Shadowed Stranger

by Carole Mortimer

  Robyn bit her lip. ‘You make it sound—not very nice.’ She pulled a face.

  ‘Coming from someone who this afternoon told me she found sex boring I find your criticism a little surprising,’ he said mockingly. ‘Besides, I’ve always found the sexual act very enjoyable, I just don’t let it rule me, I rule it.’

  ‘You’ve never been in love, have you?’

  His mouth twisted. ‘Meaning you have.’

  ‘No,’ she shook her head, ‘I haven’t. You just don’t sound as if you’ve ever loved.’

  ‘Well, I have!’ he rasped. ‘Now let’s get out of my bedroom. It’s hardly the place to be having this sort of conversation.’

  ‘It seems ideal to me.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t,’ he scowled. ‘I may just decide to prove to you that you can enjoy sex without loving someone.’

  Robyn blushed. ‘You—you were typing when I came in,’ she changed the subject. ‘Is that your work?’

  His mouth set in a thin angry line. ‘Who says I work?’

  ‘Well, you must do something!’

  ‘At the moment I’m mainly trying to cope with the hysterics and inquisitiveness of a rather nosey young girl. Now let’s go downstairs,’ and he pushed her out of the room, following close behind her.

  ‘I was only—’

  ‘You were asking a lot of questions that I have no intention of supplying answers to,’ he told her coldly. ‘And just for the record, your father was right to be concerned about you, you’re too damned trusting with a man you’ve only known a few days. You were alone with me in my bedroom just now, and your words and actions could have been taken for ones of invitation—’

  ‘They weren’t meant to be!’ she cut in indignantly, knowing that she wasn’t telling the whole truth. She had thrown herself at this man, shamelessly, and he had rejected her.

  ‘Maybe not,’ Rick shrugged. ‘Even so, you had little protection up there with me. You’re lucky my tastes don’t run to bright-eyed teenagers.’

  ‘Aren’t I?’ she said sarcastically, feeling as if she could have hit him in that moment. ‘And you’re just lucky my taste isn’t for cold-blooded, ageing Romeos,’ she added insultingly, still smarting from his rejection.

  His mouth tightened, but he didn’t cut into her verbally as she had expected him to. ‘Make your mind up,’ he drawled. ‘I can either be cold-blooded or a Romeo, never both.’

  ‘You are.’

  He ruffled her hair, throwing her blonde hair into disorder. ‘Calm down, little girl,’ he taunted. ‘All this emotion in one evening will tire you out.’

  ‘Stop talking to me as if I were a child!’

  ‘Then stop acting like one!’

  She looked at the tight line of his well-shaped mouth, realising he was coming to the end of his patience with her. He would throw her out again if she weren’t careful. ‘I’m hungry,’ she muttered in a sulky voice.

  Rick grinned. ‘Then we’ll go out and get the food. And don’t take what your father said so much to heart. Better a warning before than after.’

  ‘But you said—’

  He sighed. ‘I meant with any man, not with me.’

  ‘You’re insulting!’ she gasped.

  ‘Sensible, Robyn,’ he corrected, opening the back door for her to exit. ‘Come on, I’m hungry too.’

  ‘Why are you bothering with me?’ she asked moodily as they drove to Ampthull.

  He gave her a sideways glance. ‘In what way?’

  She flushed her irritation. ‘In any way. If you don’t want to—to—’

  ‘Sleep with you,’ he finished dryly. ‘You can’t even say it, let alone do it,’ he derided. ‘And I don’t want to sleep with you.’

  ‘Then what do you want?’

  ‘Company.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Company?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve been alone a lot the last few months. Meeting you, talking to you, has made me realise that like most human beings I crave company now and again. Besides, you were the one who instigated our first meeting today.’

  ‘I didn’t expect you to turn up!’

  ‘Sorry!’ His mouth twisted. ‘You should have made that clear to me and then we could have forgotten the whole thing.’

  She was behaving childishly, she knew that, and it would serve her right if he stopped the car and made her get out without giving her any dinner. ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered awkwardly. ‘I’m behaving badly.’

