by Penny Jordan
‘I imagine it must be,’ Piers agreed urbanely. ‘It is over two hundred years old.’
‘Well, yes, and if you were wanting a period family house then...’ He paused and shrugged. ‘I have to warn you, though, that we already have at least one seriously interested buyer, despite the fact that its survey showed the house could be subject to serious flooding if the river was ever to rise above its banks...and...’
‘Has it ever done so?’ Piers asked him quietly.
‘Well, no...at least not in the last hundred years,’ the agent conceded. ‘But, as I’m sure you’ll agree once you’ve viewed it, it comes nowhere as near to fulfilling your specifications in the way that this property does.’
It was quite plain to Piers that the agent was trying to push him into buying the house he had just viewed, and on the face of it he knew that he had to agree with everything that the other man was saying. After all, he hadn’t raised any points that Piers hadn’t already seen for himself. The farmhouse was a family home, and, to judge from the carefully worded estate agent’s blurb, in need of having a considerable amount of money spent on it, whereas the one he had just looked at needed nothing other than his own furniture. Even the floors were polished wood and didn’t need carpeting. It cried out for the kind of minimalistic décor that went perfectly with the kind of business image he ought to want to portray.
Crumbling plasterwork and an Aga were not the right backdrop for someone who was selling himself and his skills as an expert in the writing of the most technologically advanced computer software in the marketplace. He would have to have one of the outbuildings virtually rebuilt to house all his equipment, and even then...
Abruptly Piers dragged himself back to reality. In a bygone age a man suffering from what he was suffering from might genuinely have believed that Georgia had cast some kind of spell over him. But to think that was to believe that Georgia wanted him in her life, and she had made it more than evident that she had no such desire at all.
But she did desire him. Or at least she had done so when...
A small, discreet cough from the estate agent reminded Piers of where he was. He wasn’t going to put in an offer for the farmhouse—of course he wasn’t, he assured himself as he got into his car. It just made sense to view the only property locally that could provide him with a yardstick to measure the suitability of the house he had just viewed; that was all. Of course it was.
* * *
Georgia was feeling very pleased with herself, and with Ben. Shortly after Piers had left she had received a telephone call from the local paper asking if they could interview her that morning about the scheme she had originated for pets and their owners to visit the old people’s home. Even though Georgia had told the reporter that the idea wasn’t original, and that she was simply copying a scheme already in force in several other parts of the country, she had nevertheless agreed to be interviewed.
The reporter had arrived promptly half an hour later and the interview had gone very well. Rick Siddington was quite obviously an animal lover himself, and he had quickly endeared himself, to the owners whom he was also interviewing by making a big fuss of their pets.
Georgia had diplomatically left Ben behind on this occasion, sensing that he was all too likely to try to steal the other dogs’ thunder. Philip had actually come out of his office to speak with the reporter himself, and Georgia had been able to tell from the way he had smiled at her and patted her paternally on the arm that she had been forgiven her transgressions over the training class which Ben had disrupted—for the time being at least! Now, back home and having just finished grooming Ben, she sat back on her heels and surveyed his silky coat admiringly.
‘Good dog, Ben,’ she praised him repeatedly before giving him a small doggy treat for his good behaviour whilst she had been brushing him.
As Ben went to the door and asked to go out Georgia reflected modestly as she opened it for him that he really was making good progress, thanks just as much to his own canine intelligence as to her training skills—skills which, according to Piers, she simply did not possess. That jibe still had the power to hurt her, but nowhere near as much as the accusation he had thrown at her that she had deliberately encouraged his godmother to give Ben a home whilst knowing that he was a totally unsuitable dog for her. Those words had stung, all the more so because they simply weren’t true.
How could he be so hateful to her so soon after he had...after they had...? But hadn’t she already warned herself that the intimacy which had left her so helplessly incapable of denying the sweetly heady sensual desire he had aroused in her, had meant nothing emotionally to him? He had probably kissed a dozen women as passionately as he had kissed her, probably more—whilst she...
