Thankfully, Jethro simply carried her case to the flouncy foot of the bed, said, ‘See you later, then,’ and left the room, closing the door behind him. Allie plopped down on the frilled, flower-patterned counterpane and swore at herself.
She didn’t know what was happening to her, why she suddenly seemed incapable of thinking straight, why she acted—and felt—like an all-fired idiot! Squawking, falling over herself, imagining that some vital spark of sexual tension was thrumming in the air between them.
Twisting the thin metal band round on her finger—could it really be brass?—she had the manic urge to tug it off and fling it in a corner of the room. She huffed out her breath on a sharp little groan.
What the hell was wrong with her? She had asked him to marry her, hadn’t she? Offered him what amounted to her life savings. He needed the money and she needed this sham of a marriage in order to give Laura the keys to Studley and tell her, It’s all yours, Mum. For as long as you want it, to do with as you will.
She and Jethro had made a bargain, and so far he was sticking to his side of it. Using his friend’s holiday home for a pretence of a honeymoon was a pain, but it did make sense—as he had pointed out. And he’d done the gentlemanly thing and suggested she use the only bedroom with an en suite bathroom to avoid the embarrassment of them accidentally bumping into each other in the shower.
So why was she getting her knickers in a twist?
No good reason. No reason at all! True, a week ago he’d been hanging around, chatting her up, no doubt fancying a fling—nothing serious, no commitments. But her offer had put a damper on his hopes for a little light fooling around in the soft summer evenings because the cash was far more important to him. Which was exactly what she had banked on.
So stop thinking about it. Stop imagining something that isn’t there, she grumbled at herself.
Stiffening her spine, she stood up and deliberately took stock of her surroundings to shut him out of her mind. The pretty room looked as if it had been designed for a female. The fabrics were patterned with fully blown roses, lovely soft shades of dusky pink and heavy cream, with the pink shade echoed by the carpet and the cream by the plaster panels enclosed by exposed silvery oak beams. What furniture there was was antique pine, lovingly cared for, and the adjoining bathroom was a delight—small, but containing everything she could wish for.
His old schoolfriend must be an extremely generous man to allow them free run of his lovely home, she decided, beginning to unpack the few things she’d brought with her from the selection of slop-around-in old casuals she kept for use when she was visiting Laura.
She would ask him about his friend, she thought, as she put a pair of blue jeans and a cotton shirt out on the bed to change into. Ask what he did for a living, if he was married, had a young daughter, perhaps, whose room she was using. It would be something to talk about during what would probably turn out to be the long, dragging hours of their rural isolation.
After stripping off the blue silk suit, she sluiced her face and brushed her teeth. She’d shower later, directly after supper, and have an early night—cut down the time they actually had to spend with each other as much as she could. In the meantime, she thought as she buttoned the cotton shirt and secured the slithery length of her hair into her nape with an old ribbon, she would revert to her normal self: cool, contained, distant.
She opened the bedroom door and went to find him.
She was back in control.
And nothing was going to change that. Ever!
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHE strode out of her room, her head high, her eyes narrowed, her jaw determined—and walked into the warm, shocking vitality of Jethro’s magnificent all-male body.
The breath whooshed out of her lungs as his steadying arms immediately enfolded her, and with it went all those tough resolutions to revert to normal, to remain cool, controlled and distant.
Impossible to fight the tumultuous sensations that engulfed her as her suddenly and wickedly sensitised body absorbed the heat of his, the burning imprint of the hard wall of his chest against her tight, peaking breasts, the potent jut of his pelvis, the strength of those long thighs that were melded to her own.
And somehow her arms had gone around him, too, her hands splayed against his broad back. He had obviously changed into the soft white T-shirt while his body was still wet from the shower, because it clung damply to him, and when she moved her fingers, stroking, she could feel the tautness of his muscles over hard bone, the moist heat of his skin. Her head lifted, her lips parting, tingling, eager. Her mind had gone hazy and the only thing she could remember was the way his mouth had taken hers twenty-four hours ago. She wanted that again. Craved it with a desperation that had come out of nowhere, engulfing her with a tidal wave of need.
