The Unwilling Mistress

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘Sorry.’ She held up an apologetic hand. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you that. It’s none of my business whether or not you’ve spoken to—’ ‘that man’ didn’t exactly sound conciliatory, did it? ‘—to Jude Marshall,’ she concluded evenly. ‘More coffee?’ she offered lightly as she saw his mug was empty, standing to pick up the two mugs.

  ‘No.’ Will stood up too.

  ‘No?’ she echoed huskily, the atmosphere in the kitchen suddenly so charged—with something!—that she could almost taste it.

  ‘No,’ he repeated softly, reaching out to take the two mugs from her unresisting hands to place them back on the table. ‘March, you are without doubt the most puzzling woman—’

  ‘You’ve already told me that,’ she put in quickly.

  ‘The fact that I’m repeating it must mean it’s true!’ He gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘March, a few minutes ago you were spoiling for yet another fight, and yet now you’re offering me more coffee…’ He gave a dazed shake of his head.

  She gave the wince of a smile. ‘A little too changeable, would you say?’ she acknowledged self-derisively.

  ‘I would say, yes,’ he confirmed frustratedly.

  March gave a heavy sigh. ‘I don’t want to fight with you, Will. I just want—’

  ‘Yes?’ he prompted tautly as she broke off abruptly.

  She didn’t know what she wanted! All that she did know with any certainty was that the last two days had been completely miserable, partly because May was away and she was on her own, but also because she was very aware of the strain between herself and Will.

  Also the reason for it…

  Could May possibly be right? Could she already be in love with this man? If the erratic beat of her heart, the dampness of the palms of her hands, the almost weak-kneed feeling she had whenever she looked at him were anything to go by, then the answer was yes!

  And if that truly were the case, then what was she going to do about it?

  Uncertainty of any kind didn’t come naturally to March; she had always been totally decisive, and quick to act on those decisions. But looking at Will, acknowledging that breathless, weak-kneed feeling, she had no idea what she was going to do about her love for him!

  ‘I don’t know what I want,’ she finally answered huskily, dark lashes fanning down over her cheeks as she looked down at her feet.

  But she heard Will move, felt his hands warm on her upper arms as he shook her slightly. ‘March, look at me,’ he instructed softly, his gaze questioning as she raised her lashes. ‘Do you want me?’

  She gasped her surprise at the question. ‘Now who’s being excessively blunt?’ she came back incredulously.

  He gave a self-derisive grimace. ‘Maybe I’ve decided to meet fire with fire!’

  Just the mention of that word was enough to bring back memories of her time in his arms on Thursday evening, when the fire of their desire had threatened to totally engulf her.

  ‘At least answer me, March.’ He shook her gently.

  She moistened suddenly dry lips, swallowing hard, knowing her panic must be evident on her face as she sought to find an answer that wouldn’t sweep them both away in that torrent of passion, a passion she simply had no defences against.

  Will gave a choked noise in his throat, his hands moving to sweep her into his arms, holding her tightly against his chest as he stroked the silky softness of her hair. ‘I didn’t mean right this minute, silly,’ he soothed huskily.

  Her cheek lay against his jumper-covered shoulder, the rapid beat of his heart clearly discernible to her. ‘It’s just for future reference?’ she teased.

  ‘Something like that,’ he agreed, the sound of laughter in his voice.

  Not laughter at her but with her, March easily read. Just as she knew this situation was fast becoming dangerous. They were completely alone here, would continue to be so until May returned some time tomorrow. And even if she did want him, as he appeared to want her, they didn’t know each other well enough to—

  ‘Tell you what, March.’ Will moved back with a suddenness that startled her, once again holding her at arm’s length as he looked down at her with warm blue eyes. ‘Let’s go out somewhere and have a drink. Apart from a couple of lunches we haven’t actually been out together,’ he added persuasively.

  It was almost as if he could read her thoughts, as if he knew of her reluctance to admit her attraction to him when they were alone here like this.