A self-conscious pink wash of colour stained her skin as she remembered how she had lain there on the bed, totally naked, practically basking in the look she had seen in his eyes. That kind of behaviour was totally out of character for her, but she would be foolish to imagine that what had happened meant anything to him. If it had—She could hear a loud angry roar through the open kitchen window. Someone was shouting at Ben.
‘Come here, you—’
Anxiously Georgia ran to the kitchen door.
A smartly dressed elderly gentleman was marching up the garden path, his face red with temper.
‘Is this your dog?’ he demanded angrily.
From his bearing and his clipped voice, Georgia guessed that he was an ex-serviceman.
‘Er...in a manner of speaking,’ she agreed hesitantly as she studied Ben’s soil-encrusted nose and paws.
‘What do you mean? Either he is or he isn’t,’ the man snapped impatiently. ‘Damn hound! Caught him digging up my vegetable garden.’
‘Oh, no, I’m so sorry,’ Georgia apologised immediately.
“‘Sorry” won’t undo the damage he’s caused,’ she was told acidly. ‘If you own a dog you should keep him under control... He deserves to be shot.’
‘Oh, no!’ Georgia protested, her face paling whilst she tried frantically to work out how on earth Ben had managed to escape from the garden, which she knew Mrs Latham had had surrounded by a special ‘dog-proof’ fence at considerable expense.
‘I’ll pay for whatever damage he’s caused,’ Georgia offered, inwardly hoping it wouldn’t prove to be too much. She could understand the man’s anger. Her own father was a very keen gardener and she knew how he would have felt if someone’s dog had dug up his prize vegetable patch.
‘Hmm... The estate agent told me when I bought my house that this was a quiet area, with most of the properties owned by older people...’
‘Well, I don’t actually own this house,’ Georgia felt bound to explain.
‘But you do own this...this dog?’ he insisted grimly.
‘I... No, Ben, no,’ Georgia commanded sharply as Ben, growing bored, playfully crept up to the man and made to jump up at him, leaving a set of muddy paw-prints on his immaculate grey trousers.
‘Oh, I really am sorry,’ she apologised again. ‘He’s...he’s only a young dog and he—’
‘He’s a menace, that’s what he is. He ought to be chained up,’ the man growled acerbically at her. ‘And if I find him in my garden again he’s going to wish that he was. There’s a law in this country now about allowing dogs to roam.’
Guiltily Georgia listened to his tirade, knowing there was nothing she could reasonably say or do to make amends.
‘Six months of hard work gone completely to waste,’ the man was telling her furiously. ‘You should see what he’s done to my prize dahlias... I was growing them for the County Show and—’
‘What’s going on here?’
Neither of them had heard Piers walking into the garden, and Georgia’s face went as pale as the man’s was flushed as she saw him standing there.
How much had he overheard?
Just as she was about to launch into an edited explanation of what had happened the man beat her to it, turning to him and demandi
ng furiously, ‘That damn dog of yours has just ruined my garden. Caught him down by the young lettuces, digging the whole of them up. Your wife’s offered to pay for the damage but that isn’t the point. That dog—’
‘I’m not—’
‘She isn’t—’
As they both spoke at once Georgia clenched one hand and stopped. Let Piers explain the situation to his godmother’s angry neighbour. He would probably do a far better job of doing so than she could. But to her consternation, as Piers continued to explain to him that they were not actually married, the man jumped to the wrong conclusion and exclaimed bitingly, ‘Hah! I suppose I should have known. It’s all of a piece—no standards...no morals... That’s what’s wrong with you modern young people. In my day a young man took his responsibilities seriously, whether they were to a woman or to a dog, and he had to buy a licence for both, just to prove his good faith and his intentions to honour his responsibility to them and to the community at large. But of course it’s all different now—no respect for anything or anyone...’
‘Just a moment!’
Piers’s voice cracked like a whip as he spoke sharply to the other man, commanding his attention and his silence.
‘Whether or not a couple choose to marry is their business and no one else’s. A man proves his respect and his love for the woman he commits himself to by the way he treats her and their relationship. And I can promise you that my responsibilities are something I take very seriously indeed.’
