Читать книгу Force Of Feeling - Пенни Джордан, Penny Jordan - Страница 7

SHE must have been mad to have attempted this long journey so late in the evening, Campion admitted bitterly as she stared out into the dark night.

Somehow, out here in the middle of Wales, the darkness seemed so much more intense than it had in London. Almost it felt as though it was pressing in on her, surrounding her. She shivered despite the warmth inside the car, wondering why it was she should be so much more aware of the fact that it was late November, and the weather wet and cold and very inhospitable, than she had been when she had first left.

Perhaps because when she’d left her mind had been full of Guy French, and how angry he would be when he found that she had escaped.

So he thought he could force her to complete the book by taking on a secretary, did he? Scornfully she grimaced to herself. Well, he would soon learn his mistake!

She came to a crossroads and slowed down to check the signpost, sighing faintly as she realised that it, like so many others she had driven past, had been a victim of the Welsh language lobby.

Luckily, she had had the foresight to buy a map that gave both the Welsh and the English names for the many tiny villages dotted about the Pembroke.

At night, the terrain might seem inhospitable but, as she remembered from short summer weekends she had spent here with Helena, the coastline was one of the most beautiful she had ever seen, with mile upon mile of unspoiled countryside, and narrow, winding roads, between deep banks of hedges that were vaguely reminiscent of Cornwall and Dorset at their very best.

Helena’s cottage was rather remote, several miles away from the nearest village, in fact, down a narrow, unmade-up road. She had been left it by a distant relative, and had some claim to Welsh blood. She had spent childhood holidays in the area, and had been able to supply Campion with many interesting facts about it.

The Welsh scornfully referred to Pembroke as being more English than England itself, and certainly a succession of English monarchs had been very generous to friends and foes alike when it came to handing out these once rich Welsh lands.

Sir Philip Sidney, the famous Elizabethan poet and soldier, had been Earl of Pembroke, and there had been others; some sent here as a reward, some as a punishment.

Her imagination suddenly took fire, and she found herself wondering what it would have been like to have been dismissed to this far part of the country, especially for a young girl, more used to the elegance of court living. A girl like Lynsey, for instance.

Within seconds, Campion was totally involved in the plot she was weaving inside her head. She reached automatically for the small tape recorder she always carried with her, the words flowing almost too quickly as she fought to keep pace with her thoughts.

Why was it that she found it so incredibly easy and exciting to imagine the emotions of her young heroine in this context, but, when it came to making her fall in love and having a sexual relationship, her brain just froze?

Impatient with herself, she pressed harder on the accelerator. Nearly there now, surely. She glanced at the dashboard clock. One in the morning, but she didn’t feel tired; at least, not mentally tired. Her brain had gone into overdrive, and she was itching to sit down at her typewriter and work. It would mean altering several chapters she had already done, but that wouldn’t be any problem, and it would add an extra dimension to her book.

Angrily, she dismissed the sudden memory she had of Guy telling her that her manuscript lacked a very important dimension. What was she trying to do? Prove to him that she could make the book work without the sexual content he deemed so necessary? And so it would, she told herself mutinously. But, deep down inside herself, she knew it was not just the lack of sexuality to her heroine, but the lack of emotional responsiveness to the men around her that made the book seem so flat. Campion was not a fool, some of the most emotionally and mentally stimulating books ever written—books that caught the imagination and held it fast, books that conveyed a quality of realism and involvement that no one could deny—did so without any reference description of physical lovemaking between the main characters. But what they had, and what her manuscript lacked, was the special, vibrant awareness of the characters’ sexuality. A vibrant awareness which she herself had never experienced, other than that one briefly painful episode with Craig.

She was so deeply immersed in her private thoughts that she almost missed the turn-off for the cottage. Braking quickly, she turned into the unmade-up lane.

Surely it had not been as pitted with pot-holes the last time she’d driven down it? Her body lurched against the restraining seat-belt as she tried to avoid the worst of the holes. Muddy water splashed up over her car as she drove straight into one of them, and she cursed mildly.

