by Lucy Gillen
He said nothing for the moment, but simply stood
there with his hands tight and white knuckled again, his head stiffly averted, then slowly he turned back to her and for a long moment he looked at her steadily with something appealingly uncertain in his eyes that she was bound to respond to. "Isa!" he said softly, and let the hoe fall to the ground as he reached for her hands. "I don't want to quarrel with you, you must know it's the last thing I want! I couldn't bear not to see you again, and—" He glanced at the open door of the cottage just behind her. "Why don't you come in and I'll make some tea? It won't take a minute and you know it always makes me more civilised !"
Smiling, and ready to accept the olive branch, Isa nodded, although she was a little wary of how far the reconciliation was expected to go. "I won't have tea, Chris, thank you," she told him, "but I will come in and talk to you for a while if you'd like me to."
"I'd love you to!" Chris assured her earnestly, and put an arm around her shoulders as he steered her towards the cottage door. "I don't mind whether we have tea or not, as long as you're here !"
"I always, do see you on Saturdays," Isa reminded him gently. "I didn't know what had happened today when you weren't in your usual place."
"I was so angry !" He stood with her in the centre of the one small room the cottage possessed downstairs, holding her hands close to his chest, his gauntly handsome face looking down at her, the grey eyes gleaming with the earnestness of his plea. "I'm sorry, Isa," he said. "I truly am, I should have
known you really had nothing to do with that arrogant devil's spite. He's as cocky and vicious as you'd expect somebody like that to be !"
"Oh, Chris, no!" Isa gazed at him with wide, unhappy eyes, her every instinct telling her to defend Toby, and yet still reluctant to turn against Chris.
"I know him!" Chris insisted. "I knew him at school and I've known him ever since, practically; he was never any different." He looked at her narrowly for a moment, as if debating something with himself. "Did you know we went to the same school?" he asked, and Isa nodded.
"Yes, Lady Carmichael told me."
"Huh! Then you'll know how I come to be here, doing this—this menial job while he lords it over me!" His voice was sharp and bitter with resentment and Isa shrank from the realisation of just how virulent his hatred was.
Toby had never shown any of the same passionate dislike of him, and what he had told her about Chris had been only at her instigation, and then reluctantly. Lady Carmichael had volunteered the information about Chris's personal affairs much more willingly, and he held no such animosity against her.
"I know about your—your parents being killed," she agreed, quietly, despite the churning state of her emotions. "I was sorry about it, Chris, but—well, you can't blame Toby for that, any more than you can blame him for being adopted." She looked up at him, her eyes searching his face slowly, then she shook her head as if the reason for his dislike still
eluded her. "You really hate Toby, don't you?" she asked.
For a moment she thought he would deny it, but then his mouth tightened and he nodded, almost eagerly. "I hate him," he admitted, with such coldness that Isa shivered.
"Then why," she asked in a small anxious voice, "do you go on working for him?"
Chris did not answer for a long time, but he looked down at her with a blank, cold look in his eyes that made him horribly unfamiliar, then at last he shook his head slowly. "What choice have I?" he asked. "I can't afford to leave the cottage and I don't see why I should! Lady Carmichael gave me the cottage and the job and I consider I work for her, regardless of what the lawyers say!"
"But if you hate Toby—"
"Oh, never doubt that I do!" Chris said harshly. "I hate him because he has everything I should have! A profession, a fine home, a family—all of it ! I should have everything he enjoys, but by right of birth, not because a kind-hearted old lady took pity on Elm when he was a baby!"
"Oh, Chris !"
Isa spoke softly, but her heart shrank from the incredible bitterness, from the hatred he seemed almost to feed on, and it came to her with absolute certainty as she stood there listening to him that she could never become fond enough of Chris to marry him. Fondness, even pity, wasn't enough, there had to be respect too, and gentleness, and at the moment she felt nothing but a strange mixture
of pity and anger towards him because he was using
Toby as the whipping-boy for his own shortcomings.
"Isa!" Eagerly he pulled her against him, his hands cupping her face, looking down at her with an intensity that made her shiver. "You're the one good thing he's ever been responsible for," he said, stroking her soft cheeks with his fingers. "He brought you here and for that I'm grateful to him! I love you, Isa, please say you'll marry me!"
She refrained from pulling away from him, although her instincts told her it was what she wanted to do, and she kept her eyes downcast so that he should not read the expression in them. "I—I can't, Chris."
"Isa!" He lifted her face, trying to make her look at him, and at last she raised her eyes, looking at the deep, dark greyness of his.
"I'm sorry, Chris, but I can't."
"Oh, my God!" He sounded blankly despairing and Isa's heart thudded anxiously at her ribs as she faced heaven knew what crisis. He buried his face against her neck, his hands holding her with fierce tightness against him "You don't mean it, Isa, you can't mean it!"
"Chris! Chris, please!" She tried to break his hold on her, but succeeded only in keeping him at arm's length while she fought with an ever-increasing sense of panic. Her heart was pounding wildly in her breast as she recognised a look of mingled desperation and fury in his eyes that was more frightening than anything she had ever seen before.
