by Margaret Way
Brooke gave a funny little laugh out loud. 'I thought you hadn't seen Cathy Benton in ages?'
' ’Allo!' he muttered, and glanced down at her, 'you're jealous! '
It hit a raw nerve, but Brooke didn't mind because the adrenalin rushing through her veins made her feel better.
'Put me down! ' she said icily.
'Why?' He held his glance on her face, lowering it to the curve of her breast. 'You're my fiancee!'
They were both angry, yet he gathered her to him with assurance and faint violence. 'No, thank you!' she returned vehemently. 'I'd rather be an old maid!'
'Come now, be reasonable! ' he said mockingly. 'What do you really have against me?'
'Your adventures!' she whispered, staring up into his face. 'Your affairs and all that. I don't intend to put Positively No Trespassing on my future husband, but I would expect him to be faithful. It's not an. unique asset, you know. Husbands are faithful even today.'
'I can hear you!' he said with arrogant serenity. 'Okay, why not? I, too, can be faithful, so don't make difficulties. If something should happen that could make me desire you, then by the grace of God, I should do my very best.'
'I'm sorry, it's impossible!' She said it like a sigh because out of nowhere came a hot, hungry yearning, a demanding to be loved and understood. Always deep within her she had guessed at his attraction, the brilliant blinding force that could crumple her defence and defeat her.
His face seemed completely void of expression the light on his eyelids, the sculptured mouth and the cleft chin giving him the appearance of a classical statue. 'You want me to love you, don't you?'
'Oh, go away!' she sighed, averting her head from danger. 'Go away and leave me in peace!'
He carried her the few extra feet to the bed, and she kept her eyes tightly closed, while her blood kept singing and urging. It must be shock, she thought. The reaction to a terrifying experience and she still hadn't thanked him.
'There's nothing you want?' he asked in a voice that made her heart flip over.
'Did you have to drive like a madman?' she accused him unjustly.
His shadow fell across her and she opened her eyes, seeing him through her fringed lashes. She could tell he was angry and something else. Something she had evoked.
'You had to rush away like a silly little child! '
'Oh, never mind! ' she half groaned, and threw herself sideways, her heart hammering loud and fast.
'What happens now, I wonder? Do you thank me?' he enquired.
'How crazy!' Brooke was breathing hard and he turned her all the way back into his arms, the piercing shock of it making her go limp, while he lowered his head and kissed her softly and deeply on the mouth. It was perfect, and she was aware he was treating her with an unheard of gentleness, even a tenderness that was more ravishing, more confusing than a hard passion.
When it was all over she still didn't believe what had happened. Waves of despair were coming for her like the tide, but there was an explanation for it. Paul was simply a man with an infernal, sexual radiance, a technique that could drive a woman up to the summit, only to let her fall again like a discarded pebble.
'Buona notte, mia cam,' he said dryly. 'I expect you will fall straight to sleep and dream of me.'
'No. Oh no!' she exclaimed 'I'm not that sort of a dreamer! '
'Actually you kiss beautifully!' The faint laugh in his voice mocked her. 'I'm yearning for our next! '
'Goodnight, Mr. Corelli!' she said. 'The best thing you could do is continue your promising friendship with Cathy. It will save you a lot of trouble.'
'I've had trouble all my life,' he said smoothly, 'and I'm not going to lose my best piece of property yet. Fall asleep on it, cara, because I know how to handle you!'
At this point Brooke was so overcome with her feelings she buried her bright, tumbled head in the pillows, ruining the effect of cool determination she had been trying to maintain. She heard him mutter something to himself in Italian and there and then she decided to take up the language. She had been reasonably successful with French and German.
'You aren't crying, piccola, are you?' he asked at the door.
'Sure. For you!' she called to him ironically. 'It's a pity to knock down your dream house.'
'You'd never do that, not you!' he returned coolly, and discreetly shut the door.
The wild desire seized her to fling something after him. The taste and the scent of him was still on her mouth, clinging to her skin. Nervously she touched her pulsing, sensitised mouth; the short curving upper lip, the full rounded curve of the lower lip with the faint indentation at the centre. If she had ever wondered whether woman was lovingly created for a man's pleasure, her own feelings were answer enough. With just one perfectly controlled kiss Paul had destroyed all her prefabricated resistance. She no longer knew what was true or untrue, good or bad, right or wrong. She only knew he could excite her unbearably, leave her no peace unless she buried the memory of that brief caress in her subconscious. Her accident had made her vulnerable, the witching unreal hour she had woken. And then, to be in his bed, an impossible place to block him out. She must have sleep. Time to think. He could scarcely keep pursuing her.
Her slender limbs relaxed and she fumbled for the other pillow, pushing it under her head. 'She would never give up this idiotic fight. So now she was sleeping in his bed, but for different reasons from anyone else. His behaviour was inexcusable, incurable; he was too attractive to women. Brooke ran her fingertips along the incredibly smooth sheet. It was a long way to the other side. There was a small tightening of excitement in her throat, and she reproached herself sleepily, Paul Corelli might make an infinitely artistic lover, but she was protected by her moral scruples. Her whole being was given over to headlong flight, but though she might try hard to run away from it, he had saved her life. The crowded darkness of her thoughts seemed full of him. It was rather sad, but it was too late. Sleepily she whispered his name and stopped in an instant. It would be a little miracle to escape him, but she had always had a rebellious nature.
