Night with a Stranger

by Joanna Mansell

  She hauled herself off the sofa, and had just got to her feet when Lewis strode into the room. For just a moment, the sight of him sent a weakness flooding through her that had absolutely nothing to do with her queasy stomach or dizzy head. Then the room slowly steadied again, her legs felt just about able to hold her up, and she managed a pleased, if feeble, smile.

  'Hello, Lewis.'

  'What the hell's been going on?' he growled. 'Maria's just spun me some tale about you being too ill to get out of bed.' His blue gaze raked over her. 'You look fine to me.'

  'I am fine,' she said, with a touch of exasperation. 'Well, that's not quite true,' she conceded. 'I've had some kind of virus, and been rather off-colour. I'm much better now, though.'

  Lewis didn't look convinced. 'What sort of symptoms have you had?' he asked curtly.

  She shrugged. 'Nothing too exciting. I've felt a bit sick, and rather tired. And now and then, I get a bit dizzy.' She wrinkled her nose. 'Can't we talk about something more interesting than my ailments?'

  'Not when you've so recently had a bad knock on the head,' Lewis replied. 'You could be suffering from delayed concussion. I'll get the doctor round first thing in the morning, to take a look at you.'

  'I don't need a doctor!' she insisted. 'I'm all right.'

  'Perhaps you are, but I don't intend to take any chances. Get yourself off to bed, and Maria will bring you up some hot milk.'

  'Lewis, it's only eight o'clock! I'm not ten years old, I can stay up to whatever time I like. And I hate hot milk,' she added grumpily.

  'If the doctor says you're OK after he's looked at you, then you can stay up all night drinking whatever you like. Until then, you'll behave sensibly. Bed!' he ordered.

  'But you've only just got back,' Lorel protested. She gave him her most wistful smile. 'We haven't even had a chance to talk.'

  The smile didn't work. 'Upstairs,' said Lewis implacably. 'And right now!'

  She fluttered her eyelashes at him innocently. 'Are you going to come with me? To make sure I don't get a sudden dizzy spell, and fall down the stairs?'

  His blue eyes darkened several shades. 'Don't tempt me,' he warned. 'I've had an exhausting couple of weeks, and a long journey. There's nothing I'd like better than to find some way of relaxing—and I can think of several things I'd find very relaxing,' he added in a tone that set her nerves gently quivering.

  Lorel hastily decided that it was time for the teasing to stop. 'Er—perhaps you're right, I'd better get some rest. Goodnight.' She moved towards the door, then paused for a moment. 'I'm glad you're back, Lewis,' she said in a quieter voice. Then she turned round and ran lightly up the stairs.

  She slept well that night, but woke up in the morning feeling distinctly off colour again.

  'Oh, damn!' she muttered impatiently. The room wavered about uncomfortably as soon as she lifted her head from the pillow, and her stomach felt distinctly rocky.

  Maria brought her breakfast on a tray, but she couldn't manage more than a few mouthfuls of fresh fruit juice. When Lewis came in half an hour later, a light frown shadowed his face.

  'Maria said you couldn't eat anything this morning.'

  'It was probably Maria's cooking that caused this problem in the first place,' Lorel said rather crossly. 'She's absolutely stuffed me with food all the time you've been away. I feel as if I've been force-fed!'

  A gleam of a smile replaced the frown on Lewis's dark features. 'Italian men tend to like their women well-proportioned. She probably thinks you stand a better chance of finding a husband if you put on a few more pounds.'

  Lorel glared at him. 'Are you saying I'm too thin?'

  'Compared to Maria, you're positively anorexic. But I don't think there's very much about you that I'd actually want to change.'

  'How very magnanimous of you!' She squirmed a little further down into the bed. 'So, what am I supposed to do now? Stay here until I've been prodded and poked by the doctor?'

  'Yes,' came Lewis's calm reply. 'Then we'll see if he'll allow you to get up or not.'

  She scowled. 'I hate being molly-coddled.'

  'Then do whatever the doctor instructs. That way, you'll soon be on your feet again.'

