Shadowed Stranger

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘I can do better.’

  ‘I’m sure you can,’ he taunted.

  ‘If it were my party I wouldn’t even let you in at this late hour,’ June stormed at him.

  He shrugged. ‘If it were your party I probably wouldn’t even be here.’

  June looked ready to explode. ‘Well, I like that! You—’

  ‘Calm down, little sister,’ Rick sighed. ‘You know damn well I never attend these functions. I only made tonight the exception because Alice and John are celebrating a special occasion.’

  ‘You—’

  ‘Time we interrupted, I think,’ Brian whispered to Robyn. ‘June will never win against Oliver—no one does.’

  Remembering the way he had always defeated her she could sympathise with June. Brian was right, June didn’t stand a chance of winning.

  ‘May we interrupt?’ said Brian with a smile.

  Rick turned to look at him, not having seen Robyn yet, she was sure. ‘You can not only interrupt,’ he drawled, ‘you can take my sister away.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she snapped. ‘I’m going!’ She walked off in the direction of her husband.

  Rick watched her go. ‘Richard isn’t going to know what hit him,’ he said with amusement.

  Brian grinned. ‘He very rarely does. I’d like you to meet my girl-friend, Oliver. This is—’

  ‘Robyn,’ she interrupted softly. ‘Robyn Castle.’

  Rick turned shocked grey eyes on her, his expression quickly masked as he controlled the emotion. ‘Miss Castle,’ he said tautly, giving nothing away from his manner.

  ‘Mr Pendleton,’ she nodded, challenge in her sparkling blue eyes.

  ‘Just Oliver,’ he said abruptly.

  She made no reply, looking at him calmly. But if she hoped to unnerve him she was disappointed; he just looked steadily back at her.

  ‘Brian,’ he turned to the younger man, ‘would you mind getting Robyn and me a drink—we both seem to have finished our champagne.’

  ‘Sure.’ Brian left them willingly.

  Robyn drew a ragged breath. Being left alone with him was the last thing she had expected. ‘He didn’t ask what you wanted.’

  ‘He knows my tastes,’ Rick said curtly.

  ‘How nice!’

  ‘Robyn, what the hell are you doing here?’ he rasped, pulling her to one side, out of the focus of curious eyes.

  She looked at him with feigned innocence, shaking off his hold on her arm. ‘I thought Brian had just explained that, Mr Pendleton. I’m here as his partner.’

  ‘Robyn—’

  ‘Miss Castle,’ she said pointedly.

  ‘Like hell I’ll call you Miss Castle,’ he exploded. ‘God, I couldn’t believe it when I turned round and saw you standing there!’

  Neither had she, but at least she had had time to collect her thoughts together; Rick had had no time at all. But he was controlled—God, was he controlled! And she hated him for it.

  ‘I’m sorry if I surprised you—’

  ‘Surprised me?’ He raised his eyes heavenwards at the understatement. ‘I’ve thought of nothing but you for weeks, and now here you are.’

  ‘Yes,’ she gave a brittle smile, ‘here I am. Brian is very nice, isn’t he?’

  Rick’s mouth tightened. ‘How did you meet him?’

  She shrugged. ‘At a disco. You do know what a disco is, don’t you?’ she asked insultingly.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ he rasped harshly, her meaning not lost on him. ‘Believe it or not, I’ve even been to a couple.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really! God, Robyn …’ he groaned, his eyes kindling to warmth, ‘I’ve missed you.’

  She hardened her heart to the seduction in his voice, reprimanding herself for still finding him attractive. This man had made a fool of her in the cruellest way possible, had deceived her whole family. He had even had her mother cooking for him because she felt sorry for him! Well, she wasn’t falling into that trap again—let him go back to his wife, or some other woman who didn’t mind sharing him.

  ‘I take it your ribs have healed.’ She ignored the passion in his eyes, determined to fight her attraction to him.

  ‘Finally,’ he nodded. ‘Robyn, that night—’

  ‘Yes, that night,’ she cut in with a derisive laugh. ‘People are apt to do and say things out of character at that time of the morning.’

  Rick’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re saying you made a mistake telling me you love me?’

