by Sue Peters
His kiss laid siege to all that she had been, all that she intended to be, and all the plans she had made for her own unfettered future. Under its onslaught Dee felt her defences begin to waver.
Student kisses she had coped with, too numerous to count. Even with Alan she had always been able to remain in control. Under Luke's kiss she felt her control begin to slip away. Desperately she fought him, but her lips pursed under his with a life of their own, which defied her efforts to check them, and fear sliced through her like a knife.
As he felt her response Luke's kiss changed and deepened, exploring the soft contours of her mouth, and the laughter dimple at the one corner, which was not laughing now. Dee thought wildly, This isn't what Bill meant when he told me to go along with Luke.
Bitterly she remembered her own confident, 'With reservations.' Luke had none, and was laying siege to her own, and her small, beating fists were no defence against him.
The thought of Bill steadied her. It acted as a lifebelt to her drowning senses, and frantically she clung to it, and used anger as an anchor.
How dared Luke assume that he could use her lips as if they were his to command, just as he had taken control of her time? How dared he assume that both belonged to him, simply because he had agreed to be her escort on a purely business mission?
He had had the effrontery to criticise Bill for allowing her to remain in Delhi while she waited for the rest of the artefacts to arrive, but Luke himself posed more of a threat than any city she had yet encountered.
She strained backwards, away from him, but his hold upon her was too strong for her to break free, and her struggles were ineffectual against him.
'What's the matter? Doesn't the free and independent career girl like being kissed?' he taunted.
His mockery proved the last straw. It drew a strangled sound from Dee's dry throat. She did like it. Or at least her errant lips did, although she would die rather than allow them to admit it. Instead she forced them into forming one word that shot, bullet-like, through set teeth.
'No!'
'Not by me? Or not by anybody? You said you hadn't got a boyfriend.'
Why had she told him that? Why had Luke remembered? What was left of Dee's scattered senses told her that he would remember everything, and use it to his own advantage. If only she had invented a fiancé to provide her with a watertight excuse, but if she tried to dredge one up at this stage it would leak like a colander, and Luke would know that she was afraid.
Of him? Or of herself? She pushed away the conundrum, and stammered, 'Not by anybody. Let me go!'
The arrival of the hotel commissionaire saved her. Footsteps approached the car door on Dee's side, a hand reached out to open it for her, and she left her seat with a speed that caused her to stumble and nearly fall when her feet hit the ground.
Luke's mocking, 'I'll be back,' rang in her ears, which registered the sound of the car engine starting up again as she fled up the hotel steps without looking back.
She hadn't meant to, but she turned at the top, unable to help herself, and bit her lips in vexation at the sight of Luke's raised hand, which told her he had seen her through his rear-view mirror and knew she was watching as he steered the vehicle expertly out into the flow of traffic on the busy main road and was quickly swallowed from her sight.
Dee was trembling all over when she reached her room. Angry with herself, and furious with Luke, she kicked off her sandals, flung her scarf and handbag on to the bed, and sluiced her face at the wash-basin, but no application of soap and water, or rubbing with the thick, soft towel, could take away the throbbing from her lips, which ached with the merciless pressure of Luke's kiss, and ached the more because it had been so soon removed.
Dee prowled the room, too restless to read, too highly strung to think of sleep. She knew she ought to ring Bill and report on her progress. She even reached out for the telephone and lifted the receiver, but then replaced it, her bemused mind unable to cope with telephone calls tonight.
She must pull herself together before she spoke to Bill. He knew her too well not to sense when something was amiss, and if he started to question her she might not be able to successfully cover up the reason why she was distraite. Her nerves felt raw from her encounter with Luke, and she couldn't endure to be teased about it.
As if it could read her thoughts, the telephone bell shrilled loudly.
'Oh!' Dee started violently. For a shocked moment she stared at the noisy instrument, her eyes dilating. Was it Luke ringing her? Nonsense! How could it be? Unless, that was, he had an in-car telephone. Even so, there was no reason why he should telephone her when he had only just left her.
