Inherited By Her Enemy (HQR Presents)

by Sara Craven

  Ginny stood, her breathing as laboured as if she’d been punched in the chest, watching Cilla, head bent, pick her way carefully down the slushy pavement towards the turning for the car park, and disappear from view.

  No. The word echoed in Ginny’s head with such force that for a terrible moment she thought she’d shouted it out loud. But no passers-by turned to stare, so she stayed where she was under the shelter of Mrs Betts’ awning, trying to pull herself together.

  Telling herself there had to be a dozen innocent reasons for Cilla to visit the Rose and Crown, but unable to think of one. It was just the village local, and her sister’s preference was for upmarket country pubs with interesting menus and an expensive wine list.

  The kind of places Jonathan took her to...

  She swallowed, remembering the dinner party. Andre Duchard leaning towards her sister, dark gaze intent, murmuring heaven knows what. And Cilla smiling, lapping up the attention. Maybe thinking she had him eating out of the palm of her hand. And all the time, oblivious to Jonathan’s irritation and resentment.

  But surely—surely—it had stopped there. It must have done, she argued to herself. Because Cilla couldn’t possibly have arranged to meet Andre secretly—could she?

  Did she have some hare-brained idea that she could persuade him somehow to arrange for her to use Barrowdean House for the wedding after all?

  Persuade him somehow...

  Ginny felt sick under the force of the emotions churning inside her—the predominant one, she told herself, being anger.

  Didn’t Cilla see that if Jonathan, already jealous, even suspected she’d been slipping off to meet Andre Duchard on the quiet, there would be no wedding? She must be crazy to take such a risk.

  So, whatever was going on had to stop right there before Cilla made an irretrievable ruin of her life.

  She’s still my little sister, she thought, swallowing. And I have to look after her.

  Almost before she realised what she was doing, she’d crossed the road and walked into hotel reception. There was no one at the desk but one glance at the board where the keys hung told her that only Room 3 was missing.

  Unseen and unheard, she went up the stairs two at a time. The room she wanted was at the end of the corridor, and a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign hung from the door handle.

  No prizes for guessing why, Ginny thought savagely, clenching her fist and rapping loudly on the wooden panels. Oh, Cilla, you fool...

  And with that, the door was flung open and Andre Duchard confronted her. Apart from a towel knotted round his waist and a scowl, he was wearing nothing. And the scowl intensified as he looked down at her.

  ‘You,’ he ground out. ‘What are you doing here? What do you want?’ His hair was wet and tangled and his shoulders, torso and long muscular legs also gleamed with the sheen of water. Stubble darkened his chin.

  Aware that there was altogether too much of him on show, Ginny, pulses hammering, elected for safety and looked him in the eye. She said with stinging emphasis, ‘I want you to leave my sister alone. Non-negotiable.’

  ‘Your sister?’ he repeated. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Oh, don’t pretend.’ Looking past him, Ginny could see the tumbled bed in the light of the shaded lamp on the night table. Her throat tightened uncontrollably, making her voice husky. ‘She was here this afternoon. At the hotel. I saw her leaving.’

  ‘And from that you deduce—quoi?’ He seized her wrist with one hand, drawing her forward into the room, and slammed the door with the other. Shutting them in together.

  She wrenched free. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Her voice quivered.

  ‘I think it is called conversation,’ he said. ‘In private.’ The dark gaze pinned her like a butterfly to a cork. ‘So you think she has been with me, and we are lovers?’

  Ginny swallowed, trying to control the flurry of her breathing. The room, not large at the best of times, seemed to be humming with anger, which closed round her oppressively, making her want to step back, away from him.

  Away, too, from the frankly enticing scent of soap and shampoo emanating from his cool, damp skin. But that would take her nearer to the bed, so she stood her ground. Because she was the one with the right to be angry. And she needed to stay angry.

