Time Fuse

by Penny Jordan

  But it was what her father had revealed to her about Piers that occupied most of her thoughts. Now she could recognise that what she had thought of as contempt of her sex was in reality mistrust; carefully camouflaged it was true, but mistrust none the less. Her heart ached for the confused, hurt pre-teenager he must have been. She could well understand how he had fallen under her mother’s spell. Selina had watched her charm the opposite sex too often to doubt her success in that sphere. Poor little boy, he hadn’t really stood a chance and of course her mother had simply been using him; as she had in effect used her. Once Piers had betrayed her, no matter how innocently, she would have turned on him like all the Furies.

  Selina stopped abruptly, staring unseeingly across the calm, slow moving water of the river, unaware of the heavy tension in the atmosphere presaging thunder. Any foolish faint hopes she might have cherished that Piers might return her love must surely now die. How could he love the daughter of the woman who had caused him so much pain?

  I must get away from here, Selina thought feverishly. She must escape before it was too late and she was no longer capable of removing herself from his life. He still desired her. She was woman enough to recognise that, but if he learned who she was he would surely resent that desire even more than he already did.

  The path running alongside the river petered out abruptly. Deeply lost in her own thoughts Selina hadn’t realised how far she had come. The evening sky had taken on a brassy, ominous glow, the atmosphere heavy with the threat of rain, but she wasn’t ready to go back yet. The path ahead was blocked by brambles and nettles, but another path led away from the river bank, she could see a stile and fields beyond. Automatically she walked along it. Once over the stile the field stretched out ahead of her, dull gold and stubbly where the farmer had taken an early crop.

  There were several large landowners in the area, Mary had told her. Most of the small farms had long since been swallowed up by larger ones and here and there on the rolling hillside in front of her she could see the crumbling remains of these old farmhouses. Too rural as yet to have been caught up in the property development boom these buildings had been left to rot when the land that went with them was acquired by larger landowners.

  Dorset was a pretty county, Selina acknowledged, in many aspects still truly rural. This evening in the heavy stillness of the calm before the storm that had threatened all day she felt as though she had the entire countryside to herself. Unwilling to go back, even though she knew she should, she plodded steadily on, pausing now and again to admire the view or to study the wild flowers growing in the ditch alongside the path.

  It was only when thunder rolled ominously closer than she had expected that she realised how far she had come. A glance at her watch confirmed that she had been walking for close on two hours. Storm clouds rolled in quickly even as she stood debating what to do, lightning zig-zagging across the pewter sky.

  Knowing that the only sensible thing to do was to turn back, she was just doing so when she felt the first spots of rain. Within seconds, or so it seemed, she was soaked by the intensity of the heavy cloudburst. Thunder crashed mightily overhead, lightning darting frighteningly from the dark clouds.

  Stories she had read of people being struck down and killed by just such heavy summer storms flickered in and out of her mind, increasing her pace until she was almost running, her heart thudding madly. The thin cotton skirt and blouse she had come out in were plastered to her skin, her hair hanging in rats tails, her thin sandals soaked through and rubbing against her feet. Head down she stumbled and slid along the now slippery path, the breath almost knocked out of her as she ran into something hard and unyielding. The shock of the unexpected contact made her cry out, the sound silenced as hands gripped her arms and she heard Piers’ voice grating in her ear. ‘You damned fool… Why the hell didn’t you turn back sooner… You’re soaked through.’

  She wasn’t the only one, she realised when she had recovered from her shock. Despite the protection of the oilskin he had pulled on, Piers’ hair was plastered darkly to his skull, his jeans a dense dark blue beneath the hem of the oilskin where they had soaked up the rain.

  Why had he come after her? Shivering slightly as the damp penetrated through her outer layer of clothes and touched clammy fingers to her skin Selina told herself sardonically that his actions would not have been motivated by any tender emotions. No doubt he thought that left to her own devices she was perfectly capable of seducing any poor unfortunate farm worker she might have come across and had therefore seen it as his duty to protect the same from her. The thought brought a faint smile to her lips and as he turned and saw it, Piers’ eyebrows lifted queryingly, his ‘What the devil’s so amusing,’ almost blown away by the fierce crack of thunder sounding nearly overhead.

