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He moved swiftly towards her and grasped her hands, pinning them to her sides so that she couldn’t escape.
‘You’re hysterical,’ he said harshly, dragging her towards the bed and throwing her on it. She made to get up but he forestalled that by trapping her with his arms, so she lay there passively, lowering her eyes so that he couldn’t see the mutiny in them.
‘Can you blame me?’ she asked viciously.
‘I’m not married,’ he said. ‘The thought of adultery leaves me with a very sour taste in my mouth. My wife died ten years ago.’
‘I had no idea,’ Claire whispered. ‘I’m sorry.’ There was a pause while she fought down the accusations she had hurled at him. ‘How is it that you never mentioned her?’
There was no softening in his expression as he looked down at her.
‘I didn’t see the need,’ he said in a smooth, hard voice. ‘Claire, let me make one thing absolutely clear between us. What we have is physical. I want you. But if you’re looking for commitment, then you’re looking in the wrong place, at the wrong man. My capacity for love was well and truly expended on Olivia.’
Olivia. Lovely name. It suited that blonde, imperious beauty. Not forgetting tragic. Tragic beauty, she thought—the worst kind. How on earth could you fight the past?
‘You can’t mean that,’ she said without thinking.
‘Don’t play the crusader with me, Claire. I’m quite happy to enjoy what we have, but don’t waste your time with me if marriage is what you’re after. Is it?’
‘Did I ever imply that?’ she asked weakly, averting her eyes. She was breathing quickly, her breasts rising and falling.
‘Good,’ he said, ‘because it would be so unfortunate if what we have was forced to end prematurely, wouldn’t it?’ He pushed aside her blouse, exposing her breasts and slowly, tenderly he began to caress them.
He had been her first and only lover. He had taught her to make love, giving her enjoyment until she was confident enough to return it to him. Her body responded to him now with an almost reflex rush of desire. The peaks of her nipples hardened, ready to receive the warm wetness of his mouth. Her mind seemed to shut down completely, so that when his lips finally did encircle her swollen nipples it took a while for coherent thought to resurface. But resurface it did, and she wriggled against him, pushing him back, desperate to get away.
This time, though, he was less willing to release her. He pinned her arms down and she immediately stopped squirming. There was no point. He was strong, she knew that from experience, and in a physical contest he would always be the winner, so why waste energy in trying to fight him? He couldn’t restrain her forever, and the minute his hands were off her she’d be out of here.
Her passivity annoyed him yet further.
‘It’s no good,’ she said flatly. ‘You can strip me until I’m completely naked, but you can’t make me want you.’
‘Can’t I?’ There was disbelief in his voice and she watched him angrily from under her lashes. ‘Shall we put that to the test?’
His eyes raked over her, and it was like being branded by a hot iron. Who, she thought, was she trying to kid? She wanted him now just like she had always wanted him. It was an illness, a craving that was bigger than her. The thought of him looking at her nudity, caressing her bare breasts with his eyes, was enough to bring hectic colour to her cheeks, even though he was no longer touching her.
‘If that makes you happy,’ she said with a careless shrug, and she could tell from the stiffening of his body that she was really beginning to get under his skin. She didn’t know whether to feel afraid or elated. ‘You can subdue me easily, but what does that prove except that you’re stronger than I am? And sure, if you make love to me, I’ll probably be aroused by you, but just because my body might respond it doesn’t mean that my mind is as well.’ Anger, bitterness, hurt had loosened her tongue and, now that she had started talking, it was as if she could no longer stop herself. She had stored up nine months of passionate, unbridled, frustrated love, and all that was pouring out of her in an unstoppable torrent.
‘You’re so sure of yourself, aren’t you, James?’ she asked in a high-pitched voice. ‘Have you ever run into any obstacles in your life? I doubt it. You’ve sailed through life assuming that it’s your right that everyone bends to your will.’ She gave an uncontrolled, acid laugh and sat up, smoothing her appearance with trembling fingers. ‘I was a fool to ever be taken in by that charm of yours’ She lifted her face rebelliously to his, her chin jutting forward with unaccustomed aggression. ‘You play with women, don’t you? Did it amuse you to play with me? Did my virginity turn you on?’ She had gone beyond the point of rational thought. She was fired by the biting pain of knowing that the man she loved belonged to his dead wife.