Was it only just? It seemed like an age ago. A glance at her watch told her that it was less than ten minutes.
Perhaps it was Gita? Maybe something had cropped up at the hospital, which meant that they would have to postpone their break in the hills, and they were ringing to let her know. The mundane reasoning steadied Dee, and gave her the courage to lift the receiver.
'Dee Tredinnick…'
'Dee, at last! I've been trying to contact you for the past hour.'
'Bill? What are you ringing me for?'
It was always the other way round. The couriers rang back to base from wherever they happened to be, to report progress to their boss. It was only in an emergency that Bill ever rang them himself.
'Is anything the matter?' Dee wanted to know. 'You don't sound like yourself somehow. Has the exhibition been cancelled?'
She tried to iron out the sudden hope in her voice. If the exhibition was cancelled she could go home without encountering Luke again. The prospect didn't bring with it the expected feeling of relief, and Dee closed her eyes, unable to cope with the turmoil of her own conflicting thoughts, which hoped the exhibition had been cancelled, and at the same time prayed that it had not. Through a thickening fog she heard Bill say, 'I don't feel like me. No, the exhibition hasn't been cancelled. It's very much on. In fact, everything in the garden is lovely, and you are absolutely my favourite flower.'
Dee's eyebrows climbed. Her normally unflappable boss sounded positively excited.
'Have you been drinking?' she asked him suspiciously.
Bill never did drink. The only liquid Dee had ever known him to consume was coffee. One heaped teaspoonful of instant, and two ditto of sugar, stirred into the disgraceful old crock mug with the faded Mickey Mouse pattern on it that no amount of money in the bank could part him from.
'What's up, Bill?' Dee demanded ungrammatically, and his chuckle came clearly across the line.
'Nothing's up yet. But it will be, from next month. I'm going to double your salary.'
'Now I know you've been drinking.'
'Hand on heart, I haven't touched a drop. But I intend to celebrate with a glass of bubbly with my cheese bun as soon as I'm off the telephone. This is really something to celebrate.'
'If you don't stop burbling nonsense, Bill Williams, I'll put the phone down. What is going on, for goodness' sake? What is it you're supposed to be celebrating?'
'Don't tell me you don't know?'
'I'll give you just ten seconds to make sense, or else... One, two ‑'
'You really don't know, do you? Ransom hasn't told you?'
'Told me what! Bill, I warned you. Three, four ‑'
'That fella knows how to keep his own counsel, that's for sure. He rang me less than an hour ago, and offered me his own home, would you believe? It's one of the old ancestral type, too—he actually offered me his own home, to stage the exhibition in. Just like that. Out of the blue.'
'He... did ...what?'
Dee's voice rose in a squeak, and Bill confirmed, 'It's a fact. How on earth did you manage to persuade him, Dee? Ransom Court beats Windsor Castle any day, at least for our purposes. It's right bang in the middle of the Chiltern Hills. And it couldn't come at a better time of the year, with all those beech woods turning colour. It will be just great,' he enthused. 'The ideal setting. It's near
enough to London to be easy for people to reach, and far enough out to be right in the country.'
Dee scarcely heard him. The tremble extended to her knees, and she sat down suddenly on her bed. So that was what Luke's 'Mmm' had meant. And he hadn't breathed a word of his intentions to her, not even when he was bringing her back to the hotel in his car.
Did he think he was being clever, or what? Or did he regard her, a mere courier, and a woman into the bargain, as being of so little importance that it was unnecessary to mention his plan to her? Bill's voice reached her through a fog of mounting anger.
'I haven't actually accepted Ransom's offer yet.'
'Why not? Don't you want to? You said ‑'
'You bet I want to. It would be a real feather in WW's cap. No one has ever managed to breach Ransom's defences before, to my knowledge. Not even the Press.'
'Then what's stopping you?'
'You are.'
The gravity in her boss's voice riveted Dee's attention, and she frowned.