Piers moved closer to Georgia—so close to her in fact that for one wild, illogical moment she almost felt as though he had done so out of a desire to defend and protect her.
‘I’m sorry.’ The other man began to stutter, suddenly looking older and very much more frail than he had done when he had first arrived. He was elderly, and a little out of step with modern life, and probably, because of that, a little intimidated by it, Georgia guessed. And she could well understand how angry Ben’s destruction of his garden must have made him feel.
‘Look, why don’t you come in and have a cup of tea?’ she suggested gently to him. ‘Then we can discuss what can be done to put matters right.’
Georgia could see the look of surprise on Piers’s face, but suddenly she felt almost sorry for the older man, sensing intuitively that he was probably rather lonely.
‘I...er...’
‘Yes, that’s an excellent idea,’ Piers agreed, smiling as he added, ‘Only instead of tea perhaps a strong G and T might be more in order.’
‘Well...now you’re talking,’ the older man agreed heartily.
In the end their unexpected visitor stayed for over an hour, and they learned that he was a retired colonel whose wife had died two years earlier, and that his decision to move to the area had been prompted by a visit he and his wife had made to the town many years earlier.
‘No family, you see. Both of us only ones, so no family to speak of. Felt that it would have been what Ethel would have liked...’
‘Well, I’m sure when my godmother returns she’ll be very keen to introduce you to her bridge cronies,’ Piers informed him.
‘Bridge?’ The colonel’s eyes gleamed with interest. ‘Haven’t had much time to get involved socially as yet. The vicar called round, of course, but I’m not a church-going man, never have been. Ethel liked a good sermon...’
By the time he got up to go it was agreed that Ben’s destruction of his garden was to be forgotten just so long as there wasn’t a repeat performance. However, the harmonious end to the day was somewhat marred for Georgia as, when he stood on the front doorstep, the colonel turned to them both and confided, ‘Shouldn’t say so, perhaps, but it seems to me that a dog like that is too much of a handful for a mature lady... A little house dog would be much better...’
After he had gone Georgia waited tensely for the stinging condemnation she was sure that Piers was going to utter, but, to her surprise, as she carefully washed the heavy crystal glasses he had used for their drinks, he came up to her and told her quietly, ‘That was very well done of you; he’s obviously very lonely, poor chap, although I admit for a moment when he... In your shoes I doubt that I’d have had the compassion to offer him a cup of tea.’
‘He was very angry,’ Georgia responded, dipping her head over the hot washing-up water to conceal the shock his praise had given her.
‘With good reason,’ Piers told her dryly, adding, ‘How did Ben get out, by the way?’
‘I’m not sure. We’ll have to check the fence and make sure any holes are safely mended.’
She gave a small sigh. ‘I’ll go round tomorrow to see the colonel. My father’s a keen gardener and I know how he’d feel in the same circumstances. Perhaps something can be salvaged.’
‘Now I think I begin to understand just what motivated you to persuade my godmother to take Ben on,’ Piers said wryly. ‘You’re far too soft-hearted...’
‘No, I’m not at all,’ Georgia protested, turning towards him defensively. ‘I can be very determined when I need to be.’
‘Very determined to be a soft touch,’ Piers scoffed, and then, to Georgia’s astonishment, he added huskily, ‘Have you any idea how much, right now, I want to kiss you?’
‘To...to kiss me...?’ Georgia stammered, her face flushing guiltily as she recognised how much she actually wanted him to put his words into action. Veiling her expression from him with downcast eyelashes, just in case he should see what she was feeling, she began huskily, ‘I...I don’t think that that would be a good idea...’
‘You don’t?’
‘I...I don’t know why you should. After all...’
‘You don’t?’ Piers repeated, his voice becoming even more throaty and sexy. ‘Does this make it any easier for you to see why?’ he asked her softly as he moved towards her, the bulk of his body cutting off her escape as he placed his hands at either side of her on the worktop. The white tee shirt he was wearing revealed most of his arms, and, as she had been before, Georgia was overwhelmed by a desire to reach out and stroke her fingertips down their length. They looked so strong, so masculine...so...so sexy...so...so him.
