The Runaway Bride

by Lucy Gillen

  CHAPTER FIVE WHILE

  Barney was in the bar, Samantha thought, was a good opportunity to slip away on her own and do some exploring. They had arrived in the little village only a couple of hours before, and it had been her decision to stay there, at least overnight She liked the look of Braemeeren and, since she had been told that it was her expedition, she could choose the stopping places. Barney, she felt sure, would rather have stopped further away from Barsheil, but there was little likelihood of Bill Smith having a change of heart and less still of his turning up here. She slipped quietly past the open door into the bar, and prayed that the hum of male voices in there would drown the sound of the manager's greeting to her. While Barney was being entertained in the bar she would be away on her own and see what the countryside was like for walking. Not that she was normally a keen walker, but somehow this beautiful country made one ashamed to do no more than speed through it in a car. There was a stony, moss-covered path leading from the hotel gardens, through a belt of fragrant pine trees to a loch, and Samantha followed it until she found herself at the edge of the water. The loch spread and sprawled over the greeny-blue valley like spilled wine, and was edged with a scattering of 77 white stones that looked incredibly clean and stark in the sun. The only other building that she could see from here was a small grey stone cottage tucked away amid a cluster of trees, right at the far end of the loch, and looking oddly unreal, rather as if it had been painted there. With vague thoughts of Hansel and Gretel running through her mind, Samantha set off towards it, not quite knowing why it attracted her so much, for it was a much longer walk than anything she was accustomed to, and distance could be deceptive in this kind of countryAs she skirted the bulging sides of the loch, the cottage disappeared from view behind its screening trees, and it was lost for quite a while. Indeed she found herself almost upon it when she saw it again, and was surprised to see how far she had come. The white-painted elegance of the hotel was a mere glimpse through the pines, and looked almost dismayingly distant. 'Hello! Are you lost?' She turned back hastily, and instinctively smiled at the speaker. He must have stepped out from the trees while she was turned to look back at the hotel. 'No,' she said, recovering from her surprise. 'I was just realising how far I'd walked.' 'From the hotel?' She nodded. 'It's quite a step.' He looked so exactly like the popular conception of an artist that it was almost laughable long fair hair brushing his shoulders and a rather straggly beard, with numerous paint stains on his hands and clothes to confirm the guess. Also he had the lightest 78 blue eyes she had ever seen, and they were looking at her in a bold, openly appreciative way that stirred some response in her from deep down, a sensation she hastily suppressed. 'Do do you live in the cottage?' she asked. 'Yep.' 'American,' she guessed, with such unusual lack of restraint that she surprised herself. He was shaking his head, a slow smile spreading over his face. 'Nearly right,' he said, 'Canadian, in fact.' The light blue eyes looked at her quizzically for a second. 'You're not a local lassie either,' he said, and laughed shortly. 'I know them all.' His meaning, it seemed to Samantha, was unmistakable, and she knew she should have disapproved of him, but somehow it was difficult to do that. He was a very attractive man despite, rather than because of, his appearance, and she could well imagine that he would have little difficulty finding female companionship. He might almost have been following her thoughts, the way he was smiling at her, and she instinctively shook her head. Her pulse leaped wildly, when a second later she put her hand into the large, paint-stained one he offered. 'Peter Roberts,' he said. 'Samantha Dawlish.' He squeezed her fingers and held her hand for far longer than was necessary. 'Now we've observed the proprieties,' he told her. 'I hope you'll come again, Samantha Dawlish.' 'I I don't know how long we'll be staying here,' she told him, horribly aware that she felt, and must 79 have looked, as gauche as a schoolgirl. Peter Roberts was a very disturbing man. 'Oh, I see it's we.' Barney and me.' She raised her eyes and saw that he neither knew nor cared who Barney was. Peter Roberts had a single-track mind and at this moment his interest was entirely with herself. 'Uh-huh.' He cocked his head on one side. 'You're not from this side of the border, I recognise that much,' he said. 'Enlighten me further.' She could not help the way she smiled at the almost autocratic order, and it did not occur to her to refuse an answer. 