Vacation with a Commanding Stranger

by Penny Jordan

  When she looked through the kitchen window, she saw that his car had gone. An indiction that he had decided to do the gentlemanly thing and leave? Somehow Livvy doubted it.

  However, while he was gone it would be a good opportunity for her to ring Gale.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LIVVY dialled her cousin’s number firmly, standing facing the window, determinedly keeping her fingers crossed that Gale would be in.

  She was. Expelling a small sigh of relief, Livvy quickly told her what had happened. She could tell from Gale’s sharp intake of breath that her news had surprised her.

  ‘Did George tell you that he had arranged for someone to view the farmhouse?’ she asked her cousin.

  ‘No,’ Gale told her.

  ‘Gale, you must talk to him,’ Livvy told her.

  ‘Talk to him? I only wish I could,’ Gale interrupted her bitterly. ‘Robert has sent him away on business—again. George promised he’d ring me but he hasn’t done so as yet. His secretary says she can’t give me a number for him.’

  Livvy could hear the anger and frustration in her cousin’s voice.

  Was George’s desire to sell the farmhouse the cause of their marital problems, or, more worryingly, merely a symptom of some deeper conflict between them? Livvy knew her cousin well enough to know that she would not react well to any direct questioning.

  Instead she said quietly, ‘Gale, I feel I’m in a very invidious position. This man, this friend of George’s has made it quite clear that as far as he’s concerned I’m virtually trespassing, since I’m here without George’s knowledge and since George is the owner of the property. In fact—’

  ‘That’s nonsense,’ Gale interrupted her angrily. ‘The farmhouse is as much mine as it is George’s.’

  ‘Morally perhaps, but technically…legally…’

  ‘There’s no way George would have not wanted you to stay, no matter how he and I…’ She broke off and added almost pleadingly, ‘Livvy, don’t let this man bully you into leaving. From what you’ve said about him it sounds as though he’s deliberately trying to drive you away. He’s probably trying to push George into letting the place go at way below its market value, panicking him into an unfair deal. I know that once I’ve had a chance to talk to him…make him see…

  ‘Stay there, Livvy, please.’

  ‘If you can’t get in touch with George, then surely neither can anyone else,’ Livvy pointed out to her.

  ‘No, perhaps not…apart from Robert Forrest, but I’d feel happier knowing you were there.’

  Did she really have any choice? Livvy asked herself after she had replaced the receiver. And not simply because of what Gale had said.

  If she left now, backed down now, wouldn’t it look as though she was giving in, running away…as though she didn’t have the courage to stand her ground and continue to confront him?

  Her forehead puckered in thought, Livvy heard the sound of a car engine.

  Tensely she watched through the window, but it wasn’t a BMW that came bounding into the yard, and the man who emerged from behind the wheel of the battered truck certainly wasn’t Richard Field…

  This time her visitor was Gale’s nearest neighbour, the farmer, Gustave Dubois, a short, stocky, weathered-looking man in his mid-fifties who gave Livvy’s slim jeans-clad body an assessing and admiring glance as he introduced himself to her.

  He had come, he told her, to make himself known to her and to deliver the small basket of provisions which madame, his wife, had ordered him to bring.

  He had also, it transpired, come to check on the generator, which if Livvy understood him correctly was a highly temperamental piece of equipment which required very delicate and knowledgeable handling, its moodiness rather like that of a woman, the skilled touch needed to overcome its obstinacy much like that of an accomplished and knowledgeable lover.

  ‘You will have to be firm with Monsieur Dubois,’ Gale had warned her. ‘Madame keeps him on an extremely tight leash, but he’s harmless really.’

  She must not know despair, the farmer went on to assure her. Should a catastrophe occur and the generator break down, she only had to telephone and he would come to her aid immédiatement. It would in fact be his pleasure, he assured her.

