'You sound as if you're talking from bitter experience.' She laughed, but her smile died when she saw his expression.
'Let's go and talk about this somewhere else,' he suggested, his expression teasing once again.
'Lucas, you've trapped me here. How can I get home in safety with you as my escort?' Suddenly she did feel genuinely afraid. Not of him, but of herself. She ached with wanting him. Ever since they had had that run in after the auction, she had felt a physical pain in the pit of her stomach. Now, as he circled his fingers inside her palm, she knew what it was.
'You know I'm a gentleman, Goldie. You'll find me boringly easy to handle.'
She gave a disbelieving laugh. He only had to look at her with those teasing dark eyes for her common sense to desert her.
Before they got up he asked suddenly, 'Why "Goldie"? Is it a nickname?'
'No. It was my mother's whim. She was a bit of a hippy before she made a name for herself after I was born. She thought it amusing to choose the most outlandish name she could find. It's from some book or other on meditation, short for Goldenblossom. As it had to be shortened, I thought Goldie sounded marginally better than Blossom.'
He exploded with laughter. 'I'm so sorry. I shouldn't laugh. But isn't that Ravella all over? She's priceless, isn't she? The darling.'
'You knew her? In person, I mean?' People often talked as if they knew her mother, but it was usually no more than a screen acquaintance.
'Of course I did.' He frowned. 'It was only ten years ago when you left. I was an innocent sixteen-year-old.' He laughed. 'First Brendan, then Willett, then Martin, of all people, then me.'
'What do you mean?' She recognised the names. They were all the de Maine men. Willett must have been Lucas's father.
'Her lovers, ex-lovers, and faithful servants.'
'You mean my mother? You're actually talking about my mother? But she's years older than you.'
'What's age got to do with it?' He grinned disarmingly. 'I followed her around like a dog all one summer. Where were you, by the way?'
'That must have been the summer I was sent to learn French.' She frowned. 'This is outrageous, Lucas. I thought you were so conventional. I mean, she must have been thirty, and --'
'I wasn't her lover, if that's what you're thinking. I was the faithful servant. I don't think she knew I existed. She was far too involved with Martin.'
'I didn't know that.'
'I expect there's a lot you don't know about your mother,' he added, grinning at her anxious frown. 'All water under the bridge, though, isn't it?' He rose to his feet and pulled her up beside him, causing her coat to fall open. The dark eyes acquired a predatory gleam. 'I say—I wondered what you had on underneath that coat. I suspected pyjamas, but it looks like a cute little nightie.'
'I'll have you know this is a designer dress in pure silk, and it cost --'
'Far more than I'll ever be able to afford,' he said with a scowl. 'Come on, let's go.'
A chorus of goodnights and advice on how to handle him followed them out, and but for the strange switch-about in his moods and her own fizzing emotions tossing her all ways it would have been a perfect end to the day.
Now, as they set off across the green, she wondered if either of them could guess how things were going to end.
When they gained the path leading back towards the house he had one arm round her waist already. She half turned, intending to ask him to take it away, but instead she blurted, 'You're not so tall, after all.' Her face was almost level with his chin.
'Just under six feet. If you take off those little high-heeled boots you might change your tune.' His tone was light.
He could easily take me in his arms now, she thought. But he didn't. Instead he turned and started to walk on down the narrow path.
She caught up with him and slipped her arm through his. 'You treat me like a child, don't you?' she challenged, thinking of what he had said about her mother and wondering if all his teasing merely covered the fact that he preferred older women. The thought made her miserable. 'I'm twenty-two,' she told him. 'You're not much older. Closer to my generation than --' she paused '—than anything,' she added lamely.
'What's age got to do with it?' he asked again. But this time his voice was husky, and suddenly he stopped dead in the lane and said hurriedly, 'I'm trying to keep you at a distance, Goldie. Can't you tell? Don't come near me, or I won't be responsible.'