‘You turned me on,’ he said harshly, the green of his eyes glittering like a cat’s, ‘and yes, your virginity was part of you. Would you prefer it if I lied? Would you like me to tell you that I loved you? Would you like me to feed you stories about eternal bliss?’ She was staring up at him, her eyes as wide as saucers. ‘Dammit, woman!’ He stood up and began pacing the room, like a caged animal, raking his fingers through his hair and she watched him with unwilling, greedy fascination.
Of course she should leave, but something kept her nailed to the bed.
‘Don’t look at me like that!’ he commanded, standing still and fixing her with those amazing eyes.
‘Like what?’
‘You told me that you never played games with me. Well, I never played them with you. I never offered you what I couldn’t provide.’
The atmosphere was thick with tension and she looked away hurriedly, physically unable to outstare him even though she would have liked to. She felt as though she had opened a door and found a nightmare behind it. Her sister, she knew, would have been proud. Jackie was seven years older than her, and she had never met James Forrester, but that hadn’t stopped her from lecturing on his unsuitability.
‘I know you,’ she had told Claire early on in her relationship. ‘You’re too green for a man like that. You’re a dreamer, you’ve always been a dreamer. Even when you were a teenager and you should have been out having fun, you locked yourself away in your bedroom with your books and your fantasies. Right now you’re a novelty for him because he’s accustomed to other types of women, sophisticated women with carefully applied make-up and designer wardrobes. You’re young and fresh and just so damned innocent, but he’ll tire of you and when he does you can be sure that he won’t think twice about sending you on your way.’
Claire had listened because she loved her sister, but she hadn’t taken the slightest bit of notice of the warnings. The pull he had over her was too powerful to allow her any room for reason.
‘No, you never offered me anything that you couldn’t provide,’ she repeated dully. Her intense anger had evaporated and she felt drained and hopeless. ‘Thank you so much for that, at least. How good you’ve been, what a true gentleman.’
His lips tightened and he stared at her as though he would have liked to have shaken her and was only controlling himself with extreme difficulty.
She stood up and walked slowly towards the door. Inside, she felt dead and lifeless. This was the first time that she had ever exploded like this with James, with anyone for that matter. She was not a girl who liked arguments; she had always preferred to take the path of least possible resistance. Perhaps because her parents had so seldom argued, quarrelling perturbed her, made her feel awkward and uncomfortable.
‘I can’t compete with your wife,’ she said quietly, her hand on the doorknob. ‘I just wish that you’d liked me enough to tell me about her sooner.’
‘Liking,’ he said coolly, not trying to stop her from leaving, ‘had nothing to do with it.’
‘How can you still be so affected by the past?’ she heard herself ask, desperately, and the shutters clamped back down over his eyes. She preferred him cold, angry, biting, anything but this closed expression that gave her no inkling as to what he was thinking.
He took a step towards her and she cringed back, like a wounded animal.
‘Is it ever really possible to escape the past?’ he asked smoothly, an acid, humourless smile on his face. ‘You’re a child. I should never have given in to my impulses; I should have left you to play out your little infatuation.’
‘Thank you for that,’ she whispered, hating herself for loving this man when he was capable of being so utterly hateful. ‘But it’s not too late to be rid of me.’ She opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. ‘I’m leaving now and this is the last you’ll see of me, so you can carry on with your life and I can finish playing out all my stupid, childish games.’
She shut the door behind her and flew down the corridor, gaining momentum as she ran down the staircase as if there were baying hounds behind her, when in fact he hadn’t made even the slightest effort to stop her in her tracks.
Why should he? she thought as she let herself out of the front door. I’ve only ever been a little bit of fun on the side. He’s still in love with Olivia.
