The Other Brother

by Jessica Steele

  But she didn't want him to go. She could not bear in those initial minutes of knowing her love returned that he should so soon leave her. And she clung on to him, pressed herself close up to him again, and to her joy heard the groan that escaped him before his voice thick with desire, he said:

  'I want you, Kathryn. God help me, I want you,' just as though he was going through some mental torment.

  And then they were in her room, the door closed, a trail of clothes leading to the bed as they kissed and parted, kissed and clung. And she felt no shame in the darkness that

  when Nate picked her up and placed her on the bed, her lips meeting his when he joined her, that she should feel only joy and ardour when their uncovered bodies touched. She was too lost in the wonder of this being what true love between a man and a woman meant—no inhibitions, no holding back.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Dawn was breaking when Kathryn awoke. She opened her eyes to find she had the wide double bed to herself. There were so many things she had to learn about Nate, she mused, a smile touching the corners of her mouth as she reflected that she had already discovered two things about him since they had entered this room last night—one, that he was a very tender lover, the other that he must be a very early riser.

  She wondered if he had risen early so as to make a start on the work they had to do, get most of it out of the way so they could spend the rest of the day in the pure bliss of each-other's company without work intruding on their new love.

  Her smile deepened as her mind went back to his tenderness, his gentleness with her last night. Not that it had started out that way. There had been white-hot passion about him, a passion that drove him to possess her, a passion she had done her best in her uninitiated way to match.

  She recalled how desire had ridden him, then the naked shock that had ripped through him as he discovered he was her first lover, the agony in him as he had tried to tear himself from her. But she hadn't allowed that. She had been so stirred to want him, she couldn't bear that he might find the strength to leave her. She had wrapped her arms tightly round him, begging him, 'Please, please don't leave me like this,' had caressed his bare skin and heard his demented cry as he had called out, 'Oh God!' and kissed her fiercely for long minutes before changing the tempo of his lovemaking to suit her untried body.

  She had no idea of the time. Her watch had stopped, which wasn't surprising, she thought, since she had been in no mind to wind it up last night.

  But suddenly she was in a fever of impatience to see him again. She was out of bed, bathing and dressing, the thought in her mind that if Nate was already at work then the sooner she lent him her pair of hands the sooner they would be through. They would talk today, she thought, as nothing but happiness in her heart she tripped lightly down the stairs.

  The study when she opened the door was just as she and Nate had left it last night. No sign of him or that he had been anywhere near his study this morning. Happiness still in every step, Kathryn quietly opened the sitting room door on her way kitchenwards. And it was there that she saw Nate. The back of him anyway, for he was so deep in thought as he stared out of the window, he hadn't heard her.

  Her spirits higher than they had ever been, it crossed her mind to tiptoe over to him to reach up and put her hands over his eyes and whisper, 'Guess who?' But sudden remembrance of the way they had been with each other brought an unexpected shyness to her.

  'Hello, darling,' she said softly instead, staying near the door. She saw Nate jerk at the sound of her voice, and thinking only to wait to see his face, to see his smile before she rushed into his arms, stood waiting for him to turn around.

  Strangely his hands were now clenched at his sides, she saw, but she shrugged aside whatever that might mean as she anticipated his loving smile as he began to turn.

  But there was no smile on his face as he turned to face her. And as she took in that his expression was more unloving than she had ever seen it, she had the most dreadful premonition that something was terribly, terribly wrong. For the expression he wore was harsh, and though she just

  couldn't believe it, her eyes were reading that he was back to being that awful man she had first known!

  No question of moving forward into his arms now, as her brain scooted off in all directions; had she been too forward last night? Had he received bad news about Rex? Fearing the latter, she just had to ask:

  'Darling, what's wrong?' and heard none of the loving gentieness she had been expecting as he grated harshly:

  'Why the hell didn't you tell me you were a virgin before I became too—involved to stop?'

  His way of speaking to her shocked her, when she had been anticipating a very different tone. And then she saw the reason for it. Other women he might take to his bed, but the girl he intended to marry was someone special—he had intimated as much by saying he wanted them to be married first.

  'I love you, Nate,' she said, saying the only thing she could that would make him see nothing else mattered.

  But that didn't appear to have helped things at all, as she saw from the way his jaw was working. He didn't need her declaration of love at this point. Her voice becoming hesitant now, she tried again to get him to see that she had given herself to him willingly, that before or after marriage didn't matter when she loved him so completely.

  'Loving you,' she said, 'it—it didn't seem important to tell. . .'

  'Important? he ground out before she could finish. 'Of course it's bloody important! You know damn well I thought Rex had been your lover.'

  She would have thought he would be glad she hadn't physically been with his brother, and her bewilderment showed as she asked, 'It makes a difference that he hasn't?'

  'God!' Nate exploded. 'Can't you see why? Can't you see this whole mess is based on lies?'

  'Lies?' she repeated, dumbfounded, too stunned by his

  attitude being so different from what she had thought it would be to take in what he was trying to tell her.

  'Of course lies,' Nate said, and Kathryn wasn't sure then who he was growing more furious with, her or himself, as he flung at her, 'Can't you see yet that every time I was the least bit pleasant to you it was false? Are you so dumb you don't know I've planned to make you pay from the very beginning?'