Kiss me.
She almost said the words out loud, and was so relieved she hadn’t that she actually felt sick when he said, ‘Steady on. Where’s the fire?’ and disengaged their arms, their coupled bodies, and told her lightly, ‘I was on my way down to make supper. Come and keep me company. You can lay the table and open the wine.’ His smile was kind, in a big-brotherly way, so perhaps he hadn’t noticed her immediate and crazy response. But whether he had or hadn’t, she felt deeply mortified.
She knew how she’d felt: abandoned and—she had to face it—wanton. His for the taking, or as good as. And that was utterly, totally humiliating.
Hadn’t she spent the whole of her adult life ignoring her sexuality with no trouble at all? Surely she wasn’t going to get into difficulties around Jethro Feckless Cole?
He was already clattering down the oak staircase, oblivious to the tumult he’d left behind, ready for his supper. The brief interlude that had robbed her of her now tenuous composure already forgotten.
A man who had his priorities right, she decided acidly, following, but slowly. Filling his stomach with food was more important than filling his arms with her shamefully willing body. The light-minded sexual interest he’d shown before she’d proposed this marriage had been easily forgotten because he wanted the money far more than he had ever wanted her!
For which she should be profoundly grateful, she snorted at herself. Not peeved, for pity’s sake!
She turned and headed back to her room, and presented herself in the kitchen five minutes later. She’d made out a cheque to him. The figure would have emptied her bank account but it was worth it, because it was payment for the right to install Laura at Studley and because it reinforced the fact that their being here together was nothing more than a business arrangement.
Silently, holding her breath, she padded over the terracotta tiles and placed the cheque on one end of the polished oak refectory table. But he heard her—must have done—because he turned from the cooker and instructed lightly, ‘Open a bottle of wine, would you, Allie? You’ll find the rack in the larder.’
The wooden spoon he held in one hand swung idly towards a door between a massive pine dresser and a cavernous inglenook fireplace, and then he turned back to the meal he was making, stirring a pan which gently emitted a wreath of garlicky, tomatoey steam.
Allie wasn’t going to argue with him. She’d meant to leave the room as quietly as she’d entered it, take herself for a long walk, because she wanted to get herself straightened out after the rush of lust she’d fallen prey to a scant ten minutes ago.
But somehow he’d been aware of her silent presence. So, she wouldn’t get awkward about it, she’d stay and eat with him, and that way she could at least prove to herself that she was back in control of herself again and had won the battle with her wretched hormones.
The wine rack was enormous, and fully stocked. Allie felt distinctly uncomfortable as she selected a bottle of red. She didn’t know a lot about vintages but the label looked expensive.
‘We can’t keep using your friend’s food and drink,’ she stated briskly as she walked back into the kitchen where he was feeding pasta into a pan of boiling water. ‘Are there an
y shops nearby? I could replace what we’ve used and stock up with our own stuff.’ Mentally applauding herself for the achievement of a coolly restrained tone, she added crisply, ‘Your cheque’s on the table. I would imagine you’d like to pay it into your account as soon as possible.’
There. She couldn’t have said anything more calculated to force the business side of their relationship home if she’d tried. So if he’d noticed the way she’d clung, and stroked, and sort of—wriggled when they’d collided earlier he would have no option but to put it down to shock at being winded. She couldn’t bear him to think she—well, fancied him.
Because she didn’t. Well, not really. Not at all!
She started to hunt down the bottle-opener and Jethro said, ‘The village is five miles away and the single shop doesn’t offer anything more exotic than fish fingers and oven chips.’ He watched her open drawers, her lovely face devoid of any expression. Not too long ago she had looked at him with drowning eyes, her luscious lips parted just asking to be kissed, her body pressed against his and making sensational little wiggling movements.
Moving away from her had been the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. He’d wanted to take what she probably hadn’t realised she’d put on offer so badly he’d hurt all over. But he’d made his decision. Making love to her could wait. It would have to.
