Hostile engagement

by Jessica Steele

  A gasp of pure amazement left Lucy to see him there, taking completely out of her head for a split moment that while the bottom half of her was decently clad, Jud had full view of her bare arm and the rest of her top covered in a fine lacy petticoat. She saw from his look that he appreciated what he could see.

  `I d ... Get out !' she spluttered, jerking the matching

  top to her skirt off the bed and holding it in front of her. Jud had left the door standing wide open, but nevertheless he was blocking the doorway, giving her the oppressive, breath-halting feeling that the door was solidly shut with no way out.

  `Such modesty,' he said lightly, and advanced further into the room. Lucy tried to back away from him, but the solid bed was against her legs and she could go no further.

  `Y—You have no business in here,' she said heatedly, hugging the top to her and wishing it possible to get into her jacket without revealing her front-she wasn't going to turn her back on him.

  `Oh, but I have,' he said, coming another step nearer.

  Lucy's eyes widened in alarm. Oh God, he was scaring her—was he now about to exact retribution for those unthinking remarks he had taken as challenging? She felt herself go pale at the thought, then to her further astonish-

  ment, Jud stopped where he was. Two feet away was too close, Lucy thought—then he opened his mouth and laughed as if he thought the sight of her half dressed, with her fear naked for him to see, amusing.

  `Oh, lord, Lucy,' he grinned, when his mirth had died away. 'You look as though you fear a fate worse than death!'

  Lucy felt the colour return to her cheeks; so he hadn't got that in mind. 'I have told you before I'm unused to having men in my room,' she said chokingly, refusing to allow the tight grip she had on the ice blue shield in front of her slacken.

  `You don't know what you're missing,' Jud told her. He could be quite monstrous when he chose, she thought with one corner of her mind, while the rest of her watched him as though still not convinced she could trust him. 'Oh, put that thing on,' Jud said irritably. 'You haven't got anything I haven't seen before.'

  Oh, if only she had her hands free, Lucy thought, still refusing to let go of the top, she'd make his ears sing for him. 'If you have something constructive to say,' she told him coldly, 'just say it and get out.' She knew from the way his eyes narrowed that he didn't like her tone, but she refused to let her eyes drop.

  `Very well,' he said after a few moments of tense silence. `I've just been having a word with my mother—or rather,' he amended, 'my mother has been having a word with me. It seems you and I have not been playing the role of an engaged couple the way we should.' Lucy's mouth opened, then was firmly closed again as she waited for him to continue. 'A few things haven't escaped her notice this weekend,' he went on, 'and though she's aware that I'm not openly demonstrative she's left wondering if you're happy —my mother is very concerned about you, Lucy.'

  The last thing Lucy wanted was for Mrs Hemming to worry about her , particularly since she was now acquainted

  with the fact that Jud's mother had a slight heart condition.

  Wh—what sort of things haven't escaped her notice?' she asked, realising now it had perhaps been necessary for Jud to come to her room if he wanted a word-with her where there was no chance of them being overheard—though they would be going home shortly ...

  `Things like the way you and I never touch each other for a start,' Jud said. 'Apparently it's the done thing for people in love to touch each other now and then—My mother noticed when you went to bed last night that although you kissed her cheek, I got nothing.'

  `Oh !'

  `Yes, Lucy—oh.'

  `I never thought,' Lucy faltered, and knew even if she had, if Jud had proffered his cheek the way his mother had done last night, she would have pretended not to see it.

  Jud ignored her comment and went on to tell her what he proposed they should do. `I've said that we had a lovers' tiff when we were out yesterday,' he told her, 'but that we've enjoyed making up and now everything is fine. We now have less than an hour in which to convince her that we're in love and sublimely happy in each other's Company.'

  That good an actress Lucy knew she was not. 'You're not proposing I come downstairs and fling myself in your arms, I trust?' She took refuge in sarcasm as the very idea set up a fluttery sensation in her stomach. Flinging herself into Jud's arms wouldn't have convinced Mrs Hemming anyway, she would know by now that, like her son, she wasn't demonstrative in public.

