turned all the colours of the rainbow now, the bruising having spread further and deepened.
She might not want to stay in bed, but she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to bear the pressure of normal clothing against her tender flesh.
She looked at her reflection critically, trying to see her body from a man’s point of view. Her skin was quite tanned—it was summer, after all—and she had the usual smattering of freckles that most people with her colouring were afflicted with, although not so many that it could be thought unattractive. Firm breasts were tipped with delicate coral pink, fuller than her other slenderness would imply, but proudly uptilting. Her waist was slender, her hips boyish, her legs surprisingly long and well-shaped for her five-feet-two-inch height. Like a long, leggy filly, Jordan always said.
Jordan. Jordan. Jordan. She had never realised before quite how much notice she took of the things he said to her.
‘You really are a bloody mess, aren’t you?’ said an impatient voice from behind her.
A voice she recognised only too well!
She gave a yelp of dismay before crossing the room to the sanctuary of the bed and the protective bedclothes, and looking accusingly at Raff over the top of the snowy-white sheet.
She hadn’t heard his approach or the bedroom door opening, but there he stood, larger than life in the daylight, the fitted denims low down on his hips, the dark blue shirt he wore making his eyes look darker.
But he still made her think of Heathcliff, his dark hair tousled and inclined to curl, his skin ruggedly tanned.
‘Here.’ He held up the clothes that were draped over his arm, derisively taking pity on her. ‘But I’ve seen it all before, you know,’ he drawled mockingly.
In Technicolor!
Her cheeks felt hot at the thought of this man’s hands on her body. Had her nakedness left him unaffected? Probably. He didn’t give the impression he found her in the least attractive. It wasn’t the reaction men usually had to her vivid colouring.
‘In that case——’ she sat up on the bed, baring her shoulders and back ‘—pass me my robe, would you?’ She held out her hand for the garment, her gaze unflinching.
Admiration slowly darkened his eyes and, although slow in coming, he actually smiled! ‘I wonder just who you are, Jane Smith?’ he mused softly.
Her head went back at this direct challenge, her defensive action turning to puzzlement as his expression became harsh, and his narrowed gaze rested on the flowing fire of her hair as it fell forward across her breasts.
‘I mean to find out before you leave here,’ he told her curtly.
Jane felt a shiver of apprehension, instantly dismissing the emotion as being ridiculous. She didn’t know exactly where she was, but she could leave any time she wanted to. Couldn’t she …?
‘Where did you come from last night?’ Raff demanded to know. ‘Where were you going to?’
‘I don’t think that’s any of your business,’ she snapped resentfully, well aware of what a disadvantage she was at, her robe having been placed over the back of the bedroom chair with her other clothes, way across the other side of the room. As Raff very well knew!
His eyes were still narrowed, his arms crossed in front of the broadness of his chest. ‘You gave your address at the hospital last night as being a hotel, but you must have lived somewhere before staying there?’
He was being deliberately provocative, almost insulting. ‘Raff …’
‘Who was he, Jane Smith?’ he pushed, not waiting for her to finish.
‘Who was who?’ Jane frowned.
‘Your wealthy lover!’
‘My——?’ Jane choked with indignation. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ she gasped.
He shrugged. ‘I may not know too much about ladies’ clothing——’ his mouth twisted derisively ‘—but even I recognise some of the labels in your clothes as being designer models. Who bought them for you?’
‘I don’t have to——’
‘It was a man, wasn’t it?’ he cut in forcefully. ‘Silken underwear——’ He held up one of the lacy bras Jane favoured, that minute scrap of expensive lace looking even smaller in his callused hand. ‘Bought to please a lover. Or by him,’ Raff added hardly.
In truth, each and every article of her clothing had been paid for by a man, but she had chosen the underwear to please herself, no one else, loving the silken feel of it against her skin.
She shook her head. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Don’t I?’ he rasped, throwing the bra down disgustedly on top of her other clean clothing. ‘Believe me, I know more than you think,’ he told her heavily. ‘But before this goes any further I think I should tell you I’m not on the lookout for an expensive mistress. Or one of any other kind, come to that,’ he added insultingly.
His behaviour took her breath away, angry colour darkening her cheeks. ‘If I were on the lookout for a rich lover, you can be sure you wouldn’t even be a consideration!’
Really, the man didn’t even know her, and yet he could make accusations like that!
‘Then we understand each other,’ he nodded with satisfaction.
‘Completely,’ she snapped resentfully.
‘Good,’ he said smugly. ‘Now that we’re agreed on what neither of us want, we can get around to discussing what I do want.’
‘Sorry?’ Jane shook her head, still feeling slightly muzzy. It must be those tablets she had taken the night before. Maybe she was imagining this whole conversation? It was too outrageous to be real!
‘Can you type?’ He sat down in the bedroom chair, uncaring that he crushed her clothes in doing so.
Jane frowned, having difficulty keeping up with the conversation now. ‘Type?’ she repeated dazedly.
‘Yes.’ His mouth twisted. ‘You know, place your fingers on the keys of a typewriter and make words appear on——’
‘I’m well aware of what typing is,’ she snapped. ‘I just don’t see what it has to do with me?’