He wanted to earn her trust, her respect; he wanted her to fall in love with him and share his certainty about their future together before he took her to bed. He wanted her to be as sure as he was.
He ought to be wearing a halo, he told himself drily and said aloud, ‘And banking the cheque can wait.’ Until hell froze over. He wouldn’t touch a penny of her money. Then he started to dish up their meal, and added, ‘Bob won’t mind our helping ourselves.’
She stopped fiddling with the bottle and the opener and withered him with a disdainful stare. Too late, he knew that his words, his lazy, throw-away tone, must have made him sound like the world’s worst sponger, and that was no way to earn her respect!
But she said, making him sure that falling in love with her had put his brain permanently to sleep, ‘You said it was Bill. The last time you spoke of your friend you called him Bill.’
Smothering a groan, he conjured up a smile coupled it with a minimal shrug, took the bottle of wine from her hands and drew the cork. ‘William. Robert. He always hated both his given names,’ he invented. ‘And he never could decide which of the diminutives he preferred and so answers to either.’
It sounded fairly reasonable, she supposed, especially as his explanation had been delivered so smoothly. At least it had eased away the sudden suspicion that his ‘friend’ was nothing more than a figment of his imagination, that he had somehow discovered that the owners were absent and had decided to make free with a temporarily empty property.
She didn’t want to think badly of him, to believe he was a sneaky cheat, going through life taking what he could get. It was very important to her, although she didn’t quite know why. Nevertheless, watching him pour the wine, she pressed, ‘What’s Bill-Bob’s surname?’
He didn’t blame her for being suspicious. He seized his senior PA’s name—he wouldn’t forget that!—and gave it to her. ‘Abbot.’
God! But he hated this stupid, devious game! For a moment he was sorely tempted to come clean, tell it as it was. But if he did she would wonder why, not needing her money, he had agreed to a marriage that sailed under the flag of convenience. And she would come up with the right answers and run a mile, because she sure as hell didn’t want what he wanted—a real and loving marriage.
Not yet. But she would. And as soon as she did he would tell her the truth and hope she would forgive him for the deception, understand why it had been necessary.
‘Shall we eat?’ he suggested, and was ready for her inevitable ‘Tell me about him’ as she sat at the table and lifted her fork.
‘What do you want to know?’ He took a healthy gulp of wine. Curiosity was endemic in the female of the species; she would want to know every last detail of the fictional Bill-Bob’s life! He would stick to the truth, describe himself. No more fairy tales, because he now knew for a fact that he wasn’t any good at making things up and remembering what he’d said.
‘Everything,’ she said, deciding that it would fill what could otherwise be a conversational vacuum. Hearing about someone she’d never met, and probably never would, would be infinitely preferable to an uncomfortable silence or venturing into the realms of the personal.
‘You got it,’ he conceded. He’d been expecting that. Besides, it would save time on lengthy explanations later, when he came clean about who he was. Because when that time came it would mean she had fallen in love as deeply and permanently as he had, and talking wouldn’t be on his agenda! He would simply refer her back to the conversation they were about to have, and—
Hastily he emptied his wine glass, and tore his eyes from the way the tip of her tongue came out to capture a speck of savoury sauce from the corner of her mouth. He applied himself to his neglected meal and gave her his own potted biography.
‘He’s my age. We attended the same prep and public schools, and, later, the LSE.’
So that explained the clipped, cultured accent, she decided, sipping her wine. He’d had a good education, so why had he ended up, at thirty-four, trying to earn a living cleaning windows? Some time in the future, before their final parting, she would ask him. She gave her ruptured attention back to what he was saying. She was supposed to be interested in his altruistic friend, not speculating about him!
‘While he was at the LSE he began playing the stock markets in a modest way. He anticipated the ’87 crash by a couple of months and sold his holdings while prices were sky-high, turning a modest outlay into a modest fortune—under a million. After that he began buying up failing businesses, turning them around and selling them on. Today he has an empire that covers most of the globe, and he has to be amongst the wealthiest men in the country.’
