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Kitty hid a private smile, already pleasantly engaged in envisaging the transformation soon to take place at the Grange. Tina joined them with her kitten, whispering, ‘It’s all right to bring him in when Granny isn’t here, but you won’t tell her, will you?’
Down on the floor, Kitty shook her head and thought murderous thoughts about a woman capable of putting that amount of fearful anxiety into a four-year-old’s eyes. ‘It’ll be our secret,’ she promised.
Tina wasn’t slow to take advantage of the attention she was receiving. She brought her favourite toys down to show them off and, late afternoon, Jake breathed, ‘She makes a better chaperon than Jessie,’ with wry amusement. ‘We’ll go out to dinner tomorrow night.’
By nine in the evening, Kitty was feeling exhausted again. Jake took in her bruised eyes and sighed, ‘You’d better turn in.’
Upstairs they checked on Tina and Kitty screened a yawn. ‘I do feel like an early night.’
‘It would be very selfish of me to tell you what I feel like.’ Jake curved her into tantalising contact with his lean, hard length and she trembled, seduced by the heat of him so close.
‘Would it be?’ she whispered, leaning invitingly against him, weak with the wanting he could so easily invoke.
As his body reacted involuntarily to her proximity, Jake uttered a muted imprecation and set her back from him with a grim smile. ‘Yes. It would be. If I touch you now, I’m going to spend the entire night in your bed and you’re not likely to get much sleep,’ he said bluntly. ‘In any case, we’ll be married in another forty-eight hours and I intend to do it by the book this time.’
His withdrawal sharply disconcerted her. He could plunge her into the wanton hold of a hunger that she couldn’t control, and a part of her resented and feared that power he had at his fingertips. It was not at hers. And Kitty was innately sensitive to any hint of rejection.
He read the hurt and bewilderment in her eyes as clearly as if she had spoken out loud, and suddenly he crushed her to him before she could turn away and he was taking her mouth hungrily and fiercely, restraint abandoned for several endless minutes. She was so weak after that passionate assault that she swayed slightly, and he ran a caressing hand over her flushed cheekbone, untamed sensuality in his smiling scrutiny. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
After breakfast next day, Merrill arrived. ‘You’re in the way, big brother,’ she announced. ‘We’ve got wedding finery to try on.’
The Edwardian gown that had belonged to Jake’s great-grandmother was far too long. Jessie and Merrill were undeterred. The dress was pinned up and Jessie settled herself in the lounge with a sewing box. Jake’s sister stayed for lunch and, as she was leaving, told Kitty that she would be returning to take Tina home with her later that day. ‘We’ll keep her until the end of next week.’
‘Daddy s’plained it all,’ Tina said mournfully. ‘You can’t be a mummy for another week.’
Kitty hugged her, ‘We’ll see,’ she whispered, reluctant to interfere with Jake’s arrangements, but worried that by the end of the week Tina would be feeling unwanted.
Her clothes arrived in the afternoon. When the delivery men from the special express service had carried in the last case, the entire hall was awash with luggage.
‘Do you ever dump anything?’ Jake enquired gently.
She decided not to tell him that there was almost as much again in Grant’s other home in Los Angeles. As the heap of extracted garments grew higher on the bed, she murmured, ‘It’s just a matter of sorting out what’s useful.’
A sure-fingered hand intercepted a swathe of jersey split to the thigh and slashed to the waist. ‘I’d lock you in the cellar before I let you loose in that.’
‘I wore it to one of Grant’s premi;ageres.’
‘And he bought most of this stuff for you, didn’t he?’ His dark gaze gleamed ferociously over her and she rather liked the sensation.
She lowered her head to another case, ‘Yes.’
‘There must be jewellery as well.’
She swallowed. ‘It’s still in London.’
‘And it stays there. All of it,’ he delivered with hard emphasis. ‘It’s not coming up here.’
In astonishment her head jerked up. ‘I’m not parting with my jewellery!’
He hunkered down on a level with her. ‘I’ll put it another way. It’s either it or me,’ he drawled softly. ‘Take your choice.’