'Why me? What have I got to do with it?'
'Before I accept Ransom's offer I want to know what lies behind it. I don't know quite how to put this, Dee...'
'Try it straight,' she told him tersely, and felt her anger mount as Bill went on soberly,
'When I told you to go along with whatever Ransom suggested I didn't mean it literally. You know I don't expect you to—er—overstep the mark in the course of duty.'
'So that's it.'
A hysterical desire to laugh fought with an urgent desire to smash something. What had Luke said to Bill to make her boss wonder...? The hysteria won, and Dee exploded, 'Bill, you goose! No, I haven't overstepped the mark, as you so delicately put it. Nothing would induce me.'
'Ransom's a handsome devil.'
'Devil' was an excellent description, Dee thought sourly, but said out loud, forcefully enough to convince her listener, 'You ought to know me better. It will take a lot more than good looks to part me from my freedom. I'm being polite to the man in the course of duty, and that is all. You've got absolutely nothing to worry about in that direction. Far from being seduced, I don't even like Luke Ransom.'
'Thank goodness for that!' Bill's gusty sigh of relief blew through the line. 'It means I can accept his offer with a clear conscience. They say the whims of the mighty are unpredictable. Maybe he just fancied showing off his home, for once.'
'The whims of the mighty have usually got strings attached to them,' Dee retorted ungraciously.
'There don't seem to be any attached to this one. Unless you can call the fact that he wants you along to help organise the exhibition a string.'
'He wants me?'
'You're beginning to sound as if the needle's stuck.'
'But the couriers never have anything to do with the actual exhibitions.'
'There's always a first time. And this one is not to be missed. I'll have a special sweater designed for you, with WW emblazoned on the front, so that people can see we've reached the top of the tree.'
If Luke expects me to sit and sing in the branches, and to his tune, he's got another think coming, Dee promised herself grimly as Bill rang off, and wondered impatiently, Who on earth can it be now? when the telephone shrilled again.
It was Gita this time. She said, 'Dee, I should have mentioned this earlier. You'll need a warm sweater when we go into the hills. Don't forget to bring one along with you. It can get chilly up there, morning and evening.'
'I won't forget,' Dee promised in a muffled voice that gave vent to laughter, which seemed, oddly, to verge on tears when she put the receiver down, and told herself shakily, At least this sweater won't have WW emblazoned on the front.
That was still to come. No matter what Bill might believe, there had to be a price for Luke's offer, and the coin was to be her own freedom for the duration of the exhibition. Dee felt as if a trap was closing round her.
Once again Luke had taken control, and manoeuvred her slyly into a corner from which she could not extricate herself without the risk of damage to Bill and his firm, and Dee bitterly resented this further demonstration of his determination to exert his power over her.
She felt again the hard circle of his arms surrounding her, their steel strength laughing at her ineffectual struggles to be free, and irritably she tried to shrug the feeling away, but it persisted, a disturbing echo of the pain which beset her lips and refused to go away.
The day that followed was far from the haven of peace which Dee had anticipated. The heat seemed to be more exhausting, the sun more glaring now that she had no distraction but her own company, and the places she visited lacked the extra dimension of interest posed by the challenge of Luke's company.
No matter how she drove her feet to walk round the obligatory tourist sights, she could not outdistance her mind. It refused to function on the same receptive level which it had achieved while Luke was there to challenge her powers of observation, and became instead a confused battleground of anticipation and dread at the prospect of meeting him again.
The ensuing war left Dee feeling mentally battered, and she had still reached no conclusion by the time Wednesday arrived.
Luke came to see them off after lunch. The children danced round Dee, excitedly vying with each other to tell her about the morning's outing, until their mother commanded them sternly, 'Spare her, do. Not everyone is as mad about cricket as you are.'
'Uncle Luke gave us our ice-cream,' they digressed obediently, and Dee nodded.
'He didn't forget.'