CHAPTER TWO
CLAIRE had been only just twenty when she’d met James Forrester.
It had been on one of those depressing winter days when the sun never seemed to rise and darkness fell like a shutter in mid-afternoon. Not a day to be wondering for how much longer she would be able to afford the rent on her poky bedroom in the house she shared with three other girls. Money was low and she was loath to mention the problem to her parents because they would immediately insist on helping her out. Even at twenty, they still thought of her as their baby, their little girl who should be protected.
Not to mention the fact that her parents would have been hard pushed to bail her out of her financial troubles. Her father wasn’t exactly rolling in money and although they had some savings, it was common knowledge to both their daughters that this money was being carefully put aside for a rainy day.
So she had continued scouring the newspapers, anxiously looking for jobs and wondering whether she would have been better off remaining in London instead of moving to Berkshire where the rent was much lower and where she had optimistically thought that the job situation would be good.
Six weeks out of work, with nothing hopeful on the horizon, was not doing much for her self-confidence, though.
Two of the girls who rented the house with her bluntly told her that she ought to find a job as a secretary, invest her time in a short typing course which would reap its rewards in the years to come; after all, they earned good money, thank you very much, working as secretaries in two of the larger companies in nearby Reading.
But Claire had not jumped at their suggestion. She had worked hard for her art diploma and to throw away everything she had studied for, to abandon her love of art in favour of a nine-to-five routine in front of a typewriter, did not hold much appeal.
But as she had sat at the kitchen table, scanning the job columns, she had been forced to admit that a love of art was not going to pay the bills.
She also doubted whether her landlord would smilingly accept her need to be creative and overlook the little matter of unpaid rent on his house. He was sharklike at the best of times, and she shuddered at the prospect of trying to engage his sympathy for her cause.
Then she had spotted it. Just when she had been about to crumple the newspaper into a ball and admit defeat. Cleaner wanted, it said, excellent rates of pay for the right person. More to the point, she would be working at Frilton Manor.
She had telephoned the number on the advertisement immediately and had been given an interview only hours later.
And she just knew that this was going to work out. She would be earning money, she would be able to keep herself in room and board until the sort of job she really wanted came along, and, best of all, she would be surrounded by all that magnificent beauty at the manor— because it would be beautiful, she could tell just from what she had seen of it from the outside: large, imposing, set on a hill and looking down on the rest of the world with a mixture of grandeur and contempt.
She had been right. She had got the job because, she was told by the head housekeeper, she looked trustworthy and she could start the following morning.
Then she had been shown around the manor, or rather part of it because some of the rooms were closed and besides it was simply too massive to be viewed in the length of time available.
Claire had been awestruck. Her own family home had been a small three-bedroomed cottage, with just enough space for four people and a dog, and even the dog had a tendency to get underfoot now and again. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to actually live somewhere as vast as Frilton Manor.
‘Are there any children?’ she had asked the housekeeper, who had given her a curious look.
‘Children? Of course not. The master lives here on his own. Not that he gets down here that often. His work is in London, you see, and he has a flat there, but when he does come here it has to be in spotless condition. It’s not that he’s a stickler for cleanliness,’ she had hurriedly continued, ‘but I am.’ She looked around her proudly. ‘There’s four of us whose job it is to make sure things keep ticking over, and I do the cooking as well when the master is at home. George, that’s my husband, is responsible for the garden. He employs some local lads to help him. The master trusts us,’ she said, holding her head high, making Claire smile, ‘we’re responsible for who works here and we have to be careful. There’s a lot of valuables in this house. The antiques, the pictures.’ She made a sweeping gesture, and Claire nodded appreciatively.
‘Priceless, I should think,’ she contributed helpfully, but she was really only half listening to what the housekeeper was saying. Her eyes were roaming around the place in open delight, taking in the graceful curves of the staircase which dominated the massive hallway, sweeping up to branch into two long corridors which formed a huge square and off which the bedrooms were located.
And on the walls were a mind-boggling array of paintings, some of them portraits, others landscapes, all original. For an art lover, it was sheer heaven.