  ‘You are. But maybe you can be excused that after the battering you must have taken from your father this evening. I’ll see if I can find the time to go into the shop tomorrow and reassure him that I don’t have evil designs on his daughter’s body.’

  ‘Meaning that you think of me as a daughter yourself,’ she flashed.

  Rick’s mouth tightened. ‘You know damn well I don’t. I could easily lose myself in you, enjoy you, but it wouldn’t get us anywhere. I’d like you as a friend, Robyn, a young friend.’

  And she didn’t want him as a friend at all. He was attractive, dangerously so, very exciting to be with, and certainly not the sort of material friends were made of.

  ‘It’s that or nothing,’ he put in harshly at her continued silence.

  ‘Maybe I would prefer nothing.’

  ‘That’s your prerogative,’ he told her stiffly. ‘For God’s sake stop cheapening yourself!’ he added tautly.

  ‘I wasn’t—’

  ‘Yes, you were, damn you! What’s the matter, aren’t there enough young men in the area? Do you have to throw yourself at a complete stranger to get the attention you crave?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ she said defensively.

  ‘I don’t know what else you would call it,’ Rick dismissed disgustedly.

  ‘If that’s the opinion you have of me then you might as well drop me off now,’ she choked.

  ‘I just might do that!’ he threatened grimly.

  ‘Well, go on, then!’ she ordered shrilly.

  ‘Robyn—’

  ‘Go on!’ she interrupted his patiently reasoning voice, feeling very raw at the moment; today had been a day of reprimands and rejection. ‘You’re right, after all, why should I bother with someone like you when there are plenty of boys I could be going out with?’

  Rick’s face darkened angrily. ‘You’re one of the most unreasonable females—’

  ‘And you’re the rudest man I’ve ever met!’ she glared at him.

  ‘Robyn—’ again he tried to reason with her.

  ‘Will you stop this car and let me out!’ Two bright spots of angry colour brightened her cheeks.

  ‘I’ll stop the car!’ It ground to a halt and Rick turned savagely in his seat. ‘You’re the most exasperating girl—!’ He pulled her roughly towards him, grinding his mouth down on hers, forcing her lips apart in a kiss that was purely motivated by anger.

  Even so Robyn responded—until his fierceness began to frighten her, the singleminded purpose behind the kiss making her pull away from him to stare up at him with wide apprehensive eyes.

  His expression was grim, his jaw rigid; a pulse beat angrily in his throat, his grey eyes were steely. ‘Was that what you wanted?’ he bit out contemptuously. ‘Because if it is there’s plenty more where that came from!’

  ‘No!’ Robyn’s face was stricken as she hastily pushed open the car door. ‘I’m sorry I ever came near you.’ She scrambled inelegantly out on to the side of the road.

  ‘So am I,’ he snapped, putting the car into gear and accelerating away from her with a screech of the car tyres.

  She made her way miserably back home, aware of the fact that she had made a fool out of herself. Rick Howarth saw her only as a child to be amusing, someone to brighten up a dull evening for him. The fact that she was attracted to him meant nothing to him, and why should it? Even the few kisses he had given her had shown her she was out of his league. He would have a beautiful woman somewhere in his life, possibly even the wife she had first suspected him of having, and a naïve
impressionable girl of eighteen was hardly likely to be of any interest to him.

  He had wanted her as a friend, and a friend was one thing she could never be to him, too aware of his sensuality to ever settle for complacency, too attracted to him to settle for mere companionship.

  Not that she was even being offered that now! Rick had rejected all of her feeble attempts to show him how attractive she found him, and she wouldn’t make a fool of herself like that again.

  Her mother was in the lounge when she got home, and she looked up anxiously as Robyn entered the room. ‘All right, love?’ she queried gently.

  ‘Yes, thanks, Mum.’ She choked back the tears.

  ‘About what your dad said earlier—’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she dismissed. ‘It isn’t important.’ And strangely enough it wasn’t any more. Her father had merely been acting protectively, she understood that now.

  ‘Of course it is,’ her mother insisted. ‘Your dad is so upset. He didn’t mean it quite the way it sounded. It’s just that he can see the pitfalls you perhaps can’t see yourself.’