  She said defiantly, ‘You find her attractive. Your behaviour the other night made that perfectly clear. And she hasn’t had a great deal of experience of men, so she’ll have been flattered. But she’s engaged—in love.’ She added with energy, ‘And I won’t let her screw up her life just so that you can satisfy a passing fancy.’

  ‘Engaged, certainement. At least for the present. In love?’ He shrugged. ‘Who knows? I think you are the one who is naïve, Virginie.’

  He paused.

  ‘But let us be frank. Would it not make you happy if the young Monsieur Welburn, the rich and worthy, was no longer your sister’s fiancé and could, peut-être, return for consolation to the girl he chose first—toi-même.’

  He added harshly, ‘Now you are the one who must not pretend. Or did you think your so tender and half-dressed embrace with him that night had been unobserved?’

  She remembered the sound of the closing door. She said hoarsely, ‘You—were there?’

  ‘I had been saying goodnight to Marguerite. When I saw that I intruded, I left another way.’

  Ginny lifted her chin. She said with cool clarity, ‘There was no intrusion. What you saw was perfectly innocent. He’d had a wretched evening, and was—upset, that’s all.’

  His mouth twisted cynically. ‘And when they are married, he and your sister, and all his evenings become wretched, who will he turn to then? Because la belle Lucille, she requires a stronger man than the unfortunate Jonathan. Someone who will not indulge her foolishly, but give purpose to her life each day, and teach her to be a woman in his bed at night.’

  She stiffened. ‘I suppose you’re referring to yourself with all this macho nonsense.’

  The dark brows lifted. ‘And if so, why should you care? I would be doing you a favour, n’est ce pas? Is that not what you want?’

  Her mouth felt suddenly dry. She touched her lips with the tip of her tongue, as she searched for a reply. Any reply, as the silence in the room lengthened. Tautened. Began to spark with emotions that had nothing to do with the anger which had brought her here like an avenging Fury. And which scared her.

  She thought with swift desperation, What am I doing—challenging him like this? I should have spoken to Cilla instead. I must be crazy...

  In a voice she did not recognise, she said, ‘I shouldn’t have come here. I’m sorry. I—I have to go...’

  To get out of here while I still can...

  She took a step towards the door, but he remained where he was, blocking her path.

  ‘Not,’ he said, ‘until you have answered my question. And told me the truth.’ The dark eyes bored into hers. ‘So, say it to me—what do you most want, Virginie?’

  She looked away, trembling. ‘I—I can’t tell you.’ She moved her hands almost helplessly, as she faced the shocking truth he had demanded. ‘Because I—I just don’t know any more.’

  ‘Then I, moi-même, shall tell you.’ His voice was a harsh whisper. He reached for her, pushing her coat from her shoulders, letting it tumble to the carpet, then pulled her close, his mouth seeking hers with a hunger that would not be denied.

  She knew a moment of blind panic, telling herself to fight. To kick his bare legs with her heavy shoes. Rake his face and chest with her nails. Anything to get free—to be safe again.

  Yet, somehow, she did none of those things. Because she would also be fighting herself, she realised in some dazed corner of her mind. Because, to her bewilderment and eternal shame, she knew that she shared his hunger, swaying against him, her lips parting under his to allow him t
he access he demanded.

  This can’t—this mustn’t happen. The words might echo in her head, but their warning was soon drowned by the mounting urgency in her body, in the heavy thud of her pulses, the sensation that the blood in her veins was flowing slow and sweet, like honey.

  She leaned into him, welcoming the heated tangle of his tongue with hers, shivering at the glide of his hands under her sweater and across the supple line of her back. Admitting that this was what she’d wanted since the first time he’d kissed her.

  Deftly, he unhooked her bra, his fingers pushing aside the loosened lace cups to encompass the warm, firm roundness of her small breasts, his thumbs teasing her nipples until they stood proud and erect, making her gasp with shocked pleasure against his smile.

  He pulled her sweater over her head and tossed it to the floor, sending her bra to follow it, then held her to him closely, tightly, kissing her ever more deeply.