Before she could voice a furious retort, the phone rang and he sprang up to answer it. Her treacherous gaze followed him. It was one of those little betraying habits she tried very hard to control, but her heart had a homing device planted on him. With a few words she could banish his brooding antipathy towards Grant and yet she couldn’t make herself speak those words.
Jake was not one hundred per cent sure of her. That gave her an edge, an edge she was convinced she needed to hang on to him. When she had to tell him about Grant, she would find some other way to keep him slightly off balance. My God, clever women had been manipulating men for centuries, she told herself, and if other women could do it, she could do it. If she openly ceded him her love, her loyalty and her absolute commitment now, how much would he value them? How much had he valued those gifts in the past?
Jake was such a very physical male. His present intense desire for her would not last forever. As a teenager he had only had to lift a finger to attract any girl he had wanted. There had been so many of them that Kitty had been na;auively cheered by the fact that not a single one of them could hold him. She wasn’t now. She hadn’t held his interest either. She shivered, suddenly cold. When a man has rejected a woman once, wouldn’t it be even easier for him to do it a second time?
Had it been like this with Liz? A swift, hot passion roused by sexual chemistry that finally flickered out and died? She had cushioned only her own pride in striving to believe that he had married Liz for money. How could she believe that? He had sold up the estate to provide for his mother and sisters. Jake’s hot-blooded sensual nature was far more likely to have thrust him into Liz’s arms just as it had once thrust him into a narrow bed in an attic room. Had he ever been in love with any woman? And was it insane of her to hope that given time she might just succeed in winning that love where once she had failed?
He came down beside her again, his dark, handsome features ruefully cast. ‘That was Barney.’ He referred to the third partner in the veterinary practice, whom she had still to meet. ‘I’m afraid I’ll be covering for him tonight.’
‘Tonight?’ she echoed in dismay. ‘But we were going out!’
Jake sighed. ‘His father’s had a massive heart attack and he’s not expected to live. I’m afraid our dinner date will have to be shelved.’ He paused before reluctantly continuing, ‘In fact, I doubt that I’ll have any of the time off that I had arranged over the next week.’
‘You are kidding me,’ Kitty breathed incredulously.
‘We’re very busy at this time of the year. Drew can’t cope on his own and I do have to pull my weight here as well,’ he reminded her wryly. ‘I’ll be taking over the milking tomorrow so that John can have a lie-in for a change.’
For the first time the hard realities of Jake’s working responsibilities impinged on her cosy little cocoon. He was bent on tugging her into his arms. Playing for time, she settled a palm to his broad chest. ‘I’ve been thinking about something…’
Displacing her hand with single-minded intent, he would have taken her mouth had she not turned her face aside. ‘Obviously not what I’ve been thinking about.’
She plucked with taut fingers at one of his shirt buttons. ‘It would be ridiculous for you to buy Lower Ridge from me. You should put that money into hiring someone to work with John. You’re a vet, not a farmer.’
‘Tell me,’ he said shortly. ‘Are you planning to sell your jewellery and endow me with that as well? I mean, it wouldn’t be much use to you up here, would it?’
His hand had a painfully tight grip on her
shoulder and she couldn’t understand what was the matter with him. ‘Now that you mention it…no, but—’
‘But nothing,’ he interrupted. ‘Let’s get one fact of life straight now. I keep you. You don’t keep me.’
Her violet eyes sparkled. ‘Another one of your old-fashioned principles?’
‘Got it in one.’ With a smouldering look, he released her and sprang up.
‘I just made a very sensible suggestion,’ she snapped, rising to her own feet. ‘Marriage is all about sharing.’
‘You can put the money in the bank. I won’t be touching it.’
Inflamed, she said, ‘And what if I’ve already got a lot of money in the bank?’
‘That’s an illogical question,’ he bit out impatiently. ‘You haven’t, and if you had I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me.’
‘Oh, wouldn’t you have?’ she snapped in utter disbelief.
