The remainder of the typing would take a mere hour or so, and that would give her four whole days to make any alterations he might require, pack her gear, and decide how to tackle her future. Four days to get herself ready to leave the relative safety of this peaceful backwater cocoon.
'That's what I wanted to talk to you about.' He sat beside her, a little too close for her liking. He looked ill at ease, running a forefinger round the inside of his shirt collar. 'When my previous secretary ran out on me I immediately got in touch with an agency which specialises in placing people in full-time employment. And now, it seems, they've come up with someone who fits the requirements I laid down at the time. Fiftyish, a dedicated spinster, very efficient, no family ties to speak of, willing to live and work in France and able to start in the autumn when I'm due to begin my next book.'
'Great.' Beth was pleased for him. He was one of the nicest men she had ever met and deserved to have things run smoothly for him. He led a peaceful, uncomplicated life, rarely socialising, his head full of plots and words, leaving little room for anything else.
'Well—'
He didn't seem over the moon about the prospect, Beth noted. His thick brows were drawn together in a frown and his forehead was wet with sweat. Though that, of course, wasn't surprising, she thought wryly. The air inside the little room was like a hot wet blanket.
Outside, thunder cracked violently, making her flinch, lightning illuminating the room for one electrified second, and William mopped his brow with his shirt-sleeve.
'That sounded close. Not frightened, are you?'
'No.' The only thing that frightened her, scared her silly, was the prospect of carrying the burden of her love for Charles through the remainder of her life. Resolutely, she pushed that bitter little reflection out of her head, shrugging. 'Should we eat? It's getting late.'
Not that she was hungry; she wasn't. But she craved solitude, the time needed to work out her future, and as far as she was concerned the discussion was over.
William had found himself an admirable full-time replacement and, although he hadn't said so, she was taking it for granted that she would be free to go at the end of the week.
But he said heavily, 'I'm not happy about your going. I'm sure the woman the agency came up with is admirable, but I'd rather you stayed. Permanently. Would you?'
He was perched on the edge of the seat, his eyes pleading directly into hers, his hands knotted together between his knees, looking as if he was waiting for a decision which would affect the rest of his life.
Beth sighed. A few weeks ago she would have jumped at his offer. The work was stimulating, her surroundings idyllic, the pay more than she felt she deserved and the man himself a poppet. But that had been before she had seen the way he looked at her, before she had realised that he was seeing her as more than a secretary. Before she had discovered she was pregnant.
'Would you?' he repeated thickly. 'And I do mean permanently—' The rest of his words were drowned under another crack of thunder, lashing above them and retreating to rattle among the hills, and the rain came down in torrents, flailing against the walls and windows, and William's face was knotted with frustration as he raised his voice to shout above the fury of the storm,
'I'm asking you to marry me, Beth. As soon as your divorce comes through we'll—'
'You can forget that, Templeton.' The steely, incisive voice made Beth's heart stand still and the room went quiet, and cold. It was as if Charles carried his own atmosphere around with him; even the tumult of the storm seemed to have abated, obliterated beneath the greater, icier violence of his tightly controlled rage.
He was standing in the open doorway, his black, rain-wet hair slicked to his skull, water darkening the fabric of his blue denim shirt, plastering it to the lean hard masculine frame. And he said, his narrowed gunfighter's eyes pinning William to his seat,
'I did knock, but got no reply. You were both, obviously, heavily otherwise occupied.' The steel-grey eyes slid to Beth, making an assessment of the filmy garment she wore, the long level look an insult in itself, and her own eyes dropped as she felt the hectic onslaught of painful colour flood her face.
He could put what interpretation he liked on the scene he had walked in on, and they wouldn't have heard him knock, would they? In the rage of the storm they wouldn't have heard a bomb if it had exploded on the doorstep! But her mind was out of control, her thoughts too chaotic to put into words. She was still in shock, rooted there by his unexpected and unwelcome arrival. And it was the bemused William who found his tongue first.
