by Penny Jordan
It finally clicked! And with a great leap of faith Tess stepped off the precipice that had opened at her feet with a smile on her lips. Joy imploded in her head.
‘Even if I was carrying another man’s child!’ She gasped, raising shining eyes to his face.
‘I knew you’d get there eventually,’ he drawled. ‘Claudine got the point I was trying to make straight off.’
‘Oh, I wish I could, Rafe!’ Tess sighed.
His eyes were impossibly tender. ‘Wish you could have another man’s child?’ he teased softly.
Her eyelashes fluttered protectively downwards. ‘No, I wish I could carry yours,’ she explained gruffly.
‘Look at me!’ She’d never heard Rafe use that precise tone before; she responded to the command without thinking. His eyes bored down into hers. ‘I don’t want to hear you talk like that ever ever again. I’ve got you, that’s all I need. I have got you, haven’t I?’
She could hardly believe that Rafe was seeking reassurance from her! The troubled expression faded from her face as she vigorously nodded. With a grin on her face, she opened her arms wide.
‘I’m all yours!’ she carolled.
A fierce grin split his lean features. ‘Hold that thought for a more private occasion,’ he pleaded with a groan.
She shook her head in blissful bemusement. ‘You were talking about loving me, not…’ Self-consciously she stopped, unable to bring herself to say the name of the other woman.
‘Not Claudine,’ he said it for her. Gathering her face tenderly between his hands as he did so. ‘Never Claudine. She was always acting a part—the Claudine I convinced myself I loved never even existed. She turned up uninvited on my doorstep today and I didn’t feel a thing. After living with the real thing I’ve lost my taste for insipid imitations.’ His eyes were fiercely tender as they drank in her lovestruck features. ‘You’re simply, superbly amazing,’ he choked huskily.
‘I am?’ The imbecilic grin just wouldn’t budge from her face, but Rafe didn’t seem to mind. ‘It must have come as a shock to her,’ Tess intoned piously, while struggling to suppress an unladylike urge to punch the air triumphantly.
‘She had her chance,’ Rafe murmured heartlessly. ‘Lucky for me she didn’t take it. Hell would be falling in love with you and not being able to do anything about it.’
‘Well, you can do something about it,’ she promised, smiling blissfully. ‘You can do anything you like.’
‘You know what I like,’ he growled, drawing her close. She shivered as his lips moved sensuously over the sweet curve of her neck. He pressed his mouth to her ear. ‘I like,’ his dark, wicked whisper explained, ‘finding you wet and warm every time I touch you. Every time you pushed me away I reminded myself of that.’
Her legs sagged, and she whimpered as a wave of longing almost washed her away. She clung to him. ‘I never pushed you away.’
‘Not physically.’
She buried her head against his shoulder. ‘This must be a dream.’
Rafe tilted her head firmly up to him. ‘Oh, no, angel, this is the real thing,’ he contradicted firmly.
‘I’ve been so naggy and horrible,’ she fretted.
‘It’s called frustration, angel. The sooner we get married, the better.’
A loud baby chuckle came from the ground beside them.
Laughing, they both looked down. ‘That settles it!’ Rafe announced. ‘The baby has the clinching vote.’
‘Let’s just call it a unanimous decision,’ Tess suggested happily.
CHAPTER TEN
WITH Ben between them they strolled towards the big house. To Tess, who was seeing things with the benefit of love-enhanced vision, the mellow stone facade seemed to be smiling benignly down at them.
‘There’s Edgar,’ she said, spotting a tall figure beside the reed-edged lake. She lifted her hand in greeting. ‘Now be nice,’ she admonished sternly.
‘I’m hurt you think me capable of being anything else.’
She threw him an exasperated, but loving glance. ‘And don’t sneer,’ she instructed, lifting her hand to coax his curling lip back in place. ‘Let’s go and meet him halfway.’
‘Subtle symbolism.’
‘I thought you were going to be nice?’
