And then he was gone, leaving Annie standing looking after him in aching bewilderment.
She looked at the coffee and decided that if Marion wanted any she could make it herself, and wondered where Murray had gone. To bed? To Marion’s room? Somehow, she didn’t think so. Wearily, her head beginning to pound once more, she brushed up the last of the spilt coffee, turned off the kitchen light and went slowly up to bed.
But not to sleep. For the second night running, it eluded her, partly because she had slept so long this afternoon, she decided, but more honestly because her mind kept replaying the moments she had spent in Murray’s arms. Tallon House, Marion and the mystery of her father all faded into insignificance beside the sensuous delight of his hard body, warm mouth and seductive hands. She could almost taste him, now, lying here alone, and her own body began to react as if his was pressed alongside. Her fingers curled into her palms, digging the nails in hard and she bit down on her lip in anguish and frustration. Denied even the solace of tossing and turning because it hurt her head, she lay on one side gazing sightlessly into the darkness and tried to will sleep to blot out the memory.
Her alarm woke her early once more and, heavy eyed, she climbed out of bed and went to look out of the window. To her mingled despair and delight, she looked out on a dappled landscape, brown earth and grass showing through dirty patches of melting snow. Stifling a small sigh, she crept along the landing to the bathroom and had a quick wash, before pulling on yesterday’s jeans, after brushing the worst of the damage off into the fireplace in the bedroom. Her head felt considerably better this morning, and after pinning her hair carefully over the bump, she set about packing her bag.
Downstairs, it was as quiet as it had been yesterday morning. She went into the kitchen and helped herself to a biscuit, noting that the coffee and cafetiere still stood where she had left them last night, then went back into the hall and threw her blue cape round her shoulders, feeling in her pocket for her car keys and praying that her car would start after the bad weather.
The heavy door swung open with a creak and Annie looked nervously behind her, expecting to see Murray appear on the stairs, or Marion’s wheelchair hissing along the hall, but nothing happened and she was able to slip through and close it gently behind her. Then, she discovered the ice.
Overnight, the melting snow had frozen solid, forming a sheet of ice on the drive. Annie’s heart dropped to her boots, but she shouldered her heavy canvas bag and began to tread gingerly down the steps and across to where her car stood, a thick crust of frozen snow on its bonnet and roof. Luckily, the locks hadn’t frozen, and she was able to put her bag on the back seat before trying to clear some of the snow from the windscreen and bonnet. It was hard work and within seconds, her hands were so cold that they hurt. Snow fell down the front of her sweater and her blue cape flapped about and got in her way, so that after very few minutes, she stepped back almost in tears and trod on something soft.
She lifted her booted foot and peered down. There, tucked against the wheel of the car lay a tiny bedraggled kitten, almost indistinguishable from the muddy snow around it. Heart in mouth, Annie crouched down, fearing it must be dead, but as she bent towards it, she saw the glint of blue eyes and the tiny mouth opened in a silent mew. Carefully, Annie scooped it up in both hands and felt the furious beating of the little heart against her palm. She stood up. Now what? She could hardly put it in the car and drive off down to Cambridgeshire with it, yet she couldn’t leave it here. There was only one answer. She would have to take it back into the house.
The front door wasn’t locked and there was still nobody in evidence as Annie made her way back to the kitchen with her precious burden. The kitten hadn’t moved, although its eyes were open, and Annie was worried that it had just spent too long out in the cold and wet to survive. In the kitchen, she put it down in front of the Aga where it staggered and collapsed. She looked at it thoughtfully, then went to a drawer and pulled out some tea towels.
She was sitting in the Windsor chair pulled up to the Aga with the kitten wrapped in tea towels on her lap while she fed it warmed milk on the end of her finger when Murray came in.
‘What are you doing?’ He raised his eyebrows in astonishment coming over to stand in front of her.
‘Trying to defrost a kitten,’ she told him without looking up, intensely aware of the denim covered hips just level with her eyes.
‘A kitten?’ He went down on his haunches in front of her. ‘Where did you find it?’