'I don't suppose you've even heard of it,' she told him. 'Little Dipstock it's in Surrey-' 'I know Surrey,' he said, 'but so far Little Dipstock's eluded me. I must give it a whirl some time.' The pale blue eyes swept over her, their approval obvious and uninhibited. 'It must have great possibilities.' 'It's quite pretty,' Samantha told him, deliberately misunderstanding. 'But it's very quiet and there's nothing to do. Not in Little Dipstock itself, you need a car really.' His expression was as serious as her own. 'Oh, I have a car, and I can usually find something to do, however quiet it is. Have you always lived there?' She nodded. 'Since I was three.' 'A little country mouse, huh?' She suspected sarcasm, and resented it, thick- j fringed blue eyes looking up at him reproachfully. 'We're only a few miles from London,' she said. , 80 I 'I'm not a country mouse, Mr. Roberts.' He bobbed his head in what presumably passed for an apology. "So you're not a country mouse.' He studied her for a second or two and she wondered what impression he was forming of her. 'Are you enjoying Scotland?' Samantha looked about her, at the valley and the hills, and the bright waters of the loch. 'It's beautiful,' she said, and looked at him again. 'You're an artist, aren't you?' He grinned, displaying the long, paint-splodged hands. 'I try to be,' he said. 'If you can't paint here, you can't paint anywhere. It's a great country.' That, Samantha felt, was the first really serious thing he had said. He looked at her steadily for a second or two, then smiled again. 'I hope you're going to stay long enough for us to get acquainted,' he told her, and Samantha hastily dropped her gaze again. 'Oh we'll be here for a day or two anyway,' she said. 'I like it here.' 'Good. I'd hate to have you wander in and out of my life without .something happening, Samantha Dawlish.' He took her left hand in his and for a moment she felt the long, thin fingers working at her third finger, then he raised it to his lips briefly and laughed. 'No strings, I see,' he said softly. 'No visible ones, anyway.' Samantha began to feel a strange but exciting kind of panic in her breast and she clasped her left hand tightly with its mate, when he released it. Things were running along rather faster than she could cope with, although her feelings so far were 81 only pleasurable, if a little alarming. 'I I'd better be getting back,' she said, 'before I'm missed.' He made no attempt to persuade her, voiced no wish that she should stay longer, but there was a bright glitter in the light blue eyes that said more than words and she turned away hastily. He still stood there, a few moments later, tall and thin in paint-spattered jeans and open shirt, his fair head turned in her direction, and just before she disappeared round the curve of the loch, she raised a hand in farewell a gesture he did not even respond to. She was feeling quite tired by the time she got back to the hotel, and her face was flushed pink with the unaccustomed exercise of walking, although the walk back had seemed shorter than the outgoing one. Probably because she was .so preoccupied thinking about Peter Roberts. She would say nothing to Barney about having met him, in fact she saw no reason why he should know that she'd been out at all, if he was still busy in the bar. What the eye didn't see the heart would have no cause to grieve over, and he would undoubtedly make some form of protest if he knew she had been visiting a strange and attractive artist on her own. It was a really lovely day, Samantha thought, and stretched lazily, closing her eyes against the sun that shone down directly on to her face. The past couple of days had been unbelievably peaceful compared to the way things had been recently, and she 82 j', was really beginning to enjoy herself. j This particular spot in the Highlands was quite the most beautiful she had ever seen and she felt t- she could be content to stay there always. If only there weren't so many disturbing things to consider, like all those plans that Uncle Nicholas and Uncle Robert had made for her and Barney. The wedding date, and the dress so ma