‘Nag…nag…’ Rafe kissed her conveniently placed finger, drawing it into his mouth; his eyes darkened with male satisfaction when he saw the tell-tale tide of heat travel over her exposed skin.
‘I’m serious, Rafe!’ she told him hoarsely as she snatched her hand away.
‘Angel, for you I’d have tea with the devil himself.’
‘The way you were going on I thought we were.’
They were only a hundred yards or so away from Rafe’s father when there was a loud creak followed by a sickening groan as the hand-rail on the far side of the old wooden bridge that was suspended across the narrow end of the lake broke off and landed in the lake with a loud splash. They watched in horror as it took Edgar with it.
‘Hell!’ Rafe hit the ground at a flat-out run.
Hampered by Ben, Tess was much slower. By the time she reached the reed-choked bank of the lake, Edgar was crawling out of the muddy shallows.
She bent down beside him. ‘Are you all right?’
Edgar dragged an unsteady hand through his sodden head of silvered hair. ‘I always meant to learn to swim.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s the boy?’
At first Tess thought he meant Ben, who seemed interested rather than distressed by the unexpected turn of events. Then she realised who he was looking for.
‘Rafe!’ she yelled out loudly as panic and alarm began to set in seriously. ‘Rafe, where are you?’
‘He was right beside me in the water until we got to the shallows.’ Edgar staggered to his feet and, eyes shaded with his hand, looked out at the still, silent water.
The intense coldness started on the inside and worked its way outwards until Tess felt like a solid block of ice. ‘No, this isn’t happening!’ she mumbled indistinctly from between bluish lips. Desperately she continued to call his name.
‘Watch Ben!’ she told the shivering and shocked figure beside her. ‘Don’t let him near the water!’
Tears were running unchecked down her cheeks as she ran towards the water’s edge and began to wade in. Later she wouldn’t be able to recall the exact sequence of events that led to her being thigh-deep in the inhospitable lake, her voice hoarse from crying his name.
‘Please let him be all right, please let him be all right!’ she repeated like a mantra. ‘So help me, Rafe, if you do this to me I’ll never forgive you,’ she yelled out. ‘Do you hear me? Never!’
‘I hear you.’
With a cry she spun around in the direction of the voice and he was standing there looking pretty terrible, with a deep, gaping gash that began at cheekbone-level and disappeared into his hairline. Dizzying relief hit in a vast tidal wave. Terrible didn’t matter—he was in one piece. He was alive!
‘Tess…Tess…?’ She could hear her name being repeated over and over with some urgency, then the darkness closed in. She didn’t hear or see anything else until some time later.
‘Where am I?’ Part of her brain proceeded to supply her with the necessary information while the other part cringed at the corny predictability of her question.
‘In hospital!’
‘Rafe?’ With a gasp she pulled herself into a sitting position.
The white-coated figure pushed her back down. ‘Your companions are fine. The elder Mr Farrar was in the middle of discharging himself the last time I saw him, the little chap is with him. The gash on your other friend’s head required stitches.’
‘How did he…?’
‘He collided with a submerged piece of bridge apparently and was dazed. We’ll keep him in overnight just to be on the safe side, but he’ll be fine.’
‘What’s wrong with me?’
‘Been feeling a bit off colour lately, have we?’ came the cagey response.
The medic stopped being enigmatic and told her. She didn’t believe him; she didn’t believe quite loudly. But when he performed the tests to confirm his diagnosis she had no choice but to accept what he was saying was true. It wasn’t easy—miracles never were easy to believe.
She was still lying there in a state of euphoric shock when the door opened. She sighed—not again. Had the staff here never heard of neglect? If she had her blood pressure taken once more she’d scream—Tess wasn’t the best patient in the world.
The scowl faded from her face when she saw who it was. Greedily her eyes drank in the details of his bruised and battered but beloved face.
‘Well, don’t just lie there, move over, woman,’ her grumpy lover mumbled.
