‘How long will they be staying?’
The quiet matter-of-factness of the question jolted her back to reality with a suddenness that made her stare at him for a moment without answering. ‘I—I don’t know; probably just a few hours. Just—long enough.’
‘They’ll be staying overnight, surely?’
It simply hadn’t occurred to her to think about the visit in such detailed terms yet, and she shook her head once more. ‘I hadn’t really thought about it, Dom, but it would be nice—if you don’t mind.’
‘Don’t you want them to stay over?’
His insistence made her slightly uneasy and she glanced up at his face before she replied, but found nothing there to tell her what he wanted himself. ‘Yes, of course I’d like them to stay, but—’
‘Does the thought of having Edward Fuller here for any length of time bother you?’
She hastily avoided his eyes once more and shook her head, a tiny frown drawing her brows together for a moment. ‘No, of course it doesn’t, Dom. We’ve been into all that—Ned Fuller doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. I hardly know the man!’
The strong fingers that curved about her arm had a gentle soothing quality that was more of a caress than a restraint on her movements, and his thumb moved lightly over the pulse spot on her wrist. ‘Then you’d better tell Marion that they’re welcome to stay for several days if they’d like to. It hardly seems worth making the trip for no more than a few hours. See Marie and she’ll organise a couple of spare rooms for them.’ A dark brow flicked upward and she met the bright glowing humour in his eyes for a moment. ‘I can’t have your friends sharing your poor opinion of my hospitality, can I?’
‘Dom, I didn’t suggest that at all!’
The slow shaking of his head silenced her, and the hand that was holding her wrist released her after a moment to rest at her waist with a warm intimacy that she found infinitely disturbing, and he was laughing at her. His dark face warmed with it, and strong white teeth gleamed in the glowing brown of his features.
‘Everything about you shows how surprised you are that I’m making perfectly normal plans to welcome your guests,’ he teased. ‘Admit it, petite!’
Bryony could never get used to the fact that when he teased her, as he was now, he reminded her so strongly of Tim, and each time it happened she was reminded anew of the fact that he was as closely related to Tim as she was herself. Facing the fact of Dominic being related to her in any way was something she was always very unwilling to do, without quite knowing why.
‘It was just that—well, I wasn’t quite sure how you’d feel about having Ned here.’
‘You mean because you hardly know him?’
He was being deliberately difficult, she knew it, and it angered her briefly, so that she looked up at him and stock out her chin. ‘I mean because you were so angry about him kissing me when I left Basse-terre! I thought you might object to having him stay here because you didn’t approve of his—his behaviour!’
It was impossible to read what was in his eyes even had she ventured to try, but his voice still had a suggestion of laughter in it. ‘He is a very attractive man, young and good-looking, and a very determined one, I imagine. He means to see you again and I’ve no doubt you’ll agree to seeing him, but at least while he is here I can keep an eye on him, huh?’
She really believed he meant just what he said and Bryony was appalled at the idea of him keeping guard on her. Pushing away his hand from her waist, she stepped back, her eyes bright and glowing with indignation.
‘Dom, you dare!’
‘Huh?’ He was still laughing and he reached out his hand again, drawing her back to him and looking down into her eyes with a bright gleaming warmth in his own. ‘Don’t you like the idea of me making sure you’re all right? Safe from the attentions of this—stranger?’
‘Oh, you’re being unfair and—and maddening! It has nothing to do with you if Ned Fuller kisses me, and you aren’t my guardian any more!’
‘You wish to dispense with my services, eh?’
‘Dom—’ She hadn’t meant to sound quite so ungrateful or so final, and she fluttered her hands uneasily as she sought for a way to tell him so. ‘I didn’t mean it like that, you know I didn’t.’
It sounded so ineffectual after her anger of a few seconds before, and she was aware suddenly when she looked at him that he was more sober, the laughter had gone, replaced by something infinitely more disturbing. His gaze moved slowly over her flushed face and rested for a moment or two on her parted lips, then he smiled.