She had experience of Luke's memory herself, and stiffened defensively when he strolled up to join them after helping Manoj to stack the luggage in the minibus, then contrarily felt deflated when he gave her no more than a casual, 'Hello,' and turned immediately to beam his attention on the excited children.
'You two are next,' he told them, mock ferociously, and gained squeals of delight when he swung them high in his arms and pretended to toss them after the suitcases into the back of the vehicle.
His kiss was gentle enough, however, when they raised small faces to his, before he handed them over to their motherly ayah, who was to accompany them on the holiday.
Watching him, Dee wondered at the strange mixture that could allow a man to be so gentle one moment, and so ruthless in wielding his power the next. She wondered if he would mention his telephone call to Bill, and decided stubbornly that, if Luke didn't raise the matter, neither would she.
It was Luke's place to tell her, not the other way round, and if he didn't consider her important enough to be taken into his confidence on a matter which concerned them both she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of showing curiosity.
In spite of her determination, however, she couldn't help feeling piqued when the moment of departure came and Luke still remained uncommunicative. As soon as the children were safely settled in the van he turned to kiss Gita and the ayah, and shook hands with Manoj, and Dee turned away to climb into the bus and take her place beside the boys, when the pair chorused, 'You haven't said goodbye to Dee, Uncle Luke. You mustn't miss Dee out.'
Dee went rigid. Was Luke's omission deliberate? Would he have missed her out if the children hadn't noticed? Desperately she wanted him to, and just as desperately she did not, but what she wanted seemed to be of little consequence to Luke.
'We mustn't miss Dee out,' he agreed gravely, and the repetition was both a challenge and a mockery, underlined by the bright quartz glow in his eyes that stared down into her own with the heat of a living fire.
Dee moved convulsively, jerking away from him, her eyes wide with the anticipation and the dread which had haunted her for the last two days, but she was not nearly swift enough to evade his outstretched hand.
With it he turned her to face him, and his strength set her stiff resistance at nought. He lifted her bodily towards him, holding her aloft as easily as if she were no heavier than one of the children, while he unhurriedly planted a kiss, four-square, on her trembling mouth.
As the mini
bus pulled away Gita said regretfully, 'It seems such a pity that Luke isn't coming with us.'
'Perhaps he'll be able to join us when he finishes his business in Calcutta,' Manoj hoped.
Dee remained silent. Her host and hostess did not have the benefit of Luke's taunting whisper, 'I'll be back,' which had been designed to reach her ears alone, and had acted like a probe to set her every nerve-end tingling when he'd finally released her into the minibus, and she bemusedly obeyed the children's clamour to, 'Wave goodbye to Uncle Luke, Dee.'
Obligingly Dee raised her hand, knowing that it was not really goodbye, but only a brief au revoir.
CHAPTER FOUR
Luke would come. But when? The question haunted Dee, in the days that followed, like the wraith of the man himself.
To keep it at bay she threw herself into frantic activity with the two boys, and they welcomed her into their games with enthusiasm; The ayah was willing enough, but her plump roundness, that made such a comforting lap for the two children when they were tired, made her less than fleet of foot.
Dee was able to chase with them after their speeding ball, run alongside them as they flew their brightly coloured kites, and still have sufficient energy left for hectic games of tag.
But no matter how hard she played, or how fast she ran, Dee discovered that she could not escape Luke's whispered promise, 'I'll be back.'
Promise? Or threat?
It came between her and the games she played with the children, bringing down their derisive laughter on her head when she dropped their balls and absent-mindedly missed her turn at board games.
'You're miles away,' they accused her. 'Tell us where you'd gone to.'
'To never-never land.' With an effort she made a fun thing of it, grateful that the boys were still too young to be able to detect the forced note in her laughter.
Luke's image dogged her footsteps like a reflection of her own shadow when she accompanied the boys and their ayah on their daily walk to feed apples to the ponies that grazed in a nearby meadow, and it sat with her like a mischievous sprite at bed time, taunting her with the unanswerable question, When? Will he come tomorrow? Or the day after?