‘They,’ she predicted, meaning the uniformed medical types who were far too bossy for her taste, ‘won’t like it.’ The possibility of their disapproval didn’t stop her throwing open the covers invitingly and shuffling to one side.
‘I don’t give a damn what they like,’ Rafe muttered, displaying an arrogant disregard for the wishes of the medical establishment.
‘They’ll make you leave.’ She snuggled closer and discovered that under the badly fitting hospital-issue dressing gown Rafe was wearing a thin cotton gown like her own that was open to the elements—or, in this case, her questing hands—all the way down the back.
‘Not if they don’t find me. Innovators are never appreciated,’ he mourned. ‘I’m a fearless pioneer of the bed-sharing scheme.’
‘Your poor, poor face,’ she crooned gently, touching the bruised side of his face tenderly. ‘Talking about fear, don’t ever, ever do that to me again!’ Her eyes darkened as the memory of those awful few moments when she’d thought she’d lost him for ever surfaced once more. ‘I think I’ve accumulated enough material to keep my nightmares supplied for the foreseeable future.’
‘Poor baby, I’m sorry. If we’re talking fear…’ He drew a ragged breath and pulled her head down onto his chest. Tess lay there, content to hear the steady thud of his heartbeat.
‘When you collapsed like that I went totally to pieces. If it hadn’t been for Edgar I might still be standing there with you in my arms like a great useless lump of wood!’ His uneven voice was laden with bitter self-recrimination.
‘Remind me to thank him,’ she said, arranging her curvy bits with catlike pleasure around his hard masculine frame, a frame which didn’t feel any the worse for his experience.
‘I already did; in the ambulance after you came to.’
Tess, who had been diverted by the promising news that Rafe had actually been speaking with his father, lifted her head abruptly. ‘I came to?’
‘Don’t you remember?’ He smoothed down her feathery dark brows with the square tip of his thumb.
‘I just remember waking up here.’
‘But you are all right? What did the doctor say?’
She could almost feel his alarm growing. ‘I’m fine…’
‘I can hear a but, Tess.’ He took her jaw between thumb and forefinger and left her with no choice but to meet his interrogative gaze. ‘I thought we’d done with secrets, but I can see them in your eyes,’ he reproached.
‘It might be inconvenient having a husband who can read me so well.’
He ignored her weak attempt at levity. ‘So I’m right; something is wrong.’
‘Not wrong, exactly…at least, I hope you won’t think so…I don’t…but I suppose it depends…’
He placed a gentle but firm finger to her lips. ‘You’re babbling.’
‘You know how I told you I can’t have babies.’
Compassion was swiftly replaced by determination in his eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter. I want you, not babies.’
‘What if we come as a package deal?’
The hand that was massaging her scalp through the dense covering of shiny hair stilled suddenly; his expression froze mid-smile.
‘Are you trying to tell me…?’
Tess nodded vigorously. ‘I’m pregnant.’ It felt strange thinking it; saying it was proving to be an even more wonderfully peculiar experience.
‘You can’t be.’
‘That’s what I said,’ she agreed. ‘But they did all the tests, I even saw the heartbeat on the scan…’ The special memory brought a sheen of emotional tears to her wide, wondering eyes. ‘Apparently there’s all the difference in the world between impossible and improbable. They explained it all scientifically, but I still think it’s a miracle,’ she announced, a dreamy expression of wonder drifting once more across her face. ‘I had all the symptoms, but it just didn’t occur to me…’
The glazed expression faded from his face as he grinned. It was possibly the least intelligent expression she’d ever seen on his lean face, and perhaps the most satisfying. She’d thought he’d be happy, but it was good to have it confirmed.
‘We’re going to have a baby, Tess.’ He sounded incredibly complacent about the fact.
‘I know, darling.’
‘A brother for Ben…’
‘Or a sister,’ she felt impelled to add.
‘Whatever,’ he agreed with vague good humour. He gave a sudden whoop of unrestrained joy and sat up. Eyes burning with a stunned kind of enthusiasm, he planted his hands on the pillow and leaned anxiously over her.