  Lorel's own eyes suddenly glittered with pure mischief. Then she batted her eyelashes at him. 'Are you sure that's where you want me?' she purred. 'On my feet?'

  Lewis shot a warning glance at her. 'If you don't want the doctor to walk in and find us both in a very compromising position, you'd better cut that out!' He turned towards the door. 'I'll come back later, with the doctor.'

  'Safety in numbers?' she taunted him, with a grin.

  Lewis growled something under his breath. Then, with obvious reluctance, he left the room.

  After he had gone, Lorel fluffed up the pillows, trying to make them more comfortable. She was already beginning to feel brighter. The dizziness had gone, and she was actually beginning to feel hungry. She hoped the doctor wouldn't be late. She didn't want to spend half the day stuck in bed.

  He arrived promptly at ten o'clock. It was the same doctor who had treated her after her fall, and he smiled at her as he came into the room. Then he murmured something comforting in Italian. She had to admit he had a very good bedside manner.

  As before, all his questions to her had to be put through Lewis, who then translated her answers back to the doctor. He examined her head, and seemed satisfied with what he found. Then, through Lewis, she had to describe her symptoms to him. The doctor listened carefully, sat back and thought about it for a short while, and then began to ask her some more questions.

  Some of them were a lot more personal than she had expected, and she flushed slightly as she gave the answers. What did he want to know all those details for? Then there was another pause while the doctor seemed to consider what she had told him. Finally, he turned and quietly asked Lewis something.

  Lorel had no idea what his question had been—her Italian was still at the totally basic stage—but Lewis's reaction was certainly pretty disconcerting. His face changed abruptly, he clearly paled under his light tan, and then he snapped back with a couple of questions of his own.

  The doctor looked rather surprised, as if this wasn't the reaction he had expected from Lewis. Then he spoke again at some length.

  Lewis's face had gone so grim now that Lorel became quite alarmed. What on earth had the doctor said? Was there something awful wrong with her?

  'What's going on?' she asked, a note of panic in her voice. 'Lewis, what does the doctor think is wrong with me?'

  Lewis didn't answer, but the doctor must have caught the note of fear in her voice, because he turned and smiled at her reassuringly. Then he spoke to her cheerfully, and although she didn't have the slightest idea what he was saying Lorel immediately felt better. There couldn't be anything too wrong, or he would be looking a lot more sombre.

  The doctor picked up his bag, said something else to Lewis, who was still glowering fiercely, and then smiled again at Lorel as he said goodbye to her.

  After he had left the room, Lorel turned to Lewis with a small frown. 'What was that all about? And why did he keep calling me "signora"?' she added. 'Surely he knows I'm not married?'

  'Since the two of us are living under the same roof, he automatically assumed ‑' Lewis broke off rather abruptly, and seemed oddly tense.

  Lorel suddenly saw the light, and a broad grin spread over her face. 'Oh, I get it. He thought I was married to you. No wonder you looked rather po-faced just now! But why didn't you just explain the situation to him?'

  'That didn't seem like a very good idea,' muttered Lewis darkly.

  'Why not? Oh, I know he'd have been shocked,' she went on. 'But you could have explained that we're not actually living together. I'm sure he'd have understood.'

  'Lorel, will you just shut up?' he ordered tersely.

  Suspicion began to spread through her again. 'There's something wrong, isn't there?' she said slowly. 'You're acting really weird.' Her brows drew together in
a worried frown. 'That doctor told you something about me—and I want to know what it was!'

  'I don't think that you do,' he replied grimly. He turned away from her and prowled over to the window.

  Panic started to flutter in her stomach again. 'Is it bad?'

  'Bad?' He gave a brief, humourless laugh. 'That rather depends on your point of view. But it's sure as hell going to come as a shock.'

  Lorel's throat had gone uncomfortably dry. 'What kind of a shock?'

  'The type that knocks you completely off your feet,' Lewis replied, swinging round to face her again.

  She sat up very straight in the bed. 'All right,' she said steadily. 'You'd better tell me what it is.'