  `Others have done it without feeling any after-effects,' Jud said coolly, his eyes watching the expressions flitting across her face.

  `Like you, Jud, I'm choosey,' Lucy said recklessly, while thinking if she wasn't careful she was going to end up pay-

  ing for her sarcasm. But it wasn't fair—he didn't own all rights to stinging comments

  `You haven't been around enough to know anything about selection,' Jud came back.

  `I've been around enough to know who I enjoy being kissed by,' Lucy returned.

  `And you think you wouldn't enjoy being kissed by me?'

  Lucy gave him a single look, 'Huh!' she scoffed. 'There's kissing and kissing. I've been kissed by you before, remember—your kisses leave me cold.' She hadn't meant to sound challenging, but too late realised that was how he would construe her words.

  `Do they now?'

  Lucy didn't know when to leave well alone. `I'd get as much enjoyment out of kissing a—a piece of hard rock,' she said, and was rather pleased with that metaphor.

  `You know, Lucy,' Jud said slowly, almost conversationally, 'you really can't expect me to leave this room with that remark unquestioned.'

  Lucy looked at him, her head coming up quickly, and too late saw what she had done. Once more she had challenged him—challenged him when she had been warned not to do so again. She wanted to say, I'm sorry, I take it all back, but there was no time, for suddenly there was no longer two feet of carpet dividing them. Jud was close up to her, yanking the protective shield of her linen top out of her hands, tossing it down on the end of the bed and saying coolly, 'We don't want to crush it, do we, Lucy, not if you intend to wear it for the journey home.' Then for the smallest part of a second he looked into her face, saw the staggering astonishment there that the lace front of her petticoat was now against the warmth of his shirt-fronted chest, then his head was blotting out the light, and inside moments Lucy was experiencing at first hand that being kissed by Jud in no way resembled her mouth coming into contact with consolidated minerals.

  Oh, she resisted, fought against him, but he was holding her hands behind her back, his own hands not touching her body, but her body felt alive nonetheless as she felt his heat, felt his chest move as her firm breasts were pressed into him.

  She tried to keep her mouth tightly closed, and when Jud lifted his head and asked softly, 'Still rock?' she bit back, `Yes,' refusing to respond, for all the oddest of sensations were passing through her body. That 'Yes' was all the time she had, for again Jud's mouth closed over hers and finding her lips were still firmly closed his mouth moved from hers to trail kisses down the side of her throat and back again to kiss first one corner of her mouth and then the other, and Lucy had to hang on grimly to the thought, I don't want him to kiss me, I don't. But when she was foolish enough to open her mouth to let a husky, 'Don't,' escape, Jud was quick to seize advantage of her parted lips and claimed possession with a lightning speed that shook her almost as much as the knowledge that she didn't want to say 'Don't' any longer.

  Without her knowing it, the stiffness left her body and she became a yielding, pliant woman in his arms, so that when his hands let go the hold they had on her wrists, instead of beating and clawing at him as she knew she must, her hands got no further than to come up to rest on his shoulders.

  Then all the kisses she had received in the past, and if she was honest she had not allowed too many, were as nothing, and she knew she had never been so shockingly, mind-bendingly kissed before. Jud's hands
were making a nonsense of her spinal column, and when he eased her down on to the bed she was only half conscious that the part of her that should be saying no was being swamped by the part of her that wanted to say yes, yes, yes.

  `Still rock?' Jud's voice came from above her head, and she opened her eyes to find he was staring down at her a

  look of warmth, a look of desire in his eyes for her. Wordlessly she looked back at him, and he said softly, 'Don't fight it, Lucy.' Then his mouth was over hers again and her lips parted and she was responding, was putting her arms around him to pull him even closer. When his hand came to push the lacy straps away from her shoulder, she made no objection. She felt his lips on the swell of her breast and gloried in the feel of-that mouth she had once thought so hard that was now warm, sensuous and exciting as he aroused her further.