‘Bully for him,’ Allie said, almost dismissively. ‘But what about his family? His parents, wife, children?’
His eyes hooded, Jethro poured more wine for them both. Clearly she wasn’t wildly impressed by stories of fabulous wealth. The eyes of most of the women he knew would have been glittering with at best interested speculation and at worst naked avarice. But Allie, his Allie, was more interested in the human side of the man, and that reinforced his already rock-solid opinion that she was the only woman for him.
And now he was going to tell her things about his past life that he’d never shared with anyone else. She wouldn’t know it, of course; she thought he was talking about his fictional friend. But, all the same, the relief of opening his heart to her was sweet. And right.
‘My—’ He bit the word back. He had to remember he was not supposed to be talking about himself. ‘His parents lived in what I suppose you could call a minor stately home. They lived above their means and spent very little time with their son. Before he went to the local prep school the only time he left the nursery was to take a walk in the grounds with his nanny.’
‘Oh, the poor little boy!’ Allie interjected softly. Her eyes were misty. ‘He must have been so lonely.’
So, as well as the sensual side of her nature she was at pains to hide behind that cool façade, she had a soft and tender heart. His own heart swelled with love, and he had to force himself to stay in his chair and not leap up and snatch her wonderful body into his arms, take those soft lips with his and kiss her until they were both breathless and then come back for more.
‘Not a bit of it.’ He denied her tender-hearted statement. He was keeping himself on a very tight rein here, and his voice sounded rough around the edges. Decidedly unsympathetic. ‘His nanny, Nanny Briggs, gave him everything he needed, taught him to be independent, taught him right from wrong. She was firm, but she was fair, and she gave him far more mothering than the beautiful woman who barely noticed his existence because she was too busy hav
ing a good time, looking for—and getting—male admiration,’ he explained, setting the record straight.
Her deep blue eyes thoughtful, she asked, ‘You met his mother? You certainly seem to know a lot about her.’
‘A couple of times,’ he replied laconically. And that was as near the truth as dammit was to swearing. Vague and rare memories of a graceful form, beautifully dressed, expensively perfumed, a lilting laugh. No love.
Before she could probe any deeper on his out-of-school relationship with his ‘friend’ he added, ‘He was twelve and away at school when his sister Chloe was born. A month after that his mother disappeared altogether—he found out later that she’d done a bunk with a Greek tycoon, and that Chloe was, in fact, only his half-sister. There was a divorce, and his father—always a remote man—withdrew completely into himself. When Bill was home on school vacations he noticed that his father totally ignored Chloe’s existence. Which isn’t too surprising when you consider that his wife had dumped her child on him and taken off with someone who could spend serious money on her.’
‘It wasn’t the baby’s fault!’ Allie disputed hotly. Poor children. How awful to have parents who didn’t love them. And how lucky she was to have such a close bond with her own mother!
‘No, it wasn’t Chloe’s fault,’ Jethro agreed, smiling at her vehemence. ‘To give the old man his due, he did keep Nanny Briggs on to care for Chloe, even though at that time he was heavily in debt—although no one was aware of it. Later, when he began to amass a fortune, Bill could have helped. But it was only when the old man died that the extent of his debts became known.’ He struggled to keep the aching regret out of his voice, shared the remainder of the wine between them and continued levelly.
‘The family home was sold to cover the debts—neither Bill nor Chloe had any fond memories of the place—and he sent Chloe, who was fourteen at that time, to a good boarding school, and bought this place for them to use during the holiday times—a more teenage-friendly place than his house in Mayfair. Though for the last couple of years she’s been more inclined to spend her vacations with a bunch of her student friends. She’s almost through a course in interior design and seems to be doing well. For a time, after leaving school, she went haywire, got in with a group of seedy drop-outs. He had one hell of a time—’ And wasn’t that the truth! He’d been worried out of his mind. ‘Getting her to see she was on the way to ruining her life.’
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