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Because she’d as good as called him a liar, impugned his integrity?
Because, from the way Michael had put it, he’d made it sound as if she’d contacted him and had begged him to fetch her away?
Or because of Michael’s overfamiliarity, the way he’d spoken to and about her, his arm possessively around her waist?
Or an explosive combination of all three?
That seemed more than likely and, looking at it that way, she couldn’t blame Ben for being so angry, she decided glumly as she walked through to the kitchen to make that dratted tea. They both had a lot of explaining to do. But was he in any mood to listen to anything she said? she questioned, her nerves beginning to shred.
Wondering whether to ask him for ten minutes of his time before she showered and changed, or afterwards when she’d look less messy and ridiculous and just might feel more in control of emotions that were getting more dangerously unstable by the moment, she filled the electric kettle and plugged it in.
Assembling the tea things on a tray was almost impossible, her hands were shaking so much. One of the cups slithered from her fingers and shattered on the tiled floor, when Ben walked in and shouldered the door shut behind him.
The silence after she’d muttered something distinctly unladylike was intense, prickly, painful. A silent accusation hanging in the air, so many things to be said, retracted, so many questions to be asked.
Feeling gauche and incredibly clumsy, tongue-tied because there were so many things to be said and she didn’t for the life of her know where to start, Caroline hunted for the dustpan and brush, found it eventually and swept up the mess.
And all the time he said nothing, watching her with those cold, narrowed eyes. The kettle was boiling furiously as she tipped the shards into the waste bin.
At least the question of when they would talk had been taken out of her hands. It was Ben who broke the silence that was making her feel like a halfwit on the edge of hysteria as he went to deal with the kettle, pour the boiling water onto the leaves she’d already spooned into the pot. ‘If you’d been ready to leave with your gallant rescuer before I got back, would you have left me another Dear John letter, I wonder?’
He arranged the milk jug and sugar bowl on the tray with neat precision, his hands perfectly steady, his voice like an arctic night as he answered his own question before she had a chance to make any reply, ‘No, I suppose you wouldn’t. As your partner has already let slip, you can’t wait to get way, you wouldn’t have wanted to waste the time putting pen to paper. You’d already told me exactly what you thought of me.’
The tea preparations finished, he picked up the tray and Caroline said tautly, ‘I know you’re angry, but I’m not feeling too euphoric, either.’ She searched his impressive but chilling features for some sign of the closeness they had so recently shared. She found none. So she reminded herself that she was a grown woman of above average intelligence and said emphatically, ‘We really do need to talk.’
The look he turned on her said he found her statement completely incomprehensible. His head tilted slightly to one side, he uttered, ‘I can’t think why, when there’s nothing more to say.’ He gave a slight, insouciant-seeming shrug. ‘But if you insist I’ll give you five minutes of my time when you’re ready to leave.’
He walked to the door then turned to face her, ‘I’ll serve tea to your partner while you get your things together. Oh, and just one more thing, I spoke to Maggie Pope this afternoon. She admitted that your father paid her to name me as the father of her child, should you ask.’ He gave her a mocking smile that was totally devoid of humour. ‘He certainly put the money I refused to take to good use.’ His beautifully shaped mouth hardened, ‘Not that you’ll believe me, of course. That would be too much to ask. You’ve probably already decided that I somehow twisted her arm to persuade her to say that.’
He left as swiftly and silently as he’d appeared, left before she had time to even begin to respond to what he’d said.
It was the best she could do, Caroline thought as she nervously scanned her reflection half an hour later.
Deciding against the suit she’d arrived in as being too formal, too much like the hard-nosed career woman she’d done her best to portray when she’d arrived here, she’d dressed in a sleek-fitting, beautifully tailored sage green skirt, topped by a lighter toned fine cashmere sweater. But not even her skilled application of make-up could disguise the haunted look in her eyes or the lines of strain around her mouth.
Ben’s stress on the word ‘partner’ told her a lot. He thought her relationship with Michael was much closer than it was. Bleakly she recalled what he’d said earlier when he’d asked her what last night and this morning had been about, implying that she’d been missing regular sex and he’d been handy.
Implying that she was some kind of nymphomaniac!
Michael’s words and attitude would have reinforced that rock-bottom opinion.
Casting a final look around the room that had been hers for the first, almost eighteen, years of her life she told herself to think positively.
She loved Ben and, more importantly, she trusted him now, implicitly. What he’d told her about Maggie Pope made perfect sense, made everything else slot into place.
Her father’s plan to buy Ben off had failed; so what better way to blacken his character and put an end to what he’d thought was his daughter’s infatuation with an unsuitable man than to use the spurned money to pay Maggie to tell those lies?
The girl wasn’t too bright and ever since the drink-drive laws her father had barely scraped a living, only the immediate locals using the bar at The Poacher’s Arms. Money was tight and Maggie’d had a small baby to care for.
Yes, it did make perfect sense; it was just a pity Ben had been too angry to hang around long enough to hear her tell him she believed every word of what he’d said.
Still, he’d promised they’d talk before she left. They’d work things out; they had to. Then maybe she could stay—unless Ben needed some time to think things over. She loved him so desperately and, even if he hadn’t said he still loved her, he did have deep feelings for her. He’d asked her to marry him, to share his life, and he wouldn’t have done that if all they had was fantastic sex.
Ben would be waiting. Caroline picked up her bag and walked through the door. A trillion butterflies were performing acrobatics in her stomach.
‘That’s more like it—well worth waiting for!’ Michael’s warm hazel eyes swept over her with male approval as he laid the newspaper he’d been reading aside and got to his feet, levering himself out of the deep armchair. ‘If you’re ready, we’ll get moving.’ He took her bag from her suddenly nerveless fingers. ‘It will be good to have you back at base. I’ve missed you.’
Caroline ignored that. ‘I can’t leave yet,’ she stated firmly. ‘I have to speak to Ben.’ She scanned the study, as if expecting to see him emerge from behind the shabby furniture, but only the used tea cups testified that he’d ever been here.