‘You’re very lovely when you’re angry, ma petite, has Edward Fuller learned that much about you yet?’ Bryony wasn’t sure what she was thinking about. She remembered arguing with Edward, about Dominic and her relationship with him, while they made their way back through the rain forest, and she recalled how she had not been persuaded by all Edward’s charm after their evening together. Tremblingly uncertain, she was aware of a different mood in the lean dark face so close to her own; the eyes no longer laughing, but deep and unfathomable and breathtaking.
The hand at her waist slid round to her back and tightened its hold, imperceptibly at first, the arm encircling her irresistibly drawing her closer. Another large hand spanned the back of her head with its long fingers twined tightly into her copper-red hair, and the hard, masculine touch of his body seemed to be urging her ever closer until she closed her eyes and let the excitement of it fill her with strange new sensations.
Warm breath fanned her cheek for a second and then her lips, and she felt the light teasing touch of a hard mouth seeking a response from her trembling uncertainty. A whirling chaos of excitement spun around in her head and lifted her to heights she had never dreamed of, but before the thrilling prelude was completed a sound somewhere snatched back her consciousness, and a voice, vaguely indistinct, said something she did not hear.
It was instinct that made her bow her head and rest her forehead on Dom’s broad shoulder while she sought to recover her breath, and she was trembling so much that she needed the hand she clung to so tightly for support, if she was not to succumb to the sudden weakness in her legs.
Dominic was looking across at the doorway when she raised her head, his eyes storm-dark in the brooding ruggedness of his face, and his voice was much deeper and more vibrant than she ever remembered it before. Turning her head, she hastily registered a look of indecision on Jenny’s face as she stood just inside the room, glancing from one to the other, the tip of her tongue flicking anxiously over her lips.
‘What is it, Jenny?’
She shook her head and looked as if she would have preferred to turn and flee rather than deliver her message. ‘I’m—I’m sorry, Dom, I didn’t—’
‘You timed your entrance perfectly!’
It was impossible to tell whether it was anger or relief that put such depth into his voice, but Jenny was obviously aware that she had come upon something she felt she should not have witnessed, and she hesitated before going on. That dark brooding look of Dominic’s could have given her little encouragement.
‘Marie was asking how long before you’ll be ready for dinner. I think she’s running a little late, and she wondered—’
‘Tell her she needn’t worry!’ He got up from the desk, letting go of Bryony’s hand to retrieve the cheroot he had been smoking from the ashtray beside him. ‘I have to bath and change yet, so I’ll be another fifteen or twenty minutes before I’m ready.’
‘I’ll tell her.’ Jenny’s anxious eyes flicked briefly in Bryony’s direction, then hastily back to Dominic. ‘I’m sorry, Dom, I should have knocked.’
‘Don’t be sorry—you probably stopped me from doing something we’d both have been sorry for!’ He sounded remarkably cool, and yet Bryony noticed that he did not once look at her as he walked across the room to where Jenny still hovered in the doorway. Smiling at her, he reached out and touched her cheek lightly with a finger-tip. ‘Make it ten minutes, ma chere, it wo
n’t take me very long to shower.’
He was gone, with Bryony’s eyes following his lean arrogance out of the room and across the hall before she ventured a glance at Jenny. It was the first time she ever remembered feeling ill at ease with her sister-in-law, and she felt strangely resentful of Dominic’s ability to recover so quickly. Tidying things on her desk gave her hands something to do, and she couldn’t decide whether or not she was pleased that Jenny still fingered just inside the room.
‘Shall I wait for you, Bryony? Or are you changing too?’
It was almost a relief to be addressed directly, and she turned quickly, spreading her hands as she looked down at the blue cotton dress she was wearing. ‘Should I, do you think?’ It was then that she noticed a crushed leaf stain left on her dress by close contact with Dominic’s shirt, obviously, and she put a hand self-consciously to her breast. ‘I’d better,’ she added breathlessly, and found her legs to be horribly unsteady when she walked across the room.