'What do you want?' It wasn't said graciously and he didn't look gracious, his face red with frowning annoyance.
And Charles said simply, his voice curtly precise, 'My wife.'
Beth shuddered uncontrollably. She had never known he had a streak of possessiveness that was so wide and went so deep. He had no further use for her himself, and yet his pride wouldn't allow him to stand by and see another man pursue her. The knowledge made her cold.
'I'm sorry if you find the idea so repellent.' He had noted her shudder, of course he had. He didn't miss a trick. And he went on, the severely honed features demonic, 'But you are my wife. That is a fact.'
'But for how long?' Beth demanded thickly, fighting back. He had heard William's talk of marriage—after the divorce—and had decided, despotically, to nip that little notion in the bud, disregarding the fact that his impatience for his own second marriage had to be the foremost thought in his mind.
He wasn't to know that, even if she weren't pregnant by him, she would never have accepted William's proposal. How could she have done when the cruel fates had conspired to ensure that she would travel through life capable of loving only one man?
He disregarded her throaty question—it had probably hit too closely to home—and his voice was terse with a still, devastating command as he bit out, 'Get packed. We're leaving now.'
His statement hung on the sultry air, suspended by sheer disbelief, and Beth grated out, her nerves at screaming pitch, 'Legally, I may still be your wife. But you can't tell me what to do!' Shaking inside, she made the effort to gather herself together, stay calm. 'I have a job to do here, remember?'
And William, taking his cue from her, blustered, 'That's right, Savage! Beth is employed by me, and paid by me. She has unfinished secretarial duties—'
'Is that what you call them?' Charles queried contemptuously, then went on to tell him, his narrowed, steely eyes never moving from Beth's anguished features, 'The day after tomorrow I'll have a secretary on your doorstep. At my expense, she will finish whatever my wife has left undone. Any other leisure-time projects you might have in mind, Templeton—' his hard mouth curled scornfully '—will be left to her discretion. Now, get your things together, Beth, or leave without them. It's up to you.'
Although his control hadn't flickered by as much as a hair's breadth, Beth knew him well enough to judge the extent of his anger. Knew that at any moment his tightly reined rage could explode with devastating results.
It was there for anyone with the wits to see it, there in the white-knuckled fists bunched against the black fabric that moulded his taut thighs, there in the smoky glint in those normally inscrutable gunfighter's eyes, in the aggressive tightening of his hard, wide jawline.
But William hadn't the wits or the discretion to see that, as far as Charles Savage was concerned, he was simply someone who was in the way, someone to be trampled heedlessly underfoot if necessary, and Beth tensed with apprehension as her employer got to his feet, blustering, 'Now look here—you can't barge into my home and tell my secretary what to do. She may be your wife—' his face went purple under the shaft of icy contempt coming his way from the younger, powerfully leashed intruder '—but, I can tell you this, she doesn't want you, she wants a divorce. And I'm not going to stand by and let you force her to do anything she doesn't want to do.'
The blustering bravado of his tone had drained away, his voice tailing off, and Beth knew
he was already regretting his hasty defence of her by the way he suddenly sat down under the frozen threat of Charles's eyes. And when Charles warned, 'Try to interfere in my life, and you'll find yourself plastered on the walls,' Beth stalked to the door, her body rigid with tension because she knew he meant every word.
She paused, looking back at William, who refused to meet her eyes and dropped his gaze to the floor. 'I'm sorry. I never had any intention of allowing you to become embroiled in my domestic concerns. I'll pack now. It's for the best.'
She made her way to her room, her legs stiff, as if her body was in shock, and gathered her things together, hurling them haphazardly into her suitcase. Pummelling them down with her tight little fists to make them fit, she knelt to fasten the clasps and the light went out, lightning hitting a power line somewhere, knocking out the supply. And that dark voice said from the doorway, almost politely, 'Do you need any help?'