  He was most kind. Livvy thanked him, but perhaps if he were to show her the mere basics of how the thing worked? He had already indicated that he had brought with him a supply of fuel for it, and in doing so had managed to convey that this action had been motivated by pure gallantry and chivalry, whereas Livvy knew for a fact that Gale had a standing arrangement with him whereby not only was the generator regularly serviced, but he kept it supplied with the necessary fuel.

  ‘Don’t let him charge you anything,’ Gale had warned her. ‘We operate a barter system with him: the use of our land for certain services, including keeping the generator in working order, emptying the cesspit, that sort of thing.’

  Show her how it worked?

  He managed to look both concerned and slightly superior, as he shook his head and explained regretfully that it was not so simple a matter as that.

  Had she not been made so upset and anxious by Richard Field, she would have been quite enjoying this encounter, Livvy decided. The influence of her French grandmother and holidays spent in the French countryside as a child had given her a first-hand knowledge of how the French countryman’s mind worked, of the rituals to be gone through in such circumstances, but before she could say anything the farmer was turning away from her, surprise and the smallest dash of chagrin touching his face as the BMW drove into the yard.

  As Richard Field got out of the car and studied them with frowning concentration, he said quickly to Livvy, ‘Ah, I hadn’t realised. Madame Gale did not say that you would be accompanied by your husband…’

  ‘He is not my husband…’ Livvy denied immediately as Richard Field walked over to join them.

  She could tell from his expression that he had heard her, although she didn’t realise the full significance of either his smile or her own comment until later.

  In fact she was too incensed to be aware of anything beyond the fact that Monsieur Dubois, upon seeing Richard Field, had turned his back on her and was now explaining to him in rapid French just what had brought him to the farm.

  It was pointless reminding herself that here in the countryside the old hierarchy still existed and that Monsieur Dubois could have no idea of how much pleasure it would be giving Richard Field that she was being dismissed as a mere woman while the farmer gave Richard a graphic and far more detailed description than he had given her of the complexities and temperament of the generator.

  As she watched Richard listening quietly, without taking up any of the subtle male challenge the farmer was giving him as he commented on how no one could expect monsieur, a stranger to these parts, and to the generator in particular, to be able to deal competently with its temperamentality, Livvy felt a distinct deepening of her own apprehension.

  The arrogance and insensitivity he had shown her evidently cloaked a far more subtle awareness of how to deal with people…and of how to manipulate them. Was that what he had been doing with her earlier…trying to provoke the kind of reaction from her which would send her from the farmhouse in a headlong flight of fury and resentment, thus leaving him in sole possession?

  If monsieur insisted, he would certainly show him how the generator worked, Gustave Dubois was agreeing, managing to combine a verbal willingness to please with a strong note of doubt as to his would-be pupil’s abilities.

  As they started to walk towards the outbuildings, Livvy hurried to join them. She was not going to allow Richard Field any advantage over her, even if the total sum of her practical knowledge of anything electrical was limited to an ability to change a fuse and wire up a plug.

  It was the farmer who defeated her, pausing just as they entered the outbuildings to turn round and suggest to her that a cup of coffee or, better still, a glass of wine would be very much welcomed.
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br />   Livvy’s face burned as she sensed Richard Field’s contempt and triumph, but there was nothing she could do. Firmly refusing to look at Richard Field and allow him to see her chagrin, she marched over to where the farmer had left the basket of provisions from his wife. Picking it up, she carried it into the kitchen, frowning as she glanced towards the cold range.

  She suspected that, skilled as he might be with the generator, Monsieur Dubois would consider the workings of the range to be a female rather than a male area of knowledge.

  ‘Watch the range,’ Gale had warned her. ‘If the wind’s in the wrong direction when you light it, it sulks and smokes dreadfully.’

  She had no real need to light it, Livvy told herself; after all, there was a stove, of sorts; but without its warmth, without its life, the kitchen felt dead and empty, and besides, if she busied herself with lighting it, it would give her a perfect excuse for not having to provide the two men with a drink. Not that she would have objected to providing the farmer with one, but when it came to Richard Field… She was, she discovered, grinding her teeth at the thought of doing anything, anything at all to allow him to believe that she was subservient to him…in any way.