Six minutes later when the French clock in the living room struck four, Brooke was fast asleep, with the sweet traitorous taste of his kiss on her mouth. .
CHAPTER FIVE
HER near-fatal accident left Brooke curiously vulnerable for almost a month, at the end of which time Lucia Corelli arrived from Kenya via London in the care and company of a female relative.
'You must meet her.' Paul said in his beautiful accented voice that cut her like a knife.
For the past weeks it had seemed easier not to avoid him and Lillian was delighted, as gay and enthusiastic as once she used to be when Grandfather was alive. Paul seemed to be always in and out of the house, until finally Brooke asked him waspishly whether he was actually courting her mother. She was too conscious of his charm, of his truly Latin gallantry. Even Louise seemed in tremendously high spirits, just waiting for the day she would meet and conquer a British earl. It was so absurd Brooke hoped fervently that some worthy young man would present himself soon―a determined young man who wouldn't let Lillian frighten him away. Paul Corelli was not at all the kind of man to be intimidated by a woman, not that it mattered, for Lillian 'adored' him and seemed to take it as a fait accompli he would marry Brooke very quickly.
The extraordinary thing was, although he frequently invaded their home bringing flowers and wine and Lillian's favourite Swiss chocolates he never once mentioned marriage to Brooke, treating her to the same warm, suave friendliness he showed to her mother and sister; in fact he seemed to prefer Lillian. The few occasions he had taken Brooke out alone in the evenings his manner could never have been described as seductive, rather deeply courteous, and cool. He told her the morning after her accident that he had no idea Cathy Benton would call on him. She had certainly not been invited, neither had she ever been inside his apartment alone, but Brooke was incapable of believing him. She didn't even blame Cathy, for he was immensely sensuous, let alone rich and clever.
Probably Cathy had fallen genuinely in love with him. Louise said so, and Cathy was more Louise's friend than hers. Well, his riches and good looks made no impression on Brooke and she refused stubbornly to admit to even the slightest infatuation.
Meanwhile Lillian was ecstatic. On that particular day Paul had bought back for her a Kang Hsi late seventeenth-century Chinese blue and white porcelain dish that had always stood on its stand in the breakfast room. 'Isn't he sweet?' Lillian cried, and sat down opposite Brooke, motioning to her to pour out another cup of coffee.
'I suppose so,' Brooke returned dubiously. 'He's not my type.'
Lillian threw back her pretty head and laughed. 'You and your jokes! It's as Paul says, you think something quite different.'
'What are we going to do about Lucia?' Brooke asked.
'Why not give her a party?' Lillian said gaily. 'It would be a problem trying to get a lot of people in Paul's apartment, why not here? Wintersweet is ideal and she'll be staying here when she's not at boarding school.'
'We haven't met her yet!' Brooke answered soberly. 'She may be already a woman. The Latin races mature quickly, don't they? She may not be at all what we're expecting.'
'What matter?'Lillian asked impatiently. 'All girls like a party, don't they? It would be the very least we could do after all Paul's many kindnesses, and he sounds absolutely devoted to her. He told me he's only seen her twice, very briefly, in the past four years. Poor little thing! Her aunt sounds a warmhearted woman, but there's no substitute for a parent's love.' A tear stood in Lillian's eyes and she blinked it away. 'Has he spoken to you of the child's mother? I'm too sensitive to ask.'
'Only once,' Brooke said truthfully. 'I think the whole subject is too painful.' As well it might be, she thought but didn't add. Most people would assume Paul had been married before and she intended to let it go at that. It was none of her business in any case and she felt protective of the young Lucia and bound to keep silent. Only Maggie knew, and Maggie had never been known to betray a confidence.
As it happened Paul called to ask whether he might bring Lucia and his distant cousin, Carla, over to meet them. Knowing her mother would certainly say yes, Brooke suggested that they might all like to come to dinner the following evening and he rang off, leaving his mellifluous words of gratitude in her ears. Not only did he seduce the eyes, she thought crossly, but his voice fell vibrantly on the ear, not unlike the voice of an Italian actor she had always admired. Or had her mother brought that to her attention? Lillian, too, was very susceptible to voices, and these days she looked very pretty and relaxed as though the worries of the world had been lifted from her slight shoulders.
Brooke flatly refused to call caterers in and offered to prepare the dinner herself. Both Lillian and Louise shied away from the kitchen. Grandfather had always had a housekeeper and household staff, but those days were long gone. Anyway, Brooke told herself, she liked to cook, although she didn't intend anything complicated. Later on in her life she thought she would like to take up gourmet cooking as a hobby. Fine food presented with imagination naturally appealed to her as a woman and she got as much pleasure from preparing a dish as from actually eating it. In the end, after a brief discussion with her mother, she settled on a seafood appetiser with one of the Mt Pleasant dry whites, then a well seasoned beef casserole, served with fluffy white rice, garlic bread and plenty of tossed green salad. That way she could relax with the casserole prepared ahead and the rum cream pie her friend Kay, at school, called 'scrumptious! ' There was plenty of wine in the cellar. Grandfather had been something of an authority on wine and she was sure if she looked she would find a dozen of the beautiful Mildara Cabernet Sauvignon '63; a superb example of a dry red. They could have cheese to follow if anyone wanted it; Brooke always liked a Camembert herself. In a way it was quite exciting to prepare this little dinner party and she was anxious to make Paul's young daughter feel welcome to her new country.