  'Make me pay?' she whispered, stupefied.

  'I looked for a way to make you suffer the way you'd made my brother suffer,' he threw at her. 'I watched you for days trying to see what made you tick. I watched to find out where you were most vulnerable.' And while she was still gasping in disbelief, wanting to cry, no, no, that it couldn't be so, that he must be making it up, he was going on, looking as though he was hating himself every bit as much as he was hating her, 'I found what I was looking for the day your sister rang, the day you went to spend the weekend with her. Infidelity was your weak spot.' And not flinching from the truth, he told her, 'In seconds I had my plan worked out.'

  It wasn't ice that entered Kathryn's heart as she stood unable to move, stood and was made to believe him— believe as the dreadful words he was saying began to sink in that this time another Kingersby had shattered her love. Nate had sworn to avenge his brother, had sworn he would get even with her that Rex had only just escaped being crippled for life. And as she began to see that Nate Kingersby had deliberately set out to make her fall in love with him—just for the satisfaction of seeing how she felt when she was thrown over—there was no room in her as anger began slowly to kindle inside her for ice to form. Nate had brought up the word infidelity, and she started to see then, even as part of her mind still couldn't believe it, that on that very afternoon when his manner had so suddenly

  changed and he had suggested they bury their bone of contention while at the office, he had planned to break her the way he thought she had broken his brother.

  'You're saying you never intended marrying me, is that right?' she questioned tautly, knowing that must be the truth, but finding she needed to hear it from his own lips. Even now she need
ed to have it said, needed to know the mockery of love last night had been confirmed.

  'I planned to be engaged to you for a very short while,' Nate agreed, the light where he was standing giving his face a grey look as he didn't back away from telling her the truth, 'But I had no intention of marrying you.'

  That hurt, cut right to the heart of her, but she bore that hurt, invited more as she voiced the next question her intelligence had brought.

  'You wanted me to suffer the way Rex had suffered. Did that include arranging the wedding?'

  'Yes,' he answered stiffly.

  'But you were going to jilt me a week before the wedding?'

  She knew the answer was yes, and didn't understand why Nate shook his head in reply. Until, like a bolt from the blue, it came to her that her fate was to be far worse than that.

  'You must hate me,' she said, anger momentarily dying at the knife thrust of pain with which that knowledge was received. 'You weren't going to tell me the wedding was off at all, were you?' she challenged, pain blunted as anger, fury spurted into life. 'You were intending that I should arrive at the church, but that you wouldn't, weren't you?' And too angry now at the picture that evoked to think of sparing him, not seeing any reason why she should after the humiliation he had planned for her, 'Or were you going to go one better than that, since it's infidelity we're talking of?'

  'One better . . .?' Nate broke in, that he had no idea what she was meaning obvious.

  But Kathryn was too fired up to want to hear anything he had to say. 'Perhaps you planned a Kingersby repeat performance,' she flared, ignoring that he had started to look angry too. 'Perhaps you were going to let me have a key to this house so I could move my things in the way Rex gave me a key to his flat,' she rushed on. 'Perhaps you were going to give me the Friday afternoon off the way your uncle did. Only unlike your brother you would know what I planned to do with that afternoon, wouldn't you?'

  'What the hell are you talking about?' Nate bit at her sharply. But Kathryn, having lost her temper, ignored him.

  'Perhaps you were going to arrange for me to come down here with all my bits and pieces, fool myself into thinking, as I did when I took my things over to your brother's home, that it would be amusing for my fiance to find one of my dresses hanging beside something of his in his wardrobe. Was I to find, the way I did when I went breezing into Rex's bedroom, that my adoring new fiance was in bed with another woman?'

  'What!' The ringing exclaimation that broke from him had her faltering, her fury abating. But it was only temporary as Nate got over his shock and said hoarsely, 'I don't believe it.'

  And that was the final straw as far as Kathryn was concerned—that even now, when if he thought about it, he must know Rex had lied, Nate still wasn't ready to believe her. And there was a note of hysteria entering her anger as she challenged, her voice rising:

  'Go and see him. Go and ask him about his secretary. According to Maxine Vernon, when she'd had the decency to put something on before she came to where I was giving Rex back his ring, it wasn't the first time.'

  'I can't—believe it.' She saw his colour wasn't grey as he stepped away from the window and towards her, it was white.

  Afraid he was going to touch her, Kathryn stepped back. But she had no need to retreat farther as Nate, a couple of yards from her, came to a halt, shaking his head as though to clear it.

  'I need to think,' he said after a moment. And, decisive again as she knew him to be,'I'm going for a walk.We'll talk when I get back.' And as though the thoughts already raging in his head were too much with her in the same room, without another word he strode past her.

  The door had hardly closed behind him before Kathryn was haring up the stairs to pack. Like hell we'll talk! she thought furiously, stuffing things any old how inside her case. She had heard enough from him to last her a lifetime. Had he not discovered that no other man had touched her he would not have told her anything, she saw that dearly enough.