'Don't you come near me!' she said, as he reached out for her despite his words.
'That's like saying don't obey the law of gravity.'
'Well, don't then!' she retorted, despite the fact that he was pulling her towards him and she wasn't resisting in the slightest.
'I'd have to be an astronaut not to—come to think of it, maybe that's what it is—I feel like a moon-walker. Nothing's like it usually is. I've never felt like this before! You're driving me wild—with exasperation, I mean—but instead of making me want to forget you, it makes me want to do something entirely different . . .' He paused. His voice was mesmerisingly soft, and when it trailed, to a deep whisper she involuntarily moved closer, lips parted, to hear what he said next.
'You look,' he murmured, 'like an angel from heaven . . .' Before she could say anything his lips closed sweetly over hers. It was no good fighting. She didn't want to fight, anyway. He was powerful and she could feel his will reaching out, drawing her closer than touching till all her thoughts were in a chaos of confusion, with only the one obvious one thrusting its eventual way to the top.
Despite the heat of his embrace, she couldn't help shivering. Her feeling for him was drawing her into a strange web of old loves and intrigues. Brendan and Ravella. Willett and Ravella. Lucas and Ravella . . . And now Lucas and Goldie.
She felt his lips lift fractionally, and she realised that he was looking at her through the darkness.
'I can feel your mind racing round with all its little cogs and ratchets whirring along nineteen to the dozen,' he said. 'I know what you're thinking.'
'Oh, yes?' She rather hoped not.
'You're thinking, he's shooting me a line, but I'm determined to keep on saying no; or, because you're not very sure of yourself just now, you're thinking, maybe he really means it, so how do I extricate myself without hurting his feelings?'
'You mean I'm thinking two opposite things?' she asked, stalling to give herself time to work it out.
'If it's any consolation,' he went on, 'I'm thinking half a dozen opposite things, too—though most of them have us ending up in bed,' he added frankly.
She pushed at him, suddenly reluctant to be in his arms if all it came down to was bed.
'I'm glad you admit your interest is only carnal!' she bit out.
'I didn't admit anything of the sort,' he told her, drawing her unresisting body back so that it was aligned with his again. 'But admit it, the thought has crossed your mind. And, at a guess, you're as confused as I am.'
'I'm confused, yes.' She buried her head against his coat for a moment. One of his hands came up and stroked the nape of her neck. 'I've seen what happens when people get involved. And when you say you were in love with my mother --'
'I didn't say that. I said I was her faithful servant. She was the epitome of womanhood to me in those days—warm and beautiful and sexy ... I didn't count fidelity as a virtue then. Lack of it seemed far more fun. It was part of the package, and the price you paid for loving dangerously. Goldie,' his tone changed, 'doesn't it seem too much like fate that you should be here with me?'
'It's still no good, is it? We come from two different worlds.' Despite her protest, she felt something inside give in, only her head still struggled against her heart. 'And I've seen what happens to love.'
'With someone you could trust it would be different.'
'But how can we trust anyone? It's not people's own fault they fall out of love. Feelings can't be helped. That's how they work—beyond control.' She knew it now. It was happening to her against all expectations, and it ma
de her struggle harder against it. 'I daren't base my life on feelings, Lucas. And I certainly daren't base it on anybody else's feelings.'
'Deadlock.'
She nodded.
'But everybody has to risk love some time. You can't put the shutters up.'
'I don't want to risk it,' she told him stubbornly.
He held her close. 'You're confused, and, if it's any comfort, so am I. As I said, I feel like somebody in outer space—nothing's solid any more. All the old certainties seem useless.' He hesitated, and then he said, 'Obviously I can never marry you.'
She raised her head.
'We're so very different. As you said, we come from different worlds and it just wouldn't work. And then Martin would disinherit me for sure. It's not just your crazy clothes,' he added, 'but you're Ravella's daughter. There's no way round that.'
