Love's Duel

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘You telephoned Davenport, didn’t you?’ he said tersely, dismissively.

  ‘The manservant? Yes,’ she still looked bewildered. ‘But I tried the number he gave me several times, the last time only a few minutes ago, and there’s been no answer all evening.’

  ‘Sonja—Miss Johnson and I have been out to dinner. Luckily Davenport remembered where we were dining and contacted me there.’

  ‘He might have let me know!’

  ‘I don’t suppose it occurred to him.’

  ‘Then perhaps it should have occurred to you,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve been worried sick!’

  ‘Did you think something might have happened to me?’ he taunted.

  Colour flamed in her cheeks. ‘I couldn’t care less if it had.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Giles drawled.

  ‘Is this a private conversation,’ the woman called Sonja interrupted frostily, ‘or can anyone join in?’

  Leonie flushed almost guiltily, having momentarily forgotten the presence of a third person. Sonja was a woman in her early, possibly mid-thirties, tall and slender, her make-up perfect. She was beautiful, exquisitely so, although the hardness of her green eyes marred that beauty somewhat.

  ‘Sorry, Sonja,’ Giles smiled at her, a warm intimate smile. ‘This is my aunt’s—associate, Leonie Carter. Leonie, Sonja Johnson.’

  ‘Miss Johnson,’ Leonie nodded acknowledgement, not liking the look of the other woman at all. ‘I think you aunt may be asleep, Giles,’ she deliberately used his first name, watching the way his eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘It was a nasty fall, but I think she’s feeling better now.’

  ‘Were you here when it happened? I thought you were going to London this weekend.’

  Her eyes widened and then she frowned. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘My aunt told me when I telephoned earlier in the week. I take it you went to see Philip Trent?’

  ‘My stepbrother, yes.’

  ‘Ah yes, your stepbrother,’ there was no mistaking his sarcasm. ‘Didn’t you go in the end?’

  ‘Yes, I went. But I knew Emily wasn’t too well, so I—’

  ‘You mean she was ill before the fall?’ he interrupted coldly.

  ‘Yes. But—’

  ‘Why didn’t you let me know?’ again he cut in, angry now. ‘You must have realised I would want to know.’

  ‘Emily didn’t want you told.’

  ‘That’s no damned—’

  ‘Giles,’ Sonja Johnson spoke again, ‘don’t you think you should go and see your aunt and stop chastising Mrs Carter—It is Mrs, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Leonie confirmed tightly, feeling the other woman’s dislike.

  ‘I’ll go up now,’ Giles told them. ‘Miss Johnson and I will be staying the night.’ He spoke to Leonie, his eyes cold.

  ‘Of course.’ She hadn’t expected anything else this time of night. ‘I’ll help Dorothy prepare the rooms—unless of course you only require the one?’ she arched an eyebrow enquiringly.

  Giles drew an angry breath. ‘Two rooms, Leonie,’ he said tautly.

  ‘Very well. If you’ll excuse me…’ She left the room, sure that their sleeping arrangements for the night had been planned much differently. Giles had obviously been spending the weekend with Sonja Johnson, and not innocently either.

  The first she knew of Giles having followed her was when he roughly swung her round to face him. ‘What was that dig about in there?’ he demanded angrily, his eyes blazing.

  She gave him a look of innocence. ‘I just thought it would help prevent your weekend being a complete washout.’

  ‘And just what do you think my aunt would make of that arrangement?’ he snapped.

  ‘Oh, she assures me that you have your—friends,’ Leonie taunted, enjoying the fury in his face. ‘Although I doubt she would expect you to entertain one of them here.’

  ‘You—’ he broke off with effort, drawing a deep controlling breath, pushing her away from him. ‘You little bitch,’ he said with quiet disgust.

  She stood her ground. As she had told Phil, she was through with running. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said with feigned politeness. ‘Did I misunderstand the situation?’

  ‘You know damn well you didn’t!’

  She smiled. ‘Yes. Excuse me, I must catch Dorothy before she goes to bed.’

  ‘See if you can arrange some coffee and sandwiches,’ Giles requested tersely. ‘Miss Johnson and I didn’t have time to finish our meal.’

  ‘Of course,’ Leonie inclined her head haughtily. ‘The doctor will be out to see your aunt again tomorrow.’