There was even a magnificent library, which she had briefly seen, and which had lived up to all her expectations of what a library ought to be like in a grand, old house. Dark, with rich deep colours, and sombre paintings on the walls, and an impressive display of books, most hardbound, but some, she was interested to see, modern classics.
‘Of course priceless!’ the housekeeper said haughtily, making Claire smile again.
They were back in the hallway when the telephone began ringing, and the housekeeper hurried off, leaving her to let herself out. But Claire didn’t immediately. She remained where she was, absorbing the wonderful stateliness of the place, loving the beauty and the stillness of it.
She would telephone her sister this evening and tell her all about her stroke of good fortune, although she knew what her sister would say. Damn dull, working in a great big place like that. It’s not good for you, you need to get out more, mix with young people, not do a cleaning job in a mausoleum.
Jackie had not wanted her to leave London. She was a firm believer in the city life and she had been convinced that with a little more personal guidance Claire would have broken out of her shell and become less introverted. She had said as much, and Claire had listened with a half-smile, not liking to say that the bright lights were not for her. She had found London oppressive and overcrowded and she just couldn’t work herself up to feel enthusiastic about the nightclubs and the wine bars and the never-ending round of social engagements which her sister seemed to delight in. There had to be more to life than a routine job in a claustrophobic city. She had refrained from pointing this out to her sister, though. Jackie would have shaken her head with one of those affectionate, half pitying smiles of hers and immediately told her sister that a job was a nine-to-five routine most of the time, that mother luck rarely visited, that men were just ordinary mortals with ordinary bad habits, so join the reality club and stop living in a dream world.
She was still standing there, daydreaming about the magical mystery tour of the manor which lay in store for her, the daily pleasures of looking at the various paintings and artefacts, when the huge front door swung open and she was confronted by a sight that momentarily took her breath away.
A man, tall, lean and cloaked in black, stood in front of her, silhouetted against the inky blackness of early evening. He looked as though he belonged to another era, a more dangerous, less civilised one, and somewhere, the thought flashed through her head, there should be a white stallion, stamping and snorting in the bitter cold.
Then she blinked and realised that of course it was an Illusion, she was just being silly.
‘Who are you?’ she asked in a timid voice, nervously clutching her coat around her because the hall was suddenly freezing cold from the outside air.
‘Who,’ the man replied coldly, divesting himself of the black coat to reveal a less startling grey suit, perfectly tailored and, Claire noticed uncomfortably, dramatically emphasising the sort of body that didn’t usually belong to men in suits, ‘might I ask, are you?’
He slung the coat on to the mint-coloured chaise-longue just behind him and turned to face her, staring at her until a deep red flush slowly crawled up her cheeks.
She was not adept at social banter at the best of times, and right now she was feeling horribly uncomfortable and, she suspected, probably looking like a goldfish as well with her mouth half open and her eyes huge and wary.
‘I’m here for the job,’ she stammered in a small voice, and the man clicked his tongue impatiently.
‘Job? What job?’
He began moving off towards one of the many sittingrooms downstairs, expecting her to follow, which she did, even though it struck her that she still didn’t know his name.
‘Cleaner,’ she called from behind him. ‘I saw the advertisement in the newspaper and I applied for the post.’
He turned to face her, his eyes narrowed, and she shrank back. He really was the most alarming man she had ever met. There was something forbidding in the hard set of his features, despite the suggestion of warmth in the curve of his mouth. His hair was dark, almost black, and his eyes were a peculiar shade of green. Not hazel, not blue-green, but pure, undiluted green, and fringed by thick, black lashes.
Those green eyes were roving over her now, taking her in inch by lazy inch, and she felt a spark of anger ignite inside of her. She knew very well that this arrogant man was most probably the so-called master of the house, and she knew that, to him, a cleaner was probably the lowest of the low, but there was no reason why she had to endure the indignity of his stare.
So with a rare attempt at rebellion she stuck her hands on her hips and tried to think of something very cutting to say, master or no master.
