Housebound

by Anne Stuart

  “I wouldn’t know, darling. I’d hardly think so, with that upstanding gentleman you’re engaged to. But then, there’s no accounting for tastes.”

  Anne felt rather than saw Noah Grant’s start of surprise. Casting a surreptitious glance at him, she found Holly standing as close to him as humanly possible. Noah was smiling absently down at her, but the look in his blue eyes was enigmatic.

  “Could we please eat?” Eldridge Kirkland appeared in the doorway, looking cranky and overtired, and concern swept over Anne. Their father hadn’t been well since the mild heart attack that had slowed him down last fall, and standing about in chilly weather and eating at strange hours were scarcely the best thing for a man in compromised health.

  “Of course we can, Proffy,” Holly soothed with the charm that always managed to calm the professor’s outraged sensibilities. “As soon as I introduce you to my beau.” Again Anne felt Noah’s start of surprise, and she could find a small trace of pity in her heart for him. She had yet to meet a man who could prove a match for Holly’s feminine wiles. “This is Noah Grant. Noah, this is my father, Eldridge Kirkland, but we all call him Proffy.”

  “How do you do?” Noah managed to escape Holly’s pretty clutches long enough to shake the professor’s hand. Proffy glared at him, as he did at any suitor for his younger daughter, and managed a semicivil grunt before turning and heading for the dining room with the regal assurance that all would follow.

  “Aren’t you coming, Noah?” Holly got no more than two feet before she realized that Noah wasn’t following.

  “Your sister and I have already eaten. I’ll keep you company in a moment but first I’d like to change my shirt.” The words were casual enough; the amused look he sent a still-numb Anne was anything but.

  “Well, I’m not really hungry,” Holly said hastily. “I’ll show you to your room.” She started back toward him eagerly.

  “No, you go on ahead. Anne can show me. We were in the midst of an interesting conversation when you got back, and I wanted to finish it.”

  Was that a threat or a promise? Anne raised worried green eyes to his face, but his expression was unreadable. “We’ll be down in five minutes,” she said firmly as Holly still hesitated. “You won’t even miss us.”

  Holly cast a languishing look at Noah. “Want to bet?” she said soulfully before trailing into the dining room.

  “I may have to lock my bedroom door tonight.” Noah’s voice was rich with humor, and a small, reluctant smile appeared on Anne’s shadowed face.

  “I don’t think the lock works,” she murmured, leading the way up the angled stairway, unaware of Noah’s appreciative gaze behind her. “You can always put a chair under the door handle.”

  “Where does your sister sleep?” he queried as she opened the door to her beautifully proportioned bedroom.

  “Next door. But there’s no connecting door.”

  “And where do you sleep?” She couldn’t tell whether it was a casual question or not, and her heart began to pound again as her mouth tingled with sudden remembrance of his cognac-laden kisses.

  “I’m sleeping in the studio,” she said, moving aside to allow him to precede her into the bedroom. She hovered at the door, reluctant to follow him inside, reluctant to leave him without some sort of explanation.

  He was the first to bring it out in the open. “I suppose I should say I’m sorry about what happened in the library.” His mobile mouth quirked upward in a rueful grin.

  It took all Anne’s willpower to keep from responding, “Are you sorry?” Instead she said, “I’m partly to blame. I didn’t realize who you were.”

  He was tossing his suitcase onto her bed, snapping it open with quick efficiency and pulling out a fresh shirt. He paused to stare at her for a moment before stripping off the wool sweater. “You didn’t?” He tossed the sweater onto the bed, and to her embarrassment the wide stain of cognac was a dark patch between his shoulder blades. He seemed more curious than anything else, and as he unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it out of his pants Anne wished she had escaped when she still could with a modicum of grace. But to run now would be ridiculously coy, and it was important that she be sophisticated and unmoved by that all too brief moment of passion by the library fire.

