AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She closed her eyes, standing rigid under the shock of his rejection. Her voice trembled. ‘Will you—please—stop treating me like a child?’
‘On the contrary,’ he said. ‘It’s a damned sight safer than treating you like a woman. Now go back to your room, and let’s both try and get some rest for the remainder of this eternally bloody night.’
It was over. And there was nothing more to say or do. She had made a terrible, sickening mistake.
Now, all that was left for her was to get out—get away from him—with some few shreds of dignity. Walking steadily out of the room without hurrying, or stumbling over the hem of her robe.
As she closed the door behind her, she heard the faint click as he switched off the lamp, and the creak of the sofa as he turned over, composing himself for sleep again after that brief, unwelcome interruption.
And she felt the first hot wave of humiliation sweep over her, before gathering the skirt of her robe in one fist, and pressing the other against her shaking mouth, she fled up the stairs, back to the darkness and silence that waited for her there.
She did not allow herself to cry. Tears were an indulgence that her stupidity did not deserve.
She dropped the robe to the carpet and slid into bed, shivering as the chill of the sheets met her heated flesh, and burying her face in the pillow, in a futile longing to blot out the whole of the last half hour.
What in the world had possessed her to forget every principle she’d ever believed in and throw herself at him like that?
Because he’d never wanted her—not seriously. And particularly not when Barbie was coming back into his life. His kisses had been no more than a conditioned reflex response to a female presence, but one he was well able to control.
His casual reference to Fiona Culham should have warned her, and it was no consolation to know that Fiona too had offered herself without success.
Oh, why the hell had she spoken to him? she wailed silently. If she’d just stood there in silence waiting for him to make the first move, she might have managed some ludicrous pretence that she was sleepwalking.
He wouldn’t have believed her—that was too much to hope—but at least she’d have spared herself his refusal of her stammering offer, and been able to make a face-saving exit.
Whereas now...
The thought of having to face him in the morning made her feel cold all over. And empty too, as if everything joyous and hopeful had withered and died inside her.
The probability of leaving Hazelton Magna no longer seemed a disaster but a kind of practical salvation. She would have to stop working for him, of course. And moving from the village provided her with a feasible excuse for the world at large.
Although it meant, she realised with aching wistfulness, that she would never see the work on Ladysmere completed, and the place reborn in all its new glory.
On the plus side, she would not have to witness him living there with Barbie, she thought, pushing herself into the mattress as if hoping it would open and swallow her, never to be seen again.
But at least she hadn’t committed the ultimate folly of telling him she loved him, and she would have to be eternally grateful for that.
Let him think it was a mixture of sexual curiosity and a need for reassurance that had driven her to seek him out. Still embarrassing but not terminal.
Which, under the circumstances, was as much as she could hope for. And if her heart was breaking, at least he would never know.
* * *
Her eyes felt as if she’d rubbed them with grit, when she opened them to another sun-filled morning.
Not surprisingly, she had slept badly, but she had also slept late, and she could only hope that by this time Jago would have removed himself from the Vicarage.
But the sound of the shower running in the bathroom told her that she hoped in vain.
She washed at the old-fashioned basin in her room, and dragged on denim shorts and a white T-shirt before plaiting her hair into a thick braid and going downstairs.
In the sitting room, the quilt was neatly folded at one end of the sofa, with the pillow on top of it. Resolutely turning her back on this unwelcome reminder, Tavy pulled back the curtains, and opened the window, then went into the hall and, with a certain amount of trepidation, unfastened the front door.
It still looked messy, but there’d been no additions in the night, which was one relief, she thought, heading for the kitchen.
Be relaxed, be casual, she adjured herself as she spooned coffee into the percolator, and sliced bread for the toaster. But make it clear, if mentioned, that last night is a taboo subject.