  Half an hour later, hot and grubby, she grinned with triumph as she opened the fire door of the range to see the comforting glow of a well-established fire.

  Lighting it was one thing, she reminded herself ruefully, as she closed the door, cooking on it with any degree of success was quite another.

  She remembered the long summer holidays spent with a distant relative of her grandmother’s in Normandy, and the gloom which had befallen the whole household when Grandmère, who ruled the kitchen and the range, broke her arm.

  Her daughter-in-law, well into her forties, with almost grown-up children of her own, had broken down in tears over the soup, and in the end Grandmère had had to give instructions as to how the range had to be coaxed and bullied into providing the family with the meals it was used to.

  Well, she was not going to be providing any family with meals, Livvy reassured herself as she wiped the top of the range clear of dust and returned to the sink to wash her grimy hands.

  She wondered how long it would be before Richard Field grew tired of the game he was playing with her and decided to leave. Not too long, she hoped. And in the meantime she would just have to learn to live with his unwanted presence, for Gale’s sake.

  How could George behave so unkindly, so unfairly? It was totally unlike him. Livvy’s tender heart ached for her cousin and his children.

  She saw the two men coming back across the yard, and frowned as she saw the friendly, almost approving way the farmer clapped Richard on the back before shaking his head and walking over to his truck. Something Richard Field had said or done had obviously impressed the farmer and earned his respect.

  It was several minutes after the farmer had left before Richard came into the kitchen, and when he did he was carrying a box of provisions.

  Even from where she stood, Livvy could smell the rich scent of the fresh baked bread he had bought, and her mouth started to water. She had still not had her breakfast, although it was almost lunchtime.

  She had made herself a cup of coffee…instant, but at least it was a drink; but now, as she smelled the fresh bread, she remembered resentfully how, before Richard Field had arrived to spoil everything, she had planned to drive into the local town and buy croissants for her breakfast.

  ‘You’ve lit the range.’

  She saw him frown and walk over to check, almost as though he didn’t believe it, and Livvy felt a small spurt of satisfaction that she had managed to throw him a little. No doubt in his book women of her type had only one set of skills…the sort learned and honed in a wide variety of different men’s beds.

  ‘Monsieur Dubois sends his apologies for not coming in to say goodbye,’ he told her. ‘I suspect he is afraid that madame would not approve of him consorting with a fallen woman, one so free with her favours that she openly admits she is not married to her lover.’

  Livvy stared at him, her normal calm deserting her as she confronted him, shock and fury two equally powerful forces within her as she demanded fiercely, ‘What have you said to him? What lies have you told him? He knows that I’m Gale’s cousin. Gale telephoned…’

  ‘I have said nothing,’ he interrupted her, unkind relish darkening in his eyes as he told her, ‘You yourself were the one who told him that I was not your husband.’

  ‘Not my husband, and not my lover either… I…’

  ‘Monsieur Dubois does not see it that way. In his view, when two people, a man and a woman, choose to spend time together at a secluded, remote farmhouse deep in the countryside, there can be only one reason for their doing so.’

  ‘But it’s not true,’ Livvy burst out when the significance of his taunting comment had finally sunk in. ‘You should have told him…explained…’

  ‘I did try, but he seemed to think that I was merely attempting to protect your honour. It seems that I am not alone in recognising you for what you are, chérie.’

  His insulting use of that small word of supposed endearment was the last straw; Livvy crossed the distance that separated them, her face flushed with heat, an anger she had never ever experienced before overwhelming her.