ny things she would much rather forget about. Barney, stretched full length beside her in the heathery grass, turned his head and smiled at her, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses that gave him an even more than usually foreign look. 'You should have specs on,' he told her, but she shook her head. 'I don't need them, and I wouldn't be able to see all those wonderful colours if I wore dark glasses.' 'You won't see anything at all if you ruin your eyes,' he retorted, and Samantha frowned impatiently. ~ 'Oh, don't fuss so. Barney, you sound like Uncle Nicholas.' 'Maybe because I'm standing in for him at the moment,' he said. 'And God knows, you need a keeper.' She glared down at him, hugging her knees close under her chin. 'You always were bossy,' she informed him, rather relishing the chance to retaliate; 'Just because you had an eight years' start on me, you always thought it gave you the right to boss me around.' 'Elegant,' he observed with a grin. 'Very elegant and ladylike.' 83 'It gives you a a sort of superiority complex,' Samantha went on, refusing to be sidetracked, and he grinned at her lazily. 'Is there such a thing?' he asked. 'I've heard of an inferiority complex.' 'Which is something you'll never have,' she retorted swiftly, and he laughed. 'You wouldn't even look at me if I had, darling,' he said confidently, and she turned away again, made uneasy by that elusive something in his voice that had appeared lately, and which always discomfited her. It was something new to feel shy with Barney and something she resented for no reason that she could think of. 'I was enjoying being lazy and thinking about nothing,' she said, hugging her knees tight under her chin. 'You would have to go and spoil it by starting an argument.' 'I didn't start an argument,' he denied. 'You did.' 'Somebody did,' she complained, staring at the shining water and thinking about the tiny cottage that sat at the head of the loch, hidden from here by trees. They were sitting on the edge of the loch, not too far from the hotel, but isolated enough to be undisturbed, and she had not thought about Peter Roberts until this moment. Now she found him filling her mind until the temptation to walk along the edge of the loch and visit him was almost irresistible. If she could go without Barney wanting to come with her. 'I feel like walking by the water,' she said, after a 84 moment or two, and got to her feet. 'Don't you come too,' she added when he stirred lazily, and he laughed. 'I hadn't intended to,' he told her. 'You can't get up to much mischief, just walking by the lake.' 'Loch,' she corrected him, brushing down her frock. 'In Scotland it's a loch, not a lake.' 'A puddle by any other name,' he observed casually, clasping his hands behind his head. 'Whatever it's called, I don't suppose you'll come to any harm just walking by it.' 'No, no, of course I won't.' It must have been something in her voice that made him suspicious, for a second later he sat up and took off his dark glasses, narrowing his eyes against the sun's glare. 'Have you got something up your sleeve?' he demanded as she prepared to walk off, and she half turned to look at him again, a-small half smile round her mouth. 'I haven't a sleeve,' she told him sweetly, 'as you can see, so I can't very well have anything there, can I?' 'Don't be obtuse, Sam.' He regarded her steadily. 'Why are you suddenly so keen on going for a walk? You're not normally so energetic.' 'I am sometimes,' she argued, wishing he'd either put on his glasses again or at least stop studying her the way he was. 'Oh no, you're not.' He sat now, hugging his knees as she had done, his dark eyes definitely suspicious. 'Sam, what are you up to?' 'Nothing,' she protested, hoping'to sound con85 vincing. 'I'm'not up to anything.' He reached up and gripped her wrist tightly, a small tight smile crooking his mouth at one corner. 'If you run out on me again,' he warned, 'I'll break your beautiful neck, Sam, I swear it.' She looked down at him for a moment, then pulled her arm away, rubbing the flesh where he had gripped her. 'I'm going for a walk,' she stated firmly, 'and so far I don't need a permit from you at least I don't think it's got that far yet.' 'Sam!' He sounded more hurt than angry and she could have turned back and denied that she meant it, but instead she walked on, turning in the direction of the sweeping blueness of the hills that made a perfect background for the loch and the valley, or glen as she had been taught by their host. She bit her lip on that strange feeling of excitement that stirred in her every time she thought about the little stone cottage and its occupant. It was almost like a challenge, that look of Peter Roberts', and she felt a disturbing desire to meet it head-on regardless of the consequences. Perhaps it was the influence of this wild and beautiful country that made her act so rashly and out of character. Vaguely at the back of her mind too was a desire to show Barney that she was not yet ready to settle down as a wife. As she walked she wondered vaguely if she was only doing it to prove something to Barney. The situation between them was changing so rapidly lately that it was quite alarming. She had dreamed of 86 romantic moments in her life, in the same