Although Helena was in Greece, recuperating from a severe bout of pleurisy, her housekeeper had been quite happy to supply Campion with the keys for the cottage. Campion knew Mabel quite well, and the small, dour Scotswoman had warned her that the cottage was not really equipped for winter living.

Campion hadn’t been put off, and anyway she wouldn’t be staying there very long. She had to be back in London in a month for the book tour, which was a week or so before Christmas, and then she would be spending Christmas with Lucy and Howard. If it was anything like their usual Christmas house-parties, it would be a very sybaritic experience indeed. Howard liked his home comforts—the more luxurious, the better.

The car’s headlights picked out the low, rambling shape of the cottage, and thankfully she eased her aching leg off the accelerator.

Now she really was tired. It would be bliss to get into a really hot bath and then just drop into bed, but she suspected the luxury of a bath would have to wait for another day. If she remembered correctly, the house was equipped with an immersion heater, but it would take too long to heat water tonight.

Thank goodness she had had the sense to pack a few basic necessities into one bag. She could take that in with her now, and the rest of the unpacking could wait until the morning.

Carefully easing her aching body out from behind the wheel, Campion found the bag, and a carton of typing paper. Locking the car, she made her way to the cottage.

The lock on the door must have been oiled recently, because the key turned easily in it, and the door yawned open of its own accord, making a creaking sound that made the hair on her scalp prickle, until she remembered that Helena had often laughed about this and other small idiosyncrasies that the cottage possessed.

It was very old, and had once been part of a large local estate, probably a small farmhouse. Helena’s great-grandparents had lived here all their married lives, and then Helena had inherited it from a great-aunt when she had died.

The kitchen was stone-flagged and consequently very cold. She shivered as she walked into it, reaching for the light switch and then remembering that it was on the far side of the room. The cottage’s wiring was rather haphazard, with light switches and sockets sometimes placed where one would not have expected to find them.

She started to cross the kitchen, and then froze as the lights suddenly snapped on.

For a moment, the brilliance of the unexpected light blinded her; and then shock followed hard on the heels of her initial astonishment.

‘What took you so long?’ a cool male voice drawled nonchalantly. ‘I thought you’d be here hours ago.’

Campion blinked and stared at the man leaning against the wall; and then she blinked again, trying to clear her vision.

Guy French, here? Impossible! She must be imagining things. But no—for one thing, this morning he had been wearing a suit—a very dark wool suit with a crisp, white shirt and a neatly striped tie—and now he was wearing a disreputable pair of jeans and a very thick jumper over a checked wool shirt. He was even wearing wellingtons. She goggled slightly as she noticed this. No, she was most definitely not imagining things! Had her mind been playing tricks with her, and superimposed Guy’s image against the homely background of Helena’s cottage kitchen, she was sure it would not have also seen fit to dress him in anything other than the immaculate suits and shirts she always saw him wearing.

‘Guy.’

Furiously, she realised that he actually had the audacity to laugh at her. How dared he? And anyway, what was he doing here?

The grin that curled his mobile mouth brought her back to reality. Staring stonily at him, she said as cuttingly as she could, ‘I suppose this must be your idea of a joke, Guy, but quite frankly I don’t think it’s funny. I don’t understand what you’re doing here, but, since you are here, you’ll understand, I’m sure, when I tell you that I’m leaving.’

‘Not so fast!’

She had never dreamt he could move so quickly, nor that he could be strong. She gulped as he barred her way to the door by placing his body in front of it, and gripping her arms with both his hands.

‘Let go of me!’ She jerked back from him instinctively, her whole body tensing against his touch, her lips drawn back from her teeth in a feral snarl, her eyes spitting furious green sparks.

He looked at her, and seemed about to say something, and Campion tensed against a further sarcastic retort. But, to her surprise, he complied with her demand, gently pushing her back from him.

‘This is no joke,’ he told her calmly. ‘Far from it. I meant what I said about your manuscript, Campion. It’s got to be finished, and you need help to get it finished on time, you know that. Running away down here won’t solve anything.’

‘I’m not running away.’