‘Outside, practically frozen solid. Where do you suppose it comes from?’ She made the mistake of glancing across at him and met his eyes, which caused her stomach to make a complete somersault and left her momentarily unable to speak.
‘I’ve no idea. Henry had no pets. It must be wild. They occasionally lived in the barns, I believe.’
Clearing her throat and finding that she could speak again, to her relief, Annie said ‘But it’s the wrong time of year for a kitten. This one’s very young – less than six weeks old. They aren’t usually born in October.’
Murray shrugged. ‘An oversexed mother cat, obviously. Perhaps it came from Nat Brown’s farm.’
‘Of course.’ Annie looked up at him as he stood up, eyes shining. ‘That’s it. It must have been exploring the tractor and come over on it yesterday.’
He looked down at her, amused. ‘I suppose it might. But why would it have been exploring the tractor?’
‘Kittens are curious. If it lived in a barn and the tractor was kept there I bet it was always up in the cab asleep on the seat. I’m surprised we haven’t got the whole family.’
‘Perhaps we’d better organise a search party in case we have.’ Murray turned away to fill the big kettle and put it to boil on the hob. ‘Have you had tea or coffee?’
‘No.’ Annie looked back at the kitten, not wanting to admit she had been sneaking out without telling anyone. And that posed a problem. How was she going to get away with it now?
‘Well, which would you prefer?’ He had come back to stand in front of her and she instinctively shrank back in the chair. ‘Oh, for goodness sake, Annie, I’m not going to leap on you. I can keep control of myself sometimes.’ He whirled round and went to stand by the window, hands thrust hard into jeans pockets.
‘Tea, please,’ quavered Annie, trying to appear normal and ignore what he’d just said. He grunted and didn’t move until the kettle began to splutter impatiently.
When he’d poured tea for them both, he came over and crouched down at her feet again. ‘So, what are we going to do with this kitten,’ he asked, putting out a long finger and stroking the little head which emerged from the cocoon of tea towels.
Annie took a breath. ‘I don’t know. Would Marion keep it?’
‘I doubt it. Cats aren’t very amenable to being told what to do, are they?’ There was a suspicion of a laugh in Murray’s voice, but Annie couldn’t risk looking at him.
‘Would you keep it?’ she asked.
‘I’m not at home very often. There’d be nobody to feed it. What about you?’
Annie thought for a moment before answering, trying to work out how to avoid the issue of her departure.
‘Don’t you think we ought to find out if it has an owner?’ she suggested eventually.
‘I could call Nat Brown, I suppose, but if it’s a farm cat he probably wouldn’t know. Still,’ he stood, putting his tea on top of the Aga, ‘It’s worth a try.’ He went over to the kitchen phone and flicked through a list of numbers hanging on the wall beside it.
Annie listened to Murray’s end of the conversation with half an ear, stroking the sleeping kitten, pleased to feel a natural warmth radiating from the tiny body at last. She unwrapped the tea towels and scrutinised the matted fur, which appeared to be tabby with a predominance of black.
‘Well, it seems it does belong to Nat. Their old tabby gave birth to an unexpected litter of three about four or five weeks ago actually in the cab of the tractor, so you were right
. She turned up with two of the kittens last night and they assumed the other one was lost or a fox had got it. They’re not bothered about having it back.’ Murray sipped his tea and looked down at Annie’s bent head. ‘So it’s back to the drawing board. What do we do with it?’
‘Perhaps Tracy will look after it when she comes back?’ Annie looked up doubtfully. ‘She’ll be staying on to look after your mother, won’t she?’
‘I’ve no idea. She was only taken on as a temporary measure. She may not want to stay.’
‘Still, you could ask her.’ Annie stood up and placed the kitten carefully on the seat of the chair, where it curled into a ball and continued sleeping.
‘Why don’t you ask her?’ Murray was standing in front of her, his presence overpowering.
‘Well, she might not get in today ...’ Annie’s voice trailed off.
‘And she might. The roads look clearer.’
‘Yes.’ Annie’s glance shifted nervously past him to the window.