Raff looked at her consideringly. ‘At a guess, I would say right now you’re homeless and jobless——’
‘That’s a hell of an assumption to make,’ Jane bit out resentfully. God, was she so transparent? Possibly, to this man, with his probing eyes and cynicism. Although he certainly wasn’t a hundred per cent right about her! Just enough to have unnerved her, she admitted.
She still had no idea where she was, and although Mrs Howard had seemed respectable enough that was really little comfort right now.
Raff arched dark brows. ‘But a correct one?’
‘Who are you, Raff Quinlan?’ Her head was back challengingly.
He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Rafferty Quinlan. Thirty-seven. Divorced.’ The last was added bitterly. ‘In charge of the running of an estate that is slowly bleeding itself—and me—dry!’
It was the very briefest of r$eAsum$eAs, and yet Jane was able to glean a lot from it. His marriage, whether it had initially been a happy one or not, had ended badly, which might account for some of his behaviour towards her. But not all of it!
‘ ‘‘In charge of running an estate’’?’ she repeated slowly.
He nodded abruptly. ‘I can’t exactly claim to own it when it’s mortgaged up to the hilt,’ he rasped. ‘My father had little interest in the place for years before he and my mother were killed in a plane crash five years ago, and he had let things deteriorate badly. My darling wife decided she didn’t want to be stuck out in the middle of Hampshire struggling to make a living, let alone enjoying herself, and took what little there was left as a divorce settlement. I’ve only managed to keep Mrs Howard because she’s run the house since before I was born, and considers it more her home than I do!’
Jane didn’t believe that; she sensed a fierce pride in Raff in the estate he called his home.
And at least she knew where she was now! Not that she was too familiar with Hampshire, but she felt a little more reassured now that she was at least approximately aware of her whereabouts.
Raff’s wife couldn’t have loved him if she could have walked out on him for such a reason. And it would probably explain part of his resentment towards the type of woman he had decided she had to be.
But it didn’t explain his conversation of a few minutes ago.
‘What does all this have to do with whether or not I can type?’ She frowned.
His mouth twisted. ‘Well, as it seems for the moment I’m responsible for you …’
‘You most certainly are not!’ she protested indignantly. ‘I’m responsible for myself,’ she told him firmly.
At least, she was trying to be.
Her bank account stood at nil and, for all that she tried to deny it to this man, she was homeless into the bargain; she hadn’t even thought to bring any of her jewellery—that she could have sold and lived off the money for a while—away with her when she’d left.
‘You aren’t doing a very good job of it,’ Raff drily echoed at least some of her sentiments.
‘I’m doing the best that I can!’ To her chagrin she heard her voice break with emotion.
Raff looked at her closely, obviously having heard that emotion too. ‘We all do that, little one,’ he told her softly. ‘It just isn’t always enough.’
No, she acknowledged sadly, it wasn’t always enough …
She didn’t even want to think about Jordan sitting waiting for her to crawl back and tell him he had been right about her not being able to survive on her own.
She blinked back the tears. ‘I’ll make your problems one less by leaving here as soon as I’ve ordered a taxi.’ She didn’t think Jordan would mind paying the fare; it would be worth it to him to have been proved correct!
‘To go where?’ Raff’s eyes were narrowed. ‘Back to him?’
Her cheeks were flushed. ‘I told you——’
‘Surely working for me, once you’ve ceased being a walking bruise, of course—even I’m not that much of a taskmaster that I would expect you to work while you’re still in pain …!’ he derided what he had guessed had been her opinion of him ‘… has to be better than returning to a man you obviously have no desire to go back to!’ he said exasperatedly.
‘What do you know about how I—work?’ Jane repeated slowly as all of his words sank in. ‘What sort of work are you talking about?’ she asked suspiciously.
His mouth twitched. ‘Well, I’ve asked you if you can type—so I obviously want you to start cooking for me!’ He shook his head. ‘What sort of work do you think I mean?’ he scorned.
Work. Raff was actually offering her a job! But why? He had treated her as nothing but a nuisance since he had first met her. Probably because she had been one, she ruefully acknowledged. He wasn’t the type of man to take lightly having his life interrupted as disastrously as last night had done. But he also wasn’t a man to shirk what he considered his responsibility either.
Responsibility. How she was coming to hate the very sound of that word!
She looked up at Raff uncertainly. ‘By working for you, do you mean——?’
‘I can afford to pay you a small wage, plus your room and food, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ he cut in harshly, his eyes narrowing resentfully. ‘The estate may be in difficulties, but I’m not bankrupt yet.’
And she had obviously hit upon a very raw nerve!
But the offer of a job was so tempting. Any job. It was exactly what she had been looking for, praying for. It meant so much more to her than just no longer being dependent upon Jordan. Not that she intended telling Raff Quinlan about that.
She looked at him quizzically. ‘Why?’
He gave an impatient sigh, as if already regretting having made the offer at all. ‘Don’t think I would be doing you any favours, Jane Smith,’ he rasped. ‘I have correspondence that needs answering dating back three months or so, have been so tied up with work on the estate these last few months that I just haven’t had time to tackle answering any of the mail.’
She frowned. ‘You usually do the typing yourself?’