How dared he suggest that? She longed to tell him that if it wasn’t for his relentless bullying she wouldn’t be here at all.

‘Then what are you doing here?’

‘If you must know, I’ve come here to work …’

‘Really? A sudden decision, I take it, since you didn’t see fit to inform me of it this morning …’

‘Perhaps with good reason,’ Campion told him nastily, adding bitterly, ‘What business of yours is it where I do my work, Guy?’

‘Since I’m your agent, for the moment, I should say it was very much my business,’ he responded mildly. ‘You won’t solve anything by running away, you know.’

This was the second time he had made that accusation. Through gritted teeth, Campion told him curtly, ‘I am not running away. I’ve come here to work. Alone …’ She waved the typing paper at him. ‘See … I’ve even done some dictating on the way down here, and if you don’t mind, I’d now like to get it typed up …’

‘Dictating … Something along the lines we discussed, I hope …’

Campion refused to answer him.

‘Ah, I see … Just as well I’m here, then, isn’t it?’

A tiny sensation of something alien and rather alarming skittered down her spine, and Campion turned to look at him.

‘Why are you here, Guy?’ she asked him slowly. ‘And how did you know that I’d decided to come here?’

‘Simple—Mabel told me.’

‘Mabel?’ Campion stared at him.

‘Yes. I went round this afternoon to collect Helena’s post and go through it for her, and Mabel told me that you’d been round for the cottage keys. Luckily, she had a second set.’

He was dangling them from the tip of one strong, long finger, and a feeling of weakness and disbelief filled Campion as she stared at him.

‘And so you decided to come down here yourself … but why?’

‘Do you remember any of what I said to you this morning?’ he asked her softly.

Did she remember? How could she forget?

‘Yes.’ Her terse answer made him smile slightly, and for one mad moment she had to stop herself from responding to that strange little smile.

‘Then you’ll remember that I told you I’d given the publishers my word that your manuscript would be on their desk on time …’

‘Yes,’ she agreed woodenly, remembering, too, that she had told him it was impossible. That was when they had had their argument about her having a secretary.

‘I even offered you the services of a secretary to help you,’ he added gently.

Campion’s chest swelled with indignation and fury.

‘I don’t want a secretary!’ she told him through bared teeth. ‘I don’t work that way. I don’t need any help with this book, Guy.’

‘Oh, yes, you do,’ he told her unequivocably. ‘But you’re right, you don’t need a secretary; at least, not the kind I had in mind.’

He was looking at her in a way that made danger signals race from one nerve-ending to another, and a tiny prickle of awareness of him touched her skin. He was standing too close to her, and she instinctively took a step back from him. He smiled when he saw her betraying movement, but there was no humour in his smile.

‘Tell me something,’ he encouraged softly. ‘Your heroines, Campion, do they have much of you in them? Or to put it another way—do you imagine yourself to be them when you’re writing?’

A hot wave of colour scalded her skin before she could hold it back.

‘No,’ she told him forcefully. ‘No, I don’t. Why do you ask?’

‘All in good time.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s going on for two, and I, for one, am tired. I think we’ll both be in a better frame of mind to discuss things in the morning. I’ve taken the smaller bedroom. Women always seem to need more room.’

The smaller bedroom? Campion gaped at him.

‘You’re … you’re not staying here?’

His eyebrows rose. ‘Of course I am! Where else would I be staying?’

‘But—you can’t.’

‘Can’t?’ He smiled grimly at her.

‘All right, so you can stay,’ Campion amended, ‘but I’m not staying with you.’ She headed for the door, determined to walk over him to get it open, if she had to. But she was brought to an abrupt halt as he virtually swung her off her feet, and deposited her down on the floor again with such force that her teeth actually rattled.

‘Now, let’s get one thing straight,’ he told her savagely, all pretence of calm good humour stripped from him now. ‘I’ve given my word, both professionally and personally, that your manuscript will be delivered on time. I’ve laid myself out on the line for you and your damn book, Campion, and no matter what it takes, you are going to deliver …’

No matter what it takes …’

His eyes seemed to bore into her skull, and she found she was too petrified to even open her mouth. All she could do was to stare at him with mesmerised astonishment.