  Well, I hope it hangs like lead on your conscience, Air Nate Seducer Kingersby! she thought as she snapped the lock shut on her case. But by the time she had made it to her car, tears were falling like rain down her face, for she loved him so much it had been a mutual seduction.

  Her vision blinded, she mopped furiously at her tears as she headed back to London. A visit to Reading out of the question, for unlike that other time when her world had fallen apart, this was something she couldn't share with another soul, not even her sister.

  Kathryn had all that day to mourn for her futile dreams, all that day to call Nate Kingersby every name she could think of and still have time to discover that no matter how evil his intent, no matter how her love had been shaken, it was still there—she still loved the swine.

  Pride, she thought when she got up the next morning and looked at red eyes that were going to call for all her artistry with her cosmetics. Pride was her most valued possession that Monday morning.

  She knew very well Nate wouldn't expect her at the office. But she was going, if only to hand in her notice. After all, she had done nothing wrong—but lose her virtue, she thought, refusing to give way to fresh tears. And if, as she had concluded yesterday, the only reason all this had come out was because he had been devastated to find she had been a virgin when his brother had as good as told him otherwise, then for the next month until her notice was worked out she hoped, if Nate Kingersby had a conscience at all, that every time he clapped eyes on her, his conscience would give him hell.

  A month, she thought, of having to face the ache in her heart was about all she would be able to put up with herself. And even George Kingersby wouldn't keep her to her promise to stay the full three months if he knew what had transpired.

  She had her resignation all ready, typed out on her portable last night. But even with pride ramrod-stiff, she had to swallow before, lifting her head a fraction and keeping it held high, she walked into the office.

  Nate Kingersby got no good morning from her that morning. But she didn't miss his astonishment as he rose from his chair, when without pausing to stop at her desk she extracted the envelope from her bag as she sailed into his office. Slapping the envelope down on his desk, Kathryn would have sailed straight out again, had not his voice stopped her.

  'Your resignation?' His voice was even, his expression sombre now his astonishment had left him.

  'Got it in one,' she said shortly, just the sight of him weakening her proud resolve to show him no man was going to walk all over her and think he had seen her off with her tail between her legs. She brought proud backbone to bear, standing defiantly there when her aching heart would have had her bolting for the cloakroom.

  'A month?' Nate queried.

  'It's all that's required,' she told him now she was over her weak moment, and wondering how she would keep from hitting him if under the circumstances he so much as mentioned her promise to his uncle.

  Then she saw his shrewd eyes were on hers and didn't wait for him to say anything, wanting to distract his observant eyes from seeing the evidence of the floods of tears she had wept yesterday.

  'That is unless you intend to dismiss me on the spot for . . .' She stopped, went a fiery red, and would have fled then as she realised there were no words to describe the nothing-held-back way she had given her full self to him. But into her agitated mind came the chord of remembrance to remind her she had gone to his home to work. '. . . for industrial misconduct,' she said, and feeling better when she saw the way he didn't like what she told him, 'And I wouldn't put that past a vindictive Kingersby!'

  They stood facing each other, Nate towering over her. He didn't like what she said, she could see that. But whatever he was feeling he controlled it, and raised a hand as though to touch her. But she knew what his touch could do to her and stepped out of range. Then she saw any anger she had pricked in him by her slur on the Kingersby clan had gone when he mistook her reason for backing away.

  'I can't blame you for not wanting me to touch you after the way I
've behaved,' he said quietly. 'As for dismissing you,' he broke off, then his voice deadly serious, 'you can have no idea, Kathryn, how very much I admire you for coming into the office at all, considering the wrongs we Kingersbys have dealt you.'

  Having the way she had reviled the Kingersbys handed back to her made void anything else she might have to say about his family, put her on the defensive when she didn't want to be defensive—and that made her mad.

  'My God,' she stormed, 'that's big of you!'

  'You're not going to allow me to apologise, are you?' he said, and she could see his eyes were beginning to glint dangerously. But she didn't care, as she saw just why he was so ready to apologise.

  'So you're ready to believe what I told you yesterday, are you?' she said heatedly, and following up with what she knew must be true, scorned, 'I'm honoured! Did it take you long to get the truth out of Rex when you went to see him?' It was for sure he wouldn't have believed her without going to have his brother confirm it for him.

  'I haven't seen Rex since Friday,' Nate shook her by saying, and that glint in his eyes exploded into anger suddenly. 'Hell, do you think I need more proof than you showed me on Saturday night to know he deliberately misled me? Even without remembering how barren your flat looked that first time I visited you, barren because you hadn't had time yet to set out again the things you'd taken with you to my brother's flat—do you think I need more proof than Saturday to know I could believe you in preference to him? Good God, woman,' he raged, 'don't you realise how sick to my gut I feel at what I've done?'

  'Good,' said Kathryn, not seeing why he shouldn't suffer -if he was to be believed, and was inwardly flailing himself. 'I hope it keeps you awake at night!' And with that she marched back to her office.

  But the way they were with each other as the week dragged on didn't make for a good working atmosphere. Nate had tried to apologise, but she hadn't let him, and now he had taken to being aloofly polite but no more.