‘So you could ask her, couldn’t you?’ Murray captured her chin between his fingers and she jerked convulsively as he forced her to look at him. ‘How did you find the kitten, Annie? What were you doing out there?’
Annie made a determined effort and broke away from him, looking him bravely in the eye.
‘I was leaving,’ she said. ‘I was clearing the snow from the car.’
Murray’s face darkened alarmingly. ‘Dr Graham said you shouldn’t leave until at least tomorrow.’
‘I know, but I feel fine this morning and there’s no useful purpose to be served by my staying any longer, is there?’ Annie’s stomach muscles were clenched tight, but she stood her ground.
‘Useful purpose?’ Murray gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Oh, no, there’s no useful purpose.’ He made an irritated movement and paced away from her, coming back to stand right in front of her. ‘I should have expected this after last night, shouldn’t I?’
‘Should you?’ Annie felt panicky, not knowing what to say. Her breath was coming faster and blood was pounding in her ears. Why she should feel guilty she didn’t know, but she did.
‘After our little interlude right here? After all, it was the second time it had happened, wasn’t it? Perhaps you’re worried that every time I get you alone in the kitchen I shall force my unwelcome attentions on you.’
‘No, of course not.’ Annie managed through dry lips. ‘I didn’t – I mean, I wasn’t – oh – I don’t know what I mean.’
‘Then isn’t it time we got a few things clear?’ He was advancing on her again and she hastily put the large kitchen table between them.
‘Look, Murray,’ she said, as calmly as she could. ‘I have been trying to get things clear, as you put it, ever since I arrived the day before yesterday, but neither you nor your mother seems able to grasp that fact. You have both put up as many smoke screens as you can when all I have been trying to do is leave you to the status quo. I admit,’ she went on as he tried to interrupt, ‘that when I arrived, it was on the advice of both my solicitor and your mother’s. They said I should take possession of my inheritance because your mother had no right to be here. At that point all I knew was that you had come barging into my life laying all the blame on me and I was angry! But when I arrived and saw for myself what the situation was, all I wanted to do was leave. I was quite prepared to go that same night, but for some reason, every time I say I’ll go, I’ve been prevented. This time, I’m going.’
The silence that fell hummed with unspoken questions and Annie waited with bated breath to see what Murray would do. Each time she had stated her case he had backed off a little, was he going to do it this time?
‘All right.’ He turned his back on her and walked to the window, hands in pockets. ‘Go back to your card shop and your comfortable life if that’s what you want. God knows I didn’t want you in my life any more than you wanted us in yours.’
Annie didn’t believe she could hurt any more than she already did, but this unfeeling statement brought disastrous tears to her eyes and a lump the size of an apple to her throat. She looked away from him, hoping he wouldn’t turn round until she had blinked away the tears and found herself looking at the kitten, sprawled now on the tea towels in ecstatic abandonment.
‘Murray.’ Her voice was husky and he looked round. ‘Would you take care of the kitten?’
In the silence that followed she didn’t realise he had moved until he was pulling her towards him, and she was powerless to do anything about it. He left her in no doubt that he was going to kiss her – or worse, she imagined – yet it took her by surprise when he did. His mouth covered hers and a feeling of heat coursed rapidly through her limbs, followed by a tingling she only remembered experiencing on the rare occasions in her life that she had fainted. Her arms remained rigidly by her sides, while in contrast, his slid round her waist, one hand finding its way underneath her jumper and shirt so that she could feel the warmth of his palm against her back. His head was moving, his mouth coercing a response from hers, his tongue gaining entry between her suddenly pliable lips and as she made an articulate sound into the open warmth of his mouth, she felt him move against her, and her arms lifted of their own volition, one hand entangling itself in the dark, soft hair at his neck, the other moving caressingly over the muscles of his back beneath his shirt. The quality of the embrace changed and became more intense and as his hand came to rest lightly on her breast, she gasped into his mouth. As his finger and thumb began to move tenderly over her nipple, she felt it harden, felt the invisible cord that ran from it to the deepest recesses of her body, and suddenly, she wanted more. Arching herself towards him, she groaned as his mouth left hers, only to catch her breath in a shudder of astounded pleasure as it closed over her breast in its thin nylon covering. Then he was pulling it aside and she felt the warm tip of his tongue tease the hardened point. Her hands ran down his body, pulling it closer to hers, rubbing tantalisingly against the hard evidence of his desire for her, feeling the tremor of his response. It occurred vaguely to her that she was behaving in a totally reprehensible, not to say uncharacteristic manner, before her thoughts crumbled into an inchoate mass as his mouth returned to hers with a passion she had never before experienced, both hands inciting her breasts to more heights of unfulfilled feeling. Breaking away to catch her breath, he returned to suckle, his free hand sliding down to the fastening of her jeans and suddenly, her mind cleared.