'No!' she said quickly, and then her breath locked in her lungs. She couldn't see him, only sense his dark presence, like a nightmare, every last cell in her body totally and utterly aware of his nearness, and if he came closer she would scream.
Near or far, he represented a danger she could no longer hope to handle. Once she had believed in the power of her love, but that was futile now. It hadn't worked, and never would, and his draconian pursuit of her, his need to bring her to heel, was scaring her out of her wits.
But she wasn't going to let him see that. The one gain from their separation had been in the area of her pride, her self-respect. And she stood up, holding the suitcase in front of her like a shield, her voice tight with the outrage of what he was doing to her, what he was making her endure.
'You had no right to force your way in here, throwing your weight around. Apart from being the height of bad manners, you made me feel cheap, tawdry.'
'I have every right when I hear another man proposing marriage to my wife. I told you I'd be back, and if you feel cheap and tawdry then maybe that's down to the liberties you've been allowing Templeton to take over the last few weeks.'
His voice came thickly through the enveloping darkness, more oppressive than the storm-laden atmosphere, and the thunder growled and prowled, a fitting accompaniment, and she bit down on her lip, ignoring that disgusting insult, because who was he to dish out abuse when he was no doubt thoroughly enjoying an intimate relationship with the woman he intended to make his second wife? She hurled at him instead, 'OK, so you said you'd be back. I've been shaking in my shoes! So what took you so long?'
As if she didn't know! Why should he tear himself away from his south of France romantic interlude with the bewitching Zanna, the company of his child, to bother with his redundant wife? And why he had bothered to turn up eventually she would never know, unless it was to demonstrate how well he could wield the big stick!
'I doubt if the explanations would interest you,' he told her drily. 'You have shown yourself to be remarkably short on interest and concern—except for yourself.'
And she was still trying to get over the gross unfairness of that taunt when lightning jagged through the sky, throwing the grim lines of his devilish features into sharp relief, and he stepped forward, silently covering the space between them, one hand wrenching the suitcase from her, the other taking her arm, his grip inescapable.
'Let's go. I can think of better places to talk this through.'
In the darkness he was too close and Beth's blood thundered, the storm inside her outstripping the storm beyond the stout farmhouse walls. It was difficult negotiating their way through the house in the thick blackness, but Beth wasn't thinking about that, every sense, every thought unwillingly concentrated on the man at her side.
And once, as she blundered into the kitchen table, he slid an iron-hard arm around her, hauling her back against the tense warmth of his body.
Beth gave an agonised gasp, the effect of being so close to him again, her body melting into his as if they were two parts of a whole, hurting her more than her painful collision with the edge of the table.
But after a brief, smothered expletive, he moved on, taking her with him, and because they were so close she could feel the hammerbeats of his heart, hear his rapid breathing. Even so, he seemed able to see in the dark, like a cat, in spite of his being in unfamiliar surroundings, and when he released her to drag open the door that led to the courtyard she sagged against the old oak frame, pulling in lungfuls of the rain-sweet air.
And only then did her thought processes come together sufficiently to enable her to ask the question that should have been uppermost in her mind, but hadn't been.
'Where are we going? And why?' Why insist on taking her away from here when everything could have been dealt with by solicitors? And he surely didn't want her back at South Park when he would be taking Zanna and Harry there as soon as the divorce came through.
And his terse answer bore that out.
'Nowhere you know. Just a place I've found where we can settle this without interruptions, other people.'
There was little point in arguing. What could she say? That she refused to budge an inch? That would precipitate another scene, drenched with unspoken violence. And she couldn't do that to William. This was his home and this was her problem.
'No squeals of protest?' he enquired witheringly. 'You surprise me.' He took her arm and hustled her out into the rain, his breath hissing, 'No doubt you realise that it's no use running to Templeton for help. Your brave suitor has already thrown in the towel.'