  For the first time in her life, she experienced the excitement—the incitement—of a man’s hair-roughened chest grazing her naked breasts, and she melted into him, returning his kisses with untutored ardour.

  She was dizzily aware of him releasing the zip on her dark green cord skirt, pushing the fabric over her hips, and down to the ground. He lifted her free of the encumbering pool of fabric, letting her shoes fall at the same time, leaving her in nothing but her tights and briefs. Pulling her hips forward so that her body ground against his, showing in no uncertain terms that he was starkly and formidably aroused.

  A demonstration, however, that also served to remind her of her own sexual inexperience and lack of sophistication.

  And as if he sensed her sudden uncertainty, his hold relaxed a little. His fingers lifted to stroke the silken fall of her brown hair, then cupped the nape of her neck, bringing her mouth slowly and warmly back to his. Kissing her again, but this time softly and languorously. Endlessly.

  And as he did so, his hands moved on her very gently, exploring each delicate curve and angle, his fingertips caressing her throat, her slender shoulder blades, the soft flesh of her inner arms before returning to her breasts and lifting them to the silken warmth of his mouth.

  And as his tongue flickered lightly, devastatingly on the engorged rosy peaks, Ginny felt her body clench, fiercely and exquisitely, in response. Telling her that this was no longer enough.

  Reminding her too that, through her own choice, the point of no return was long past.

  Self-doubt forgotten, she twined her arms round his neck, burying her face in his bare shoulder as he picked her up in his arms and carried her to the bed, tossing aside the rumpled covers, and lowering her to the mattress.

  The bed dipped as he joined her, his towel now discarded, bending over her, slowly peeling away her tights and the briefs she wore beneath them, uncovering her completely to the breathtaking urgency of his hands caressing her flat abdomen, exploring the hollows of her pelvis and moving downwards to hover tantalisingly at the soft brown triangle at the joining of her thighs.

  She gasped, arching towards him, as she yielded herself to this new intimacy, trembling as he began to trace a slow lingering path over the slick, wet heat of her womanhood, each sensuous movement of his fingers making her quiver with sensation, revealing within her an undreamed of capacity for arousal.

  She touched him too, smoothing her fingers in wonderment across his skin, learning the unfamiliar male shape from the broad muscular shoulders down to the narrow hips and firm, flat buttocks. And he captured her hand and kissed it and brought it to his body, clasping it round his jutting hardness, letting her feel the size and strength of him stir and lift under her first tentative caresses.

  At the same time his fingers were still exploring her—slowly—exquisitely. Finding her most sensitive place, and hovering there, teasing the tiny bud into swollen, aching excitement.

  She gave a tiny breathless moan, looking up into his face, her eyes widening under her long lashes, as she saw his own gaze deepen in purpose and intensity. As she felt him move over her, his hands sliding under her slender flanks and lifting her to him.

  His voice was a harsh whisper. ‘Take me, ma douce, ma belle.’

  And she obeyed, wordlessly, guiding him to her.

  Into her willing warmth...

  She had not expected there to be pain, yet there was and she found herself sinking her teeth into her lower lip, in order to stifle her instinctive cry of protest. Aware just the same, that her need—her longing to know and be known—was all that truly mattered.

  She gripped his shoulders, rearing up and thrusting herself against him, wrapping her slim legs round his hips, and felt her untried flesh yield in welcome as he filled her totally.

  Locked with her, his mouth again joined to hers, Andre began to move, slowly at first then faster, the strong, rhythmic strokes of his body robbing her of what little self-control was left to her, and carrying her to some new level in a long dark spiral of mounting pleasure.

  Oh, God, she thought, a sob rising in her throat. What was she letting him do to her—this man—half angel, half devil? As if he had always known how it would be between them? And as if she had ever had a choice?

  And then coherent thought fled, and nothing was left but a fierce crescendo of wild, irresistible sensation, which, as she reached its peak, tossed her into one rippling, rapturous convulsion after another, making her cry out helplessly against his mouth.

