by Penny Jordan
Now the tables were deserted, the umbrellas closed, and Maggie remembered one of the diners saying that the small hotel had a very attractive coffee lounge, much favoured by locals and tourists alike. It would probably be wise for her to shelter in there until the heaviness of the rain had abated, and a hot, fresh cup of coffee wouldn’t come amiss either, she reflected, ducking her head and grimacing as she had to almost paddle across the cobbled streets to reach the entrance to the hotel.
Inside, someone had carefully exposed and cleaned the ancient beams. Despite the fact it was late July, a log fire was burning cheerfully in the huge grate. A waitress, carrying a heavy tray of glasses, shook her head regretfully when Maggie asked the direction of the coffee-lounge.
‘It’s only open market days and Saturdays,’ she explained, ‘but if you don’t mind sitting here I could bring you a tray of coffee and something to eat.’
Thanking her, Maggie looked round for an empty table. There was only one free in one of the half-dozen or so small alcoves along one wall. It was shadowy, almost dark at this end of the room, and the booths themselves were curtained off from one another, giving them an air of shadowy mystery and privacy.
A man and a woman were sitting in the booth next to her own, and all Maggie could see of them as she removed her raincoat and sat down was their legs, as the light from the lamp on the table illuminated them. The woman was wearing impossibly high heels of the type that Isobel favoured, the man, pale grey leather loafers almost exactly the same shade as the immaculately creased pastel-grey trousers that looked so out of place in this sturdy building, whose customers were mostly burly farmers and their families.
These two had obviously not come in to shelter from the rain, Maggie observed as the smiling waitress reappeared and took her order. There were no signs of damp on either the spindly-heeled court shoes or the soft loafers. Neither were the pale grey trousers marked by rain spots. Idly wondering who this couple were and deciding that they must be tourists, although rather inadequately shod ones if they planned to go round the remains of the abbey, Maggie was just about to take a sip from the deliciously fragrant coffee the waitress had brought her when she heard Isobel’s familiar voice.
She froze instantly, imagining she must be mistaken, half making to get up in her seat, only to subside again as she heard Isobel demanding theatrically, ‘Oh, hell, Paul, tell me what I ought to do.’
‘You know what you must do,’ her companion answered her. His voice wasn’t as deep or as attractive as Marcus’s, and Maggie felt a faint frisson of distaste run through her, although why, she could not have said. Perhaps it had something to do with the man’s immaculate clothes, so plainly out of place in this country setting.
‘We can’t keep meeting like this,’ Isobel interrupted him in some agitation. ‘Someone is bound to see us.’
‘Does it matter?’ the man responded, his voice amused and caressing. ‘Let’s go back to my place,’ Maggie heard him adding softly. ‘No one would see us there, and I’d be able to…’ His voice dropped lower, but not so low that Maggie couldn’t hear quite plainly the intimate and extremely explicit suggestions he was making.
Her face burned, more with indignation on Marcus’s behalf than with any shock at what she was overhearing. She waited for Isobel to chide the man and remind him that she was engaged to someone else, but to her astonishment Isobel merely giggled. From the sounds she could hear, Maggie guessed that the pair of them were preparing to leave.
What she did next was something she would come to regret bitterly, but at the time the only thought in her mind was that somehow or other she must protect Marcus’s interests. Somehow she must prevent a second engagement from being wrecked, and as she stood up and confronted the departing couple, barring their way, it was with a confused belief etched very firmly in her mind that fate had decided she was to make atonement for her past sins, by being instrumental in preventing Marcus’s second chance of happiness from slipping away from him.
Isobel went white when she saw her, grabbing hold of the arm of her companion. He wasn’t much taller than Isobel herself, a neat, languid figure with blond hair and a too-white smile that somehow never quite reached his eyes. Compared with Marcus he was nothing, and Maggie couldn’t imagine what on earth it was that Isobel could possibly see in him.