  Her laugh was more forced this time. ‘Did I really say that? Goodness,’ she gave a coy smile, ‘how forward of me! Tell me, Mr Pendleton, what field do you specialise in?’ She made an effort to look interested in the answer.

  ‘Obstetrics,’ he replied curtly.

  ‘Oh.’ She blushed; this was the last field she would have thought, and she instantly felt jealous of all those women he must see every day.

  ‘I enjoy bringing new life into the world,’ he said dryly.

  Robyn bit her lip, as a new thought occurred to her. ‘Do you have any children of your own?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You sound very sure,’ she said bitchily.

  ‘I am. Robyn—’

  ‘Here we are,’ Brian arrived back with their drinks. ‘I had some trouble finding you,’ he added almost accusingly.

  Rick took his drink from the other man. ‘I wanted to get out of the crush,’ he said smoothly. ‘Robyn very kindly agreed to keep me company.’

  ‘Poor Robyn’s been thrown in at the deep end with my family.’ Brian put his arm affectionately about her shoulder. ‘It wasn’t the way I wanted her to meet you all.’

  Rick’s rapier-sharp gaze passed slowly over them both. ‘Am I to understand that congratulations are in order?’ he asked curtly, his eyes cold.

  ‘I—’

  ‘Don’t jump the gun, Oliver,’ Brian warned, smiling. ‘I’m still trying to persuade Robyn that I’m the right man for her. She says it’s too soon to tell.’

  Rick took a large swallow of his whisky, seeming to feel nothing as the raw alcohol passed down his throat. ‘Is it too soon, Robyn?’ he suddenly asked her.

  She bit her lip, wishing she could look away from him, but found herself mesmerised, as usual. How dared he taunt her with her impetuous declaration of love for him! Her eyes sparkled angrily. ‘I think you have to know a person for some time before knowing whether or not you love them,’ she told him coldly. ‘Anything else can only be called infatuation.’

  His jaw tightened. ‘You really believe that?’

  No, she didn’t believe that; she knew deep in her heart that love can strike in an instant, that it can exist where it has no right to be. ‘I think I do, Mr Pendleton,’ she returned tautly. ‘A lot of women have been temporarily attracted by good looks and surface charm, but it takes time—a lot of time,’ she added emphatically, ‘to really know and love someone.’

  ‘I’m sure you would never be infatuated.’

  She looked at him unflinchingly, meeting the mockery in his eyes head-on. ‘It has been known.’

  ‘But not this time,’ Brian put in cheerfully, sensing none of the undercurrents to this conversation. ‘Robyn already knows how I feel about her, I’m hoping she’ll soon admit to feeling the same way about me. In fact,’ he added conspiratorially, ‘I’m hoping to persuade her into letting me tell my parents before the end of this weekend.’

  Rick raised his eyebrows as he looked at Robyn. ‘You’re staying here with Alice and John?’

  ‘Just until tomorrow,’ she nodded.

  ‘When you’ll return home?’

  ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged tightly.

  ‘Oliver was in your part of the country a few weeks ago.’ Brian spoke again, still completely ignorant of the fact that Robyn and Rick had met before—and Robyn hoped he stayed that way! ‘In fact it was because of that that my parents thought of my aunt and uncle when they decided I should go away for a while.’

  ‘I saw Jim and Wilma several t
imes while I was there,’ Rick nodded. ‘I doubt your parents thought you would come back from there and announce your intention of getting married,’ he said dryly.

  ‘He hasn’t done that, Mr Pendleton,’ Robyn told him abruptly. ‘At least, not with me in mind.’

  ‘I—Oh damn,’ Brian scowled. ‘My mother’s calling me again.’

  Rick smiled unsympathetically. ‘That’s what happens when your parents are the ones giving the party.’

  Brian grimaced. ‘I have to go and say goodnight to one of my aunts.’ He kissed Robyn briefly on the lips. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he promised.

  ‘Let’s get out of here.’ Rick instantly pulled Robyn towards the door, out of the room and down the corridor, to push her inside another room, closing and locking the door behind them. ‘Now,’ he said softly, ‘I want to hear more about this infatuation.’

  He had warned her he could be dangerous, and now he was dangerous in another kind of way; his anger was making him so.

  ‘Well?’ he rasped.

  Robyn backed away from him. ‘Will you please open the door?’ She faced him defiantly. ‘People will wonder what we’re doing in here.’

