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Wedding Nights: Woman to Wed? - Пенни Джордан - Читать любовный роман онлайн в женской библиотеке LadyLib.Net
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Джордан Пенни
Wedding Nights: Woman to Wed?
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CHAPTER FOUR
CLAIRE grimaced to herself as she emerged from the bright warmth of the school to discover that it was raining—hard.
It had been dry and fine when she had left home earlier in the evening, and with time in hand she had decided to walk to the school instead of taking her car.
She hesitated for a moment, wondering whether or not to go back inside and ring for a taxi, and then, realising that she was already wet, pulled up the collar of her jacket and started to walk quickly down the road.
Whilst she had hesitated about whether to walk home or not she had been conscious in a hazy sort of way of the car which had pulled up at the roadside, but had assumed simply that the driver was collecting someone.
Even when she heard the engine fire and saw the brilliant sweep of the headlights illuminating the roadway ahead of her, she still didn’t realise what was happening. That recognition didn’t come until her brain, subconsciously waiting for the car to pick up speed and go past her, warily relayed to her senses the fact that it had not done so and what potentially that could mean.
Instinctively Claire reacted to that awareness, quickening her speed, her head tucked protectively down, her body movements designed not to draw any unwanted attention to herself as she fought not to give in to the urge to stop and turn around. She could hear the car crawling along the road behind her in much the same menacing and terrifying way that panic was now beginning to crawl its way along her tense spine.
One heard about such things … read about them—men who preyed on vulnerable, unprotected women. Her mouth had started to go dry, her heart was pounding. The area of the town she was walking through was void of any private homes—just empty shops and public buildings with no other pedestrians in sight. Whilst the rest of the traffic sped past, either oblivious to or uncaring about the slow crawl of the car behind her, it continued its slow, deliberately menacing pursuit.
Not daring to risk turning round, Claire tried to walk even faster. Beneath her clothes she could feel the hot, nervous perspiration drenching her skin; her heart was beating so suffocatingly loudly that she could no longer hear the sound of the car engine.
Her body stiffened abruptly in terrified shock as she realised why. The car had stopped. She heard the sound of a car door being slammed, followed by determined male footsteps.
‘Claire … Claire …’
Claire! Her pursuer knew her name.
Trembling from head to foot, Claire turned round, her eyes widening in disbelief as she recognised Brad coming towards her.
Brad … Brad had been following her. A combination of nausea and fury gripped her by the throat, rendering it impossible for her to speak or move as Brad came up to her.
‘You’re soaked,’ she heard him saying to her. ‘Come and get in the car …’ He stretched out a hand, as though to guide her towards the waiting vehicle, but Claire shrank back from it, fury burning with fevered intensity in her eyes.
‘What is it …? What’s wrong?’ she heard him demand, impatience edging up under his voice as she pushed his hand into his own now damp hair, grimacing in disgust as the heavy droplets of rain ran down the inside of his collar.
‘“What’s wrong?”’ Claire stared at him in disbelief; her voice was cracked and harsh. ‘I thought you were following me,’ she told him.
She could see from his frown that he didn’t understand.
‘I was,’ he agreed. ‘I saw you coming out of the school. I was driving past on my way to the hotel …’
As he watched the way she backed off from him Brad was filled with guilty remorse. It had never occurred to him that she would mistake him for a stranger—the kind of pervert who preyed on solitary women.
‘Hey, look … it’s all right,’ he tried to comfort her. ‘I’m sorry; I—’
‘You’re sorry …?’ Claire’s voice was shaking as much as her body as she flung the words back at him.
‘Claire!’
‘No, don’t touch me,’ she demanded as she stepped back still further to avoid the hand that he was reaching out to her, only to be thrown heavily against him as a runner coming the other way whom she hadn’t seen collided with her, knocking her so off balance that she knew that she would probably have fallen if Brad hadn’t been there to prevent it.