‘You don’t look like a cleaner,’ he informed her, moving across to one of the sofas and sitting down.
He didn’t gesture to her to do likewise and she decided that if this was a deliberate ploy then it was a good one, because she felt exposed and nervous standing where she was, like someone forced to appear solo on stage in front of a bank of critics.
‘I do apologise,’ she said neutrally, though from the look of amusement that crossed his face he could read the sarcasm in her voice quite easily.
‘How old are you? Fifteen? Sixteen? Does your mother know that you’re running about applying for jobs when you should be at school?’
That really was the last straw. Mild-mannered she might be, but she suddenly saw red.
‘I am not fifteen,’ she snapped, her face crimson, ‘nor am I sixteen. And my mother is fully aware that I’m running about applying for jobs. In fact, I suspect she sincerely hopes I get one, considering I’m twenty years old and I’ve just finished at art college!’
‘In which case,’ he said smoothly, ‘why are you applying for a job as a cleaner? Are you hoping to bring something creative to the post? Perhaps redesign the dust into artistic swirls?’
Claire clenched her fists by her sides and looked away from him.
Very cool, she thought, very urbane to sit there and confuse me with lazy, sophisticated innuendoes. She hated men like that. Or at least, she thought honestly, she should do. But what she was feeling wasn’t hatred. It was far from that. She felt uncomfortable, exposed, conscious of her womanhood in a way that she never had in her life before. It was a heady, exhilarating, scary feeling, like freefalling from a plane, and in a strange way it was addictive too. She didn’t want him to stop looking at her. She had to force herself to come back down to Planet Earth.
‘I need the money,’ she said bluntly, ‘and I like this house. Manor,’ she corrected hastily. ‘I like beautiful things, and this house—sorry, manor—is full of beautiful objects. I studied art at college, you see. Did I mention that to you? I’ve always loved paintings, sculptures; they’re so much more soothing than all that grit and grime we see around us every day. Don’t you think?’
He was nodding in an abstracted sort of way and she wondered whether she was on the verge of losing his attention. He was probably finding her gauche and earnest, but she wasn’t the sort to play verbal games; she didn’t know how.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, taking refuge in as cool a tone of voice as she could muster, but feeling deflated. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know your name.’
‘Forrester. James Forrester.’ He didn’t stretch out his hand to hers. Instead he joined his fingers under his chin and continued to survey her with the sort of frank appraisal which she decided bordered on rude. ‘And your name is…?’
‘Claire Harper.’ That said, there didn’t seem much else to say and she hovered indecisively, wondering whether she could find the self-possession to smile blankly, utter a few closing pleasantries and take her leave.
He made her nervous and she wondered whether the housekeeper, Mrs Evans, had been right when she’d said that he was not around very much.
‘Why don’t you sit down,’ he said, ‘you look like a frightened animal about to turn tail and take flight. I won’t eat you.’
Ha ha, Claire thought, smiling weakly, very funny. She would have to get some lessons from her sister on how to deal with men like him. Jackie was far more adept when it came to the fine art of social interaction and savoir-faire. Staring and stammering definitely weren’t top of the league when it came to masterful social interaction.
‘I really can’t,’ she mumbled. ‘I want to get back before it’s too dark.’
‘I don’t think it’s possible to get any darker, do you? How did you get here? I assume you didn’t drive; there’s no car in the courtyard. Did you cycle?’
Claire shook her head. ‘Bus, then I walked the mile or so from the bus stop,’ she confessed, and he stared at her as though the concept of walking was very far removed from his idea of ways and means of getting from A to B.
‘Come on,’ he said, standing up. ‘I’ll run you back in my car.’
She refused, of course, protested, backed away, which only brought a curl of amusement to his lips, but in the end he drove her back to her lodgings in his sleek burgundy convertible Mercedes, and when she hurriedly tripped out of the car, he followed her up to the house, putting her in a position whereby to stand at the door and tell him to go would have seemed impossibly childish.
‘You live here?’ he asked in amazement, looking around the kitchen, and she followed the direction of his gaze.