  ‘Come on, this way…’ He grabbed her hand without waiting for her reply, tugging her, not back down the path, but across the field, where the stubble chaffed her bare ankles like sharp needles and she was left gasping too much for breath to question where he was taking her. The field sloped quite steeply upwards and as they reached the crest of it Selina saw in the dip below a sturdy looking stone-built barn, and guessed that Piers intended them to shelter there until the worst of the storm was over.

  She didn’t really see the point. They were already both so wet that an additional soaking could hardly make much difference, but even as she framed the thought thunder clashed titanically over to her right, jagged darts of lightning illuminating the by now almost dark landscape. ‘That’s better. At least we’re out of the way of those damned trees.’

  Although she was out of breath, Piers was barely panting. Turning to look back in the direction he was facing Selina realised that the pathway along which she had come was lined on one side with a good many gnarled and ancient oaks, and she shivered a little as much from the thought of what could have happened had they been standing under one should lightning have struck, as from the cold and damp. Even as she watched the sky was split by fierce white light. A cracking sound that had nothing to do with the thunder riveted her eyes to the smouldering trunk of one of the oaks, a heavy branch thudding across the path they had been on, as the lightning found its target.

  ‘Let’s get inside the barn.’ Piers had to shout to make himself heard above the storm, and Selina followed him gladly, still shivering with reaction from what she had seen.

  The heavy wooden doors were barred with a stout plank thrust through iron supports, but Piers quickly pulled it free, beckoning her inside, and then pulling the door closed behind him, instantly muffling the furious sound of the storm.

  The barn smelled of hay and heat, only one small window allowing in a shaft of sullen light.

  Selina studied her surroundings tensely, avoiding glancing in Piers’ direction. He was busy securing the door of the barn by propping the plank up against it and wedging it closed. The atmosphere inside was almost suffocating, Selina thought nervously; the heat given off by the hay making it hard for her to breathe, or was it Piers’ presence and the sense of being cut off from the rest of human life by the ferocity of the storm that was causing her sense of breathlessness?

  ‘What the hell possessed you? You must have seen what was coming. Why didn’t you turn back?’

  She could feel the violence emanating from him and had a childish desire to burst into tears. Instead she snapped crossly, ‘I didn’t ask you to come after me… I was on my way back, I would have been perfectly all right.’

  ‘Yeah, sure, if you managed to avoid being struck by lightning. You saw what happened to that tree out there. You could have been underneath it, you do realise that don’t you? That path is lined with the damn things… You might have been killed.’

  ‘Much you’d care,’ Selina muttered under her breath, stunned when she felt his fingers digging into her arms, whirling her round to face him, his skin drawn back tautly against his bones, his eyes, even in the half-light, blazingly angry as they stared into hers.

 
‘We’re not children playing games, Selina,’ he threw at her bitterly. ‘We’re both adults, or supposed to be… Gerald spoke to me…’ he added. ‘It seems I owe you one apology at least…’

  ‘Because Sir Gerald told you we weren’t lovers?’ Her chin tilted, pain mingling with the bitterness she could feel welling up inside her. ‘Sorry but an apology based on what someone else tells you isn’t acceptable… I’d have preferred you to believe me.’

  She saw him change colour and wished she hadn’t spoken so hastily when she saw the bitterness changing the colour of his eyes from blue to dark navy.

  ‘What is it you want from me?’ he demanded thickly, ‘Blood?’

  What would he say if she replied ‘No, love.’ Almost she broke into hysterical laughter at the thought of his contempt. Suddenly she started to shiver violently. Piers made a sound under his breath and said tersely, ‘Get those wet things off. There’s no saying how long we’ll have to stay here…it could be hours. I know these summer storms. This part of the world is notorious for them… Something to do with the formation of the hills round here…’

  ‘Won’t they worry when we don’t get back?’ Her throat had gone stiff with panic, and she said the first thing that came into her head—anything to dispel the creepingly insidious feeling of intimacy filtering into their surroundings.