  ‘Right,’ he nodded, his thoughts preoccupied.

  Leonie found Dorothy just preparing for bed, although she came willingly to help her prepare the two rooms. Leonie let her go to bed after this, preparing the coffee and sandwiches herself. It had been a difficult day for Dorothy, and she looked almost as tired as Emily had earlier.

  Sonja Johnson was alone in the lounge when Leonie carried the tray in. Giles was obviously still up with his aunt, which meant Emily must be awake. She poured out two cups of coffee, picking one up before turning to leave the room.

  ‘Please help yourself to cream and sugar, Miss Johnson,’ she invited in a stilted voice. ‘I’m just taking this up to Emily.’ There was no reason for her to be polite to Giles Noble’s girl-friend, especially when the other woman looked at her so disdainfully.

  ‘I thought you were helping Giles’s aunt with one of her books,’ Sonja Johnson said with slow derision. ‘I didn’t realise you helped around the house too.’

  Leonie had to literally bite her tongue to stop the sharp retort that sprang to her lips. She gave a saccharine-sweet smile. ‘You might be surprised by what my—duties in this house involve.’ She was deliberately provocative.

  Anger flashed in those hard green eyes. ‘Why, you—’

  ‘I must take this up,’ Leonie said firmly. ‘I wouldn’t want Emily’s coffee to get cold.’

  She closed the door with a calmness she was far from feeling. Sonja Johnson looked like proving to be as obnoxious as Giles Noble. At least they were well suited!

  Emily gave her a reproving smile when she entered with the coffee. ‘You shouldn’t have bothered Giles,’ she gently reprimanded.

  ‘Yes, she should, Aunt. I would have been very angry if she hadn’t.’

  Leonie knew that, it had been her main reason for wanting to contact him. She certainly hadn’t wanted him down here herself!

  Giles sat on the side of his aunt’s bed, holding her hands in his much larger ones. His affection for his aunt was unmistakable, but right now Emily looked as if she could do with another sleep. And no wonder—Giles was overwhelming enough to have in anyone’s bedroom, as she had found to her cost!

  ‘Drink your coffee while it’s still hot, Emily,’ she encouraged. ‘Giles and I will leave you to rest now.’

  Emily looked disappointed. ‘But he’s only just arrived, Leonora.’

  ‘It’s very late,’ she said firmly. ‘And Giles has some coffee of his own waiting for him downstairs—among other things,’ she added for him alone.

  Emily’s interest quickened. ‘Do you have someone with you?’ she asked him excitedly.

  The look he shot Leonie left her in no-doubt of his anger. ‘I happened to be dining with someone when I received the message about your fall,’ he revealed tightly. ‘It would have been rather rude to just desert her.’

  ‘Her?’ his aunt’s face lit up. ‘Have you brought one of your girl-friends to meet me?’

  His mouth quirked with humour. ‘Sonja isn’t a girl, she’s a woman. And she’s nothing like the girl of sweet innocence you keep telling me to marry. I don’t know any women who are sweetly innocent, in my job you don’t have much opportunity to meet women like that.’

  Leonie flushed at his intended insult towards her, feeling reduced to the level of a woman who walked the streets. ‘Then perhaps you should change your profession,’ she sugge
sted waspishly.

  He gave her a cold glance. ‘It’s my profession that has taught me never to trust first impressions, or second ones, or even third ones, come to that.’

  ‘Never trust your own judgment, hmm?’

  ‘It isn’t always prudent to, and the law is able to determine a criminal so much more easily than a single individual can.’

  ‘But I’m sure you make your own personal judgments on people,’ she said with dislike.

  ‘I think it must be hard not to, dear,’ Emily remarked seriously. ‘After all, a barrister is only human too.’

  ‘Is he?’ Leonie couldn’t resist asking. ‘Well, if you say so, Emily. I think Miss Johnson might be getting lonely, Mr Noble,’ she added pointedly.

  ‘Oh yes, Giles,’ his aunt smiled. ‘You mustn’t neglect your guest. Will I get to meet her tomorrow?’

  He sighed. ‘I should think so, if you’re feeling up to it.’

  ‘Oh, I will be,’ she said happily. ‘In fact I feel a bit of a fraud lying here letting people wait on me.’