The runner, obviously irritated by her and the fact that she had impeded his progress, muttered an ungracious curse before continuing on his way, leaving it to Brad to ask anxiously and quietly, ‘Are you OK? That was some speed he was running at—quite some speed …’
‘I’m fine,’ Claire fibbed.
The physical shock of almost being knocked to the ground and the emotional trauma of fearing that she was being followed, stalked, by an unknown man were both taking their toll of her. Her head felt muzzy, her thought processes were slow and confused, her hip-bone ached where the runner had cannoned into her, her stomach was still churning nauseously and the trembling which had begun when Brad had first called out to her had now become an open shivering.
Add to all that the fact that she was also extremely wet and cold and ‘fine’ was just about as far from describing her condition as it was possible to get.
Brad obviously thought so too, because instead of accepting her polite disclaimer as his British counterpart would have done he immediately rejected it, exclaiming curtly, ‘Like hell you are! You’re soaking wet through and shivering fit to bust. Come on … let’s get you into the car and home. What you need right now is a shower—a proper shower, good and hot and stinging, not these apologies for showers you have over here—followed by an equally hot, stinging drink … Are you OK?’ he added. ‘Can you walk as far as the car or would you like me to carry you?’
Would she like him to what?
Claire forgot for a moment that he still had both his arms around her, and her chin came shooting up proudly as she tipped her head back to look at him. Only it wasn’t his eyes which her own were on a level with. It was his mouth.
Dizzily Claire stared at it, her tongue-tip hesitantly touching her own, suddenly dry lips; a swarm of confusing and unfamiliar emotions invaded her dazed senses.
The rain had soaked her hair, causing it to curl in soft ringlet tendrils around her face, making her, although she didn’t know it, look closer to twenty-four than thirty-four. In the streetlight her skin had a luminous, transparent quality that made Brad want to reach out and touch it. British women had such delicate, pale skin, and Claire, with her fine-boned frame, had an added delicacy, a fragility almost, that aroused in him emotions …
The close contact with his body was warming her own, comforting it—an unfamiliar sensation to Claire and one that she instinctively responded to, luxuriated in on a level that was somehow beyond the jurisdiction of her normal strict self-control. Without realising what she was doing she nestled closer, exhaling her breath on a soft feminine sigh.
The hammer-blows of two different consecutive shocks had left her emotionally concussed, her senses and her emotions wandering blindly through an unfamiliar landscape where Brad was the only familiar landmark. Instinctively she clung to it … to him, her eyes huge and dazed in her pale face as she continued to focus on his mouth.
His mouth … It was strange to think that she had already been kissed by it. By him. Strange and dangerous and yet at the same time somehow headily exciting, alluring … with all the dark magic of something dangerous and forbidden.
She wanted to reach out and touch it, to trace its male shape, to …
The blare of a car horn on the opposite side of the road made her jump abruptly, bringing her back to reality, to normality.
Her face on fire with self-conscious anger and embarrassment, she tried to step back from Brad, shocked and confused by what she had been thinking—feeling.
‘Come on; let’s get you in the car,’ he told her firmly, his voice as matter-of-fact as if it was not a very unfamiliar or shocking thing for him to have a woman staring up at his mouth … as though … as though … But then, perhaps it wasn’t … She knew very little about him, after all, Claire reminded herself as she gave in and allowed him to walk her gently towards his car.
‘I’m sorry I gave you such a bad shock,’ she heard him apologising after he had helped her into her seat.
Claire couldn’t bring herself to look at him and instead busied herself trying to fasten her seat belt. Her fingers felt numb and stiff, her actions slow and clumsy.
‘It’s just that I was on my way back from the office and I saw you coming out of the school and—Here, let me help you with that,’ he offered, and without waiting for her agreement he gently pushed her hands away, leaning across her as he reached for the recalcitrant seat belt.
His hair was still damp and she could smell the cold, fresh scent of the rain on his hair and his skin. The nape of his neck, exposed as he leaned across her, was warmly tanned, unlike her own much paler skin. The rain had made his hair start to curl slightly.
