by Anne Weale
In England, dressing-gowns like his came from the elegant men’s shops in Jermyn Street in London and were very expensive. Which didn’t mean that it couldn’t have been a present from his parents because, however hard up they were, people like the Anstruthers bought very good things and wore them until they disintegrated.
It might even have belonged to his father. Emily’s brothers wore clothes which had belonged to their grandfather. Good tweeds and handmade shoes almost never wore out, and the country houses of England were full of the relics of earlier generations which, from time to time, came back into fashion.
These thoughts flashed through Flower’s mind in a matter of seconds and, with no noticeable hiatus in the conversation, she said, ‘Apart from Piers, and your father and uncle, who both fought in the last war, most of your ancestors seem to have enjoyed doing nothing. You mentioned having two jobs. What kind of jobs are they?’
‘I’m what is known in America as a cardiologist—a physician specialising in diseases of the heart,’ he answered. ‘Many young doctors over there have to go in for moonlighting during the years between qualifying and becoming consultants. It’s a bad system because half the time they’re asleep on their feet. But it’s the way things are. Fortunately, I’ve passed that stage of my career now.’
The discovery that he was a doctor surprised her. A medical career had not been among her speculations about his means of making a living.
‘Was it your mother’s illness which influenced you to take up medicine?’ she asked.
‘It was a factor in my choice. She’d been ill since I was about thirteen. Not with heart trouble. She had a lung condition. Seeing at first hand how illness blights people’s lives made medicine seem a worthwhile occupation.’
‘But if you come back to this country will you be allowed to practise here? And surely English doctors earn much less than their American counterparts? I thought that was why some of our doctors have left here to work over there.’
‘True, but here I have one big advantage—this house and its grounds. I want to establish a clinic. This place, being within easy reach of London, is ideally situated.’
‘I see. Why didn’t you tell my grandfather this?’
‘Your grandfather seems to prefer jumping to conclusions and telling people what they can or can’t do to asking questions and listening to the answers,’ was his sardonic reply.
‘You don’t like him, do you?’ she said bluntly.
‘I like his granddaughter.’
He left the chair and came to sit beside her on the sofa. ‘I’d been told you were a stunning-looking girl, but I hadn’t expected you to be quite such a knock-out.’
Accustomed as she was to handling, with aplomb, every kind of male approach, Flower was inwardly taken aback by this swift change of pace from ordinary conversation to a flirtation.
‘Been told? By whom?’ she enquired, aware that her pulse had quickened.
‘By people who had seen you at places like Annabel’s and knew you were living in our house. One doesn’t lose touch because one lives overseas.’
He had turned his body towards her, one arm stretched along the back of the sofa, the other hand thrust in the pocket of his robe.
She knew that any minute now he was going to kiss her, and it made her as trembly inside as if she had never been kissed before.
Roderick removed his hand from his pocket and took told of her chin, turning her face towards him while at the same time his arm left the back of the sofa and encircled her shoulders.
At close quarters he seemed even bigger than he did at a distance, the formidable breadth of his shoulders making her feel slight and fragile.
His mouth touched hers, lightly and gently, and yet there was nothing tentative in the firm way he drew her against him. She had a strange feeling, as if they had done this before and he was no stranger but someone she had known forever. She yielded, her soft lips quivering and parting as the kiss changed, becoming more ardent.
It was quite a long time, several months, since anyone had embraced her. She had almost forgotten how it felt to be held by a muscular arm with a warm male hand on her throat, tilting her head back.
One kiss merged with another... and another. A small voice at the back of her mind advised her to call a halt before things got out of hand. But somehow she hadn’t the power to bring an end to a kiss like no other she had ever experienced.
Even when his hand slipped inside the red velvet robe and caressed her breast through the flimsy stuff of her nightgown she did not immediately resist.
It was only when, moments later, she grasped that he had every intention of making love to her there and then on the sofa that she started to struggle to free herself.
Wrenching her mouth away, she gasped, ‘No... please... stop... This is crazy.’
‘What’s crazy about it? I want you—and you want me,’ he said huskily.
His blue eyes were brilliant with desire as they feasted on the golden skin revealed by her disordered clothing.
The robe was wide open now, and one shoulder-tie of her nightie had been swiftly and deftly undone to remove the last flimsy barrier between her throbbing flesh and his palm. One long slender leg was bare to the top of her thigh.
She stared, aghast, at her dishevelment. But her frantic efforts to cover herself were frustrated when he caught her by the wrists, saying mockingly, ‘Don’t be shy. I am a doctor, remember.’
‘Let me go! Please...please... let me go.’
She tried to break free but couldn’t. His fingers were steely, enclosing her wrists not tightly but as inescapably as handcuffs.
‘You don’t really want me to stop now,’ he told her caressingly.
She realised it was useless to argue with him. He was too strongly aroused to listen to belated protests.
Forcing herself to relax, she whispered, ‘You’re hurting me, Roderick.’
He wasn’t, but her sudden surrender was enough to make him let go and start to caress her again.
For an instant or two she submitted. Then with all her strength she gave him one violent push and sprang up and ran.