way that most young girls did, but she had always shied away from making Barney, whom she felt she knew almost too well, the central figure in those fantasies. They had never quarrelled so fiercely or so often in the past as they had in the last few days, and there was a disturbing new .element in their relationship that made her shy. away from him, rather than turn to him as she had always done. She had met Peter Roberts and said nothing about him, a thing she would never have done at one time, and now she was on her way to see him again, having deliberately discouraged Barney from coming with her. On her way to see a man she had met only briefly, once before, and who had made it obvious that he had only one thing in mind. She dared not think what Barney would have to say if he ever found out about it, and yet some small imp of devilment made her wish that he would find out. He would undoubtedly make a lot of fuss, but that would give her the opportunity to point out to him that Peter Roberts was no more to her than those openly admiring women he responded to so readily. It was a long way round the loch to the cottage half hidden in the tree-shaded curve at the head of it, and she felt quite glowingly warm by the time the cottage came into view. The door was open as it had been on the first occasion when she came, and she felt a rapid and disturbing flutter under her ribs when she caught sight of a fair head bent over an easel set up near the corner of the house. 87 He was every bit as attractive as she remembered him from their first meeting, but she hesitated to interrupt him when he was so apparently engrossed in what he was doing. He had not heard her approach, that was obvious, unless he had decided to ignore her, hoping she'd go away without disturbing him. He looked somehow tense and animal-like and he sat hunched on the small stool, concentrating on what he was doing to the exclusion of everything else. Sweeping bold strokes of colour on to a broad canvas, he gave the summery, pastel-soft landscape a boldness and harshness she felt it did not possess, and yet the result was striking and very beautiful. She stood for a while, just far enough off for him not to sense her presence, looking at the bright, bold canvas and wondering why she found it so exciting. He had not heard her come, that was obvious from the way he turned sharply and stared at her for a moment when she spoke. Then the startled look was swiftly replaced by a welcoming smile. 'Hello,' he said. 'I hoped I'd see you again.' 'I I was passing,' Samantha said, avoiding an outright admission of visiting him. 'I I thought I'd say hello.' The light blue eyes swept over her, and he smiled. 'I'm glad you did.' 'You're not too busy?' He shrugged and waved a paint-stained hand at the canvas. 'It'll keep,' he told her. 'How do you like it?' 'It's beautiful.' The opinion was an honest one 88 and he recognised it as such, smiling appreciation. 'You're sure I'm not disturbing you?' He laughed softly, running his long fingers through his hair. 'I imagine you disturb most men,' he told her, 'whether you try to or not.' It was a compliment as bold as the colours he had used on the canvas and she realised, uneasily, that he was a man who would know no half measures. Everything he said and did would be bold and decisive, and she began to have second thoughts about the wisdom of coming here alone to visit him. 'I don't want to interrupt you if you're getting along well,' she said. 'I'll get along all the better for seeing you,' he said. 'Come in and have a drink.' 'Oh no, no, thank you. I won't, if you don't mind.' He was smiling at her in rather the same way that Barney did sometimes and t
he comparison was rather disturbing. 'You don't drink, or you won't?' he asked. 'I do sometimes,' she admitted. 'But it's a little early in the day for me.' 'How about some coffee?' he suggested. 'That wouldn't be against your principles, surely.' No. No, it wouldn't, of course.' 'Then come in and I'll make some.8 Her hesitation was brief, but he noted it, she knew, and there seemed little she could do but follow him when he led the way into the tiny cottage, cluttered and dimly cool after the sunshine outside. He waved her to the one vacant chair. 89 'Sit down,' he invited. 'I won't be a minute with the coffee.' There was only the one room downstairs, so that he could still talk to her while he busied himself making coffee for them both. The light blue eyes looked at her speculatively over one shoulder, and he smiled slowly. Where did you say you were travelling to?' he asked, and Samantha shrugged. "Nowhere in particular,' she told him. 'We're we're just moving around for a while.' 'On the run?' he asked, outrageously, and she stared at him indignantly. 