A soft smile touched her mouth. She lifted her hand and then froze, her body stiffening in horror as she realised what she had been about to do. What on earth had come over her? The very idea … The mere thought of reaching out voluntarily to touch a man’s skin … his hair … to stroke her fingers slowly through those almost boyish curls, to straighten them … was so alien to her, to everything that she was, that she could hardly believe she had actually been about to do it.
It took Brad’s anxious, ‘What’s wrong? Is it your hip? I saw how hard he knocked you when he ran into you. It’s bound to be bruised …’ to bring her to her senses.
Claire felt the relief flooding through her as she realised that he thought her tension came from physical pain and hadn’t understood …
‘It’s fine … I’m fine,’ she told him brusquely.
‘No, you’re not,’ Brad corrected her gently.
He was still leaning over her, looking directly into her eyes, and her heart gave a fierce bound as she tried unsuccessfully to look into his.
‘You’re probably as sore as hell … You’ve had a pretty nasty shock … a very nasty shock, I should say,’ he amended, ‘if the way you reacted earlier is anything to go by. Tell me, do you—?’
‘I … I just don’t like being touched,’ Claire blurted out, terrified of what he might be going to ask her, to force her to reveal …’Some people just don’t …’
She was willing the betraying colour not to seep up under her skin as she made herself meet his steady scrutiny and willing herself as well not to remember the way she had practically snuggled deeper into his arms such a very short time ago, praying at the same time that he wouldn’t say anything about that either.
To her relief he didn’t, saying only, ‘No, some people don’t,’ before giving her seat belt a small testing tug to make sure that it was fastened and then turning away from her to secure his own and start the car.
‘I’ll walk you to the door,’ Brad announced after he had completed the short journey to her house.
But Claire shook her head quickly, her voice slightly huskier than normal as she said, ‘No, no, it’s all right …’
As he hesitated she added quickly, ‘It’s still raining and there’s no point in you getting wet again. I’ve got my keys here and …’
For a moment Claire thought that he was going to insist on going with her; his body tensed and hers did too, but then he seemed to change his mind, simply telling her, ‘Don’t forget that hot shower or that drink. I’m not sure what time I’ll be through with the hotel in the morning but I’d like to bring my stuff over before lunch if that fits in with your schedule. I’ve got an appointment with our bankers in the afternoon and then in the evening we can talk terms.’
‘Yes. Yes, morning will be fine,’ Claire confirmed.
As he watched her run towards her door through the still heavy rain Brad wondered if he was doing the right thing. There was no denying that the feeling she aroused in him, his desire for her, was more than just a subliminal male impulse.
Earlier, holding her in his arms in the street, watching the way she had looked at him … at his mouth …
Come on, he warned himself; you haven’t flown right the way across the Atlantic ocean to mess up your life with those kinda complications, to get hung up on a woman who may or may not be involved with another man.
And he wasn’t the sort to want to indulge in some kind of casual, no commitment, no future type of sexual fling. Nor, he judged, was she. Which meant … which meant that he’d better put the thoughts and desires which had been running wild through his head virtually ever since he had met her way, way back in the darkest and most unreachable recesses of his mind, he told himself firmly as he saw the door close behind Claire’s retreating figure.
After a brief pause he put his hire car into gear and backed out of the drive.
‘No!’
The sound of her own voice uttering the sharp, high-pitched, frantic protest brought Claire abruptly awake, to sit upright in her bed, hugging her arms around her knees as she tried to control her body’s frantic shivering.
Dry-eyed, she stared fiercely into the darkness, willing the nightmare to relinquish its hold on her.
It was not as though it was something she had never experienced before, even if over the years its frequency had decreased so that now it was something that occurred only when she was under some kind of stress.
No, the reason for the agitation that she was fighting so hard to banish now wasn’t so much the fact that she’d had a nightmare—it was over now, after all, and she was awake—but that somehow it had developed a new plot—a new and extremely upsetting ending.