His taunt infuriated her. She was simmering furiously as he hauled her along, her feet splashing through the puddles, the rain stinging her face, plastering her flimsy dress to her body. Who was he to jeer at the older man? William was decent and kind; he would never treat a woman the way Charles had treated her. And no man in his right mind would stand up to Charles Savage in this murderous mood, so his sarcasm, his taunt about throwing in the towel, were out of line.
And as they reached his car she told him so, wrenching her arm from his punishing grasp and informing him roughly, 'William is twice the man you'll ever be; he's—'
'I really don't want to know,' he drawled in return. 'Just get in.'
Which, helped by an ungentle shove from behind, Beth accomplished in seconds and, dripping wet, fuming, sat rigidly in the passenger-seat while the rain lashed the windscreen and Charles tossed her case into the boot before getting in beside her.
Wordlessly, he removed his sodden shirt and threw it on to the back seat, then, flicking on the courtesy light, he turned to her, his face all hard lines, instructing, 'Take your dress off.'
'No.' She started to shiver but felt her body go hot, remembering all too vividly that episode in the woods when their child had been conceived, knowing that her defences against him were all too few, and very tottery. She was already painfully aware of his semi-nudity, the hair-roughened skin covering hard muscle and bone, the almost overpowering need to touch, to run her fingers over the wide thrust of his shoulders, trace the tight nipples with the tips of her fingers and follow the thick hairline to where it disappeared intriguingly beneath the low waistband of his jeans.
And he told her with quiet menace, 'Take it off, or I'll do it for you.' And he meant it, he meant it all right, and there was a sob in her throat, choking her, as her shaking fingers went slowly to the top button nestling between her breasts.
'And you can stop looking like a petrified virgin, my dear. I have no lustful intentions, believe me. I don't want you coming down with pneumonia, that's all.' He reached over to the back and hauled up a car blanket. 'You can placate your modesty with this.' His mouth was cruel as he lashed, 'I've seen your naked body before, remember? And right now I'm not in the mood to feel remotely interested.'
That should have reassured her, but it didn't. How could it when those narrowed, steel-grey eyes watched her every movement as she undid buttons and wriggled out of the clinging wet fabric, fastening on the betraying peaks of her breasts as they flau
nted their shaming arousal through the delicate lace of her bra?
And when she made a shaky grab for the rug, to hide herself and the all-too obvious signs of her arousal, he held it back, his voice raw as he commanded roughly, 'And the rest.' But she couldn't move. How could she when her whole body was turning to boneless, aching receptivity, burning for his hands and mouth to touch her as his eyes were doing?
She made a small mew of distress, her pulses going into overdrive. She didn't know which was worse, her self-disgust or knowing that he had to be fully aware of how much she still wanted him. And he made an impatient sound, low in his throat, and swiftly dealt with the front fastening of her bra, his knuckles brushing against the hard, rosy velvet of her nipples before his hands slid to her rounded hips, dragging the matching lacy briefs down the length of her slender legs, his burning eyes resting for one tormenting moment on the riot of darkness that covered her throbbing womanhood before he tossed the rug over her.
'Cover yourself.' His voice was abrasive. And she whimpered, doing just that, shrinking into the soft fabric, hating herself for the way he made her feel, for the way he could so easily make her betray herself. Hating him, too, when he started the engine and asked, almost academically, 'Did you turn on so easily for Templeton? Was that the way you got him begging you to marry him?'
A hard lump of anger pushed against the inside of her chest and she could have wept, but she didn't. Instead, as the headlights of the powerful car cut a glittering swath through the darkness, she told him forcefully, hating him at that moment more than she'd ever hated anyone or anything before, 'You disgust me! You know nothing about my relationship with William. You know nothing! Do you hear me?'
'Oh, I hear you,' he countered rawly, swinging the big car on to the wet surface of the meandering lane. 'And getting to know all about your relationship with Templeton—among other things—is exactly what I have in mind. And where we are going, we'll have all the time it takes. And there won't be another man in miles for you to practise your seductive wiles on. Except me.'
Savage Obsession Page 7