  ‘You aren’t a fraud, Emily,’ Leonie assured her gently. ‘Now you must get some rest.’

  Giles bent to kiss his aunt on the cheeks. ‘We’ll see you in the morning.’ He followed Leonie out of the room. ‘What did you mean by that remark?’ he rasped, turning her to face him.

  ‘Which one?’ She met his gaze unflinchingly.

  ‘The one about my not being human.’

  ‘I don’t remember it being a personal remark,’ she mocked. ‘It was a general observation.’

  His eyes narrowed to icy grey slits. ‘How many barristers do you know?’

  Her mouth twitched humorously. ‘Only one.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. I’m human, Leonie,’ he told her softly. ‘On some occasions very human.’

  ‘I’m sure you never forget your dignity, Mr Noble,’ she taunted. ‘Not at any time.’

  ‘You think not?’ his voice was dangerously soft. ‘I never refuse a challenge, Leonie. Never.’

  She backed away from him, her eyes wide with fear. ‘No…’

  ‘Oh yes, Leonie.’ He had her pinned up against a door, his hand going around her to turn the door-handle and push her inside. He closed the door quietly behind him. ‘The last kiss we shared wasn’t very satisfying, try to make this one a little more enjoyable, hmm?’

  ‘No!’ Panic entered her voice.

  The roughness she had expected from him never materialised; his mouth was almost gentle on hers, tasting her lips with slow drugging caresses, his hands cupping each side of her face his only hold on her.

  A strange sensation was washing over her, a sensation she had never felt in any man’s arms before. She felt like a rose in bud, each petal flowering at the touch of this man’s lips. By the time he raised his head to look down at her Leonie was completely dazed, her lips parted invitingly.

  ‘Giles…’ she groaned achingly.

  His eyes were black with desire. ‘Dear God, you’re a witch! I haven’t seen you for two weeks and yet as soon as I saw you again I wanted you. What is it about you, Leonie, why is it that after four years I still can’t get you out of my mind?’

  Her eyes were wide as she took in the significance of what he was saying. ‘But you said it was a trap before, that you—’

  ‘Giles?’ a female voice whispered nearby. ‘Giles, is that you?’

  ‘My God, it’s Sonja,’ he groaned. ‘I’d forgotten all about her.’

  So had Leonie! She had also forgotten who this man was, forgotten the fear he evoked in her. If she felt fear towards him now it was of a different kind. The hatred she had always associated with Giles Noble was now confused with other emotions, emotions she had no comprehension of. She turned away, utterly confused.

  ‘You’d better go to your—lady friend.’

  ‘Leonie—’

  ‘Giles?’ Sonja Johnson hissed impatiently.

  ‘I’ll have to go,’ he sighed. ‘Can I come back later?’

  ‘Later?’ Leonie gasped dazedly.

  ‘When everyone else is in bed I want to come back and spend the night with you.’

  ‘And Miss Johnson?’

  ‘She won’t expect to sleep with me here,’ he dismissed easily.

  ‘You’re right, Giles,’ she spat out. ‘You are human on occasion—right now I think you’re slightly insane! I’m not spending the night with you now or at any other time.’

  His eyes became glacial, his mouth tight. ‘You think not?’

  ‘I know it,’ she declared adamantly.

  ‘Brave words,’ he snorted. ‘But I’ll break you. You’ll become mine, Leonie, and on my terms, if only so that I can have the satisfaction of getting you out of my system.’

  ‘Mentally you broke me four years ago,’ she said dully.

  ‘And now I intend breaking you physically. And that’s a promise.’

  ‘Oh, get out of here!’

  She knew by the opening and closing of the door that he had indeed gone. She had never felt so lost and bewildered in her life. The man she had hated for the past four years had just kissed her, and unlike the last time, she had enjoyed it. How could it be possible to enjoy being kissed by your persecutor? He had said she was a witch, so what did that make him?

  Emily stayed in bed again the next day, on doctor’s orders, and she did so reluctantly. Leonie wasn’t too happy about it either. Oh, she wanted Emily to take care of herself, wanted her to get well, but she didn’t welcome the idea of spending the majority of the day with Giles Noble and his lady-friend.