  But when his hand came to cup her breast, it was pure instinct that had her own hand moving his away, instinct making the last-ditch gesture to stop this before it was too late. Jud's body ·stilled in what she knew afterwards to be a listening stillness, and she was half relieved, half sorry when he made no further move to press home his advantage, but took his hands away from her altogether.

  Opening her eyes, Lucy saw he was looking down into her face and she looked away, the intimacy between them making her shy. Then Jud was putting her straps back into place, then pulling her into a sitting position and reaching for her jacket that was all anyhow at the foot of the bed.

  `Put your jacket on,' he instructed her quietly, and while Lucy automatically obeyed, too bemused to do anything else-he must have known her resistance was only shyness, only token—yet he had let her off when she had known he had wanted her as she wanted him.

  Jud got off the bed as a small sound on the top of the stairs reached Lucy's ears, and hurriedly now she buttoned up her jacket, and was standing too when Mrs Hemming paused at the open doorway on the way to her own room. Lucy saw Mrs Hemming glance at the rumpled cover on the bed.

  And?' Mrs Hemming said, and there was a question in her voice.

  It's all right,' said Jud, going over to her. 'No harm has

  come to Lucy—I just couldn't resist coming in and taking up the advantages of being an engaged man.'

  Lucy looked from one to the other; she knew her face was scarlet telling its own tale. Mrs Hemming was giving her a look in return as if asking if she could believe her son.

  `We ... we didn't get too carried away,' she said, her voice sounding most peculiar in her own ears. She had no idea how it must sound to the two people watching her.

  `I'm sure you didn't,' Mrs Hemming said at last, and Lucy knew she believed her. Then in an old-fashioned way Mrs Hemming added, `I'm sure Jud has too much respect for you for that.'

  Respect! Lucy thought when they had both gone. She had acted little short of wanton. She had been beginning to believe from Jud's remark that morning that he no longer thought of her as a hardened female, that he had been beginning to respect her a little, but by her very action of yielding to him, clinging to him, she had shown she was very little different from any other female of his acquaintance, and she knew that apart from his mother and Lottie, and possibly Vera Stanfield and her daughter, he had minuscule respect for any of the female race.

  Mrs Hemming's manner was perfectly normal with her when Lucy descended the stairs after fifteen minutes spent in her room trying to pull herself together and pluck up courage to face Mrs Hemming and Jud. He was in the room too, but if Mrs Hemming thought she and Jud were the most unromantic couple she had ever known from the way they acted in public, for the life of her Lucy could not acknowledge his presence.

  `All set to go?' he asked.

  If he hoped he would force her to look at him then he was in for a disappointment, Lucy thought as she fixed her eyes on a point over his shoulder so Mrs Hemming would think she was looking at him. 'I've left my case in the hall.'

  `Jud was just saying he would come up and collect it

  when you walked through the door,' Mrs Hemming inserted, and Lucy couldn't have been more relieved that she had beaten him to it. She felt she had nothing she wanted to say to him, but judged that alone once more in her room with her, Jud would lose no time in taunting her with her passionate response to him. As it was, the drive home had to be got through—there would be no Mrs Hemming seated in the back seat this time to make things easy for her.

  Since Jud had already said goodbye to Lottie, Lucy went to see her while he took her case out to the car, and when she joined him and his mother on the drive outside, Mrs Hemming turned to her and hugged her warmly causing the sting of tears to hit Lucy's eyes.

  ' I hope this has been the first of many visits, Lucy,' Mrs Hemming told her sincerely. 'There will always be a welcome here for you, both before and after your marriage.'

  What she said in reply Lucy couldn't clearly remember, but she was glad Jud didn't say anything for quite some time once they were on their way; she felt too choked up for one thing, Mrs Hemming's obvious sincerity weighing heavily on her. She knew if Jud said just one word while she was despising herself so much for her part in deceiving his mother, she would instantly have flared up and she and Jud would be at each other's throats.