  “You said your name was Grant,” she explained, unable to tear her gaze away from his chest. He had tossed the stained shirt onto the bed and was taking an achingly long time in putting the new one on, giving Anne more than enough time to memorize the beautifully sculpted expanse of his chest, the lean, wiry strength, the golden skin with its faint trace of hair that seemed made for…

  Anne cleared her throat. “Steve Piersall arrived earlier and I assumed he was Holly’s Noah. So when you arrived and said your name was Grant, I naturally thought you were Ashley’s latest…friend.” She wondered vaguely if he’d be insulted by her false assumption, but she was still too distracted by that body to care.

  He pulled a blue corduroy shirt on, and Anne watched all that lovely skin disappear with mingled relief and regret. “You thought I was Ashley’s latest,” he repeated, amused. “No wonder you seemed so comfortable—I haven’t been used to being treated as quite so safe. Well, suffice it to say I’m not Ashley’s friend.” He moved across the room, tucking his shirt in around his lean waist, his tread light and purposeful. “And, as you discovered to your everlasting guilt, I’m not particularly safe. And I’m not Holly’s Noah, either. Does that make you feel any better?” That last question was in a deep murmur as he stood directly in front of her, not touching her, his blue eyes warm and smiling down at her.

  Those smiling eyes were hard to resist, but resist them she did. “It’s none of my business,” she replied coolly.

  “Liar.” He laughed, but it was a gentle laugh, with no mockery to be heard. “Am I going to get a chance to meet the upstanding gentleman?”

  “Who?”

  “That was Ashley’s term for your fiancé,” he explained gently. “Where is he, by the way?”

  “Wilson will be here for dinner tomorrow,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll like him.” Actually, she was sure he wouldn’t, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “That remains to be seen.” Both his face and his voice were enigmatic as he casually took her elbow in one strong, capable hand. The warmth of his flesh burned through her loose chamois shirt, and Anne wanted to yank her arm away and race down the hallway. She also wanted to turn and drag him back into the bedroom, but of course she did neither, forcing herself to remain unmoved as they went back downstairs. But all she could think of was the strong hand on her elbow, the thumb caressing her with a light, almost absentminded touch; and for a moment she allowed her fantasies a final free rein before clamping a firm hand down on them, summoning up the disapproving ghosts of Wilson and her sister to drive the guilt homeward.

  Noah seemed to have an almost eerie ability to read her mind, for he stopped her at the bottom of the stairs, looking at her with a wry expression. “There’s no need to feel so guilty, Annie,” he said softly. “It wasn’t your fault, you know. You’re only human. I’m sure Wilson will forgive you.” He chose that moment to bring up his other hand and gently brush a stray wisp of silky black hair from her face.

  Anne’s thoughts were far removed from her erstwhile fiancé and wholly concentrated on the man in front of her. Holly was right, she thought miserably. He very well might be the sexiest man alive.

  She managed a bright, no-nonsense smile and deftly pulled away from him. “I think I’ll survive the disgrace,” she murmured, preceding him into the dining room and moving to sit beside her father, determined to keep as far out of his reach as possible for the rest of the night. He was just too damned distracting.

  To her intense disappointment, a determined Holly and a meddling Ashley made that all too easy, so that Anne had little choice but to retire to her bedroom just before one o’clock, leaving Holly with the cognac and her designs on Noah’s virtue. She heard him refuse the
cognac as she went, felt his eyes following her; it was small enough comfort during the long hours before sleep would come, when she dutifully tried to bring Wilson Engalls’s tall, blond good looks to mind. Even the memory of the few times they’d made love failed to excite her or even distract her from the stubborn memory of Noah Grant and his enticing mouth. Punching her pillow, she cursed, rolled over and pulled her quilt over her head. Finally sleep claimed her, and with it dreams of Noah Grant so erotic she blushed in her sleep.