In the past it had always followed a familiar and recognisable pattern. The man … the darkened room, his hands reaching for her … his anger when she rejected him, her escape and his pursuit down narrow, dark, wet streets in which she was completely alone and unprotected, the only sounds those of her own terrified breathing and the pounding, ever closer footsteps of her pursuer.
In the past she had always managed to escape … to wake up before he caught up with her, but this time … this time …
Her teeth chattered together as her body gave a deep shudder.
This time she had not escaped; this time he had caught up with her, his hand … both his hands … reaching for her, holding her prisoner.
She had fought frantically against the horror of his remembered and loathed touch, finally managing to turn round to face him, to plead with him for mercy.
Only when she had turned round the face she had seen had not been the one she had expected. Instead it had been Brad who had looked back at her, and inexplicably, as she’d recognised him, somehow the touch that had felt so terrifying and so loathsome had become comforting and even more disturbing, actually welcome to her body.
Relief had filled her sleep-sedated body as her fear had turned to joy, and she’d actually stepped towards him, welcoming the firm warmth of his arms around her, the scent of his skin as he’d held her close, his jaw against her hair as his arms had tightened around her and his voice had soothed her.
‘It’s you,’ she had said softly, breathlessly as she’d pressed her trembling body against his, drawing support from his proximity and strength, luxuriating almost in the closeness of him, in the knowledge that with him she was safe and protected, trembling between laughter at her foolishness in ever having been afraid and tears because of the memories that had caused that fear.
As he’d cupped her face in his hands and bent his head to kiss her she had responded eagerly to that kiss, tightening her own arms around him, opening her mouth beneath his, anticipating in her mind the sensual pleasure of feeling his naked body against her own—a pleasure which, in her dream, both her body and her mind had recognised as one with which it was already familiar. They had not been new lovers unaccustomed to one another or unaware of one another’s needs; there had been a harmony between them—an acceptance, a knowledge …
He had been so tender with her, so gentle, wiping away her tears, sharing with her her emotional relief that he was there holding her and that she had nothing, after all, to fear, that with him she was safe … protected … loved … a woman at last in every sense of the word …
A woman at last. Claire bit her lip now, balling her hands into two tight fists of angry rejection. She was already a woman; she did not need a man—any man—to reinforce that fact, and most especially she did not need Brad to reinforce it.
She had no idea why on earth she had dreamed about him like that and her face burned in the darkness as she could feel the heat of desire, her dream of him affecting her still … echoing through her body …
When Sally had talked about her marrying again it had been easy for her to shake her head and say sedately that she was happy as she was.
No needs or desires had ever troubled her celibate sleep, and a comment made by another woman friend, when they had been having lunch together one day—that the young waiter serving them had a fantastic body—had left her feeling slightly shocked that her friend should have noticed and inwardly relieved that she herself had not.
Of course, there had been occasions over the years when she had felt uncomfortable with the knowledge that her own sexuality—or rather the lack of it—was so out of step with the times, but during the years of her marriage her life had been a very busy one. John had, in his own way, been a very quietly strong-willed man, and his confidence in the way their marriage worked had made it easy for her to ignore her own doubts about her lack of sexual desire.
Before now, at thirty-four and a widow, she had felt herself safe on the small plateau of security that she had thought she had found. There had, of course, been men who had shown signs of sexual interest in her, but she had gently and tactfully made it clear that she felt no corresponding interest, and the last thing she had ever expected to happen was that she should so unwontedly and inappropriately develop a personal sexual awareness of a man.
As she continued to stare into the darkness she felt as though a part of herself had suddenly betrayed her, become alien to her … and, because of that, somehow out of her control. Dangerously out of her control, she acknowledged, blushing as she fought to ignore certain memories of just how enthusiastically and passionately she had not just responded to Brad in her dream but actually initiated the sensuality between them.
Another shudder tormented her body, her skin now chilled by the cool night air, but her heartbeat was starting to return to its normal rhythm. Tiredly Claire lay down again, closing her eyes and willing herself to go back to sleep, but this time without dreaming about Brad.