  As Jud drove on, choosing a route that took in more of the English countryside in high summer, Lucy's spirits began to get on a more even keel. Her eyes caught the glint of emeralds and diamonds on her finger and she faced the fact squarely that if she had been prepared to give up her most cherished possession, this weekend at Malvern need never have happened. The choice had been hers, and since she had elected to go through with it, all the blame, she reasoned, couldn't be placed at Jud's door—though she would never forgive him for the way he had kissed her; that he had been unforgivable. She wasn't ready yet to face

  the thought that Jud had had very little trouble in getting her to respond to him.

  `Still hating me like hell?' Jud's voice dropped into the silence she had thought was going to last the rest of the way to Priors Channing. He had given her plenty of time to get her feelings under control, she realised, but she wasn't ready yet to enter a debate on what her feelings for him were--she would probably only earn some more of his stinging sarcasm anyway, she mused, if she gave an affirmative answer to his question.

  `Isn't the countryside beautiful at this time of year?' she said tritely, looking out of the window. 'I never knew there were so many shades of green.'

  She thought at the very least Jud would have something to say about her ignoring his question, but no, it seemed he was perfectly prepared to go along with her, and answered in kind without any hint of sarcasm in his voice. And suddenly, when she had thought she never wanted to speak to him again, there was an easy flow of conversation going backwards and forwards between them, and after another half an hour had gone by, Lucy forgot her animosity so far as to be ready to talk of her brother whose name she had just mentioned in relation to a meeting of the Young Farmers' Club she had attended with Rupert.

  `What work does your brother do?' Jud enquired, his voice showing polite interest.

  Lucy wondered if anyone of the people Jud had met since moving into the Hall had conveyed to him that Rupert had never worked at a paid job in his life.

  Er—actually, he's only just finished his education,' she told him, loyalty to her brother making her ready to defend Rupert to the very end if Jud thought it about time Rupert showed some intention of getting his hands dirty.

  `What's he been studying?' Jud asked quietly, none of the aggression she had been ready for evident.

  `Farm and estate management,' Lucy supplied, then be-

  cause she couldn't say with any truth anything about jobs Rupert had applied for, she added, 'He's studied awfully hard to learn as much as he could.' That was certainly true. Poor Rupert—she wondered if he would be in when Jud dropped her off at Brook House.

  Silence reigned between her and Jud after that, but it was not an uncomfortable silence, and they were nearly at Prior
s Channing before Jud suddenly asked :

  `Feeling better?'

  `Better?' she queried.

  `You were near to tears when you said goodbye to my mother, weren't you?'

  She had been, but hadn't thought he had noticed—he was more observant than she had thought. 'I suppose I was overcome by guilt,' she confessed at last. 'Especially when your mother said there would always be a welcome for me at her home.' She looked across at Jud and saw him nod, as if to say he knew how she felt, while keeping his eyes on the road in front.

  `If it's any consolation,' he said, 'when my mother saw your face, flushed from responding to being made love to, it fully convinced her that everything is as it should be between us—she now has no further anxieties about us.'

  It was little consolation to Lucy, though she took small comfort that for the moment at any rate, Jud's mother would not be concerned about them, but her face flamed anew at Jud's bald statement of fact that she had responded to him. She, wanted to deny it, but knew any denial would be futile—Jud couldn't help but be aware of how she had reacted to him.

  `You knew your mother was coming upstairs, didn't you?' she asked croakily instead.

  `I heard a movement at the bottom of the stairs,' Jud admitted.

  Lucy went hot and cold at thoughts of the scene Mrs Hemming would have witnessed had Jud's hearing not been

  so acute—she knew the sound she herself had heard would not have penetrated had Jud still been kissing her. But now he was clearly telling her that her charms were not sufficient to make him lose his head completely. He hadn't been so far gone that his hearing was deaf to all sound the way hers had been.

  'That's why you stopped making—kissing me, wasn't it? My showing you I didn't w-want to go any further had nothing to do with it.'

  'That's why I stopped making love to you, Lucy,' Jud said, having no trouble in calling-what they had been doing by its proper name.