  And maybe he did know, she acknowledged ruefully; her face was like glass, revealed every emotion that she thought or felt.

  ‘It seems a pity to waste your freshly painted nails,’ Will added teasingly as she still hesitated. ‘All of them!’

  She gave him a rueful smile. ‘I’m never going to live that down, am I?’

  He grinned. ‘Not in this lifetime, no.’

  ‘Okay,’ she accepted abruptly, not wanting to dwell on that ‘lifetime’ comment. ‘There’s a nice old-fashioned pub a couple of miles from here, we could go there.’

  Will nodded, watching her as she collected her coat from the back of the door. ‘I think I had lunch there the other day. I don’t like to cook, okay,’ he defended as she gave him a scornful look.

  ‘Okay,’ she acknowledged dryly. ‘Your car or mine?’ she added mockingly.

  ‘Definitely mine!’ He gave a shake of his head. ‘I doubt I would fit into yours, anyway.’

  March doubted he would either. Quite tall herself, her own head only just missed touching the roof of her little car; Will would simply end up with a crick in his neck.

  Besides, it was certainly an experience to be a passenger in the Ferrari, to sink into the leather seat, the array of dials on the dashboard looking too confusing for her to even try to identify what they were all for.

  It was also a relief to be away from the intimacy of the farmhouse. Something she was sure Will had been well aware of when he’d suggested they go out…

  She studied him surreptitiously as he drove, admiring the assured economy of movement, his hands long and slender on the wheel. Artistically beautiful hands, she realized wonderingly, lean and sensitive.

  ‘Did you always want to be an architect?’ she prompted interestedly once they were seated inside the saloon bar of the tiny pub, only one other couple seated on the other side of the room on this quiet Sunday evening.

  Will gave her a sharp look. ‘Is this a trick question?’

  ‘Sorry?’ She frowned her puzzlement.

  Will looked decidedly unhappy. ‘If I answer this question honestly, are you going to get up and walk out of here?’

  March eyed him warily now. Obviously he hadn’t always wanted to be an architect, but what could possibly be so controversial about what he had wanted to be that he thought she might actually get up and leave once he had answered her?

  Will could see that March was completely perplexed by his reluctance to answer her, knew she had no idea what he was talking about.

  Maybe it was his own guilty conscience because of what he had done? Or maybe it was just a reluctance on his part to talk about anything that was going to upset or disturb March. As his truthful answer was sure to do!

  Getting March to come out with him in the first place had been a miracle in itself; he didn’t want her getting up and walking out on him before they had even taken a sip of the drinks he had just bought them!

  ‘I need your promise first that you won’t do that,’ he prompted ruefully.

  ‘Okay—I promise.’ March shrugged dismissively.

  ‘Too easy.’ Will gave a firm shake of his head. ‘I’m really serious about this, March.’

  ‘I can see that you are,’ she acknowledged slowly, her puzzlement obviously deepening. ‘Is it really that bad?’ she said wonderingly.

  ‘Depends on your point of view,’ he answered evasively.

  ‘And from my point of view…?’

  ‘It just might be.’ He nodded consideringly.

  ‘Okay.’ She shrugged. ‘
I promise, no matter what you say your initial career choice was—manager of a nudist colony, astronaut, striptease artist—that I won’t walk out of here.’

  Will drew in a deep breath. ‘The last was close.’

  Her eyes widened incredulously. ‘Striptease artist!’

  He gave her a reproving frown. ‘The last word,’ he corrected impatiently, only vaguely aware of the interest of the couple seated across the room as their own voices rose in volume.

  ‘The last—ah.’ March became suddenly still, frozen in the act of picking up her glass of white wine and taking a sip.

  ‘You promised you wouldn’t walk out,’ Will reminded evenly, at the same time giving her anxious looks.

  ‘An artist,’ she muttered huskily. ‘You wanted to be an artist?’ Her voice was tight with emotion, her face pale, a nerve pulsing in her tightly clenched jaw.

