Читать книгу The Yuletide Child - CHARLOTTE LAMB - Страница 8

CHAPTER THREE

‘MICHAEL!’ She was so overjoyed to see him that she flung her arms round him impulsively. People in their world were casually affectionate, although she and Michael had never been very demonstrative. He wasn’t that sort of man. There was a deep well of reserve inside him; he guarded his mind and heart from casual eyes and even Dylan had never been entirely sure what he was hiding, only that Michael kept his secrets, even from her.

As their bodies met in close, warm contact she abruptly became aware that this was a man she was holding, not some sexless body she had known most of her adult life.

Shock jabbed into her. She hurriedly began pulling away, but Michael caught her face, framing it between his hands, palms against her flushed cheeks pressing in on the high bones, the smooth, silky skin.

Shaken to her roots, she stared up into his hard grey eyes.

‘Missing us already, you are? What did I tell you?’ His voice was deep with anger, satisfaction, triumph, or perhaps all three. ‘I knew you’d be lost away from us. You made a stupid mistake when you married this guy. You don’t belong with someone like him.’ He stared deep into her eyes and she helplessly leaned on him, like someone paralysed.

In a wail she protested, ‘I love him, Michael!’

‘You mean you wanted to go to bed with him! Was that worth ruining your life for? Why didn’t you just spend a couple of weeks having sex with him all day until you were bored with it?’

Was that really how he saw love? Did it mean nothing to him but a drive to sate a passing lust? The idea horrified her. Ross was so much more than just a body she desired; he was the only man she had ever met who really meant anything to her.

‘Love isn’t just sex, Michael!’ she protested. ‘That may be all you think about, all you need—but for a woman love means a whole lot more than that. I want to share his life, have his children, be with him all the time.’

His blond head lifted: he flicked a glance past her into the house, raising his brows. ‘Oh? So where is he now?’

‘At work,’ she reluctantly admitted.

‘On a Saturday?’ Michael’s tone was sardonic, his face full of mockery, and her flush deepened.

‘There were storms last night; some trees came down—he has to clear a blocked road. He’s responsible for a wide area of the forest here; he deals with every aspect of it, from planting to fighting fires. He doesn’t do a nine to five office job, you know. His work is far more important than that.’

Michael studied her serious face, his own ironic. ‘And how long will Mr Wonderful be working today?’

‘How can he tell? It all depends how long it takes to clear the road,’ she said absently. She had started to think now that her original shock had died away. ‘Michael, what are you doing here? Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?’

‘I brought your car up here for you.’

‘What?’ She looked past him in surprise. She hadn’t noticed the car until now, although how on earth she could have managed to miss it she had no idea! It was parked right outside, the big, multi-coloured tropical flowers glowing as if they were real in the fitful sunlight! You wouldn’t think she could fail to see them, now would you?

‘My flower wagon! Oh, thank you, Michael!’ She ran down the path and walked round the little car, stroking the bonnet, delighted to have it back again. ‘It will make life a lot easier,’ she told Michael, who had joined her. ‘It’s quite a walk to the village, and I can’t go further afield unless Ross drives me. The buses take for ever and there’s only one a day to Carlisle. So I’d be lost without a car.’

Michael’s mouth twisted wryly as he stared at the landscape: the green forest stretching on and on, the road, the grey/blue sky. No houses, no break in the endless trees.

‘How are you going to stand it here? It would drive me out of my mind in twenty-four hours. Give me city life any time. You’re a city girl, Dylan—what on earth are you going to do with yourself up here? Especially if that husband of yours is out at work all the time!’

It was a question she had been turning over ever since she’d first arrived here and realised for the first time how remote and empty the landscape was. The lack of neighbours, the loneliness, all compounded by the fact that Ross was going to leave her alone for many hours every day.

But she wasn’t going to admit all that to Michael. An instinct told her not to betray anything to him that might give him the idea that she was not radiantly happy with Ross.

Turning away, she walked back up to the front door, Michael following her without hurrying. She didn’t look in his direction but she couldn’t help noticing the way he walked—with panther-like grace, flowing movements that held both elegance and a disturbing hint of threat. He wasn’t that much taller than her, yet his lean, supple body was held as taut as a stretched wire, making him seem tall. Why had she never noticed any of that before? Or had custom hidden his masculinity from her during their long partnership?