  Lewis looked as if he would prefer to be anywhere except here, in this bedroom, face to face with her. 'The doctor could be wrong,' he said at last. 'He admitted that himself. It's just a shrewd guess, based on what you told him, and his own observations.'

  'Lewis, will you stop beating round the bush and just come out with it?' she snapped angrily. 'What did he say?'

  His blue gaze fixed on her with even deeper intensity. 'He thought it highly likely that you're in the very early stages of pregnancy.'

  Lorel released a huge sigh of relief. 'And I thought you were going to come out with something really serious! Honestly, Lewis, what did you wind me up like that for? I thought I was practically on my deathbed!'

  His eyes narrowed. 'I didn't think you'd take it like this.'

  'Why on earth not?' she said brightly. 'I've got a sense of humour, haven't I? I mean, it's easy to see how he made such a mistake. He assumed we were married—and like an idiot, you didn't tell him we weren't—and my system has been a bit upset since that knock on the head.' Lorel grinned. 'No wonder you went such an odd colour when he came out with that diagnosis! I suppose it's really rather funny, when you think about it.'

  'Can you see me laughing?' Lewis asked a little tautly.

  'Well—no. But it's not my fault if you don't laugh a lot. You really ought to try and be less strait-laced'.'

  'I did try that once,' Lewis informed her softly. 'On the Orient-Express, when I met a girl who somehow got to me in a way that was quite new to me.'

  Lorel stopped grinning. 'I don't remember any of that,' she reminded him, with a sudden fluttering of unease.

  'I know you don't. But I do—very clearly.' He came a little closer to the bed. 'When the hell are you going to remember it, Lorel?'

  'Would it make any difference if I did?'

  'Oh, yes,' he told her in a very even voice. 'Because then you'd know that the doctor's diagnosis might not be as way-out as you seem to think it is.'

  Lorel was suddenly very glad that she was still in bed, because a huge wave of weakness had just swept over her.

  'Exactly what are you saying?' she somehow managed to get out.

  His eyes flickered with sudden impatience. 'You want me to put it bluntly? We slept together,' Lewis told her crudely. 'Which means there's every chance that the doctor's right, and you are pregnant. So— how do you feel about becoming a parent, Lorel Parker?'

  She stared at him with stunned shock. 'I don't believe any of this!' she said shakily at last, although it was suddenly a fairly weak sort of protest. His words had a horrible ring of truth about them. Anyway, why would he be making any of this up?

  'Believe it!' Lewis ordered tensely. 'Better still, dig past that barrier you've put up inside your mind, and remember it for yourself.'

  But she didn't want to do that. She didn't even want to listen to any more of this.

  She turned her head away from him. 'I think you'd better get out of here,' she told him tautly.

  Lewis didn't budge an inch. 'I'm not going anywhere. There's too much we need to discuss.'

  At that, she lifted her head and flung a hot glance at him. 'There is nothing to discuss! I don't know why you're doing this to me, but I'm not going to let you go on with it any longer. I know what I would and wouldn't do. And I'd never-never sleep with someone I'd only just met.'

  'Just as you'd never steal anything that didn't belong to you? Such as a briefcase?' he shot back at her. 'But you did steal it,' Lewis reminded her, in a harsh tone. 'And you did sleep with me.' His eyes briefly glittered. 'It isn't the sort of thing I'm ever likely to forget.'

  Lorel glared at him. 'Well, if it really happened, then it couldn't have been too good for me, because I couldn't wait to forget it! And if it did happen, then there's only one possible explanation for it. You forced me into it!'

  Lewis's gaze blazed so brightly that she instinctively flinched back from him.

  'I have never forced a woman in my life,' he grated.

  But Lorel clung to that explanation as if it were a vital lifeline. 'You must have done,' she insisted, with total conviction. Further light dawned inside her head.

  'And that's why I stole your briefcase, isn't it? Because I wanted to get back at you in any way I could!'

  Lewis growled irritably under his breath. 'It's pointless arguing with you right now. This must have come as quite a shock. You need time to get used to the idea, and adjust to the situation.'

  Something inside her head suddenly snapped. 'I don't need to adjust. I already know what the truth is!' she yelled at him. 'And no one is going to make me change my mind about it.'