She didn’t stop running until she reached her bedroom, where she slammed the door behind her and locked it before she stumbled to a chair. She collapsed in it, panting and shaking.
Halfway up the stairs she had known that he wasn’t coming after her. If he had given chase he would have caught her. Nor did she really believe that there had been any serious danger of his taking her by force. He wasn’t that kind of man.
He had merely assumed, and not entirely without reason, that she was the kind of girl who, on the strength of attraction at sight, would be willing to let him make love to her.
There were girls like that. She knew some. But she wasn’t one of them. Love for her was no casual pleasure, no automatic sequel to dinner a deux or an evening spent dancing at Annabel’s.
The folly of having allowed him to go as far as he had was something she could never explain to him. He would see her behaviour as that of a deliberate tease who on this occasion had miscalculated and left it almost too late to escape the consequences of her stupid pastime.
Not that he himself had acted creditably. The seduction of any female who showed herself at all willing might be forgivable in the case of a medical student, but it wasn’t what most people expected of a qualified physician of his age. Clearly, Roderick Anstruther was an unashamed and ruthless womaniser who never missed an opportunity to add another scalp to his belt.
It was almost four in the morning before Flower finally slept. Until then she tossed and turned, unable to rid her mind of the embarrassment of having to face him at breakfast tomorrow, or to quieten the physical reactions stirred up by his caresses.
Try as she would, she couldn’t stop herself thinking about what it would be like to be in bed with him.
Well, if she really wanted to know, it would be only too easy to find out, she told herself crossly. At the flat she could do as
she pleased; have a different lover every week if she felt like it. After all, she was nearly twenty-three. Who was she saving herself for if not for this blue-eyed giant who, in his person if not his nature, represented all that she found attractive in a man?
It might be an excellent idea to get both him and his ancestor out of her system forever in a rip-roaring two-week affair which would end when he went back to America.
The alarm woke her out of a deep sleep, and Flower knew at once that something catastrophic had happened but not, for some seconds, what it was.
As memory came back she groaned. How could she have made such a fool of herself?
Part of the reason Roderick had made such a heavy pass at her had probably been because of her invitation to dine at her flat without any mention of other guests. She ought to have clarified that earlier.
On the other hand, it seemed likely that, on the strength of hearsay, he had already decided she was easily beddable before he had even laid eyes on her. She wondered who had told him about her, and what they had said.
She felt tired till she’d had a shower. But a few minutes under the jet of warm water washed away her fatigue and restored her normal vitality. Probably because she didn’t drink, she had always been able to survive a short night without feeling a wreck the next day.
She dressed in slim-fitting grey trousers and a grey cashmere sweater with a collar of old lace. On her left wrist, as well as her watch, she always wore three gold bangles: one a present from Andrew Fairchild when she had been a bridesmaid at his wedding, another a present from Stephen for her eighteenth birthday, and a third which Dodo had bought her at the jewellery shop in the famous Breakers Hotel at Palm Beach when they had spent a winter holiday there.
She liked rings and had a collection, some found in London’s antique markets, some on her travels. Today she chose four of her favourites and slipped them on her slender fingers. Her nails were filed level with her fingertips and painted with colourless varnish.
On the way downstairs she met John.
Smiling at him, she said, ‘Good morning. I think our guest should be given a call or, having come from New York, he may oversleep.’
‘Sir Roderick has been up for some time, miss. He went out for a run before breakfast. You’ll find him in the dining-room with Mr Dursley.’
‘Oh... I see. Thank you.’ She passed on.
So he started the day with a run, did he? She wished Stephen would take more exercise. What with being many pounds overweight, and in a constant state of stress from trying, usually unsuccessfully, to fulfil their grandfather’s expectations of him, her brother seemed a likely candidate for an early heart attack.
She found the two men eating kippers. Roderick rose from his chair as she gave him a cool, ‘Good morning,’ before bending to kiss her grandfather.
At breakfast Abel helped himself from the covered dish left on the sideboard, and he made his own toast. The toaster, on a long lead, stood within his reach on the table and he usually ate half a dozen slices, thickly spread with butter and marmalade.
Flower’s normal breakfast consisted of orange juice, grapefruit and coffee. Abel drank tea, strong and sweet.
The men had been discussing the latest international news, which her grandfather had heard on an early bulletin on the radio while he was shaving. As they continued their conversation she filled her cup from the glass jug standing in readiness on its hot-plate.
As she sipped her orange juice she was conscious that nervousness was making her hand shake slightly. It vexed her to feel flustered when Roderick showed no sign of discomfiture.
She had swallowed three cups of coffee by the time her grandfather stood up and said to his guest, ‘No need for you to hurry yourself, but I must be off. Flower will keep you company this morning, and this afternoon we’ll get down to business. I’ll see you at lunch.’
As soon as he had left the room, she said briskly, ‘I’m sure you don’t need a guided tour of your own home, and would probably prefer to wander about by yourself. As I have various things to do this morning I’ll leave you to look around at your leisure.’
‘Running away... again,’ he said blandly.