‘Oh, I have lots to do every day,’ she flung over her shoulder, glad he couldn’t see her face as she spoke; Michael had always been able to read her expressions. ‘The house, the garden...I’ve discovered a real interest in gardening.’

‘So I see,’ he drawled. ‘You carry quite a bit of it around with you, too!’

Dylan darted into the hall and surveyed herself in the mirror hanging just inside the door. Streaks of mud ran down one cheek, decorated the tip of her small nose.

She began to laugh. ‘Don’t I look a sight! You should have told me! I must have brushed a muddy hand across my face.’ She looked down at her hands, grimacing. ‘Yes, that must be it.’

Michael closed the front door and suddenly Dylan became very aware that they were alone in the house. A frisson ran down her spine, worrying her. How many times had she been alone with him over the years since they first met—in his flat or her own, in dressing rooms, on a bare stage, in rehearsal rooms? She had never been conscious of being alone with him before. What was the matter with her?

Had he really changed? In such a short time? She tried to remember how he had looked last time they met, but there was a blankness in her memory, as if Michael was just an outline, a cut-out shape with nothing solid inside it.

Had she simply stopped looking at him years ago? Yes, maybe. And all that time he had been changing, developing... Well, for a start, how long had he been this powerful? They had met when they were scarcely out of their teens. She still remembered him as he had been then, a skinny, slightly built boy with a mass of soft fair hair and light grey eyes. That boy had gone for ever. Now, under his white shirt, she saw the ripple of chest and arm muscles; his shoulders were wider, his blue jeans were moulded to strong thighs and calves. She was looking at a tough, hard-boned, disconcertingly physical man.

Huskily, strangely nervous, she said, ‘Phil was going to collect my car.’

‘I know. Your sister wrote to me, sending a selection of wedding photos. She mentioned that Phil was going to be coming to London to pick up your car, so I rang her and offered to drive it up here.’ Michael wandered away as he spoke, exploring the ground floor of the house, looking into rooms curiously. ‘Not exactly stylish decor, is it?’

She couldn’t deny it; the house was a square, modern box, built of grey stone, with a slate-tiled roof. Neat enough, but it had been decorated by a previous tenant in a muted style which showed little imagination or invention. The colours of the rooms were safe, pale pastels, the ceilings white, the carpets dull blue or green, the curtains matching them.

Defensive against any criticism he made of her new life, she told him, ‘We’re going to redecorate when we get time.’

‘Time is something you’ll have plenty of now, Dylan!’

The sarcasm made her wince. It was painfully undeniable. If there was one thing she had plenty of it was time.

The opposite had been true most of her life—she had lived by clocks, running from bed to rehearsal, to costume fittings, to performance and so back to sleep. Never enough time, never a moment to relax. It had been a terrible strain, one she had begun to yearn to end. She had ached for another way of life—for lazy mornings in bed, a light-hearted drift through the day, long lunches, sunny afternoons on a lounger in a garden, an endless holiday.

Now suddenly she had time and very little to fill it with, and she was appalled at the prospect of life being the same for ever and ever, amen. She found she couldn’t sleep late; she had been trained to get up early and she still did so. Long lunches were out because she had nowhere to lunch and nobody to lunch with. Lounging around in the garden soon palled, which was why she had started gardening. She was lonely and hadn’t enough to do, but she couldn’t admit that to Michael.

She said huskily, ‘I expect I’ll soon make a start on the house, but I want to settle in first. It was kind of you, but you didn’t have to come all this way just to deliver my car. How will you get back? You know you hate travelling by train.’

She hoped he wasn’t expecting her to offer him a room for the night. Ross would be furious if he got back to find Michael staying with them. He would welcome any other friend of hers, but never Michael.

His grey eyes held a spark of derision, as if he had read her thoughts and mocked her.

‘Trying to get rid of me already, Dylan?’

‘No, of course not,’ she stammered, very pink.

‘Don’t worry, I’m dancing on Monday. I have to get back. I’ve already arranged to hire a car from a national firm with offices in Carlisle. I’m to deliver it back to their nearest London branch.’