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‘Hey…’
The bulk of Saul’s body shielded her from curious passers-by, his hand gentle and protective as he turned her in towards himself, his eyes concerned and faintly shadowed as he looked down at her.
‘I’m sorry…’ What on earth must he think of her? Shame scorched her face. Some explanation was due to him, but what could she say apart from the truth?
‘You’ll think me a fool I know, but it’s just that it’s been so long since anyone cared enough for me to do something as crazy as that.’
She thought she heard him swear softly under his breath as his arms went round her, the solid strength of his body supporting her as he drew her against his warmth, her head seemed to fit perfectly in the curve of his shoulder, her eyes closing in blissful delight as she felt the light movement of his lips against her forehead.
Abruptly he released her, his eyes glowing darkly.
‘You’re making it very hard for me to remember that I told myself I’d take things slowly,’ he told her huskily.
‘I’d better make my own way home—I can’t leave my car here.’ It was torture to step away from him, her senses brought achingly to life by the look in his eyes.
‘Will an hour be long enough for you to get ready to go out?’
An hour? Being apart from him for more than five minutes would be sheer torture, but somehow she managed to nod her head and then walk away and get in her own car.
Later she decided it was a miracle she managed to drive home without incident. When she thought about it she could not remember a single thing about the drive, but she could remember how she had felt when Saul touched her, when he looked at her with that dark desire that made her blood pound and her pulses race.
As she stopped outside the Dower House he drove past her, sounding his horn and giving her a brief wave.
She collected her belongings and went inside. Suddenly an hour seemed far too short a time to get ready in. She was hot and sticky and in need of a shower. Her hair needed washing after the dustiness of the city. She had to ring the vicarage and check that all was well with the children.
She performed the last chore first, relieved to hear that all was going well.
‘In fact I was going to ask you if they could stay another night, they’re getting on so well with Amanda and Daniel.’
‘Well if you’re sure it’s no trouble?’
‘Not at all,’ Nancy reassured Lucy. ‘I’m enjoying it tremendously.’
They arranged that Lucy would pick them up on Thursday morning.
As she replaced the receiver Lucy realised with a tiny kick of pleasure that she would have a second night of freedom… a second night when… When what?
Betrayingly her body remembered the hard warmth of Saul’s against it, and putting shaking hands against her hot cheeks Lucy warned herself not to get too carried away.
The vibrant fuchsia pink of her outfit, so hard for someone with the paler eyes normally associated with her colouring to wear, looked stunning against the foil of her darker skin and richly warm eyes.
The summer had given her a good tan, at the same time highlighting her blonde hair, and the effect of the vivid silk against her warm brown flesh and Nordic pale hair had a visual impact that even she found faintly startling.
It was warm enough for her to go bare legged, a pair of high-heeled sandals emphasising the slender delicacy of her ankles.
At twenty she had been faintly podgy, but that puppy fat had soon disappeared, and in the anxiety of her father’s illness and subsequent death she had lost more weight—perhaps just a shade too much, she thought judiciously, studying the narrow flatness of her hips, and wondering anxiously if Saul would find such slenderness unfeminine.
She kept her make-up to a minimum, just the merest dusting of highlight across her cheekbones, its pinky tones echoed in her lipstick and eyeshadow. Perfume was something she rarely wore—her lifestyle made it unsuitable; she found it cloying during the daytime, and went out so rarely at night that she never bought any, but this evening she had filched some of Fanny’s bath oil—a perfume she did not recognise, Lutèce, but which now enveloped her in a delicately scented cloud.
Saul was five minutes early, for which he apologised as she opened the door to him. It was a new sensation for her to have someone so eager for her company, so much so that part of her cautioned her against getting carried away, warning her that the emotion and desire she could read in Saul’s eyes could be as ephemeral as a daydream.
But there was nothing ephemeral about the way he smiled at her as he studied the lissom slenderness of her body before helping her into the car; nothing ephemeral about the touch of his fingers against her skin as he brushed against her arm when fastening her seatbelt.