  ‘No one will wonder anything, because no one saw us come in here. And even if they had, I couldn’t give a damn what they think.’

  ‘You may not, but I—Rick, let me go!’ she cried as he reached out and twisted her arm behind her back, pulling her close against him.

  ‘Ah,’ he said softly, his breath stirring the hair at her temple. ‘So it’s Rick again now, and not Mr Pendleton.’

  She held herself rigid, refusing to give in to the stirrings of his body. ‘Pendleton is your name,’ she pointed out stiffly.

  ‘So is Richard Howarth.’

  ‘It is?’ She blinked up at him, instantly wishing she hadn’t as her gaze was met and held by hard grey eyes.

  ‘Oliver Richard Howarth Pendleton,’ he reeled off his full name.

  ‘How grand!’ she taunted. ‘And why were you Rick Howarth in Sanford?’

  He shrugged. ‘I hardly looked like Oliver Pendleton, now did I?’

  ‘Hardly,’ she agreed dryly.

  ‘So I became Rick Howarth.’

  ‘What a nice little trick’ she taunted bitterly.

  He gave an impatient sigh. ‘It wasn’t a trick, Robyn—’

  ‘Funny—it fooled me.’ She turned away, wishing he would let her go. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold out against him if he continued to hold her like this.

  ‘Oh, Robyn, Robyn!’ His arms tightened about her.

  ‘I didn’t do it to fool anyone. I needed time alone, to think, and as Rick Howarth I could do that. You see, I was engaged to be married, and—’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she cut in, ‘I heard about that.’ And she had also heard of his marriage soon afterwards.

  He frowned. ‘You did?’

  She shrugged. ‘Someone mentioned it.’

  His mouth twisted. ‘I’m sure they did. Dulcie, right?’

  ‘I think so, I’m not sure.’ At the time she hadn’t been particularly interested, not realising they were talking about Rick.

  ‘It was Dulcie,’ he said with certainty. ‘She takes an unhealthy interest in other people’s lives. She should have a baby, that would keep her occupied.’

  ‘A man’s answer to everything!’

  His eyes darkened in colour, his breathing was shallow. ‘Not everything, Robyn,’ he said huskily. ‘God, I’ve missed you. You’ll never know what it cost me to leave you in Sanford.’

  Robyn drew a ragged breath. ‘The price of a taxi to the station, I should think,’ she said sharply.

  ‘No! Robyn—’

  ‘Will you let me go!’ She couldn’t stand being next to him like this any more. ‘Or do I have to scream?’ She looked up at him challengingly, wishing it didn’t bring her quite so close to the firmness of his mouth. If he should bend his head even slightly …

  He must have seen the apprehension in her eyes and realised the reason for it, because at that moment he did exactly what she most dreaded, and moved his lips slowly against hers, savouring each touch, releasing her arm to hold her gently to the hard length of his body, moaning softly in his throat as her arms went involuntarily about him.

  His mouth at once hardened on hers, caressing her lips apart to deepen and lengthen the kiss. When he raised his head Robyn leant weakly against him. ‘I didn’t hear you scream,’ his voice was husky.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Robyn, I was wrong in Sanford,’ he told her earnestly. ‘Wrong to leave you as I did. It doesn’t really matter that I’m so much older than you. After eight weeks of being apart from you I still want you as badly as I did then. I won’t fight you any more, Robyn. I just want you back in my life.’ He placed impassioned kisses down her slender throat.

  It would be so easy to give in, to accept a Rick who suddenly seemed to want her as badly as she wanted him. But she couldn’t forget Sheila, and she wasn’t the type the ‘other woman’ was made of.

  She pulled away from him, her heart breaking anew. She finally had what she had always wanted, Rick eager and willing, and she had to be the one to say no, to reject him this time.

  ‘Please—Mr Pendleton.’ She saw his head flinch back at the formal way she addressed him. ‘I don’t know what the usual reaction is to such a proposition,’ she said coldly, ‘but mine is no.’

  ‘You don’t understand. I want—’

  ‘I understand exactly what you want!’ she cut in shrilly. ‘And it wouldn’t matter what you offered, the answer would still be no.’