‘Come on, Paul. Get me out of here, for heaven’s sake,’ Isobel cried out, and when Maggie reached out to try and stop her she pushed past her, almost causing her to overbalance.
Sick with the implications of what she had witnessed, Maggie sank back into her own seat. She desperately wanted another cup of coffee, but her hand shook so much when she poured it that more of it seemed to end up in the saucer than in the cup. Her mind was a jumble of confused thoughts.
What exactly was Isobel’s relationship with Paul, apart from the obvious? The obvious being that they were quite definitely lovers. Maggie winced at the thought. Had Isobel met Paul after she had become engaged to Marcus, or was he perhaps a married man with whom she had had a long-standing affair, or…and then abruptly she remembered Anna Barnes telling her that Isobel had been very heavily involved with another man before she became engaged to Marcus, and that this man had supposedly dumped her in favour of somebody else. She tried to remember what Anna had told her about Isobel’s previous boyfriend and could remember nothing. She glanced up uncertainly and saw that the sky was lightening. If she delayed much longer, she would be late collecting the girls.
Finishing her coffee, she picked up her parcels and stood up, and was amazed to find that she was still trembling. It was no business of hers if Isobel chose to have coffee with someone, she tried to tell herself as she headed back to her car, bitterly regretting that she had ever gone into the hotel in the first place. But she had, and now she was the possessor of information she would much rather not have had.
There was absolutely no way she could tell Marcus what she had overheard, but neither was there any way she could conveniently put it out of her mind. Her heart ached for Marcus. He deserved better than Isobel, much, much better, but it was not her place to tell him so.
All the way home Maggie worried about what she had seen and overheard, and, as though the girls too picked up on her introspective mood, they sat quietly in the back of the car. Almost the first thing Maggie saw as she turned into the courtyard was Isobel’s car parked next to the door.
As she switched off her engine, she realised the Isobel had only just reached the house ahead of her. Quickly she wondered if her delay had been caused by the fulfilment of the hot desire she had seen burning in Isobel’s eyes just before they’d focused on her and she’d realised that she and her lover had been overheard.
The girls went ahead of her into the kitchen, leaving Maggie and Isobel alone.
‘I suppose you can’t wait to tell Marcus, can you?’ Isobel challenged her recklessly, her eyes glittering with malice. ‘Well, I’m sorry to deprive you of the opportunity to play Miss Goody Two Shoes, but I’m going to tell him myself.’
Maggie recoiled in disbelief and distress as she caught the very obvious scent of alcohol on Isobel’s breath. Surely the other woman had more sense than to drive when she had been drinking? She was wearing a vibrant dark red lipstick, far too sophisticated and glossy for the country.
‘Such a perfect little woman, aren’t you?’ Isobel hissed venomously at her, and then disappeared into the kitchen before Maggie could defend herself against her malicious remarks.
Both girls had gone upstairs to get changed, and when they came down again Susie reminded her that she had promised to take them down to the vicarage so that they could play tennis with Alison and another friend. All the time they were eating the light snack she had prepared for them, Maggie was tensely aware of Isobel’s presence in the study.
What was she saying to Marcus? Was she telling him the truth—that she had spent the afternoon with another man, another lover? Maggie shuddered, trying to put herself in Marcus’s place, tryin
g to imagine how she would feel if she had to learn that the person she loved had betrayed her with someone else.
A very thick wall, a corridor and two doors separated the study from the kitchen, and therefore it was not really surprising that no voices, raised or otherwise, should penetrate into the kitchen. The girls were waiting impatiently for her to drive them down to the vicarage.
She had an odd impulse to go into the study to check that everything was all right, but she quelled it, reminding herself that it was not her place to interfere. Nevertheless, after she had dropped the girls off and tactfully refused Mrs Simmonds’ offer of a cup of tea, she found she was driving a little faster on the way back then her usual speed.
Just as she was about to turn off the main road into the drive, Isobel’s car shot out ahead of her, the tyres squealing protestingly as Isobel turned on to the main road far too quickly and then drove away at a high speed. Her stomach knotted with tension, Maggie drove into the courtyard and parked the car. Her mouth was dry when she went into the kitchen.