‘Is everything all right? Are you…? Is there anything you should be doing…resting…?’
‘This is resting, Rafe,’ she pointed out. ‘And I’ve been given a complete clean bill of health by the doctor. So you can relax.’
‘Do you think the baby would mind if I kiss you?’
‘I’ve not the foggiest, but I’d mind very much if you didn’t,’ she announced firmly.
The nurse continued to stare at the crumpled bed. ‘He should be here,’ she said for the fourth time.
‘You mean you’ve lost my son?’ The notion of his six-feet-four son being mislaid made Edgar’s lips twitch. He had his own ideas about where the boy was.
‘Well, not lost, exactly…we just don’t know where he is,’ she admitted miserably.
‘A fine distinction, the significance of which escapes me at the moment.’
‘He can’t have gone far; he doesn’t have any clothes. People with head injuries can sometimes do unpredictable things,’ she admitted unhappily.
‘I feel very much better knowing that.’ His stern expression faded. ‘Don’t worry too much, we used to lose him all the time when he was a boy. Do you mind telling me where Miss Trelawny’s room is? I take it Miss Trelawny is in her room, not wandering around…?’
‘I don’t know if Miss Trelawny is allowed visitors. I’ll check…’ Two seconds’ exposure to the hard Farrar glare and her uncertainty had the good sense to vanish. ‘I’ll show you straight away, sir.’
‘I thought so!’ Edgar, pleased to have his hunch proved right, boomed as the door to Tess’s small room opened.
‘Oh, dear!’ the nurse beside him gasped in a scandalised tone as she stared in disbelief at the two figures entwined on the narrow hospital-issue bed. ‘You can’t do that sort of thing here.’
‘I think a little flexibility is called for here,’ Edgar announced authoritatively. ‘It’s not as if they’re having an orgy or anything. Stands to reason, the boy’s in pain.’
‘Not that much pain,’ Rafe responded in defence of his libido.
Tess choked and pulled the covers over her head.
‘Besides, it would be useless telling him he can’t share her bed, my dear, he’s been crawling into it since he was fourteen years old.’
‘Thirteen,’ Rafe corrected with an appreciative gleam in his eyes.
‘I don’t think you’ll ever break him of the habit. Nor,’ Edgar added, his eyes gravely holding Rafe’s, ‘would I want to.’
‘Tell her
I’ll keep an eye on Ben tonight,’ she heard Edgar say in a loud voice, for all the world as if she’d left the room. ‘She’s not to worry.’
‘I will,’ Rafe promised, with a quiver in his voice as Tess viciously pinched the non-existent spare flesh across his belly. ‘Would you mind feeding the dog too?’
‘Have they gone?’ Tess asked after the room had gone quiet.
Rafe lifted the covers. ‘It’s safe, you can come out now. I’d have joined you, but I thought it wiser not to invite smutty speculation.’
Tess gave a horrified croak and emerged, her hot cheeks glowing and her hair wildly tangled. ‘They didn’t think I was…?’ she began in a horrified whisper, then she saw the devilish laughter dancing in his dark eyes. She swatted playfully at his chest. ‘You rat! Did you see that girl’s face!’ she groaned.
‘Why would I look at another woman when you’re around?’
‘I’d prefer it if you restricted your looking to a minimum when I’m not around too. How could Edgar say those things? And you egged him on,’ she accused indignantly.
‘Actually I thought he was talking a lot of sense. Perhaps I will invite him to our wedding after all,’ he mused thoughtfully.
‘Well, if he doesn’t come neither do I.’
‘In that case, angel, he’s top of the list.’ The covers muffled her giggles and anxious squeals of protest as he pulled the covers over both their heads.
‘It looked interesting when you did it…I was wondering…’
‘Rafe, you can’t do that!’
She rapidly discovered that Rafe could do that! Being Rafe, he did it very well indeed.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