  Robyn gave a brittle fixed smile. ‘Well, he needn’t worry any more. I’m not going to see Mr Howarth again.’

  Her mother looked concerned. ‘It isn’t because of anything your father said, is it?’

  ‘No,’ she shook her head firmly, ‘nothing Dad said.’ But plenty Rick himself had said!

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHE saw the light blue Jaguar several times during the next few weeks, but fortunately Rick never seemed to see her. Unless that was intentional! Maybe he was deliberately avoiding her.

  Well, his luck held out for three weeks, and then quite by chance he came into the shop one Thursday morning as Robyn was helping out during her day off from the library. He looked taken aback at first, although the emotion was quickly masked.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Howarth,’ she greeted stiffly. ‘Can I get you anything?’

  ‘My mail,’ he replied tersely, looking as gaunt and unkempt as he had the first time she had seen him.

  She looked under the counter for the single thick envelope her father had kept for him, wondering if Rick could possibly be feeding himself. He hadn’t bought any groceries lately, that she knew from her mother, which had prompted her mother to send Billy over with a couple of stews and casseroles. The plates had always come back clean and empty, and yet Rick didn’t look as if he were really eating them.

  Robyn at once cursed herself for her concern. What Rick Howarth did, in any shape or form, was none of her business—he had made that patently obvious.

  She held out the envelope, watching as he ripped it open to take out several smaller envelopes. He flicked through the contents, his expression darkening as he reached a delicate blue envelope, its perfume discernible even across the width of the counter.

  ‘Damn!’ Robyn heard him mutter under his breath.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she taunted. ‘Has she caught up with you?’

  His eyes were glacial as he looked up at her. ‘She?’ he echoed in a chilling voice.

  ‘Your wife,’ Robyn guessed daringly.

  ‘I have no wife!’ he rasped.

  ‘Girl-friend, then,’ she shrugged as if it didn’t really interest her who the writer of that perfumed letter was, or what she meant in his life. But she did care! Even after several weeks of not seeing him his attraction was as strong for her, the fluttering in her stomach, the nervous pulse-rate. Not that he was troubled by any of these symptoms; he was still glaring at the blue envelope in his hand.

  He looked up, his mouth twisting. ‘I don’t have one of those either.’ He stowed the letters away in the back pocket of the tight denims he wore. ‘Robyn—’

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Howarth,’ she interrupted briskly. ‘I have to serve Miss Stevens.’ She had noticed the other woman in the shop even if he hadn’t.

  ‘That’s all right, dear,’ the gentle-voiced spinster turned to say. ‘I’m just debating which shampoo to buy.’

  Robyn came out from behind the counter. ‘Perhaps I can help you choose.’ Although no shampoo they stocked could help this elderly lady’s loss of hair.

  ‘But Mr Howarth—’

  ‘Has finished,’ Robyn said firmly. She picked up a bottle of the shampoo she always used herself. ‘Why don’t you try this one?’ She pointedly ignored Rick as he still stood to one side glowering at her.

  He didn’t move for several more minutes, then with an angry sigh he turned on his heel and slammed out of the shop. Robyn instantly relaxed, concentrating all her attention on Miss Stevens’s short shopping list, her main item being the tins of food for her two cats.

  ‘I hope I didn’t push in front of Mr Howarth,’ Miss Stevens worried as she paid for her shopping.

  ‘Not at all,’ Robyn assured her tightly as she handed over her shopping. ‘He merely called in for his mail, and he already had that.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ The middle-aged woman eyed her enquiringly. ‘Only I thought he was a friend of yours.’

  Robyn gave her a startled look. ‘Not particularly,’ she evaded, returning her attention back to the tins she had been stacking on the shelves when Rick came in.

  ‘Mrs Reed said that you and Mr Howarth were—well, that you visited him at his home.’

  She flushed, having forgotten that Sarah Reed, the village gossip, lived next door to Miss Stevens. What Mrs Reed didn’t know usually wasn’t worth knowing, and she enjoyed nothing more than relaying the latest bit of gossip to anyone who would listen. Although Robyn was surprised Miss Stevens had been a recipient to this tittle tattle.