'Oh no, of course not!' He was unperturbed by her reaction, and smiled again. 'Just a thought,' he said. 'It's the grand tour, then, is it?' 'Something like that.' It was difficult trying to make a stranger understand, and her hands felt horribly trembly as she clasped them together in her lap. 'I we felt like seeing a bit of the country, that's all.' 'You and your husband.' He grinned. 'I felt where you'd worn a ring,' he reminded her. 'The mark always stays on your finger for quite a long while, you know.' Samantha instinctively circled the base of her naked third finger and felt the slight .indentation where her discarded engagement ring had been. 'Am I right?' he asked, and she shook her head. He made no excuse for his curiosity, and would never see the need to offer any, she felt sure. 'Barney 90 isn't my husband,' she said. 'Huh-huh.' He juggled with mugs and spoons, watching her all the time. 'Your lover, then.' 'No ' Of course he was bound to think of that as the only alternative, and she saw herself getting in deeper. Heaven knew what interpretation, he was putting on her visit to him, by now. He was still unaware of having offended. 'Oh well, it was just a guess.' One lover or half a dozen would matter little to him, she thought dizzily. 'I've I've known Barney for a very long time,' she said, seeking to explain, though heaven knew why she should bother when he cared so little. 'We're we're more like brother and sister really.' 'Like brother and sister,' he repeated with a smile, and turned to deal with the boiling kettle. He made instant and very black coffee, and apologised for the absence of milk, thei. sprawled himself lazily in another chair, disregarding the heap of discarded clothing and shoes it already held. 'So,' he said, sipping the black brew and peering at her over the rim of his mug, 'you're heading for nowhere in particular with your sort of brother.' Samantha nodded briefly, discomfited further by his obvious disbelief. 'I suppose so,' she allowed reluctantly. 'In a way.' He chuckled, swallowing another mouthful of the scalding brew. 'Well now,' he drawled, 'you sound like a girl after my own heart, Samantha Dawlish. Live for today and let tomorrow take care of itself. O.K.?' She nodded, but doubtfully, and he chuckled again. 'Funny,' he said, 'I'm not often fooled by a Qi woman, and I'd have put you down as the conventional type wanting wedding bells and all the trimmings before you'd let any man near you,' 'How how do you know I'm not?' His brows shot up into the untidy fair hair on his brow, and the light eyes gleamed at her over the rim of his mug. 'What, when you're running around with this guy you say is your sort of brother?' She felt her cheeks burning, and sought for words to correct the impression she had evidently given. 'So he is,' she insisted. 'Barney's well, he's different.' 'He must be!' 'Mr. Roberts!' 'Oh, now for crying out loud don't get all het up about it,' he begged, still grinning at her from behind his coffee mug. 'And call me Peter or Pete, I don't answer to a handle on my name. I wasn't getting at you or your sort of brother. Good luck to him.' 'You're quite wrong about us, really,' Samantha told him, putting down her mug, and rattling it on the wooden table top because her hands were shaking so. There was a look in his eyes that was like a warning light and she found herself hoping that Barney was not too far away. It was ridiculous, of course, to hope that, because it had been to repay Barney in some obscure way, she had come here in the first place. 'Don't you like your coffee?' he asked, and she glanced at the thick black brew that she had scarcely touched. 92 'It's it's a bit strong for me,' she said. 'But thank you for going to the trouble.' He leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, his expression quizzical below the untidy fair hair and beard. 'I get the impression that you're about to run,' he told her. 'Am I right?' She hesitated to admit it, in case she had been wrong about him, as he was about her, but her limbs felt horribly trembly and she was certain the doubt she felt showed in her eyes. 'I I think I ought to be going,' she said. 'Barney will wonder where I've got to.' 'If he cared a damn where you got to,' he told her bluntly, 'he'd have come with you, surely.' 'Oh, but he does!' She could be wrong, she thought, and what a fool she would look if she fled for no reason at all. He had made no move in her direction yet, but was still regarding her with those bright, light eyes as if he was trying to make some sense of her. 'Have you given him the slip?' he asked, an arched brow suggesting a reason for her doing so. 'No not exactly. I mean he knows I came in this direction.' 