  And heard him answer her hoarsely as his own body juddered to its climax.

  Afterwards, as he held her, both of them drained and spent, there was silence and a sense of great peace. She knew that there were things that must be said, but there was time for that, she thought, head cradled on his chest and her eyelids drooping wearily. All the time in the world.

  And let that world quietly slip away.

  * * *

  She awoke slowly to darkness and for a moment lay still, completely disorientated. Her first realisation was that she ached deep inside her. Her second—that a heavy weight lay across her breasts, pinning her to the bed.

  She turned her head gently, almost fearfully, and saw Andre Duchard’s dark head on the pillow beside her. Discovered that it was his arm, thrown over her body in a kind of careless possession, that was imprisoning her.

  And with that, every searing memory of the past few hours returned, screaming at her, jolting her back to the terrible—the shameful reality of what she had done.

  And the absolute necessity of distancing herself from him. In every possible way. Permanently. And immediately...

  Moving with the utmost caution, she was able to shift his arm sufficiently to enable her to slide towards the edge of the bed. He muttered something, and she froze, but he was only turning over and didn’t wake.

  Ginny didn’t dare relight the lamp, which meant she had to search around on the floor in the dark for the clothing that she’d allowed—oh, God, that she’d wanted him to strip from her—and huddle into it as best and as soundlessly as she could.

  She checked her purse and keys were still safely in her coat pocket then let herself warily out into the corridor. A glance at her watch revealed to her horror that she’d been with Andre Duchard for over two and a half hours, and quite apart from the ethical implications of her behaviour, she’d missed almost the entire afternoon session at Miss Finn’s.

  Although that was the least of her problems, she thought as she tiptoed down the stairs, hoping and praying there was no one at the hotel desk.

  Luckily, the receptionist was again in the rear office, this time intent on her computer so Ginny was able to make her escape unobserved.

  As her sister had done earlier...

  The thought stopped her in her tracks. She paused in the archway, leaning against the stonework, fighting the nausea threatening to overwhelm her. Because what she’d done wasn’t simply imm
oral—it was sheer insanity.

  From the first, Andre Duchard had scarcely bothered to conceal that he despised them all. Now he had even more reason for his contempt. Because however badly Cilla had behaved, there’d been no need to emulate her.

  She swallowed, making herself move. Start putting one foot in front of the other for the journey home.

  She’d gone to his room supposedly seething in righteous fury on her sister’s behalf only to emerge with even greater ignominy. Because he’d seen through the indignation and angry protests and recognised, as she had not, that under all the fire and fury, what she really wanted was to get laid.

  Some sexual clock she’d never suspected must have been ticking.

  And he’d obliged her.

  She couldn’t think of it in any other way, which was probably wise.

  Two sisters in his bed in the same afternoon. Encounters that had not appeared to test his stamina at all, she thought, feeling as if shame was flaying the skin from her body.

  A situation, in fact, that he might have found cynically amusing, as well as confirming his low opinion of her family, this time deservedly. Because she could condone Cilla’s behaviour even less than her own.

  I’ve only harmed myself—betrayed my self-respect, she thought, feeling sick. Something I can neither explain nor excuse, but shall just have to live with, somehow.

  But Cilla’s been unfaithful to Jonathan—the man she loves and plans to marry. So how can she ever forgive herself?

  While Andre Duchard had the unmitigated, hypocritical gall to castigate me for that—goodnight peck, she told herself, biting at her already tender mouth.

  When she got back to the house, she was thankful to find it deserted and went straight to her room.

  She stripped and went into the shower, using a massage sponge soaked in gel to scrub every inch of her body, trying to remove any lingering evidence of his hands and mouth.

  If only it was as easy to clear the memory of his touch from her brain, she thought as she shampooed her hair, letting the hot water cascade over her until every vestige of foam had gone. To forget how it felt to have him sheathed inside her. To erase the recollection of the pleasure, which still had the power to make her tremble.