About half an hour before their guests arrived, Brooke went downstairs to check the dining room. It looked particularly beautiful at night. Brooke had grown up with antiques and she had formed her opinions early. She loved them and their permanence. She didn't care at all about status symbols, but she realised the room still held some beautiful, valuable pieces like the mahogany dining room suite with its matching chairs that had been made to comfortably seat forty people and which would only fit into a house the size of Wintersweet. Of course the table wasn't fully extended and a good many of the chairs were up in the attic, but there was a feeling of absolute rightness about the room.
In the mirror of the large mahogany bow-fronted sideboard she caught her own reflection. The ill-fated white gown she had bought for Paul's dinner party he had insisted on replacing, so charmingly adamant no one allowed her to say no. She was wearing it tonight, a one-shouldered classic white gown that made the most of her tall, slender figure and for some reason made her hair look flamboyantly beautiful. There was no doubt about it, he had a great sense of clothes and she was sure many women had benefited.
Grandfather's magnificent gilt bronze surtout de table comprising a pair of candelabra, a pair of dessert baskets and a neo-classical centrepiece graced the long gleaming table and in the urns surrounding the base and the baskets held 'aloft by beautiful gilt bronze maidens Brooke had placed the most perfect white camellias she could find. The Storr silver Mamma had sold, but some superb examples of Minton porcelain in the Sevres manner occupied its place on the mahogany sideboard. The late Regency chandelier above her head lit the room to a soft brilliance. Once Mamma had made an attempt to clean it herself and come to such grief they had to call in the professional they should have called in in the first place. Even the smallest chandelier had a surprising number of pieces in it, and the dining room chandelier was almost a densely packed glass tent over ninety centimetres high.
Brooke was just staring up at it admiringly when her mother swept into the room, clapping-her hands with all the innocent pleasure of a child.
'Beautiful, darling! You're really very artistic, but make sure you get those camellias out of the baskets afterwards.'
'I will, Mamma,' Brooke answered dutifully, 'You look very soignee.'
'Thank you, dear,' Lillian said complacently, and put a hand to the back of her newly styled hair. 'Not too short, do you think?'
'No, very youthful. You don't look a day over thirty-eight.'
'Yes, I'm in perfect health, thank God, and I always get my full quota of sleep. At twenty I was devastatingly lovely―even more so, I think, than my sweet Louise. By the way, dear, you're looking very elegant yourself. I always said being in love puts a special bloom on a woman.'
Brooke could have scorned that in her case, but she didn't. Her mother was looking particularly happy, like a little girl who would never grow out of her dream world, and there was no point in spoiling her evening. A little later Nigel and Patrick arrived and Louise in her favourite jacaranda blue hurried out alone to meet them. They had been invited to improve the male/ female ratio and Lillian held to the concept of the more good-looking men, the merrier.
Out in the kitchen she checked on the dinner while Louise offered the boys a pre-dinner drink. They had all of them known one another since childhood and it wasn't difficult for them to find plenty of things to talk about. Nigel, drink in hand, wandered out to the kitchen to say hello to Brooke. He had taken her sailing twice over the past couple of weeks and they had enjoyed themselves immensely. Nigel when he wasn't trying to be James Bond was very engaging, and tonight he looked quite strikingly attractive.
'Got the car back yet, pet?' was the first thing he asked.
'Only just!' Brooke gave a little convulsive shiver. 'Paul took care of everything. There was quite a bit of damage to the front end and the parts were hard to get, so he had them flown out from England.'
'Ah, the joys of being a millionaire! ' said Nigel, advancing to the centre cooking island and looking admiringly at everything. 'You didn't do this, did you, darling?
'
'All in a day's work! ' she said blithely. 'Mind you, I did cheat a little with the extra numbers. That pastry I couldn't resist at Otto's. It was very expensive but worth it. That delicious rum cream pie, as you guessed, is mine.'
'What else?' Nigel drained his Scotch and soda.
'Beef casserole, hot garlic bread, a mountain of steaming fluffy rice and a green tossed salad with the dressing as the Italians make it!'
'Brilliant!' Nigel said appreciatively. 'Not only a natural cook but a brain as well.'
'Seafood to start!' said Brooke, hurriedly dipping her fingers under the tap and wiping her hands. 'Can I hear voices?'
Nigel made a sort of mad grimace and glanced backward over his shoulder. 'We'd better go out. Better let me untie your apron, sweetie. It quite spoils the silken image.'
He came behind her, but instead of untying the apron he put his hands round her waist and nuzzled her cheek. 'Hmmm, heavenly! What is it, My Sin?'