'Will he follow you?' She wished she knew the answer to that herself. 'I I don't know,' she confessed. 'It's possible.' He put down his mug, then leaned his elbows on his knees again and smiled at her. 'You puzzle me, Samantha,' he told her. 'I can't quite figure you. Are you the wide-eyed innocent you look, or are you just a good actress?' 93 'I'm neither,' Samantha denied. 'Oh, come on now, you must be either one or the other,' he insisted, and studied her for a second or two from behind his coffee mug. 'I'd have plumped for the wide-eyed innocence, but it doesn't go with traipsing around Scotland with a guy who's neither . husband, lover nor brother, according to you. And it doesn't fit in with you coming here to see me, either. What's the mystery about you, Samantha?' 'There's no mystery!' She got to her feet and walked to the open door, standing on the worn stone step and looking out at the sweeping splendour of the scene before her, her mind briefly torn from her own problem by the sheer beauty of it. 'I I was interested, knowing you were an artist that's all.' 'I see.' He came and stood behind her and, a second later, she felt his hands slide about her waist and pull her against him, while his bearded mouth tickled her right ear when he kissed it. 'I'd like to paint you some time,' he told her, a rough harshness in his voice, muffled by the thickness of her hair. 'Only at the moment I can think of much better things for us to do.' The utter folly of coming here alone came home to her at last, when she realised the impression she had given him. 'No please, Peter, let me go I' She pulled vainly at the hands clasped over her waist and tried to free herself, a sudden panic rising like a solid lump in her throat when her efforts availed her nothing. 'That that isn't why I came, it isn't!' He chuckled deeply but kept his hold on her. 94 'Oh, come on now,' he said, laughing against her cheek, 'you didn't just come here for a cup of coffee.' He turned her suddenly to face him, his hold tighter than ever. The bearded face came closer, his mouth seeking hers, and the blue eyes gleamed satisfaction as he forced back her head with a kiss more savage than enjoyable. Samantha struggled wildly, using her feet as well as her fists, tears of anger and panic rolling down her cheeks when she failed to free herself. Barney! Where was Barney? Peter Roberts was strong, but the hands that sent him hurtling against the side of the cottage were even stronger, and he shook his head dazedly as he looked at his attacker. Then a slow, ironic smile spread across his bearded face and he ran long fingers through his hair as he slumped against the wall, making no attempt to stand upright again. 'I guess you're Barney,' he said, and shook his head slowly. 'And I guess you're not her brother either, chum.' Barney, surprisingly, looked less angry than Samantha expected him to, indeed he had not even asked her yet if she was all right, an omission she resented bitterly in the circumstances. 'Maybe because I'm not her brother,' he told the artist quietly, and Samantha could have sworn that there was a hint of a smile on his face. 'Is that what I'm supposed to be?'
Peter Roberts shrugged, that unperturbed smile still in place. 'A sort of brother, so I was given to understand,' he said. 95 'Well, now you know I'm not.' The other man nodded. 'Fair enough, pal. I had my suspicions about it from the beginning, mind you, but the enchantress here denied you were her husband or her lover, and I couldn't slap any other label on you.' 'Try fiance,' Barney suggested, still in that amazingly calm and quiet voice. 'We're getting married on the twelfth of next month.' 'Oh, I get it.' The pale eyes settled on Samantha's pink and angry face, and he shook his head. 'You don't play fair, enchantress.' He grinned at Barney knowingly. 'They never do, do they?" 'I didn't ' Samantha began, but Barney held her firmly by her wrist and pulled her against his side, although he did not even look at her when he spoke. 'I don't suppose you'll be seeing us again,' he told Peter Roberts. 'We're leaving tomorrow morning.' 'I don't ' Samantha tried again to make herself heard, and Barney's dark, unfathomable eyes turned on her at last. 'We're leaving,' he told her. 