  ‘Gerald will realise that we’ve taken shelter somewhere,’ Piers responded crisply. ‘He, too, knows what these storms are like.’

  ‘We could hardly get any more wet than we already are,’ Selina pointed out, loathe to spend any more time alone with him than she needed to do.

  ‘Perhaps not…but we could be under another tree when it’s struck by lightning… The storm hasn’t gone. We could be struck by it ourselves…’

  ‘So could this barn,’ Selina pointed out determinedly, trying to dispel the chilling picture he was drawing.

  ‘Unlikely. It’s down in a dip…lightning always strikes at the highest point. We should be relatively safe here.’

  ‘How long do you think we’ll have to stay here…’ She could feel her tension increasing, her muscles rigidly refusing to relax. She didn’t want to be here in this intimately enclosed world, with Piers. She was frightened of the feelings he aroused inside her, knowing the potency of them now as she had not done before. His hair was slicked down to his skull, dripping rain water, and as he shrugged off his protective oilcloth she could see where the rain had seeped through the fastenings, his shirt clinging damply to his skin. She wanted to reach out and touch him so badly she was shivering with the effort of stopping herself. Piers saw her shiver and misread the cause of it, frowning darkly. ‘I won’t say it again, Selina, get out of those wet things. Pneumonia must be the last thing you want… After me of course,’ he added tauntingly, his eyes narrowing as he saw the flush that ran up under her pale skin.

  ‘I…I haven’t got anything to put on.’ How stupid the protest sounded; such a statement of the obvious that she wasn’t surprised to see his mouth curl in derision.

  ‘What are you worried about? That the sight of your underwear-clad body might drive me into an orgy of lust? I do have a modicom of self-control you know. Oh for God’s sake.’ He swore softly, when she continued to shiver without moving. ‘Have some sense woman… You’re soaked through. God knows how long we’ll be stuck here. You can have my shirt if you’re so concerned about preserving your modesty. It isn’t completely dry, but it’s a damn sight dryer than what you’ve got on.’

  She wanted to protest that she didn’t want his shirt, that she didn’t want anything of his, but when he stripped it off and tossed it over to her she caught it with hands that trembled, overwhelmed by the heated male scent of him that clung to the soft fabric.

  She turned her back on him while she stripped off her soaking skirt and blouse. Her bra and panties were wet too, but she wasn’t going to take them off. They were only thin silk and should dry out in the heat of this barn, surely?

  Behind her she heard the metallic sound of Piers’ zip, and then a brief curse. She looked back automatically flushing as he raised his head to glance coolly at her. ‘These damn jeans,’ he complained wryly. ‘They’re so wet I can hardly get them off.’

  Selina averted her eyes as he tugged the offending fabric downwards, revealing the hard muscles of his thighs. She remembered how she had touched him and how he had reacted and shuddered tensely, her body suddenly weak and yielding…wanting to touch him…wanting to be stroked and caressed to that mindless state of pleasure he had shown her before.

  Turning away from him she pulled on his shirt, rolling up the sleeves to her elbows and fastening the buttons with fingers that suddenly seemed clumsy.

  ‘Well now…’ He must have got his jeans off, because he was standing behind her; she could feel his warm breath raising goosebumps on her skin. ‘What do you propose we do to pass the time…?’

  ‘I hadn’t given it much thought.’ How stilted and uncertain her voice sounded, more like that of a nervous adolescent than a woman in her mid-twenties.

  ‘Well we could always play guessing games,’ Piers told her silkily. ‘You still haven’t told me what you were doing in Gerald’s desk, have you?’

  He saw her expression and laughed cynically. ‘Did you honestly think I had forgotten? You may stand acquitted of trying to seduce my uncle away from his wife, but there are other charges still outstanding…’

  ‘I thought in this country, a person was presumed innocent until found guilty,’ Selina retorted wildly, hating him for the way he was looking at her…hating herself for not being able to deny his accusations…to fling the truth at him, but how could she? How could she tell him that she was the daughter of the woman who had beguiled and then humiliated him?