  He drew a deep controlling breath, his gaze searching her set features. ‘You don’t love me?’

  Robyn shook her head. ‘I don’t think I ever did. In case you didn’t notice, Sanford is a very small place, not exactly exciting. You were new, a mystery, and I—’

  ‘You wanted to probe that mystery,’ he finished tautly. ‘What was the routine, get me into bed with you and hope that I would tell all?’

  She refused to flinch at the scorn in his voice, holding her head proudly erect. ‘And now I know all without having to go to bed with you.’

  His mouth twisted. ‘Are you telling me you wouldn’t have enjoyed that part of it?’

  Colour quickly invaded her cheeks even though she tried to stop it. ‘I’m not denying I found you attractive—’

  ‘You would be a liar if you did!’

  ‘Yes, I’d be a liar! But then you know a lot about lying, don’t you,’ she accused bitterly. ‘Just what were you doing in Sanford?’

  ‘Writing.’

  She frowned. ‘Your medical books—’

  ‘No,’ he shook his head, ‘not a medical book. At least, not a non-fiction one. I’ve been trying my hand at fiction with a medical background.’

  ‘Did you have to look like a tramp for that?’ she snapped. Anger fired in his eyes. ‘As a matter of fact, yes. My main character was a man who found he had six months to live if he didn’t have a certain operation. He decided he wouldn’t have it—until he met and fell in love with a girl when he went off to be alone.’

  Robyn paled. ‘You used me!’ she gasped.

  ‘No—’

  ‘Yes! My God, you’re a bastard! How dare you use me as copy for a book?’

  ‘I didn’t “use” you in any way,’ he scorned. ‘I didn’t ask you to intrude into my life the way you did. I was trying to work—having a curious teenager about all the time wasn’t something I welcomed.’

  ‘I noticed.’

  ‘Then you must see I didn’t use you for my book. The girl Dominic met was nothing like you. She was a damn sight older, for one thing.’

  ‘But you still made love to me. You—Don’t you have any morals?’

  ‘Of course I have morals—’

  ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word!’ she snapped.

  ‘In my book morality means loyalty to one person.’

  ‘Yes!’ she glared at him.<
br />
  ‘Then why the hell can’t you be loyal to me?’ he rasped.

  ‘Because—because—Oh, let me out of here!’ She brushed past him, turning the key in the lock and wrenching the door open. ‘One woman may not be enough for you,’ she turned to shout at him, ‘but one man is enough for me—and that’s Brian.’

  ‘Robyn—’

  ‘Leave—me—alone!’ She wrenched away from him, running back to the room containing the other guests.

  She was shaking with reaction, avidly searching for Brian as she sensed Rick behind her. Brian didn’t take much finding, he was looking for her too.

  ‘Where on earth have you been?’ he frowned.

  ‘I—I went upstairs to get a handkerchief,’ she invented, her movements jerky as she dared to glance behind her. Rick was standing near the door, his eyes narrowed as he watched them, his expression enigmatic.

  ‘You should have told me,’ Brian brought her attention back to him. ‘I could have come with you,’ he added meaningfully.

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘I don’t think your parents would have approved of that.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ he grinned. ‘But I would.’

  Sheila had joined Rick now and was talking to him quietly. They seemed to be leaving. Robyn heaved a sigh of relief. She hoped Sheila didn’t know anything of her husband’s behaviour either eight weeks ago Or now.

  ‘Robyn!’

  She dragged her gaze back from Rick with effort, aware that this would be the last time she ever saw him. ‘Yes, Brian?’ she asked absently.

  ‘I—Oh, never mind!’ He gave an impatient sigh. ‘What do you keep looking at?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She bit her lip. ‘I—I think your mother wants you again.’ She had noticed Mrs Walker’s frantic glances in their direction.

  ‘For God’s sake!’ He looked angrily at his mother. ‘Someone else to say goodnight to! You can come with me this time,’ he took hold of her hand, ‘I’m not going to risk losing you again.’

  Robyn looked over in dismay to where Rick and his wife were talking to Brian’s parents. ‘I’d rather wait here,’ she told him. ‘I promise I won’t move.’

  ‘You’re coming with me!’

  He wouldn’t be denied, and pulled her along with him. Robyn looked down at her hands as Brian made a joking farewell to Rick.