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‘Then what did you mean? You’re a guest here, not a prisoner. See, your door doesn’t even have a lock on it.’ He swung it on its hinges to show her both sides.
‘And that’s supposed to reassure me?’ Honor goaded with heavy sarcasm. ‘Your hospitality must be really dire if you have to resort to threatening people to get them to come and stay. If I really am a guest then I guess Monty and I are free to leave when we like...?’
‘Of course,’ he agreed, adding smoothly, ‘Ignoring police advice may be foolish and in this case probably quite dangerous, but it’s certainly not illegal...’
She gave him a fulminating look that had no effect whatsoever on his smug confidence. If she had known how aggravating he was in person she would never have fallen in love with his letters.
‘What’s in here? The bathroom?’ She flung open the door next to the wardrobe, resorting to action to divert her dangerous thoughts.
‘No, I’m afraid you have to share the bathroom,’ he said with suspicious meekness. ‘It’s two doors down the hall on the right.’
She was staring at the room which interconnected with hers, an intensely masculine room with a huge brass bedstead that dominated everything else.
‘This is your room,’ she guessed accusingly, letting go the door-handle as if it were a red-hot coal. ‘Why am I in the room next to yours?’
‘Because it’s the only one available.’
She would have liked to call him a liar but since there was a slight chance he might be telling the truth she kept her mouth shut. She had made enough of a fool of herself in front of him for one day.
‘I suppose there’s no key to this door, either?’ she snapped, closing it again with exaggerated care, shutting out the view of that looming, masculine bed.
He shrugged. ‘What can I say?’ He spread his big hands palm up in a gesture of mock-helplessness. ‘We’re a very trusting family.’
Oh, yes, his mood had turned very affable now he was getting his own way.
‘Well, I’m not one of the family and I don’t trust you,’ she told him grittily.
‘The feeling is entirely mutual,’ he assured her.
‘I’m scarcely likely to sneak into your room and try and overpower you,’ she pointed out.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘It sounds like wish transference to me. Is that what you’re hoping I might do? Don’t let your frustrated-spinster fantasies run away with you, Honor. They’ve got you into enough trouble as it is—’
‘My fantasies?’ Her temper hotted up again. ‘You’re a fine one to criticise. You—’
‘Let’s not get into another round of pointless argument,’ he cut her off succinctly. ‘Suffice it to say that I’ve never been so hard up for sex that I had to resort to violence to get it.’
She believed him. With his looks and his wealth he would have no trouble attracting women. She found it hard to superimpose that confident image on the man of letters who had so enchanted her with his sensitivity. If it hadn’t been shyness or social awkwardness that had prompted him to hide behind a box number, had it merely been an experiment, an idle mental exercise in seduction without the complications of a fully fledged affair? A new fillip for a jaded male palate? But then the last few frantic letters made nonsense of that theory. They had been nothing short of a raw demand for a physical consummation of their relationship. Not even an invitation—a demand...
‘Neither have I,’ she said bluntly, trying for the same blend of arrogance and sexual sophistication he was displaying. She wasn’t going to let him intimidate her into feeling inferior. She let her eyes drift over him with what she hoped was a suitably haughty disdain.
‘Good, then neither of us has to lie awake tonight worrying whether we’re about to be ravished in our bed.’
The notion of her small body physically overpowering his huge, solid frame was ludicrous. As for forcing him to make love to her, Honor didn’t think such a thing could physically be accomplished...unless— Her eyes flicked to the adjoining door and a vivid mental picture arose in her head. Unless she crept in and tied him to the convenient bars of his brass bedstead while he was still asleep and then, when he was utterly at her mercy...
Honor closed her eyes, blushing hotly as she realised where her thoughts were taking her. She was shocked at herself. Did his taunt have some basis after all? Was she becoming obsessed with unhealthy fantasies at the expense of drab reality? Reality being that if it were Helen whom Adam had dragged up here he wouldn’t be rejecting the possibility of ravishment!
‘Don’t flatter yourself!’ she managed weakly, at last, opening her eyes to deny the power of the wicked images behind her closed lids. To her horror he was studying her guilty blush with mocking speculation.
‘Was I? No need to get flustered, Miss Sheldon, your naughty secrets are safe with me...I’m not in the trade of buying and selling private conversations.’
The slightly grim edge to his mockery had Honor floundering for a fittingly acid reply as he continued coolly, ‘May I suggest you take my mother’s advice and change before you go down for dinner? We don’t bother with formality but we do expect guests to be clean and reasonably dressed. In that tatty ensemble you’ll probably shed cat fur all over the table.’
With that masterly final insult he vanished into his bedroom, shutting the connecting door with a quiet click that punctuated Honor’s open-mouthed silence.
‘Well, of all the...!’
She wished she had a stunning cocktail dress she could whip out of her suitcase and use to knock his arrogant eyes out.