  ‘I did.’ He looked away, deliberately giving her time to absorb the information. ‘As it turned out, I have a little artistic flare, and I’m good at drawing straight lines. Perfect for being an architect. But not good enough to be an artist of any interest to anyone but myself,’ he added flatly, his gaze returning to March’s face.

  She still looked pale, but her other emotions were under control now as she gave a dismissive shrug. ‘It seems there are a lot of us about,’ she murmured softly.

  He was never going to get a more perfect opening than this, he knew that. But he was reluctant to break the guarded friendship that they had only recently built up. But not to tell March now about her paintings that he had sent to London, what Graham had to say about them, would put them back to the very beginning. And he didn’t want to go there.

  ‘You haven’t tried your wine yet,’ he delayed lightly, watching as she obediently took a sip.

  Not that he thought her acquiescence was going to last for very long; a submissive March Calendar was totally unimaginable!

  ‘March—’

  ‘Will—’

  They both began talking at once, both breaking off at the same time too to look at each other with rueful derision.

  Will drew in another deep breath. ‘I know it’s ungentlemanly of me to go first—’ he grimaced, his hand tightening around his glass of beer ‘—but I really have got to get this off my chest.’

  March tilted her head to one side, looking at him quizzically. ‘I think I really would have preferred it if you had wanted to be the astronaut!’

  He gave the ghost of a smile in response to her obvious effort to try and lighten the conversation. ‘It probably would have been easier,’ he agreed ruefully. ‘But “easy” isn’t a word I’ve ever associated with being around you,’ he acknowledged dryly.

  March smiled too now. ‘Are you complaining?’

  Strangely enough, he wasn’t. It was the fact that March was so prickly and outspoken that had piqued his interest in the first place. What continued to hold his interest!

  He reached out and put his hand over one of hers as it rested on the table-top. ‘Not at all,’ he assured her warmly.

  She allowed her hand to remain beneath his. ‘Something you had to get off your chest?’ she reminded huskily.

  He closed his eyes, shutting out the beauty of her face. Maybe if he didn’t look at her…

  Damn it, he didn’t have this much trouble dealing with people who wanted impossible things in their architectural designs, had seen grown men cry when he’d told them that their design simply wouldn’t work on a practical basis!

  He opened his eyes, looking determinedly into March’s questioning eyes. ‘Your paintings are of interest, March,’ he stated evenly. ‘In fact—’

  ‘How do you know that?’ she cut in suspiciously.

  ‘You’ve been back up in the attic!’ she added accusingly, snatching her hand away from his to clasp it together with her other hand in her lap, grey-green eyes starting to sparkle with anger as she glared at him.

  ‘I was—curious,’ he admitted, his grimace apologetic.

  ‘And so I—’

  ‘And so you went back up into the attic,’ she finished tautly, turning on the padded bench-seat to glare at him now. ‘After I expressly told you not to. How dare you—?’

  ‘It’s worse than that, I’m afraid, March,’ he interrupted determinedly; he had started this, he had to finish it. ‘On Friday I parcelled up half a dozen of what I thought were the best ones and sent them to a friend of mine in London who runs a gallery—’

  ‘You did what?’ she bit out forcefully, her cheeks white now, her eyes huge in that paleness.

  ‘Graham is something of an expert,’ he defended.

  ‘Plus he’s always on the lookout for new talent—’

  ‘How dare you?’ she burst out furiously. ‘How dare you?’ she repeated incredulously.

  ‘March, just listen to me—’

  ‘No,’ she rasped uncompromisingly. ‘Absolutely not,’ she snapped, standing up to fling her shoulder bag over her arm.

  ‘You promised you wouldn’t get up and leave,’ he reminded her with a pained wince.

  She glared down at him. ‘That was over your initial choice of career,’ she ground out harshly. ‘This is something else entirely.’

  He could see that it was. Could see that in March’s eyes he really had gone too far.