  ‘You have no idea of what I am,’ she denied furiously. ‘And nor will you ever know. You and I…lovers.’ She flashed him a look of concentrated loathing and fury, desperately trying to control the small quiver of her tightly closed mouth. ‘Never, never would I let someone like you touch me.’ She gave a small shudder, her body involuntarily reinforcing the passion in her words, and subconsciously registering her revulsion at her earlier inexplicable sensual awareness of him.

  She turned to move away from him, but he moved first, her body going rigid with shock as he took hold of her.

  As though somehow she herself was distanced from it, her brain separated somehow from her body, she was aware of registering the pressure with which he was gripping her upper arms; the anger that emanated from him, surrounding him—engulfing her with an almost physical heat.

  She had never seen a man so angry before, and had certainly never been responsible for that anger: a dangerous, sexual anger that made his eyes glitter with such brilliance and fierceness that she had to look away from him, her body starting to tremble with humiliating female vulnerability and reaction as she recognised her danger.

  Her still lips struggled to form the word ‘no’ just as she tried to free herself from him, but one brief, despairing look into his implacable face told her that there was going to be no mercy.

  She had known right from the start what he had intended to do, but, in the handful of seconds which elapsed between his taking hold of her and giving vent to the fury she had aroused in him by punishing her with the hard pressure of his mouth, a part of her had still refused to accept that he would actually do it, that he would actually take her mouth in that savage, punishing parody of a kiss.

  She tried to stop him, to turn her head away, but he anticipated her, releasing one of her arms to slide his hand along her jaw, holding her head still, making her completely vulnerable to him.

  She stared at him wide-eyed, willing him to release her, her body, her mouth frozen with shock, but he refused to be quelled, and something in the hot, male glitter of his eyes made her own burn with the threat of tears so that she had to close them to defend herself.

  Immediately, she wished she hadn’t done so. With her eyes closed, she was acutely conscious of his hand against her skin, the strength, the power, the heat of his fingers.

  She shivered as she felt them stroking against her skin, a wave of heat and panic engulfing her as she realised what had caused that tiny physical reaction.

  She couldn’t possibly be aroused by him. It was just anger…rage…combined with her fear that was making her body tremble and start to ache. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the way his fingertips were slowly caressing her throat,
nor the fact that he had now released her other arm and was holding her unforgivably close to his body, binding her against him with the pressure of the arm he had wrapped around her, holding her so close that she could feel his heart beating, savagely uneven, thudding out a primitive message of male anger, male arousal…a male adrenalin-induced need to meet the challenge she had so dangerously flung down between them.

  Her lips felt soft, swollen, vulnerable to the deliberately sensual assault of his. He wasn’t just expressing his anger, she recognised, he was trying to arouse her as well…to punish her and taunt her by calling her a liar.

  She tried desperately not to react, not to respond, but she could feel herself losing control, losing the ability to think and fight, giving in to the jolting surge of desire overpowering her, her mouth softening, opening, clinging, her breath escaping on a soft, aching sigh of pleasure as he took advantage of her weakness, sliding his tongue between her parted lips, stroking and caressing them until she felt dizzy, light-headed, incapable of anything other than giving in to him.

  Against her body she could feel the unfamiliar shape and hardness of his, the tautness of his muscles, the strength and power which they sheathed.

  His heartbeat was rough and heavy now, the heat coming off his skin engulfing her, the scent of him drugging her like an opiate.

  She tried to fight it, to open her eyes, to break the spell he seemed to have cast over her, but her eyelids felt too heavy, the demand of his mouth too strong. She could feel herself starting to tremble as the ache inside her grew, and she knew that he could feel it too. She felt him check and then heard him make a small explosive sound against her mouth. His hand moved up over her body, cupping her breast, finding the taut peak of her nipple, caressing it.

  She made a small anguished sound of shocked pleasure, her eyes opening wide, brilliant with shock and arousal as she look straight up into his.

  His hand stilled on her body, his expression suddenly changing, becoming hard and cold. He released her so unexpectedly that she half stumbled, her face flushing with mortification as the realisation of what had happened flooded over her.