She gave a small ecstatic sigh of feminine bliss and closed her eyes, opening them again in breathless shock as she felt the warm pressure of Piers’s mouth probing the softness of her own.
‘Piers...no...’ she started to say, but for some reason her firm denial was voiced as a husky, ‘Mmm...’
‘Mmm...’ Piers echoed, in a much deeper and more possessive masculine tone. ‘It would be so easy to make love to you,’ he told her rawly, the words pouring hotly into her ear as his hand caressed the narrow curve of her waist. ‘I could take you here...now...’
‘In the kitchen?’ Georgia squeaked breathlessly. She wasn’t used to strong gin and tonics, especially when she had only managed to eat a snacky sandwich. The liquor must have gone to her head, loosening her tongue as well as her inhibitions, she reflected as Piers seemed to interpret what she had intended to be a statement of rejection and distaste as one of curiosity and encouragement.
‘Mmm...shall I show you how?’ Piers asked her, and then, without waiting for her response, he was picking her up, lifting her off her feet, holding her powerfully against his body. He whispered wickedly to her, ‘We could use the table. I could lay you on it and unfasten your shirt...’
Georgia could feel the heat of his gaze scorching her skin right through her clothes as he looked at her breasts, and she could feel, too, the little prickle of excitement that puckered her nipples into tight, eager points.
‘And then...?’ Georgia heard herself gasping huskily.
‘And then I’d hold your breasts in my hands and I’d stroke and tease your nipples until you were begging for me to take them into my mouth, just as I’d be begging for you to touch and taste me,’ Piers told her in a raw growl.
‘And then I’d touch you here...’ he told her, his hand just lightly skimming the junction of her thighs, the lightest, briefest touch imaginable, but it was enough to
make her melt with longing, to burn with need and to show every bit of what she was feeling in her eyes.
‘And you’d look at me...just the way you’re looking at me right now,’ Piers told her thickly, ‘and I’d want you so much that I’d almost be afraid of hurting you, knowing that the way I wanted to have you would be hot and passionate, and it wouldn’t be over for a long, long time; that I’d want to explore every inch of you... touch you...stroke you...know you...eat you...’
‘Piers...’ Georgia managed to protest chokily.
‘Piers what?’ he asked her, his fingers already sliding inside the fastening of her shirt and hooking round the buttons. ‘Do you want me as much as I want you, sweet Georgia?’ Piers asked her, his fingertips tantalising her as they slid sensually against her skin.
Her breasts ached so for his touch...his mouth... Georgia shivered in mute pleasure as she heard him whispering to her, ‘Do you lie in bed at night thinking of me the way I think of you...imagining the soft silkiness of your skin, the sweet taste of you...that sexy little purr you make when you’re aroused...?’
In another second he would be touching her nipple, and once he did... He was just toying with her, amusing himself, that was all; he didn’t really feel anything for her. Right now he might say he wanted her, but tomorrow he would be behaving horribly to her again; she knew it. Frantically Georgia clung to what she knew to be reality.
‘We can’t,’ she protested thickly. ‘We don’t... We’re enemies, Piers,’ she reminded him.
‘Enemies?’
His fingers stilled on their sensual journey across her skin. Slowly he withdrew them from her body as he stood up, releasing her.
‘Enemies? Is that how you see us? Yes, I suppose you’re right,’ he agreed curtly, and then he walked away from her, opening the kitchen door and then very quietly closing it behind him.
Georgia ached to call him back, but somehow she managed to prevent herself from doing so. As though he sensed what she was feeling, Ben climbed out of his basket and came across to lean against her. Automatically Georgia stroked his fur, wondering why it should suddenly feel so damp and then realising that she was actually crying. Crying? Over Piers? What a fool she was being. The next thing she knew she would be thinking she had fallen in love with him! And she was far too sensible to allow anything like that to happen. Far too sensible!