She told herself that it was no business of hers what had happened, and yet, as she walked down the corridor past the open study door, she found she was hesitating beside it, lingering there.
‘Isobel…’ Marcus called out sharply from inside the room, and she had a craven desire to turn and run, but instead she said shakily,
‘No, Marcus, it’s me…Maggie.’ And somehow or other she found that she was inside the room and unable to tear her appalled gaze away from the diamond ring glittering malevolently on top of Marcus’s desk. Unable to hold the words back, she swallowed nervously and said huskily, ‘Oh, Marcus. I’m so sorry.’
‘For me?’ He laughed harshly in disbelief. ‘Don’t give me that, Maggie. Isobel’s already passed on your views on our engagement.’
Maggie stared at him, appalled. As far as she could remember, she had said nothing to Isobel that might indicate her true feelings. Surely Isobel hadn’t realised how she felt about him?
All the breath seemed to be squeezed out of her lungs. She stared at Marcus like someone in a trance, while her mouth went dry and she had to touch her tongue-tip to her lips to moisten them.
‘No denial?’ Marcus asked her in a hard voice.
‘I…’
‘You what, Maggie? You didn’t tell Isobel how much you pitied her, tied to a man who at best could never be completely free of a limp and who at worst could turn out to be a complete cripple. Is that how you see me?’ he demanded threateningly, coming across the room towards her and making the air between them almost vibrate with the intensity of his rage. ‘As something far less than a whole man who can only excite pity in a woman, and not desire?’
Maggie was horrified. ‘No…’ she denied. ‘No, Marcus! You can’t believe I said anything like that!’
‘Why not?’ he demanded brutally. ‘After all, it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve lied about me, would it? Only this time, Maggie, I’m going to teach you a lesson I swear you’ll never forget.’
As he grabbed hold of her, Maggie protested desperately, ‘No, Marcus. Please… I swear to you, I said nothing to Isobel. Look, I know how much it must hurt you to lose her…’
‘You don’t know the first thing about what makes me hurt,’ he told her, the harsh impact of the words almost bruising the sensitive flesh of her ear. ‘You make me hurt, Maggie,’ he told her. ‘You make me hurt in ways…’
His right hand, free of the plaster which had encumbered his movements, slid along her throat, his thumb probing the nervous tremor that ridged it as she swallowed. He was looking at her in a way that made her muscles lock in disbelief.
That couldn’t really be desire she could see burning in his eyes, turning his face hard and making the colour burn up under his tanned skin, and yet, when she allowed her disbelief to show in her own eyes, he said rawly, ‘You see, Maggie, the accident might have smashed virtually every bone in my leg, but it hasn’t destroyed my ability to feel, to desire…nor to lie awake at night aching with it, wanting…’
His teeth snapped together, biting off the words, and Maggie tried to wrench away from him.
‘It’s Isobel you want…not me,’ she protested chokily, adding, ‘Marcus, this is madness. You must let me go.’
She could probably have fought her way free of him, but if she did, she could potentially do untold damage to the fragile bones that were not yet healed and which, now free of their supporting plaster, must surely be far too vulnerable to expose to any kind of force.
He saw her looking at him and laughed savagely. ‘Go ahead and kick it,’ he suggested watching her. ‘Go ahead and bring me down, Maggie, the way you’ve brought me down many, many times before.’
She looked at him, her expression tortured. ‘Marcus, you know I can’t.’
‘No?’
His thumb stroked the fluttering pulse in her throat as though unable to resist the temptation to torment it.
She made a despairing sound of protest and tried to reason with him.
‘Marcus, I know you must blame me for what’s happened with Isobel. I know how you must be feeling, but you can’t honestly want to…’
‘To what?’ he taunted her. ‘To take you and strip the clothes from you and then to taste and touch every delectable inch of your far too enticing body?’
