She leaned against the desk and her knees felt weak. ‘I don’t understand, I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said helplessly.
His face altered. All the teasing went out of his eyes, leaving them dark pools that glittered redly in the glow from the electric fire. He put Orlando down on the floor beside his coffee cup. Then he stood up and took Chloe slowly and deliberately by the shoulders and turned her towards him. ‘There’s only one thing for you to understand just at this moment, my darling girl,’ he said. ‘This.’
His hands slid round her back as he drew her towards him. For a long, heart-stopping moment she stared up bemusedly into the dark, stern face so close to hers, and she knew where she had seen that look before. In Derek’s eyes last night as he went towards Jan. It was the desperate, longing look of a man for the woman he loves.
She still didn’t understand, but now it didn’t matter in the least. She smiled mistily and held up her mouth and her arms went round him, pressing his body hard against her own softness as his lips fastened on hers and his kiss probed deeper and deeper until she was gasping for breath. Then he lifted her bodily in his arms and carried her to the wide armchair.
‘I adore you, my lovely Chloe,’ he murmured. ‘I should have told you before. What would you have said?’
She laughed shakily. ‘Now you ask me, I should probably have thrown myself into your arms. I think I loved you from the first moment I saw you standing in the kitchen doorway, looking angry.’
He groaned. ‘God, how stupid can a man be? I wasn’t angry. I was knocked sideways—I didn’t know what had hit me.’
She nestled languorously closer into his arms, letting her wrap fall away from her bare shoulders as his mouth found the soft curves of her arm and breast. At last Benedict said huskily, ‘This is no way for a married couple to behave, you know. You did say you had the bedrooms fitted up, didn’t you?’
She looked away from him as the heat rushed into her cheeks. ‘Three of them.’
He stood up, still holding her close. ‘I think we’ll make do with one for tonight,’ he said.
Quite late next morning they carried the kitchen table into the clean, empty drawing room and Chloe set breakfast beside the long window, open on to the veranda. Last night’s rain had passed away and the day was clear and bright and the clean spring smell of wet grass came through the window and filled the room.
‘You’ll have to explain,’ Chloe demanded, munching her third piece of toast with relish, ‘what Jan said to you that made you come rushing up here through the night.’
Benedict grinned wryly. ‘She told me you were fine and that you were having a whale of a time with Keith Dodds. You’d been in Birmingham with him and he’d taken you out to the Grand, and he’d been over here several times to see you. And just to make my day, she threw in the information that Roger had turned up again. That shook me rigid, I can tell you, I think I asked Jan what he was up to and she said, “I wouldn’t know, you’d better ask your wife.” ’
Chloe’s eyes were blue as the sky, and dancing. ‘How could she? I thought she looked a bit guilty when she said she’d been talking to you, but I never dreamed— oh Jan, I never thought you could be so devious! She always insisted that there would be a happy ending for us and I suppose she thought she was helping it on. I wouldn’t believe her. Well, you didn’t give me much encouragement, did you?’
‘I was doing my best to play a waiting game. I thought you were very disenchanted with men in general at that time, that was why I put in all that guff about no emotional involvement. God, I was emotionally involved all right.’ He reached across the table and slid his fingers up her smooth arm. Then he turned her hand over and buried his mouth in the palm.
‘But all that about your grandmother—and Juana—and the scandal—it must have been true?’
‘It was all true. Juana and I have been buddies from the age of four or thereabouts. I’ve always been very fond of her. I suppose we might have married at some time, but she met Luis and fell in love with him. She never managed to fall out of love, poor Juana, even though he gave her a hell of a life. Drink and women. There was one night—I’d called in to see them and Luis had gone out to meet some girl. He and Juana had had a scene and she was desperate. She’d got to the end and I was scared stiff she’d do something foolish.’
‘You mean—?’
‘She had a full bottle of tablets on the table beside her,’ he said soberly. ‘It was just as well I walked in then— I was able to talk her out of it. Luis didn’t come in and I stayed with Juana.’ He looked rather grim. ‘We sat up all night talking. I think it helped a little. And then, next morning when we were having some sort of breakfast together, Catalina walked in.’
‘Oh, I think I’m beginning to understand now. She talked?’
‘She certainly did. She was already feeling sore with me because I hadn’t come up to scratch and proposed to marry her, as Grandmother wished. I think she imagined that if Grandmother got to hear of my so-called affair with Juana it would force my hand. Stupid child!’
Chloe smiled. ‘But it did force your hand, didn’t it? You married me.’
‘Yes, I did, didn’t I?’ He smiled complacently. ‘It was my lucky day when you decided to climb in through that pantry window. As soon as I saw you standing there hanging on to that whacking great sack, with your cheeks pink and your hair over your eyes and that ridiculous bobble on your hat, I knew you were going to be someone very special.’ He got up and came round and stood behind her chair, pulling her back against him, his hands reaching down to caress the smooth skin beneath her silky V-necked jumper.
Chloe gazed out through the open window, across the lawn, to where the lilac tree was in bud. She leaned her head back against him and she could feel his heart beating strongly, steadily, and she knew that their life together was going to be an enchanting mixture of tranquillity and excitement, of ecstasy and good hard work.
She turned her head and looked up into his face, her eyes dreamy with happiness. ‘Someone very special,’ she echoed his words. ‘That’s a lovely thing to be.’
A Very Special Man Page 18