'You're thinking further ahead than me. I was only thinking about going to bed with you.'
'You were?' He mimed an expression of lecherous interest.
'Oh, Lucas, don't be such a fool. I didn't mean I was actually thinking about it, as such, I mean—oh, what do I mean?' She moved angrily away, taking him by surprise so that it was easy to slip out of his grasp. 'It's no good, is it? I thought we were just playing with each other, flirting in a sort of light-hearted way, but --' Suddenly she felt like crying. It didn't make sense. Nothing did. She felt so desolate all of a sudden. Alone and confused.
'Here.' He gave her a hug, then began kissing the top of her head, saying, 'It can't be helped. It's just bad luck that we want each other so much.'
They walked on. Bad luck, he called it. She couldn't think straight, but bad luck wasn't in it. For her it seemed bigger than that. As if destiny itself had brought them deliberately together, and was just as deliberately pushing them apart.
It was extraordinary that they could be talking of marriage already, even if it was only to say it was out of the question. But it seemed the most natural thing in the world. What would it be like next week when she was back in Hollywood? They would probably scarcely remember each other's names. Which simply proved she was right. Feelings were wayward things, and best forgotten when it came to the important life decisions.
'Lucas. I don't know what's happening to me. I'm out of my depth. I've never been involved with anyone in a sort of romantic way like this.'
They had reached the gate by now and he walked up the drive to the house with her. It was beginning to rain again, drops pattering on the leaves of the shrubbery with a hundred soft little slaps.
'Involved?' he asked, raising his eyebrows. He looked out across the garden as if not sure what to do next.
'Come inside for a minute,' she said, wondering what Sam and Hetty would think if they knew she was inviting a man into the house at this time of night, even though it was one of the de Maines.
They stood together in the sitting-room with their coats on.
'Listen,' he said, when she switched on a light and they blinked at each other in the glare, 'there's no reason why we shouldn't see each other while you're around. We might have fallen for each other, but there's nothing to stop us fighting it together. We can help each other get over it.'
Goldie wasn't sure she wanted to help him stop wanting her—if he really did—but she couldn't tell him that. What she wanted was to stay in his arms forever. She sighed. In real life it wouldn't work. They both knew that. It was decent of him to have set the record straight at once. For different reasons, there was no future in it for either of them. Marriage was the only possible direction for her and, as he so rightly asked, could she see herself at Burgh Hall? No way.
'I'm glad you're so straightforward, Lucas. I've never felt like this before. I suppose it'll fade when I go back home.' And she added, 'It must be hell to care for somebody who's absolutely indifferent to you.'
He turned away, thrusting his hands into his pockets, standing by the window and looking out on to the black garden so that she couldn't see his expression.
'I'd better go up for a minute and do my hair,' she said to his back. 'Do you want a drink?'
He swung round and she caught sight of a bleak expression, making him look older and somehow world-weary, but he brought a smile to his lips as his eyes flicked over her. 'Your hair!' he mocked. 'Its little spikes are drooping.'
'It's from where you were running your hands through it,' she muttered, turning away. She wondered why she had had the misfortune to catch that look on his face when she'd made that stupid remark about the hell of loving somebody who was indifferent. It was obvious the memory of a past love-affair had been going through his mind. He must have had lots.
Before she went out he called her back. 'I'd better go now, so don't bother with a drink. But let's plan our campaign. We could do it over lunch tomorrow.'
'What campaign?'
He flashed a smile. 'Our fight against this rather inconvenient attraction we feel for each other. I'm serious,' he went on. 'I mean, I guess I've really fallen for you. Attraction of opposites and all that. Obviously you've got to help me fight it. Maybe if you wear some of your really tasteless Hollywood-movie-star clothes and—well, you know, rattle on all through lunch about showbiz trivia, maybe then I'll be able to get over you?'
She lifted her head. 'Good idea, Lucas. And you can come along in your horrible tweeds and bore me to death with lots of hunting, shooting and fishing stories. Do that, and I guess we'll both be screaming to get away from each other.'