In the act of rising, she checked. ‘Not at all. I—’
‘You’re quite safe,’ he interrupted. ‘I got the message last night. “Admire me. Desire me. But don’t expect to go beyond the preliminaries.” Right?’
Her face flamed. ‘That isn’t fair. I did nothing to encourage you even to kiss me.’
‘Apart from coming downstairs when everyone else was in bed, every blonde hair in place and wearing a garment calculated to raise any normal male’s blood-pressure. You’d been sending out encouraging signals all evening, my dear,’ he informed her.
On the point of hotly denying it, she realised that perhaps it was true.
Recovering her self-possession, she said coldly, ‘It couldn’t be, could it, that my grandfather isn’t the only one who jumps to conclusions? You said you’d been told things about me. If one of them was that I’m some sort of nymphomaniac, it doesn’t happen to be true. I won’t deny that I found you attractive—at first. But, since your extraordinary demonstration that you are a lecher, I’ve revised that opinion.’
Instead of being crushed by this riposte, he had the effrontery to grin. ‘I haven’t revised mine of you. I still think you’re a ravishing girl, and it’s wasting time not to spend the morning in bed. But it would raise the staff’s eyebrows, I suppose, so if you insist on postponing the inevitable for a few days I’m prepared to go along with you.’
For ten seconds or more she was speechless.
‘It is not inevitable!’ she snapped. ‘I have no intention of going to bed with you—ever!’
‘If you say so.’ His tone was sceptical. ‘But I think it’s been inevitable since the moment we met. You’ve already admitted to being attracted. I felt, and still do, the same way.’
‘But I don’t,’ she answered shortly. ‘I detest men who take it for granted that every girl is a pushover. Now if you’ll excuse me—’
She would have stalked out of the room, but he said, ‘No, I won’t excuse you. Your grandfather asked you to keep me company and I’m not prepared to be left to my own devices from now until lunchtime. Do you drink a lot of that!’—with a gesture at the coffee-maker.
Disconcerted by this abrupt change of subject, she said, ‘I always have it for breakfast, and I suppose I drink four or five cups during the day.’
‘You should try to break the addiction. Caffeine isn’t good for anyone, and it’s probably more dangerous for women than for men.’
‘Why?’
‘If they’re pregnant it may have a bad effect on their babies, and it’s also implicated in fibrocystic disease.’
‘I don’t know what that is.’
‘Non-malignant lumps in the breasts. The elimination of caffeine has been shown to reverse their development.’
Although both his tone and his manner were now completely impersonal, his explanation was a reminder of his warm hands caressing her body the night before.
‘I thought there was caffeine in tea too,’ she said, hoping he wouldn’t notice she was blushing again, although not as fierily as before.
‘There is, but very weak tea made with milk is less harmful than strong black coffee. Tisanes are the best thing to drink.’
‘Teas made with herbs? They sound horrible. Do you practise what you preach?’
‘Not always in other people’s houses. I do when I have any choice in the matter.’
They had risen and moved to the door which he opened for her as he said, ‘Good health is something which most people take for granted until they lose it. But ill health is often self-inflicted. As well as cutting out coffee, you ought to eat a better breakfast.’
‘I don’t feel hungry in the morning.’
‘You would if you got up earlier and ran round the garden a few times.’
‘I’m not the athletic type. Whe
re would you like to start the tour?’
‘Outside, as it’s such a fine morning. It’ll be rather wet underfoot. We’d better wear boots—if there’s a pair I can borrow.’
The butler had just emerged from the door leading to the staff quarters.
‘Watson, have we a pair of Wellingtons to fit Sir Roderick?’ Flower asked him.
‘What size, sir?’
‘Eleven.’
‘I’ll see what we can do, sir.’
‘Mine are upstairs. I shan’t be long,’ she said, leaving him in the hall.
Her waterproof boots were bright red, with a quilted gilet to match. With a silk scarf tied in an Ascot and a pair of warm woolly gloves, she was ready for what promised to be a difficult morning.
CHAPTER FOUR
When Flower returned to the hall, Roderick was pulling on stout rubber boots.
‘Won’t you need your windcheater?’ she asked, when he seemed prepared to go outside in his lightweight navy jersey.
‘I don’t think so. I rarely feel cold.’
‘You were out before breakfast, I hear.’
‘Yes, I’m hooked on aerobics. If I don’t get my pre-breakfast “fix” I feel out of kilter all day. If you’re not the athletic type, what type are you? What are you hooked on?’
‘You’ve already been told that—clothes. I live for clothes,’ she said flippantly as they left the warmth of the house for the crisp chill of the outer air.
There had been a frost in the night and the smooth lawns surrounding the house were still silver-grey in the shadows of the ancient cedars. Where the frost had thawed in the sun, the grass shimmered and sparkled.
‘I don’t believe that,’ he said. ‘I think you must have other interests. Do you ride?’
‘No, I’m not the horsey type either. I just sit about reading Vogue, eating soft-centred chocolates and worrying about my nails.’
She had set off at a brisk pace along the path which led from the east front of the house to the yew-hedged Italian garden. But as she finished speaking a hard hand fell on her shoulder, forcing her to halt if she didn’t want to topple backwards.