What the hell was she doing? For a moment, she stood absorbing the sensations still being relayed to her brain before she made a determined effort to push him away.
His eyes clouded, he lifted his head to look at her and she pushed harder and managed to slide away from him, her hands and legs shaking as she straightened her clothes.
‘Well,’ she said through lips that felt like molten rubber. ‘You certainly proved something, there, didn’t you, Murray?’
Chapter Seven
‘What?’ His voice was barely above a whisper and he put out a hand to the table to steady himself. ‘Prove? Prove what?’
‘That underneath my facade of wanting to get away from you there’s a stupid woman who can be reduced to a quivering jelly by a determined sexual assault.’ Annie took a perverse pleasure in berating herself almost as much as she accused him.
His face hardened and he stood upright, his physical arousal still evident.
‘Not sexual, Annie. I would have said sensual.’ His brows were lowered ominously.
‘Whatever it was, you made sure you could get me into a compliant frame of mind – and body – didn’t you?’ Annie couldn’t stop her voice from shaking. ‘Why? Why did you do it? What is it that makes you so determined to bring me to heel? Oh, God, I despise myself. And you!’ She turned away, sickened.
‘Despise me? Why?’ He reached out and swung her round to face him. ‘Because I showed you how you felt about me?’
‘Is that what it was?’ She threw back her head. ‘How delightful. As I said, you’ve proved it. Now let me
go.’
‘Stop it Annie,’ he said coldly, his chin lifting enough for him to look down his nose. ‘You’re talking nonsense and you know it. What happened just now between us isn’t automatic between a man and a woman, as you should know, and I am not the sort of man who deliberately uses mutual attraction to get his own way, as you so obviously think.’ He set her gently aside and made for the door. ‘I think you’re one very confused young lady, and I also think you need to cool down and think things through before you say anything else you’re going to be sorry for.’ He paused at the door and ran his hand through his hair in a characteristic gesture of bewilderment. ‘I don’t understand you – any more than you understand yourself.’
Eventually, Annie pulled herself together enough to move. Her thought processes seemed to have crashed like an overloaded computer, and with it, her emotions. Nothing was going on inside her at all – there was just a large empty void. Vaguely, she knew that it would be filled, that the feeling would come back as it had to her frozen hands, bringing pain with it, but for the moment, the emptiness allowed her to move like an automaton, first to the chair, where she stroked the sleeping kitten’s dried and spiky fur, being rewarded with a sleepy squeak, then to the door, pulling her cape round her shoulders as she went.
At first, as the engine struggled to fire, she doubted she would even then make it away from Tallon House, but at last it coughed into life and she edged slowly onto the drive, wary of its glasslike surface. At the bottom, she turned left, surprised to find a barely passable channel down the middle of the lane. Carefully, she drove along it, mindful of the fact that at any moment, another vehicle could be negotiating the bends coming from the other direction. She soon discovered that this was unlikely to be the case.
As she breasted the top of a rise, the road disappeared and a blanket of solid, unmelted snow stretched to the horizon, where the thaw had revealed some brown patches of furrow, but here, where the road dipped into a hollow, the snow still lay tightly packed, refusing her access to the outside world.
A Will to Love Page 9