"Don't turn me down, Isa!" His grip on her arms
was cruelly tight and she struggled against him with every ounce of her strength. "Don't turn against me," he begged. "Marry me, Isa. Please !"
"No, Chris, no, I can't!" She turned her face to avoid the kiss she anticipated when he bent his head towards her, but he was too quick for her and his mouth covered hers with a bruising hardness that was more assault than caress. "No!" she pleaded desperately when she managed at last to free her mouth. "No, Chris!"
His eyes glittered in his gauntly handsome face, angry at her lack of response, resentful of her refusal to marry him "It's Carmichael !" he said between clenched teeth, and Isa stared at him
Panting for breath, she was too stunned for a moment to deny it. "No," she whispered at last. "No, no, you're wrong!"
"Of course I'm not wrong !" His fingers dug into her soft flesh cruelly. "I've seen it coming! He's got you at his beck and call like the rest of his—women !"
No!" She struggled against him even more desperately, and her cheeks were pink-flushed, her brain spinning with the very idea of being what Chris accused her of. "Let me go!" she panted breathlessly. "Let me go !"
"I thought you were different," Chris said in the same cold, hard voice. "I thought you were worth waiting for, worth asking to be my wife, but you're no different, you're as ready to come running when he calls as the rest of his easy conquests!"
"Chris !" She wrenched her hands free at last, and
swung the left one against his face in a slap that was much harder than she had intended it to be.
For a second neither of them spoke or moved, then he put an unsteady hand to his burning cheek and his eyes had a dark, glittering look that Isa found far too menacing to face any longer. She gave a small cry of alarm and turned swiftly, running out of the open door behind her and into the comparative warmth of the open air.
"Isa!" His voice was choked with anger and she heard him coming after her as she went through the garden gate. "Isa, come back here!"
Without a backward glance Isa fled. Not along the river bank where she would have been too easy to follow, but through the trees, dodging and weaving the shrubs and trees that barred her path, her eyes filled with tears. Tears that wer
e shed in part for the final disillusionment with the Chris she had thought she knew.
She had expected to face an emotional scene of some sort when she saw Chris again, but not such a thorough and complete destruction of her relatioftship with him, and she did not have to stop and wonder where things had gone wrong. Toby was the reason, and it was her own recognition of the fact that sent her racing through the wood as if she was pursued by something much more disturbing than an angry suitor.
The wood became more dense as she got away from the river, and she had to swerve more often, but she still did not slow down, although it was doubtful if Chris was still following. A sudden
glimpse of unexpected movement among the trees off to her right caught her eye and she instinctively looked across in that direction. The distraction, however brief, put her off guard and she stumbled, sprawling full length, her face pressed into the soft cushion of loam and fallen leaves.
She cried out as she went down, but it was sheer weariness, not injury, that kept her there, lying face down on the cool ground, panting for breath. Her head buried in her arms and her breathing so noisy as to drown any other sound, she did not hear anyone approach, nor detect the soft, impatient snort of a tethered horse some yards away.
"Isabella?" Strong hands lifted her and turned her over, holding her against a bended knee for a moment while anxious eyes searched her tear-stained and grimy face. "What on earth's happened to you?" It was instinctive to glance back the way she had come, although Chris was unlikely to be still in pursuit. The hands that held her so firmly could only belong to Toby and she looked up to see him frowning darkly despite the anxious look in his eyes "Is someone following you?" he asked, and Isa hastily bit her lip.
"No!" she denied, too hastily to be convincing.
Toby said nothing for a moment, but he too looked back among the trees, his frown suspicious. "You were running away," he decided. "And I'd guess it was from Chris Burrows."
Isa looked up into his face, meaning only to insist that she had simply tripped and fallen, but somehow something in his eyes made her feel very
small and in need of comfort suddenly, and instead of denying Chris's part in her flight, she turned and buried her face against him.
An arm hugged her consolingly and for several minutes she lay against that broad, comforting chest while a hand soothed over her hair gently, until she felt like closing her eyes and staying there for ever. A slight movement preceded the soft but firm pressure of his lips on her forehead, then he held her away from him gently, his hands taking hers and his eyes searching her face.
"So he did scare you!" he said. "Tell me what happened, Isabella."
For a moment she blinked at him uncertainly, then shook her head. "It—it doesn't matter," she whispered.
Toby looked at her steadily for a moment longer, then he got to his feet, reaching down to help her and still retaining his hold on her hands after she was standing. He looked down at her for a second in silence, then reached out and lightly lifted a tear from her cheek with a fingertip. "Are you going to tell me?" he asked softly. "Or shall I tell you?"
Isa looked down at their clasped hands and shook her head. "There's nothing to tell," she said in a small, shaky voice. "It's all over."
"Between you and Chris?"
She nodded, remembering Chris's angry assertions about Toby and avoiding his eyes at all costs. "I--I told him I couldn't marry him." she said.
"Couldn't?" He echoed the word softly, and for a second Isa looked up at him.
"I don't love him," she explained. "How could I?"