  He swung round and strode over to the door. 'We'll talk about this later. And don't try to leave,' he warned darkly. 'You're not setting foot outside the palazzo until we've made some definite decisions about the future.'

  After he had gone, Lorel slumped back on to the pillows, all the defiance draining straight out of her as soon as Lewis was out of sight. This was the very last thing on earth she had been expecting. Her mind started to whirl round and round in circles. How could she possibly have slept with Lewis, and not remember it? But the only other explanation was that he was lying, and what motive could he have for that? Anyway, she had the horrible feeling that he was telling the truth. She remembered the shocked look on Lewis's face when the doctor had given his diagnosis—he certainly hadn't been feigning that!

  But—pregnant! She gave a small moan. She certainly didn't feel pregnant. Her hands began to move gingerly over her body, trying to spot any changes. She couldn't find any, but she supposed it was too early for any to show. She gave another groan. There must be some kind of test she could take, to find out for certain one way or the other.

  On the other hand, it might be even worse knowing for sure. Then she would have to accept that the impossible had happened, and she had actually slept with Lewis Elliott.

  Lorel turned on to her stomach and buried her face in the pillow. She wanted to go to sleep, and then wake up again to find this had all been a freakish nightmare. A few minutes later, though, she hauled herself out of bed and pulled on a dressing-gown. She wasn't going to be able to wish herself out of this situation. All she could do was somehow face up to it, and try to get a few basic facts sorted out.

  She quickly showered and dressed. When she was finally ready to go downstairs, she stopped for a moment and studied her reflection in the mirror. She was surprised to find that she didn't look any different from usual. A little pale, perhaps, but she always went rather wan when she was feeling off colour. Her gold-brown hair hadn't lost its gloss and bounce, though, her eyes looked bright and alert, and her mouth looked innocently demure.

  Well, according to Lewis, she certainly wasn't an innocent, she reminded herself shakily. Then, with reluctance, she left the bedroom and went down the stairs.

  Lewis was in the drawing-room. The tall doors that led on to the terrace and garden at the back of the palazzo were standing wide open, as if he felt in need of fresh air. The sun patterned the ground with golden reflections and dappled shadows, but Lorel was in no mood to appreciate the peaceful scene.

  'I want to know exactly what happened,' she told Lewis bluntly, as soon as she had walked into the room.

  Lewis turned round slowly. His dark brows were drawn toge
ther, and he looked as if he had a pounding headache, but she didn't particularly care about that.

  'I've already told you,' he said evenly.

  'Not the details!'

  His mouth compressed itself into an even tighter line. 'I thought you didn't want to go into them, since you obviously find the whole thing so distasteful.'

  'No one likes the idea of being forced into something,' she retorted.

  Lewis took a couple of quick steps towards her, but then made a clear effort to stop himself. 'You weren't forced!' he said sharply.

  She flung a look of open disbelief back at him. 'Then how did it happen?'

  This time, his blue eyes didn't falter. 'If you like, I'll show you exactly how it happened,' he offered softly.

  Lorel instantly shook her head. She wasn't going to let him sidetrack her in any way. She knew all too well how susceptible she was to this man's touch and kisses. Once he got his hands on her, he might be able to persuade her to believe all sorts of things.

  She blinked nervously. Was that how it had been on the train? Had she already been highly vulnerable to Lewis Elliott's influence? If she had been, then everything might have happened just the way he had said. She might have given in to him quite willingly...

  Then she firmly straightened her shoulders. She wouldn't—couldn't—believe that. If she ever did, her entire world would start to crumble.

  'Let's get down to practical matters,' she said in a hard voice. 'The doctor wasn't certain I was pregnant. He could well be wrong. Probably is wrong,' she added with emphasis, as if there were little doubt in her own mind.

  'He seemed to think there was a good chance he was right,' Lewis replied.

  'I want to know for certain. I want a proper test— and soon!'

  'I'll arrange it. What if it proves positive?' Lewis questioned her tautly.

  'I'm sure it won't.' She hoped she sounded a lot more confident than she felt.