'And in the meantime you'd better stay close to me, where I can keep an eye on you.' It was the worst thing he could have said, and she hated it when she heard Peter Roberts chuckle, but she was obliged to recognise that he would care little or nothing what became of her. He was a creature of the immediate present and never worried about the future his own or anyone else's. Barney held on tightly to her hand all the way 96 back along the loch side, as if he feared she might run off. He said nothing at all, although she doubted if it was because he was angry. He had seemed almost amiable towards Peter Roberts, when she had expected him to have been annoyed at least, so that she could not help wondering how often he had found himself in a similar position. He brought them to a halt just short of the hotel, but in the concealment of the dark firs that surrounded it. She noticed that his face appeared quite relaxed, and even showed signs of the inevitable amusement. Nevertheless she lifted her chin in a gesture of defiance when he looked at her, and studied her for a while in silence. 'You just never learn, do you?' he asked at last, and she frowned. 'I know what I'm doing,' she told him. 'Oh, I don't doubt you do! In your own muddled little way I suppose you were trying to'show me that I'm not the only fish in the sea the way you did with Bill Smith.' 'No, I 'Of course you were,' he argued. 'It's as plain as day what you're up to, but you choose the oddest assortment of playmates, don't you? First a scion of the landed gentry, then a wild and woolly artist. You certainly go in for variety, darling.' 'Oh, don't be so damned condescending,' she said tartly. 'You don't know how I feel, and you don't have to follow me around like a a guardian angel either. I don't need you.' 'Oh no? And how do you suppose that little 97 episode back there would have ended if I hadn't come along?' 'I could have managed.' She wished he would let her go to her room, give her a chance to sort out her rather chaotic thoughts in private. 'You could have managed,' he jeered. 'Are you completely crazy, Sam? That artistic Romeo meant business, couldn't you see that?' 'Well, you didn't seem very upset about it,' she retorted. 'Because I couldn't blame him,' he said brusquely. She flushed. 'I suppose it was my fault?' 'Of course it was,' he agreed calmly. 'If you go visiting a man like that alone and in the middle of nowhere, naturally he thinks of only one thing.' I I didn't realise.' He looked at her down the length of his nose; an arrogant disbelieving look that she resented. 'You aren't that naive, Sam. You wanted to get back at me, however much you deny it, and making up to our bearded friend was one way of doing it. Well, I hope you're satisfied with the result.' It was too uncomfortably near the truth to be palatable, she realised, and wished he would stop looking at her like that. 'I there wasn't any result, as you call it,' she denied. 'Nothing happened except one kiss, and you certainly didn't do much about that.' 'Sorry to disappoint you,' he jibed, 'but I told you I don't blame him, he was just making the most of something too good to miss, like any man would.' 'Like you've done more than once, no doubt,' she retorted. 'Here we go,' he grinned. 'All those affairs I'm supposed to have had, they still niggle, don't they?' 'Only supposed?' he laughed, his eyes glowing like coals in the shadow of the trees. His hands circled her waist, pulling her close against him in a grip that was far too tight to resist, and she spread her fingers over the strong, steady beat of his heart, feeling her own thudding wildly. 'I do believe you're jealous, darling,' he told her softly, and laughed again when she shook her head vehemently. 'Oh yes, you are,' he insisted. 'I'm not I Now let me go. Barney, let me go!' 'Why?' he demanded, his hold on her tightening. 'We're going to be married, so why are you so fighting mad every time I touch you?' 'I'm not going to marry you. I've told you again and again. I'll choose my own husband, in my own good time, and I won't be forced into marrying you just because our families want it.' 'I want it too,' he told her, still tightly holding her to him. 'Doesn't that count for anything?' 'No! You'd fall in with it because it would cement the foundations of the firm.' 'For God's sake, darling, you make us sound like sand and rubble ' 'I don't care.' She refused to be joked out of it. 'I'm not marrying you. Barney, and that's final.' . 'We'll see.' His grip on her tightened. 'Who else ' have you got lined up?' 'Oh, you you monster! You crude, evil-minded, hateful monster I' 99 'Charming!' 'I I hate you!' 'That's too bad, darling Sam,' he told her, 'because you're going to have to put up with me for the rest of your life in a very short time now.' 'If you think ' 'I know,' Barney said firmly, and stifled any further protest she would have made. There was both passion and gentleness in his kiss and she felt herself responding to it almost without realising it, until the sound of a car engine coming along the drive to the hotel brought her back to earth with a jolt, and she broke away from him, running as fast as her legs would carry her, through the trees and up the steps into the hotel. 100