  ‘Not that I take a lot of notice of what Sarah Reed has to say,’ Miss Stevens instantly confirmed her thoughts. ‘She always did talk a lot of nonsense, even at school. No, it was just that I happened to see you leaving Mr Howarth’s house one evening a few weeks ago.’

  ‘I went for my mother,’ Robyn said abruptly. ‘She doesn’t think he feeds himself.’

  ‘Neither do I. And he’s such a handsome man. He looks as if he should have a wife.’

  ‘Perhaps he has,’ Robyn agreed noncommitally, knowing she had been relieved beyond words when Rick had denied having a wife. He had made his lack of interest in her patently clear, and yet to know he was married would put him completely out of her reach, and she wouldn’t like that. It was silly to still be attracted to him, and yet she couldn’t help herself. Maybe it was the memory of the potency of his kiss, whatever the reason her heart skipped a beat every time she saw him.

  Miss Stevens left without pressing her any further, anxious to get back to her cats, two self-satisfied creatures who ruled the Stevens household with a twitch of their whiskers.

  ‘Will you take Mr Howarth’s supper over this evening?’ Robyn’s mother asked her later. ‘Only Billy said he would be late back from school tonight.’

  Her brother had been taking meals over to Rick Howarth for the past few weeks, her mother seeming to understand her own reluctance to go over there. ‘I don’t want to go,’ Robyn told her bluntly, tidying away their own washed dishes.

  ‘Now look, love—’

  ‘I can’t, Mum,’ she said pleadingly. ‘I thought you understood that after what happened—’

  ‘I don’t know what happened,’ her mother prompted gently.

  Robyn looked away, hot colour flooding her cheeks. ‘Not a lot, really. I just—I can’t face him again. I—I made rather a fool of myself over him. I think I embarrassed him.’ She didn’t think it, she knew it! She wasn’t used to hiding her feelings, didn’t go in for those sort of sophisticated games, and it hadn’t occurred to her to act any differently with Rick. Her parents had always brought her up to do and say the honest thing, and showing Rick she liked him had been the honest thing—it had also been her downfall. Well, she wasn’t going to fall into that trap again; if cool disinterest was what Rick wanted then that was what he was going to get in future, if there was any future for them.

  ‘As bad as that?’ her m
other said softly at the distress on Robyn’s face.

  ‘Worse!’ she grimaced. ‘I just can’t go, Mum.’

  ‘Okay, love, I’ll pop in on my way to Mrs Blewett’s. She’s got some material and a pattern to make a dress for her young granddaughter, and I said I’d go round tonight and collect them.’

  Her mother often helped the elderly lady out in this way; Mrs Blewett’s eyesight not as good as it had been. Besides, it gave them both a chance to have a chat.

  It wasn’t all that late when her mother returned, the dress pattern and pretty flowered material in her hand.

  ‘Have a nice time?’ Robyn asked guardedly.

  Her mother sat down, putting her feet up on the stool with a sigh. ‘It’s such a shame to see what old age does to people. I remember Mrs Blewett being a sprightly thing when we first moved into the village. She certainly can’t be called sprightly now, it takes her all of her time to get out of her chair.

  Robyn’s question hadn’t really been directed at Mrs Blewett, much as she liked the old lady, but she couldn’t ask outright about Rick, not without revealing how interested in him she was.

  ‘Mr Howarth doesn’t look at all well to me,’ her mother frowned her concern.

  Robyn’s brow creased, recalling how white and drawn Rick had looked this morning. ‘He doesn’t?’

  Her mother shook her head. ‘But then that’s to be expected. Orchard House isn’t exactly the ideal place to be living. It must be damp, for one thing. And I don’t suppose Mr Howarth has any heating there.’

  ‘He has a fire in his bedroom,’ Robyn told her absently.

  ‘Does he, dear?’ Her mother raised one eyebrow questioningly.

  Colour flooded her cheeks as she shrugged. ‘It was the only room with any furniture,’ she explained lamely. ‘I just happened to notice it.’

  ‘Of course,’ her mother accepted smoothly, although Robyn could see she was still worried.

  ‘That’s the truth, Mum,’ she insisted.

  ‘I’m sure it is, dear. He asked after you,’ her mother added softly.