  Chapter Three

  Noah shut the heavy white-painted door with a silent, well-oiled click. The crystal doorknob winked at him in the dim bedroom light, and for a moment he considered following Anne Kirkland’s half-facetious advice and propping a chair against it. Holly Kirkland didn’t really give a damn about him, but she was bored and obviously unaccustomed to taking no for an answer. It had taken all his not inconsiderable reserves of charm to escape her with his long-lost virtue still reasonably intact, and even so he couldn’t be sure he’d distracted her permanently. She was definitely the type to sneak into his bedroom and his bed sometime in the middle of the night if the mood struck her, and the mood seemed to be hovering about like a dangerous cloud. And normally he would have welcomed that midnight excursion with wry forbearance and a great deal of physical pleasure.

  But not tonight. Definitely not tonight. He’d gotten involved with this as a favor to his father-in-law, and pretty, easy Holly Kirkland was supposed to be a side benefit. A side benefit he no longer wanted. He hadn’t particularly liked what he was being asked to do, but it had seemed no worse than a dozen other chores he’d had to perform since he’d passed his bar exams. And they were nothing compared to the deal-making and sleazy scuffling that had fallen to his lot as a law clerk. It was no wonder that he wanted out. It was only a wonder that he’d stood it so long.

  It was well past midnight already, and the house was silent. Noah turned and leaned his back against the door, surveying the bedroom with interest. He had the very strong suspicion that this was more than just a spare bedroom. There was a subtle scent in the air, a delicate hint of flowers mixed with something sharper. A grin slashed his face as he recognized the smell of the spilled cognac on his discarded shirt, and for a brief, dangerous moment he let his thoughts drift back to that moment by the fire.

  It had been irresistible. She’d sat there, cross-legged on the faded Oriental carpet, her green eyes shyly flirting, her mouth smiling, her entire manner treating him as if he had the combined sexuality of Old Mother Hubbard and Mister Rogers. And while he didn’t consider himself possessed of an overwhelming sexual vanity, he wasn’t used to being treated like an eunuch. And when she’d looked up at him with that innocent, sexy face of hers he’d given in to the temptation to show her just how uneunuchlike he was. And had enjoyed every moment of it, from her sudden, astonished response to that clutching, unexpectedly heated need that had spread between the two of them like wildfire.

  But it had been a stupid mistake. He had complicated an already unbearably complex situation, and there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it. He was here to do a job, a last favor for his father-in-law, and then his debts, emotional and professional, would be paid in full, and he’d be free. And he needed that freedom very badly. He couldn’t afford to let an impulsive attraction for Anne Kirkland deter or distract him.

  Pushing away from the door, he crossed the room, absently unbuttoning his shirt as he went, sniffing the air with an appreciative delight. It smelled like roses. Innocent, with a touch of full-blown passion beneath the fragile petals. Anne Kirkland chose well when she chose her scent. He could still remember the faint trace of it against the soft skin of her neck. And what was he doing, standing in the middle of what must be her bedroom, having erotic fantasies about a woman he was going to hurt very badly? Through no fault of his own, through no desire of his own, he was going to be the instrument of the destruction of her security. And standing there thinking about her delicious skin wasn’t going to change matters.

  It had all seemed so easy just three days ago. Wendell James had outlined the situation, leaving Holly Kirkland to fill in the details. The Allibet Foundation was very interested in purchasing an estate on the New Jersey side of the Delaware, just across from New Hope, as an artists’ colony and retreat. Negotiations were delicate—three of the four owners wished to sell. It was up to Noah to find out just how suitable the Kirkland house was for their purposes, just how likely they’d be to knock down the price a bit, and what sort of encumbrances, including the recalcitrant fourth owner, stood in the foundation’s way of purchasing the property.

  Holly Kirkland had been exactly as he’d expected when he met her Wednesday night at her preordained singles bar. He’d heard her play once, years before, when Nialla was still alive, and been favorably impressed with her facility and her light, lilting touch. Nialla had insisted she lacked depth, but Noah had argued that age and experience would remedy that. Nialla had disagreed, accusing him of being bemused by her prettiness, and they had spent the rest of the night fighting, as they spent so many of their nights in the year before she died. Fights that would resolve in the passion that neither of them could get enough of.