She shivered as the words rolled easily off his tongue, almost with amused detachment, hardly able to credit what she was hearing.
‘I can assure you that I do, and indeed have done for longer than I care to think about. I wasn’t totally oblivious to all those provocative little messages you used to send me, you know, but in those days I was idiotic enough to believe…’
He broke off and Maggie pleased huskily, ‘Marcus, please… I know you’re angry with me, but this is all wrong. I don’t want you, and…’
She didn’t get any further. He looked at her and she could almost see the triumph glittering in his eyes.
‘Don’t you? That wasn’t the message I was getting the other night.’
For a moment she didn’t realise what he meant, and then, as his gaze dropped slowly and mockingly to her breasts, she did, and her skin burned.
‘That was because I was cold,’ she told him defensively. ‘I told you at the time.’
‘Yes, you told me,’ he agreed mockingly. ‘But both of us knew you were lying. However, if you’d prefer me to prove it to you…’
She was wearing a simple cotton dress, fitted at the waist, short-sleeved, with a pleated skirt and buttons all the way down the front, and before she could stop him, holding her easily with his left hand, Marcus deftly flicked open the buttons, revealing the creamy paleness of her skin right down to her waist.
‘Marcus…no,’ Maggie breathed, knowing even as she spoke that she was fighting a losing battle, not so much against him but against herself. Once he touched her…once she felt the warmth of his hands against her flesh…his mouth… She shuddered, deeply frightened by the depth of her craving to be part of him…frightened by her inability to hold on to sanity and remember just why he was doing this.
Another plea of protest whimpered in her throat, but Marcus wasn’t listening to her. All his attention was concentrated on the exposed V of flesh revealed as he pushed aside the unfastened bodice of her dress to reveal the swelling softness of her breasts concealed only by the flimsy lace structure of her bra.
He made a sound deep in his throat and goose-pimples rose up under her skin, her nipples instantly hardening.
What a betraying reaction, and he hadn’t even touched her, Maggie acknowledged weakly. When he did…
When he did, his hands were so gentle that she almost cried out at the tenderness of his touch. As his fingers drew gently on the hard buds of flesh, her spine arched like a bow, all thought of resistance draining from her as her body burst into flames at his touch.
She forgot where they were…or why they were there. She forgot what time it was, what day it was, everything bar the fact that she
was actually here at the place she had yearned to be so desperately for so long, at last within the magic circle of Marcus’s desire.
His mouth grazed the slender arch of her throat, one hand hard and flat against her spine, supporting her, while his other hand tormented the aching peak of her breast, her senses screaming silently for him to free it from the prison of her bra and to place his mouth against its swollen heat and suck it until he had drawn away completely the frenzied, burning need that rolled inside her.
But oddly, when he did what she had yearned for him to do, she discovered that the fierce movement of his mouth against her flesh increased her desire rather than caused it to abate, and not just increased it, but spread it until there was not a part of her body that didn’t ache and throb so violently that she could scarcely draw breath without setting off destructive tremors of sensation.
She touched her own mouth to Marcus’s throat, feeling the flesh burn and jump. Her nails scored fiercely against his skin as he released her breast and held her against his body until the sensation of her hard nipples pressed against his bare flesh made him shudder wildly and cover her mouth with his own.
She must have unfastened his shirt, Maggie realised dizzily as he took her hands and pushed them, palms flat, against his torso. While she touched the hard, golden flesh, he shrugged out of his shirt, and she watched him easing himself slightly away from her, trembling from head to foot, caught fast in the toils of sensations so intense that her slender body could scarcely contain them.
‘Maggie,’ Marcus muttered thickly, reaching for her and moaning something in her ear far more shocking than anything she had overheard between Isobel and Paul. But she was beyond being shocked by what he said, beyond anything other than glorying in her body’s total response to him, responding to his verbal torment by pressing herself against him and feeling him shudder deeply. His hands slid inside her dress, skimming her hips and then grasping the round softness of her bottom, kneading the flesh so urgently that her whole body quickened.