  ‘Oh yes, but you, my dear Selina, are very far from being innocent, are you?’

  The double entendre held in the soft words infuriated her. How dare he presume to judge her morals…as though…as though he himself was as pure as the driven snow.

  Her chin tilted firmly, her eyes flashing a dark challenge.

  ‘These days it’s as acceptable for a woman to be sexually experienced as it is a man.’

  ‘Oh indeed, but then there’s experience and experience, isn’t there, Selina…perhaps we could pass the time recounting to one another how we gained our mutual experience?’

  His cool mockery stung; his sexual sophistication something that she could not possibly match.

  ‘I think I’d prefer to get some sleep,’ she told him curtly. ‘I’m feeling rather tired…and hungry…and since you say we might be here some time it seems like the best thing to do… And certainly more enjoyable than…’

  ‘My company?’ he supplied for her, a tight white line round his mouth that belied his apparent calmness. ‘By all means go to sleep. In fact I think I might join you. I’m still suffering from the after effects of jet lag, I suspect.’

  He did look tired, Selina acknowledged, looking covertly at him as he picked up the oilskin and spread it damp side down on a convenient pile of hay. She didn’t want to lie down beside him, Selina thought numbly watching him at his task. Lean and tanned, she could see the muscled play of his body as he worked. Clad only in a pair of dark briefs he looked as urbane as though he were dressed in a Savile Row suit. Her stomach muscles clenched as she watched him, the desire to reach out and touch him almost overpoweringly intense. Quickly she turned away, only to start as he came up behind her and murmured, ‘Madam’s couch awaits…’

  What could she do? To refuse to share the make-shift bed with him would only result in a spate of questions she was ill-equipped to answer. If he should get just one inkling of the truth he would pounce on it and not stop until he dragged every humiliating ounce of satisfaction from it. No, she could not refuse, Selina acknowledged, shivering a little as she walked unsteadily over to where he had spread the oilskin.

  Despite its earlier heat the temperature in the barn was dropping rapidly. Outside the r
ain lashed down, driven now by a fierce, buffeting wind.

  Overhead the thunder still rolled, spasmodic flashes of lightning illuminating the heavy darkness that had fallen.

  ‘How long will we have to stay here?’ She couldn’t prevent herself from asking the craven question. Piers frowned and glanced towards the small window.

  ‘It’s hard to say…until the storm dies out…it would be stupid to attempt the walk back until then. It’s at least four miles… What on earth possessed you to set out on such a marathon? Gerald warned you there was a storm in the offing…’

  ‘I was thinking,’ Selina told him, biting her lip when she saw the way he was looking at her.

  ‘Very deep thoughts, too, to judge from the distance you walked. Very deep indeed if they prevented you from seeing what should have been obvious to even the most town-bred fool.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to come after me,’ Selina retorted spiritedly. He didn’t need to keep reminding her that she had acted thoughtlessly.

  ‘No…’

  She half-expected him to say that Gerald had sent him after her, but instead he said nothing, still simply looking at her. ‘I realise how little you want my company,’ he said harshly at last, ‘but to attempt to walk back now in this rain and darkness is asking for trouble. The path will be a mud-stream by now… One or both of us could easily slip and sprain an ankle… Why put ourselves to such a stupid risk when we can stay here in comparative warmth and complete safety?’

  ‘I’m hungry.’ Selina knew she was being childish, but she couldn’t help it. It stopped her from reacting too much to his presence.

  He walked over to the oilskin and flipped it back, reaching into one of the pockets. A rare grin lightened his expression as he produced a bar of chocolate. ‘Here you are, little girl,’ he mocked indulgently. ‘Eat that…’

  He threw it over to her, and Selina caught it clumsily, suddenly feeling guilty because she was being so churlish. He wasn’t to know that her reaction sprang from her intense fear that he might realise how she felt about him.