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ct he confused you with what he no doubt described as my appalling behaviour; he did rather have a tendency for exaggeration. Of course the fact that I’d disobeyed him and then been found by him in the circumstances that I was … It was all quite innocent really, but he would never believe that …’
‘I had no idea.’ Joel was frowning now. ‘He’d described you to my parents as extremely rebellious and wild. When he asked me to come with him and fetch you back from that party, I naturally assumed …’
‘The worst!’ Lissa supplied briefly. ‘Yes … I can understand that.’
‘So, given, that at fifteen you were innocent of the crimes attributed to you, I don’t see …’ He frowned and then said slowly, ‘Lissa, are you trying to tell me that you’re still a virgin?’
‘I’m afraid so … Oh, not by choice,’ she assured him grimly. ‘Being virginal at fifteen is one thing, being in the same state at twenty-three is quite definitely another, but …’ She got up off the bed, and paced the floor tensely, now that she was faced with telling him, at a loss to know how to.
‘But what, Lissa?’ It was plain that Joel was completely bemused, ‘And don’t try telling me that it is through lack of opportunity.’
‘No, not that,’ Lissa agreed drily, ‘but because of what happened at that party I seem to have developed a mental block where sex is concerned. No matter how much I might think I want to make love when it comes to it I can’t, because all I see is …’
‘Your father’s angry, disapproving face,’ Joel guessed tersely, his mouth compressing grimly. ‘Yes, I can understand that.’
Just for one cowardly moment Lissa was tempted to agree and let matters go at that. Her heart was thumping crazily with a mixture of adrenalin and reaction. She wanted to take the way out Joel was unknowingly offering her, but something, some stubborn quirk of pride would not let her, and so instead she shook her head.
‘No?’ Joel frowned. ‘Then what? Tell me, Lissa? What?’ he demanded getting up and taking hold of her. ‘What?’ he repeated, watching as she touched her tongue to dry, stiff lips.
‘You,’ she choked out at last, refusing to look at him, her body tensing against his grip as she pulled instinctively away, fearing his reaction, dreading that if she did look at him she would see in his eyes the contempt that had haunted her dreams for so long. ‘I see you,’ she repeated instead in a low, tormented voice, ‘and you look at me with such contempt and dislike that I …’ She started to shake again, dimly aware of Joel cursing as he released her.
‘Me? Lissa, look at me!’ His hands gripping her face forced her to do as he wished. He was nearly as pale as she was herself but this was a different pallor, and Lissa shrank beneath the raw fury she could see glittering in his eyes until he said tersely, ‘No, Lissa … Don’t be frightened.’
‘I shouldn’t have told you.’ She was mortified now by what she had revealed to him, unable to fully comprehend the reasons for the emotional outburst which she knew had been the release valve, allowing her to tell him the truth.
‘But you have.’ He looked at her in silence for several seconds, and then said abruptly, ‘Is that why you agreed to marry me? As some sort of punishment … Or at least is that part of the reason?’
He was far too astute, Lissa thought hollowly. ‘Initially,’ she agreed, in an expressionless voice. She felt far too drained to endure any more emotions. ‘But only because you had made me so very angry. Once my anger had cooled I wanted to retract, but then there were the girls to consider … I thought it would pay you back, you see,’ she said simply, ‘but of course once my temper had gone I realised how stupid I was being … After all, it wasn’t even your fault that I …’
‘No … it wasn’t my fault at all,’ Joel agreed harshly. ‘No … I can’t be blamed for condemning you out of hand, can I, Lissa? After all, I wasn’t fifteen, was I? I was well into my twenties … and naturally it is perfectly understandable that I should have destroyed the fragile illusions of someone little more than a child … that I should have accepted someone else’s valuation of you without forming my own. No, of course I can’t be blamed. Like hell I can’t,’ he added bitterly, turning away from her. ‘Like hell.’
For a moment there was silence, while Lissa struggled to come to terms with Joel’s savage reaction to her disclosures. She had seen him exhibit tenderness and concern for his nieces; and she had known there was a gentler side to him, but she had never expected this devastating reaction to her revelations; this rage of anger directed against himself.
At last he said curtly, ‘And so what now? Do you want the marriage annulled? It could be.’
Did she? With a sudden, stifling leap of her heart Lissa knew she did not without quite knowing why. All she could manage to say was a rather unsteady, ‘Do you?’
‘What does that mean?’ Joel questioned. ‘That you wish to stay married to me perhaps, but in name only, because of the girls?’
Gratefully Lissa seized on the opening he had given her. ‘Yes …’ she agreed quickly. ‘Yes … I couldn’t bear to lose them now. I feel that they need both of us, Joel, just as you said but of course, now that you know that … that I … that … ’
‘That I can’t make love to you,’ he supplied harshly for her.
‘Yes … yes,’ Lissa agreed hurriedly, ‘If because of that you want to be free …’
She found during the silence that followed that she was holding her breath, hoping that he would not say that he wanted to end their marriage she acknowledged inwardly.
‘I owe you some recompense,’ he said at last, ‘and if marriage to me is what you want, Lissa … then that is what you shall have, but there is one thing I shall insist on.’ He looked at her and then said coolly, ‘We must continue to share this room. As much for the girls’ sake as anything else. They’ve already been through far too much. You of all people will know how sensitive and quick children can be. They’re used to their parents sleeping together and I believe that if we show any deviation from that pattern it could cause Louise more anxiety.’
Lissa nodded her head slowly. There was something in what Joel was saying, and what he asked was very little.
‘What?’ he queried when she assented. ‘No demand for my solemn promise that I won’t touch you?’
Lissa looked at him in surprise. ‘But why should you want to?’ she asked him, genuinely puzzled. ‘You can hardly want me now. You’re forgetting, Joel,’ she reminded him wryly, ‘I know exactly how off-putting men find my … my disability. I know you said you wanted me, but that was when you thought I was sexually experienced … able to respond to you …’
‘Yes, so it was,’ he agreed quietly, and just for a second something intangible, a fleeting expression in his eyes made a frisson of sensation run down her spine. Before she could analyse it, it was gone, and then Joel was saying curtly, ‘Lissa, tell me have you ever discussed any of this with anyone else …’
‘No.’ She looked at him in fresh surprise. ‘Somehow I’ve never been able to.’