‘It’s been one hell of a long day already, needlessly complicated by your unwarranted feminine tantrum and melodramatic flight. All right, so you’re having problems with the book, we both know that …’

Suddenly, Campion got her senses back. Gathering herself up to her full height, she raised her head and said angrily, ‘I’m not staying her listening to any more of this …’

‘Oh, yes, you are … You’re staying here until this damn book is finished, and to my satisfaction. We’re both staying her until it’s finished,’ he added.

‘You … you can’t make me do that …’

‘No. No, I can’t, but if you walk out of here now, Campion, that’s the end as far as I’m concerned, and you might as well throw that manuscript on the fire. Is that what you want? Do you want to quit? To give up? To admit that you simply haven’t got what it takes to …’

She went white, and swayed where she stood, her whole body filled with pain. His words came so close to the insults hurled at her by Craig. So very close that she denied them instinctively, and only realised as the pain subsided exactly what she had committed herself to.

She had committed herself to staying here and finishing her book. And Guy was making it plain that he had every intention of staying here with her.

Suddenly, she was too exhausted to argue the point any further, and besides, her pride would not allow her to back down now. He had virtually told her that he didn’t think she was capable of bringing her characters to life, and suddenly it was very, very important to her that she prove him wrong. She would finish the book, and when she had done it it would be so real, so alive, that … that … Muzzily, she touched her head. What was happening to her? She felt so weak, so drained …

‘You’re tired. Why don’t you go to bed? You can fight with me all you like in the morning.’

Why did the terse words have such an edge of rough pity? She flinched back from it instinctively, giving Guy a single baleful glance as she picked up her bag and headed for the stairs.

‘Admit it, Campion, coming here was a form of running away. A cry for help, if you like.’

The quiet words froze her on the stairs. She turned on him like an angry tigress, the cool aura of remoteness she generally projected for once gone.

‘If I was running away from anything, it was you,’ she told him furiously. ‘You and your interference in my life!’ She stopped abruptly, conscious of an odd tension in the small room. It made her skin tighten slightly, and she was intensely aware of the man watching her. ‘You’re the last person I’d cry out to for help, Guy,’ she added recklessly. ‘The very last.’

‘I see. Very well then, you must stay or go as you please, Campion, but remember one thing, if you leave here …’

‘I’ll be admitting that you’re right and that I can’t finish the book,’ she flung at him. ‘Oh, I’m not going, Guy. I’m staying, and I’m going to make you take back every insult you’ve made about my work. You wait and see.’

A strange look crossed his face, a combination of weariness and triumph, and it made her feel as though somehow she had stepped into a cleverly baited trap. But how could that be? Guy wouldn’t stay on at the cottage for very long, she assured herself as she made her way to the larger of the two bedrooms. He was a city creature; someone who fed off the bright lights and excitement the city generated; he would be bored out of his mind within a very short space of time, and then he would go and she could get on with her work in peace. Until then, she would just have to ignore him. It shouldn’t be that difficult; she had managed well enough for the last ten months. Determinedly, she ignored the small voice that reminded her that during those months she had had Helena to act as a buffer between Guy and herself.

She stalked angrily round the small room, wishing for the hundredth time that her agent had not seen fit to go into partnership with such an irritating man.

She knew that her opinion was a minority one. Everyone else seemed to think that Helena was very fortunate indeed in having as her senior partner a man whose reputation in the literary world meant that he had authors clamouring for him to represent them.

Well, she would never clamour for his services, Campion thought fiercely, and a sudden dark tide of colour washed her pale skin as she realised the significance of the double entendre conjured up by her thoughts. Guy had no permanent relationship in his life, but that did not mean that he lacked feminine companionship. Far from it! Her mouth tightened as she recalled the seemingly endless line of beautiful women who Helena had told her flocked around him.

Well, they were welcome to him, and she just wished he would take himself off back to them.

