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‘You haven’t asked why I found it impossible to sleep,’ he said as they entered the warmth of the kitchen. ‘Don’t you think that would be the correct response in the course of polite conversation?’
The dark rub of irony in his voice touched a raw nerve. What lay between them precluded normal polite conversation. But then, she remembered, he’d always had beautiful manners, despite his wild ways, always seemingly highly tuned into the feelings of others.
Seemingly.
She said nothing, just hovered, her slender body as taut as a bowstring, watching as he poured milk into a pan and reached for two mugs, a bottle of brandy. She knew she should walk out of the room, break this strangely prickly intimacy but some dark compulsion kept her where she was, just as much in thrall to his male vitality, his smouldering sexuality as she had ever been.
‘Then, I’ll tell you, since you don’t seem inclined to ask.’
The mere sound of his voice made her catch her breath, her teeth sinking into the soft flesh of her lower lip. If she’d had her wits about her she would have said, Don’t bother, I’m not interested. But her wits had gone on holiday, along with her common sense.
And he told her, ‘Thinking of you, sleeping under the same roof, wasn’t conducive to a peaceful night’s rest. I needed something to read to take my mind off it. That was when I saw the strip of light under the dining-room doors.’ He shot her a brief, frowning glance. ‘I thought it would be easy, but it isn’t.’
He poured the hot milk into the two mugs and Caroline drew her fine brows together.
What wasn’t easy? Having her around? Was his g
uilty conscience pricking him? Why didn’t he say what he meant? He always had before. He’d had deep emotions and he’d expressed them freely, had been totally up front about what he’d wanted. Her.
Just for a time, she reminded herself tiredly. Another notch on his bedpost, the sheltered daughter of the local landowner who had treated him like scum, no less. How he must have been laughing at her father!
And how he had changed. Not an emotion in sight. A puzzling flicker of anger once in a while but nothing else. Watching him rinse out the milk pan and put it in the cavernous depths of the dishwasher she determined to get at least one straight answer out of him: an answer to the question that had been teasing her mind.
‘What plans have you for this house?’
‘Ah.’ His smile was slightly cynical. ‘I wondered when your curiosity would get the better of that aloof mantle you assume for me.’ He picked up the steaming mugs. ‘I suggest we drink this in the comfort of the library. And I’ll tell you what I have in mind for Langley Hayes. And in return you can tell me what messed up your relationship with—what was his name?—the Honorable Jeremy Curtis, wasn’t it? You were due to celebrate your engagement on your eighteenth birthday. Quite a catch for the only daughter of an impoverished local squire. So what went wrong? Did he find out you’d been enjoying a bit of rough trade and call it off? You must have been devastated, especially when you’d been so insistent that we keep our meetings so carefully secret.’
CHAPTER FIVE
CAROLINE couldn’t believe he’d said that!
Almost tripping over herself in her rush to catch him up, she followed him to the library, a small book-lined room furnished with the scuffed old leather sofas that had been here for as long as she could remember.
He knew why they’d kept their affair secret, damn him! He knew what her father had been like! And how dared he imply that she’d been using him just for sex!
He’d made space for the mugs on the cluttered top of a low table and now bent to flick on the electric fire. Caroline watched him through narrowed eyes, biting back the scalding torrent of recriminations.
If he’d made that insulting remark twelve years ago she would have responded with passion, hitting out, probably biting and scratching too! But she was older now, a hell of a lot older and in total control.
The angry thump of her heart threatened to push a hole in her breastbone, but she picked up one of the mugs in both shaking hands and sank down into the corner of a sofa.
She was not going to let him see he could still reach her on any emotional level. No way. Unlike her younger self, she could control her reactions to whatever he did or said.
So, treating his insulting remark about rough trade with the contempt it deserved, she ignored it and said, her voice tight and hard with the effort of masking her angry emotions, ‘Any engagement was in my father’s head, and Jeremy’s, not mine.’
‘Really? An engagement was arranged without one side of the happy couple being aware of it?’
Plainly, he didn’t believe her. He was standing a few paces away, facing her, a straddle-legged stance. The way he’d hooked his thumbs into the low-slung waistband of his jeans drew her riveted attention to the narrow span of his hips, his tautly muscled thighs.
She wrenched her eyes away, fastened them on the mug she was cradling in her hands and lifted it to her lips. A hefty swallow told her that his lacing of brandy had been far more than generous. Nevertheless, it did begin to take the sharp edge off her anger.
She pulled in a breath. For some no doubt nonsensical reason, she wanted him to believe her. What he thought of her shouldn’t be important but on some deep, troubled level it was.
One more mouthful of the potent liquid, and then she explained tightly, ‘Dad was at Oxford with Jeremy’s father and they kept in touch. After all, they only live twenty-odd miles away. Dad was Jeremy’s godfather and when I was young I used to spend school holidays with them. I think Lady Curtis thought I needed mothering, and Dad was glad to get me out from under his feet.
Then, when I was around thirteen, Lady C. was killed in a riding accident, and my visits stopped. But we still saw Jeremy. He and his father were about the only people we ever saw socially. Dad wanted me to marry him.’
She shrugged slightly, memories clouding her eyes. Marrying Jeremy, and the Curtis fortune, would have been the one and only thing she could have done to actually please her father.