"How could you?" Again he echoed her words and she could feel her heart doing a rapid and alarming tattoo against her ribs. "And he didn't like the idea of being turned down," Toby guessed. He looked at her searchingly for a moment, holding her away from him slightly and studying her carefully from head to foot while he held her hands tightly in his. "What did he do to make you cry and run away from him like that?" he asked, and the tone of his voice made her look up again swiftly, for he sounded so coldly angry that she found it hard to believe. "Did he—hurt you, Isabella?" he insisted, and she shook her head.
"No, oh no !" she denied hastily, realising how he had misjudged the violence of Chris's disappointment. "He didn't hit me, Toby, I hit him !"
"You—" Toby stared at her in disbelief for several seconds, then slowly that deep unmistakable gleam of laughter appeared in his eyes and suddenly she was gathered into his arms and hugged against his chest while his body shook with a laughter that breathed deep and warm against her ear. "Oh, Isabella," he said huskily, his mouth close to her ear as he buried his face against her neck. "You sweet, adorable little battleaxe—you would !"
Isa found herself smiling, despite his description of her, and she was almost ready to admit to being as ready as Chris accused her of being to come running when Toby called. She laid her face against
Toby's chest and closed her eyes, all too aware of the steady beat of the heart under her ear and the warm, sensual strength of the body that excited her with its nearness.
He eased his hold on her slightly at last and lifted her chin with one gentle finger, looking down at her with a look of mild amusement, his smile teasing. "I never expected Chris to be the one on the business end of your fist," he told her softly. "I quite thought it would be me !"
Isa looked at him for a moment, then down again at her hands. It was difficult trying to think clearly in the circumstances, but think she must, for it was certain that this present gentle, lighthearted teasing was not meant to be taken seriously, and she must on no account allow herself to do so. "You almost did get slapped several times!" she told him pertly, trying to keep her voice light and at the same time steady.
"Did I?" His mouth, hovering just above hers, warmed her lips with the words.
"Toby " She had no idea what she wanted to say to him, but whatever it was the words were lost in the breathless beating of her heart and she closed her eyes again when his head bent lower still, his mouth brushing hers lightly, almost tauntingly, at first.
The encircling arms tightened suddenly, drawing her closer still, one hand cradling her head, holding her where she could not move from the suddenly fierce pressure of his mouth. Her legs felt incredibly as if they had ceased to support her, and her arms
slid up round his neck as she clung to him tightly, an eager, almost irresistible sense of urgency making her soft shape melt against him.
His hands held her with gentle strength while his mouth sought the softness of her neck and the small, throbbing pulse at the base of her throat. From her throat to the rounded chin and the heavy-lidded violet eyes, until at last he looked down at her, his own deep blue eyes glowingly warm with an expression she had never seen there before.
One hand stroked back the hair from her forehead with firm, gentle strokes and he smiled. "You're quite a surprise, little one," he said softly, and laughed—a deep, soft sound that trickled along Isa's spine like a shiver. "Isabella!" He spoke her name softly and Isa closed her eyes again briefly on the sound of it, then as hastily opened them again and looked up at him, a small niggling uncertainty at the back of her mind, even while she fought to control her pounding heartbeat.
"Toby," she said in a small husky voice. "I don't—"
"You don't have to say or do anything," he whispered, kissing her forehead gently. "Only look as lovely as you do now." The blue eyes moved slowly over her face, and he lightly kissed each feature with a gentleness that was in itself a kind of ardour.
Isa, willing enough to be persuaded at the moment, merely sighed inwardly and laid her face against his chest again, her fingers curled against the warmth of his body through the thin cotton
shirt he wore and only a hint of uncertainty stirring somewhere in her breast at the memory of Chris's derisive words.
Some time, somehow, sooner or later she would have to face the fact that Toby must have been in this position many times before and she was certainly not the first
girl he had kissed the way he had just kissed her, nor was she likely to be the last. But for the moment she was more than content to stay as she was, even though it was becoming increasingly obvious that Toby Carmichael could never again be to her merely an attractive man who also happened to be her employer. The true situation did not yet bear thinking about.
CHAPTER NINE
IT was during Sunday morning, after Isa had cooked breakfast and seen Lady Carmichael settled in a chair in the summerhouse, that she decided to go for a walk. She needed to think, and an hour or so in the open air offered a chance to do so and at the same time blow away some of the cobwebs that seemed to be dulling her brain.
Dinner was prepared and needed only the cooker turned on at the appropriate time, so there was no reason why she should not take advantage of the intervening time to enjoy the sunshine. August was drawing to a close and there would not be many more sunny days to enjoy.
Walking down the hill from the house she pondered on the past three months, since she had been at Trent House, and wondered if there was any outward sign of the change she felt had taken place in herself. There had been nothing of world-shattering importance to anyone else, but her own world had become so different from the one she had shared with Aunt Carrie for so long.
Nothing would ever be the same again, certainly not her relationship with Chris Burrows, but that had stood little chance of ending any differently, if she was honest about it. He was good-looking and pleasant in his way, but his almost pathological hatred of Toby had been a flaw from the begin-
