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‘I’m very pleased to hear it. I always think that boredom indicates a lack of imagination.’ He stared into her wide-spaced eyes—as lush and green as any spring meadow. ‘No complaints with the way you’re being treated?’
Complaints? She stared up into his piercing black eyes. Not exactly complaints, more like frustrations, a whole litany of them—all of them minor and none that she would ever dare express to him. Because there wasn’t an employment tribunal in the land which would uphold her protest of having a too-sexy boss.
As happened with all jobs, she’d quickly settled into a routine. She’d soon got used to the big house and the fact that her meals were cooked for her—and that the cleaners changed her sheets and left a little vase of flowers on the window sill. Just as she got used to the dramatic landscape outside her window and working for an enormously wealthy landowner. But working for Jack was different from anything she’d ever done before and that was everything to do with him. Because she’d never been attracted to any of her bosses before. It was unprofessional—and Ashley tried very hard not to do unprofessional. But it wasn’t easy—not when every day she was shoehorned into close proximity with him.
And Jack Marchant would tempt a saint.
It wasn’t just his iron-hard physique—which had been honed during his army years and had stayed with him ever since. Nor was it his ruggedly handsome face—which could veer so distractingly between forbidding and animated. No, Ashley decided—it was every part of him. The mocking sense of humour. The keen intelligence. The occasional glimpse of understanding—like the day she’d told him about her financial predicament.
Yet she suspected that there was a side of himself which he kept hidden away—and which made him so much of an enigma. The inner disquiet which seemed to burn within him—which made her heart want to reach out to him and to ask what troubled him. He must be troubled—for why else would she hear his footsteps pacing the floor in the dead of night?
She would lie there, listening and trying to imagine what had caused it. Was he aware that his tread on the wooden corridors always woke her—and that she lay there longing to go down and comfort him? But the subject had never been brought up again. Not after that first time when he had asked her if she believed in ghosts. And it wasn’t the kind of thing you could just casually mention over morning coffee.
Sometimes he ate with her and sometimes she ate alone—picking at the delicious food which Christine prepared and served in the room they called the Garden Room. Jack told her that he wanted to make the most of the daylight hours, which were so short in winter, so he gave her every afternoon off and they would resume work at four, once the light had begun to fade, and then would carry on until just before dinner.
After lunch each day, he would disappear to the stables to ride his horse and Ashley would wrap up warmly to walk round the estate—revelling in the wildness of the distant moorlands and aware of the beauty of her surroundings in a way she’d never been before. Was that Jack’s influence too, she wondered—that somehow, subtly, he seemed to have awoken all her senses?
But one day, he turned up late for the meal and spent most of it scowling. Ashley watched as he picked up a decanter and poured himself half a glass of claret and sipped it. He never drank at lunchtime!
‘Is something wrong?’ she ventured eventually.
His eyes met hers over the rim of the glass. ‘There’s no riding today.’
‘Oh? Why’s that?’
‘Nero is ill.’
‘Oh, dear—not badly, I hope?’
‘No. Not badly.’ He shook his head slightly impatiently. ‘The vet’s been over to see him—given him an injection and told the stable-girl to make sure he’s kept warm and dry. He’s supposed to rest for the next few days.’
‘Well, that’s all right, then.’ Ashley smiled in what she hoped was a placating manner—because he seemed in a very peculiar mood. ‘He’ll soon be better and then you can start riding him again.’
‘Yes.’ He put the crystal glass down heavily on the table. But it wasn’t all right. It was frustrating. Damn it—everything was frustrating. He looked forward to his afternoon exercise, revelling in the sense of freedom and power it gave him as he and the animal thundered over the moorland. And Jack was aware that it was more than a love of all things equine which had recently made his daily ride seem more vital than usual. He knew that he was using the exercise to sublimate the growing hunger he felt for Ashley. A sexual hunger which was as inappropriate as it was forbidden.
His body tense, he stood up, feeling the heavy beat of his heart as he stared down at her. How was it possible that this artless little thing should have heated his blood and invaded his imagination so that his eyes wanted to drink her in every time she walked into his study? Had he misjudged her innocence? Was she perhaps perfectly aware that she was driving him crazy with desire?
Ashley met the ebony glitter of his eyes as he loomed over the debris of their meal, wondering why his face had darkened so that he was looking at her almost angrily. ‘Never mind,’ she said lightly. ‘If you like, we could carry on working. The story’s just reached an interesting part—but you’ve done more than your usual amount of crossing-outs and alterations and it’s probably best if I checked with you as I went along.’
‘No,’ he said suddenly. ‘You don’t need to do that.
I’m fed up with the damned book. You’ve worked hard all morning and you deserve a break. I need the fresh air and so do you. Let’s go for a walk instead.’
‘A walk?’
‘There’s no need to sound so shocked, Ashley,’ he grated. ‘You walk every day after lunch, don’t you?’
‘Well, yes, I do.’ She looked at him doubtfully—suddenly nervous and wanting to throw obstacles in the way, without being really sure why. ‘But I… I don’t walk very quickly.’
‘Then I’ll make allowances for you—and it isn’t some kind of race. Now, go get your coat,’ he said, in the kind of tone which brooked no argument.
Ashley went into the hall and began tying up the laces of her walking shoes. Why on earth did he want to go walking with her? she wondered, her fingers annoyingly shaky as she pulled a woollen beanie onto her head, before going outside to find him waiting. And why was he in such a filthy temper?
He was standing beneath the oak which dominated the far side of the lawn. It was a mighty specimen—he’d told her himself that it was over a century old, with huge, curved branches which looked like powerful limbs. And yet somehow he was more than a match for the magnificent tree—as if nature had suddenly decided to showcase two examples of her finest handiwork, side by side. Ashley found her lips drying as she looked at him, the heavy thunder of her heart hinting at danger.
‘Where do you want to go?’ he questioned as she approached.
‘I don’t mind,’ she said awkwardly, digging her hands deep into the pockets of her coat. ‘Don’t you have a favourite walk of your own?’