  She was just dressing when a knock sounded on her bedroom door. She jumped nervously. Surely Giles wouldn’t…?

  Sonja Johnson opened the door and entered the room. ‘Sorry to trouble you.’ But she didn’t look sorry. ‘But I was wondering if I could borrow something of yours to wear today. This dress is hardly suitable for daytime wear.’

  Leonie couldn’t have agreed more. What there was of the emerald green gown was barely decent. ‘Of course, Miss Johnson,’ she agreed politely. ‘What would you like?’

  ‘Oh, trousers and a top will be fine, anything you can spare.’

  Any old rag, Leonie thought angrily. ‘I’m not sure any of my trousers would fit you—you’re taller than I am,’ she added to take the bitchiness out of her words, although the sting was still there. This woman rubbed her up the wrong way at a glance, and she made no secret of her dislike of Leonie.

  ‘A dress, then.’ Sonja Johnson swayed gracefully over to the open wardrobe. ‘This will be perfect,’ and she pulled out Leonie’s newest dress, a cream silky sheath, very chic, very sophisticated. She raised those pebble-hard eyes, her mouth curving into a smile. ‘Is it all right for me to borrow this?’

  ‘Of course,’ Leonie said tightly. She hadn’t even worn that dress herself yet! Now she knew she never would, not once this woman had worn it.

  ‘I may as well put it on here.’ Sonja began unzipping the green gown.

  Leonie busied herself putting on her own casual denims and fitted purple blouse, knowing she was supposed to see the perfection of the well-proportioned body in black bra and briefs, but studiously ignoring the other woman.

  ‘You won’t keep him, you know,’ Sonja Johnson suddenly spat out, all pretence gone as she glared vehemently at Leonie.

  In a way Leonie had been expecting this, had known when the other woman knocked on her door that she must have realised this was the room Giles had left last night. ‘I don’t want him,’ she didn’t prevaricate. ‘In fact, you’re welcome to him.’

  For a moment the other woman looked disconcerted, and then she had herself under control again. ‘I know what’s been going on here,’ she snapped. ‘But Giles will come back to me when he’s finished with you.’

  ‘How nice for you,’ Leonie said sweetly. ‘But as I just said, I don’t want him.’

  ‘I’ll tell him that.’

  ‘You do that, although I think he already knows. Why don’t you try asking
him?’

  ‘I just might do that!’ Sonja flounced out of the room in Leonie’s dress, already having made it her own, the cream material clinging to her slightly fuller figure.

  But Leonie knew she wouldn’t ask him any such thing. Sonja Johnson wasn’t at all sure of Giles. In his company she became kittenish and clinging, and Leonie’s disgust increased as the day progressed. Giles caught her pained looks a couple of times, and she could see it made him angry.

  She had been eyeing him warily all day, although outwardly he acted Emily’s polite nephew. But behind that polite mask his grey eyes glittered warningly, his gaze often insolently appraising, his comments barbed.

  When he suggested leaving mid-afternoon Leonie heaved a sigh of relief, glad to have his disruptive influence removed once more. It wasn’t a relaxing feeling being with someone who had the worst possible opinion of her, a man who had threatened to physically break her.

  His goodbyes made to Emily, and Sonja seated in the plum-coloured Rolls-Royce, Giles came back into the house. Leonie had just begun breathing easily for the first time that day, and when she looked up and saw him looming darkly in the doorway her face went white.

  She flinched as he came menacingly towards her, a barely leashed violence about him as he pulled her to her feet.

  ‘Did you think you’d got rid of me that easily?’ he taunted mockingly.

  ‘I hoped I had,’ she trembled against him, swallowing hard.

  ‘I’ll be back next weekend—without Sonja,’ he added dryly.

  ‘That sounds like a threat,’ she quavered, looking up at him like a trapped animal, feeling once again that sensual excitement he had woken within her last night.

  ‘It is,’ he said huskily.

  Leonie licked her suddenly dry lips. ‘I could always leave, disappear.’ Even though it was the opposite of what she had said she would do, she knew she would rather leave than have to fight this man every time she saw him.

  ‘This time I’d come after you,’ Giles rasped. ‘And I’d find you.’

  He would, she knew he would. She was trapped! ‘I won’t leave,’ she said dully.