'It's a pact. In league against love! Twelve o'clock, then? I'll call for you in the farm vehicle.'
She nodded, vaguely wondering what the farm vehicle was. 'If it's a tractor, that'll put me off. I like good cars, sleek sports models for preference.'
As she put the chain across, after he'd left with only the briefest of goodnight kisses, she had plenty on her mind—not least the questions he had raised about exactly what had taken place that summer ten years ago. Had his role of faithful servant been as innocent as he made out? And what had her mother felt, having the sixteen-year-old Lucas following her about? She felt doomed to live in the shadow of her mother for the rest of her days. Then again, she thought, as she tossed and turned in bed, what was she to make of Lucas's obvious attraction? They couldn't be more unalike. It was true he played the part of an English gentleman farmer to perfection, but what did he really feel in his heart of hearts?
She tossed and turned restlessly until daylight began to filter into the room.
CHAPTER FOUR
Goldie didn't feel that the white silk shift would be suitable for a pub lunch, so she spent what was left of Sunday morning, by the time she eventually woke up, rinsing out the T-shirt and mini-skirt in which she had arrived. To her annoyance, they didn't dry in time on the radiator in her room, and she was reluctant to ask Hetty to let her use the dryer in the kitchen on a Sunday, so she had to make do with the silk shift after all.
She had just finished getting ready when there was the sound of a motor in the drive, so, guessing it was Lucas, she went downstairs to the front door to greet him. Hetty was looking smug as she left, obviously feeling responsible for the young love as she would see it, blossoming beneath her very eyes.
'I see you're wearing your nightie again,' he greeted her, coming round the side of a mud-spattered Land Rover to help her up into the passenger seat.
'It might interest you to know that I didn't bring anything else with me, as I thought I could buy what I needed here. I'd forgotten how primitive this place is. It's not that the shops aren't open when reasonable people might want to do some shopping—there are simply no shops.' She glared at him as if holding him personally responsible for the state of things. She had wondered how he would greet her, and now she knew.
'I'll run you into Driffield tomorrow morning, if you like. You'll be able to get a change of clothing there. Though not,' he added, 'the exclusive designer stuff you're used to.'
'I hardly expected it,' she murmured as he climbed in beside her. 'But thanks
for the offer. As I leave tomorrow, I won't be able to take you up on it.'
'Some urgent reason to go back?' he asked, switching the engine on and letting the wheels skid as he drove off fast down the drive.
'Not really,' she admitted.
'Then stay a little longer. Why not?'
'There's nothing to stay for,' she told him, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.
'You've been away for ten years. I would have thought there were lots of reasons to make more of a trip of it. Regard it as a sentimental journey into your childhood.' By now he was driving rapidly along the main road towards the motorway, and spoke almost absent-mindedly, with his mind on the traffic.
It wasn't the answer she had hoped for, and she frowned to herself. 'I'd need more of an incentive than that if I was going to change my plans,' she told him primly.
He reached out across the cab and took the hand that lay in her lap and gave it a squeeze. 'I'd give you an incentive if I wasn't driving,' he told her lecherously.
'But you don't mean it,' she replied, taking her hand away and looking out of the window. Last night's conversation ran through her mind again. 'You simply want me to help you lay some ghost from the past, don't you?' She turned to look at him.
The clean-cut profile was etched against the light, the way the sun slanted in making his cheekbones jut in harsh relief with light and shadow. His nose was pure Roman and the jaw strong, only his lips too full, spoiling the effect of classic good looks, but giving him an extra-sensual look that made her stomach turn over with desire.
He appeared to be considering her words carefully, or perhaps he was simply watching the traffic—she couldn't be sure—but, whichever, he didn't answer, and it wasn't until they pulled up shortly in the car park beside a half-timbered inn a few miles further on that he took up what she'd said.
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