  But what else could he have done? He had looked at the paintings, believed they were good, but at the same time known that if he’d asked March first she would never have agreed to sending any of them off to Graham.

  But did that make it right for him to go behind her back and send the paintings to Graham without her knowledge?

  Obviously, in March’s eyes, the answer to that was a definite no!

  ‘Don’t you want to know what Graham had to say about them?’ he cajoled reasoningly.

  Her eyes flashed sparks of green. ‘No, I do not! You are without doubt the most interfering, self-satisfied, arrogant individual it has ever been my misfortune to meet! And, in future, I would suggest you stay well out of my way,’ she added forcefully. ‘As for the paintings—get them back,’ she told him furiously. ‘Or risk answering to the police for being in possession of stolen property—’

  ‘But I’m not in possession—Graham is.’ He knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as he had said it. This was absolutely no time for levity.

  No time at all, he discovered a few seconds later as March poured the contents—the almost-full contents!—of her glass over the top of his head!

  She slammed the empty glass down on the table-top with such force it was surprising it didn’t shatter from the impact. ‘You have twenty-four hours to get those paintings back,’ she warned him fiercely. ‘After that, I shall put the whole thing in the hands of the police. I mean it, Will,’ she added harshly.

  Through the wine dripping down from his hair he could see that she did. He could also see that she had never looked more beautiful, her cheeks flushed, her eyes glowing fiercely, every inch of her slender body tense with anger.

  But it was because he did have wine dripping down his face that he knew it wasn’t a good time for him to make such an observation—she might pick up his own glass of beer next and throw that over him, too!

  ‘Do you believe me?’ she prompted tautly.

  He nodded. ‘In the circumstances, it would be hard not to believe you.’ He sighed, licking the white wine from his lips as it dripped down his face.

  ‘Think yourself lucky it wasn’t a whole bottle!’ Her eyes glowed triumphantly as she looked at him.

  ‘Oh, I do,’ he acknowledged dryly, frowning as she turned away. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Home,’ she answered decisively without even glancing back at him.

  ‘But—’

  ‘I’ll enjoy the walk,’ she bit out dismissively. ‘You stay and finish your beer.’ She crossed the room in four strides of those gloriously long legs, the door closing firmly behind her seconds later.

  Leaving the room suddenly extremely quiet, only the
logs crackling in the fireplace to break that silence as Will became aware of the unmistakable interest of the other couple in the room.

  And who could blame them? Will was sure they weren’t usually treated to such a display on a quiet Sunday evening out at the pub!

  He shrugged across at the elderly couple. ‘I guess she would have preferred red wine rather than the white!’ he murmured ruefully.

  The smiles they gave him were ones of relief rather than anything else; perhaps they had thought there was a possibility of his starting to throw the furniture around now that March had left!

  March…

  He gave an inward grown. He had really blown it with her this evening. He had known she was going to be displeased about his having taken the paintings without her permission, but he had hoped to be able to sit down and talk to her calmly about the subject. The glass of wine tipped over his head had told him that wasn’t going to be possible!

  God knew what was going to happen when Graham himself turned up tomorrow!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MARCH was cold by the time she reached the farmhouse, slightly damp from the rain that had started to fall—and extremely irritated with Will for his high-handed behaviour.

  How dared he—

  There was someone in the farmhouse!

  She had switched off all the lights inside the farmhouse before they’d gone out. She was sure that she had.

  And yet a light shone in the kitchen now. Also on the landing upstairs.

  She was just in the mood to deal with burglars—not!

  Where was Will when she needed him? He was all too eager to stick his nose in where it wasn’t wanted, and now that he was needed he was probably still at the pub calmly drinking his beer! He certainly hadn’t passed her in the car as she’d walked the couple of miles back home.

  She moved stealthily over to the kitchen window, peering inside, careful not to show too much of her face, in case the burglars should be looking her way. The kitchen was empty.