  Part of him had dreaded meeting Holly, remembering those interminable fights and their unforgettable aftermath, but her light flirtatiousness had managed to push Nialla’s memory into the background, and he’d been grateful. It was too much to hope that Nialla’s reproachful ghost would disappear entirely.

  Holly had leaned across the tiny table at the bar, her strong hands with their short, serviceable nails pressed together, the low-cut front of her flame-colored silk dress dipping to expose most of her small, high breasts. Noah knew enough about women to recognize the gesture as practiced and deliberate, a fact that amused him without lessening the desired effect.

  “The problem, Noah,” Holly had murmured in a confiding tone that could barely be heard above the thumping strains of Joe Jackson, “is my sister.”

  “Your sister?” he echoed politely, sipping at the dark whiskey in front of him.

  “The fourth owner. You have to understand, the house is an albatross. It’s simply too large for us to afford anymore. We just keep throwing money at the old monster, and no matter how much we give, it still demands more. It’s falling down around us, and Anne can barely keep up with the repairs. It’s running her life, blinding her to everything, and there’s no way to make her see reason.”

  “You’ve tried?”

  “Of course we’ve tried,” Holly replied, her concern not interfering with her ability to bat her eyes. “She’s got a fixation about the place—she won’t leave till she’s forced out. That’s why we’ve got to lie about why you’re coming with us. If Anne had any idea we were planning to sell the house, she’d do anything she could to stop us.”

  “Could she?”

  “Stop us? Possibly. Not legally. Wendell James has already checked that out. We only need three of the four owners to agree to sell. But she could make things very difficult, delay things. We’ve all agreed—the only thing we can do is present her with a fait accompli.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?” he inquired pleasantly enough over the din, covering the instinctive feeling of distaste that filled him at the idea of more trickery.

  “My father, my brother and me. We’ve accepted the facts of life even if Anne can’t. Wendell is taking care of the legal aspects of this whole mess—he just needs you to check out the local ramifications.”

  “So I gather. He trusts me to make sure it’s what the foundation really wants.”

  “I don’t think there’s any question of that,” Holly said confidently. “You’ll fall in love with the place—everyone does.” She toyed with the dregs of her drink. “We’ll have to think of some excuse for your presence this weekend. I think we should just tell Anne that we’re lovers.”

  That trace of diffidence in her voice was admirable, he thought distantly. Just a shy peek from her blue ey
es—there it was—and a self-deprecating little smile. He knew his cue and replied with an ironic suavity that was lost on her. “I’m sure I’ll manage to be convincing.”

  There was no question about it, her answering smile had been breathtaking. And it had been a respectable interval since he’d spent the night anywhere but in his solitary bed. Holly Kirkland was exactly the sort of woman he liked. Bright, pretty, talented, with a shell around her heart like a chocolate-dipped ice-cream cone. They could pleasure each other’s bodies without endangering any emotions, which was just what he wanted. But not that night.

  It wouldn’t have taken much to move the relationship into bed. Holly’s bright-blue eyes had made it more than clear that she found him attractive. And he had every intention of taking her up on her unspoken offer, once they got to the old house. But that night her calm plans had turned him off as much as her pretty body in that luscious silken dress had turned him on, and he’d made a plausible excuse.

  And now he was practically hiding out in a solitary bedroom, having done everything in his power to deter her. And he couldn’t quite understand why. Unless it was a belated regret over what they were doing to her sister.

  It was a beautiful old house, there was no question about it. And that it was falling down around the genteelly impoverished Kirkland family was equally apparent. Anne Kirkland was fighting a losing battle; sooner or later she would have to accept defeat. He just wished that he wasn’t going to have to be part of that defeat.

  Taking off the rest of his clothes, he climbed into bed, wishing for the first time that he owned something as mundane as nightclothes. They usually made him feel that he was suffocating, but they’d provide at least a measure of protection if Holly felt like doing a little night walking. Would it be a different matter if it was Anne Kirkland? Probably. And yet it was Anne who was trouble, not Holly. He had to remember to keep his distance from both sisters. He had enough trouble in his life.