Jenny’s uncertainty did not surprise her, for her sister-in-law was never anxious to become involved in things she thought of as strictly family, even though Jules was for ever urging her to make her presence felt in the same uninhibited way that the rest of them did. She was fond of Bryony and she did not need to be very astute to spot that Bryony had been just as affected, or more so, by the incident she had interrupted, as Dominic was; yet she hesitated to say anything.
It was in an effort to break the uneasy silence that Bryony laughed, though it was a small unsteady sound that was accompanied by the defensive tossing back of her hair from her face. ‘If Dom can make it in ten minutes, so can I,’ she said. ‘What’s Marie giving us, Jenny, do you know?’
‘I asked for stuffed crab with rice again—I hope nobody minds.’
‘I don’t see why they should!’
‘Sometimes I’m not sure what I ought to ask Marie to do, I’m still not very good at organising menus for a French household even after three years.’
Bryony was only giving half her attention to what was being said and she smiled rather vaguely to dismiss Jenny’s doubts about her organising abilities. ‘Dom’s the only one of us who’s really French, the rest of us are—’ She shrugged carelessly, finding the matter unimportant at the moment. ‘Anyway, no one has any complaints as far as I know.’
‘Certainly no one’s complained to me.’
‘Then I shouldn’t worry about it.’
They walked together as far as the foot of the stairs, and it was clear that Jenny had it in mind to say something, something that Bryony would rather she didn’t say. Much as she hoped to avoid it, however, she was already on the first step when Jenny found her voice again, and she turned slowly back to her, and very unwillingly, she admitted.
‘Bryony—I just don’t know what to say.’ She used her hands in a way she must surely have learned from Jules, and her eyes were uncertain as she looked at her. ‘I had no idea—I mean, if I’d realised that—’ She shrugged again, using her hands to try to convey her apology. ‘I could have knocked or—or something, but I didn’t expect—’
‘Neither did I!’ Bryony’s voice was fight but not quite steady and it betrayed something of the way she was feeling, so that it was not unexpected when Jenny closed her gentle fingers over her hand where it held tightly to the newel post at the bottom of the stairs. ‘I hope you don’t think that sort of thing goes on all the time in the office,’ she said, still trying to make a joke of it. ‘It’s—it’s the first time, Jenny.’
‘I didn’t know, I wondered if—’
‘Don’t wonder any longer!’ Bryony knew her voice sounded just a little too bright and forced, but there was nothing she could do about it. ‘And you won’t have to bother about interrupting anything like that again, Jenny, not if I know Dom!’
‘And you do, better than any of us, I think.’
Jenny’s quiet voice carried confidence, and Bryony looked at her for a moment, her blue eyes evasive and uncertain. ‘Do I?’ she asked, and gave a little laugh. ‘I didn’t realise I did—in fact I can’t believe it, or I’d have known what was going to happen when—’ She shook her head hastily, and Jenny’s fingers squeezed hers reassuringly.
‘Poor Bryony!’ Her gentleness seemed to suggest that she saw herself dealing with a hurt child, and Bryony was not happy about that, but she refrained from saying so, for Jenny, as always meant well. ‘Dom can be pretty—well, he’s pretty devastating, isn’t he?’ It was something in her voice that made Bryony look up and search for something in that gauntly pretty face; something different and unexpected. ‘You find him so?’
‘Of course, don’t you?’
Bryony nodded, trying to decide what was in those hastily concealed eyes. Jenny had always held Dominic in awe, ever since Jules brought her there as his bride, three years ago, but it had never entered Bryony’s head that she would ever have eyes for anyone else. Hearing her admit to finding Dominic devastatingly attractive jolted her into a new awareness of her sister-in-law, and' she found it vaguely disturbing.
‘I didn’t realise you—recognised the existence of any other man but Jules,’ she explained. ‘It just hadn’t occurred to me that you—well, found Dom attractive.’ Jenny s skin was still fair even after three years in the Caribbean sun and it flushed a bright pink as she stood looking at her hands rather than at Bryony. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Bryony. I love Jules more than anything in the world, and there’s nothing like that about—well, don’t think I nurse an unrequited passion for Dom, or anything like that. But would it shock you to learn that I almost changed my mind about marrying Jules when I realised it would mean living on this island with Dom in command?’