Claire smiled ruefully as she reread Sally’s postcard. It had arrived in the morning’s post and showed an idyllic view of a soft white half-moon beach and an impossibly azure sea—’the view from the veranda of our beach-side bungalow’, Sally had written.
They were honeymooning in the Seychelles and their hotel, according to Sally’s ecstatic card, was every bit as wonderful as the brochure had promised.
Typically, though, as well as reassuring Claire that she was wonderfully, blissfully happy, Sally had added a cryptic postscript to her message, teasing Claire about the fact that she had helped to catch her wedding bouquet.
‘Remember,’ she urged her stepmother, ‘you want a man you can have all to yourself, not one you’ve only got a share in.’ A reference, Claire knew, to the fact that she had not been the only one to catch the wedding bouquet.
The arrival of Sally’s card had helped distract her thoughts away from Brad and the disruption he was causing in her life. Nonetheless, when she heard a car pulling up outside her whole body tensed, and it was a relief to discover when she went to the door that her visitor was Irene.
‘I’m just on my way to the supermarket and I thought I’d call to see if you needed anything,’ her sister-in-law informed her as she came in. She gave a small sigh. ‘Poor Tim; he hardly slept at all last night. Claire … if Brad should happen to mention anything about the company to you—’
‘Oh, I’m sure he won’t,’ Claire interrupted her.
‘Well, maybe not, but he is, after all, over here on his own and you do have a way of … Well, people do tend to confide in you … and the two of you will be spending quite a lot of time together …’
Claire stared at her.
‘No, we won’t,’ she protested. ‘We’ll hardly see one another.’
‘He’ll be here at mealtimes … in the evening … you’ll be having dinner together,’ Irene pointed out. ‘I mean, that was one of the reasons he wanted to live somewhere en famille, so to speak—because he didn’t want the anonymity of dining alone in a hotel restaurant.’
Eating together … Claire swallowed ner vously.
Later, as she walked across the kitchen, the American cookery book that Irene had given her caught her eye. Glaring irritably at it, she suffered an unfamiliar surge of rebellion.
If she had to feed Brad, then at least she could exercise some form of control over the situation by feeding him food of her own choice.
Determinedly she walked towards her freezer and removed the ingredients she wanted.
John had always praised her cooking. He had liked old-fashioned, simple home-made food, and over the years Claire had found ways of adapting recipes so that she was able to satisfy his taste for the food he remembered his mother making and also ensure that the meals she served were nutritious and healthy.
She had been particularly pleased with her version of his favourite beef-steak pie. That was as traditional a British dish as you could get, especially when served with her light-as-air dumplings and garden-fresh vegetables.
Pumpkin pie and pot-roast it wasn’t, but it had been Brad’s desire, his decision, to live ‘en famille’, as Irene had put it, and part of that, as far as she was concerned, meant eating the food she chose to serve.
She was too busy to be aware that it was gone eleven o’clock until she happened to look and see that it was almost twelve. Frowning, she lifted her hand to her face, depositing a smudge of flour on her cheekbone. The phone rang and she tensed. Somehow—she had no idea how—she knew that it was Brad who was ringing.
Reluctantly wiping her hands on her apron, she went to lift the receiver.
As she had known it would be, her caller was Brad.
‘I’m just ringing to apologise for being late,’ he told her. ‘Unfortunately there was a slight problem here at the warehouse. Will it be all right if I come round now, or will that be inconvenient?’
‘Now will be fine,’ Claire confirmed, proud of the way she managed to keep the trembling in her body out of her voice.
Reaction set in after she had replaced the receiver, though. It was gone twelve now; would he expect her to provide him with lunch? All she had been intending to have was some left-over soup and fresh fruit. And what exactly, anyway, did he mean by saying that he wanted to live as part of a family? Hopefully, and if the hours that Tim worked were anything to go by, she wasn’t going to have to see too much of him, and when she did …
Tonight, when they discussed the terms of his stay with her, she would just have to make it plain that as far as she was concerned the less contact there was between them the better.
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