Bryony wasn’t sure what to say. It was easy enough to realise how Jenny felt when she saw her prospective brother-in-law for the first time, but just the same she had not seen Jenny as easy to impress and she wondered if she really knew her as well as she had thought she did. Not that she doubted Jenny’s loyalty to Jules for a moment, but it was disturbing to think of her feeling anything more than the awe she always showed for Dominic.
‘I didn’t know.’ She looked at her own taut fingers over the newel post and shook her head, then laughed, a small breathless sound that fluttered away after a second or two. ‘It seems I’m learning more about this family today than I can cope with!’ She hastily silenced what had obviously been going to be another expression of sympathy, and smiled ruefully. ‘I hope you won’t say anything to anyone about what you saw in the office, Jenny—please.’
‘Not even to Jules?’
Naturally she would tell Jules, Bryony realised. They had no secrets from each other. ‘I can’t very well say not, can I?’ she said. ‘But no one else, Jenny, please, especially Tim.’
She tried to think why she should feel so much like crying suddenly, when she had no real reason to. Except that she could not forget how close she had come to being lost to that earthy, breathtaking magic of Dominic’s, and how relieved he had professed himself to be when Jenny had broken the spell. The laugh she gave caught and died in her throat, making her shake her head impatiently.
‘You heard what Dom said,’ she reminded Jenny. ‘You timed your entrance perfectly and saved him from getting involved in something we’d both have regretted!’
‘Oh, Bryony dear!’
Jenny didn’t believe her, and Bryony couldn’t bear the look of sympathy in her eyes, so she turned swiftly and ran up the rest of the stairs, leaving Jenny staring after her with a dark, unhappy look in her eyes. One kiss, and not even a proper kiss at that, should not be allowed to cause such upheaval, and she could not imagine why she was allowing it to. She had her hand on the door handle when she heard a door open further along the landing and she ducked hastily into her room. Dominic was the last person she wanted to see at that moment.
‘I’m quite looking forward to seeing this friend of yours.’ Tim was hunched up beside her on the sand, a length of sea-grass poked between his teeth while he gaze
d out at the sea with his eyes narrowed against the glare. ‘Is she pretty?’
It was hard to believe that she had known Marion for so long and yet she and Tim had never met, and Bryony pondered on the definite division between her two worlds for a moment before she answered. Pushing her bare feet deeper into the sand, she wriggled her toes so that the fine grains ran between them and tickled, warm and gritty on her skin.
‘She’s nice and she’s good-looking.’ It also surprised her to realise just how much at a loss she was when it came to actually describing Marion’s physical appearance. ‘I suppose you could say she was pretty in a way, but handsome is closer to the mark, I would say.’
‘Flattering!’ He grinned at her good-naturedly and pushed the hat he wore further to the back of his head. ‘You don’t do a very good public relations job, do you?’
‘Do I need to?’
Tim laughed, his eyes crinkled against the glare on the water, rolling the grass stem in his fingers. ‘I thought you might have ideas about getting me interested—as a way of doing Dom’s dirty work for him, and breaking me away from Sarah.’
‘Tim, you know I wouldn’t!’
‘I’m not so sure.’ Between their light brown lashes, his grey eyes regarded her steadily for a moment. ‘Lately you two seem to have got—’ His French mother showed in the way he used his hands, so explicit and so expressive, just as Dom did. ‘You used to stand up against Dom on principle, but lately you seem to have become almost submissive, and you never seem to face up now.’
‘Maybe I’m growing up.’ Bryony tugged at a piece of grass and put it between her lips, rolling the hard dry stem round and round with her tongue as she stared out at the glittering surface of the ocean where a trading schooner skimmed by the shallows in a brisk wind. ‘Or maybe I don’t have to fight any more.’
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