It was unfortunate that Mabel had so unwittingly told him what she was planning to do. She ground her teeth as she remembered his accusation that she was running away. From him and his threat of a secretary, yes; from her work, no—never—she loved her work.

She froze as she heard footsteps on the stairs and then a brief rap on her door. Guy opened it before she could protest, poking his head around the small gap.

‘Anything you want bringing in from your car? I take it that small carry-all isn’t the only luggage you’ve brought with you? Water’s hot, by the way, if you want a bath.’

Did he really think she was incapable of carrying her own suitcase upstairs if she wanted to?

His pseudo-concern made her feel angry. Did he really think she was stupid enough to believe he was the slightest bit concerned about her comfort? All he wanted from her was a successful book. She frowned, confused by the contradictions in her own emotions. She was tired and on edge, and he was the last person with whom she wanted to share such confined quarters as the small, remote cottage, but she had told him she was going to stay, and she wasn’t going to be the one to back down.

‘If I wanted my case, I’d go and get it,’ she told him rudely. ‘And I don’t want a bath. What I want to do is to go to bed,’ she added pointedly.

She saw his eyebrows lift, but there was nothing amused in the way he was looking at her. Rather it was a combination of weariness and pity that darkened his eyes.

Pity. She felt her own eyes grow sore and dry as he stepped back and closed the door. Her throat felt raw and her heart seemed to be beating too fast. How dared he pity her. How dared he … She undressed with rapid, almost ungainly movements, checking that he had actually gone back downstairs before she used the bathroom.

A brief wash, her teeth cleaned, and she was back in her bedroom. As she unpinned her hair, she rubbed the tension prickling against her scalp. Her hair was thick and softly curly. She ought to get it cut into a short, manageable style, she thought as she brushed it. The men’s pyjamas she had bought especially for the cottage were just as warm as she had hoped, but somehow she couldn’t settle. It was all Guy’s fault, she decided bitterly, as the adrenalin continued to pump and her body refused to relax into sleep.

If only Helena had not fallen ill … or, even better, if only her agent had never agreed to go into partnership with him in the first place …

But something made her acknowledge that the faults would still remain with her book, and that they could not be laid at Guy’s door. What was she going to do? How was she going to make her heroine come alive? She forced herself to try and think about her, to imagine what her feelings would have been. Was Guy right in saying that, once she knew of the marriage Henry had arranged for her, she would have tried to overset it? Perhaps. It worried her that he seemed to have a better perception of her character’s probable behaviour than she had herself.

At last she fell asleep, but her dreams were a confused jumble of images and thoughts. In one, she saw her heroine confronting Henry and telling him that she would not marry the man of his choice; she saw her run through the corridors of his palace while Cardinal Wolsey looked on disapprovingly, and the other courtiers turned diplomatically away. She heard her throw the challenge at Henry that she would get herself with child by the first man who crossed her path, rather than marry the man of his choice. She saw Lynsey run out into the gardens, crying out her cousin’s name as she saw him sitting with a group of young men, and then she saw the dark shadow of the man who seemed to come from nowhere to impede her pathway to her cousin, snatching her up at the last moment, when she would have run into him full tilt. As he swung her round to put her on her feet, the sunlight fell across his face, striking a blaze of colours from the sword hilt at his side. He was more soberly dressed than the courtiers she was used to, and she struggled to break free; and then Campion saw his face.

She screamed a denial, her whole body shaking, as she came abruptly awake. Her bedroom was in complete darkness, the silence still and unnerving after the constant hum of London traffic. She was cold, and yet she felt breathless, as though she had been running. The flesh on her arms burned as though someone had gripped it hard. She looked down at herself, confused to see the pyjama jacket where she had expected to see rich satin and expensive lace, and then a hot flush seared her skin. In her dream, she had been Lynsey, and the man who had swept her off her feet had been Guy French. She shivered as she remembered her impulsive words to King Henry, and then shook her head in irritation. Her words … What was the matter with her? She had become involved with her characters before, but never to this extent, surely?

And as for dreaming about Guy French … Well, that was just her mind’s way of dealing with the anger and resentment she felt against him, she rationalised. That was all.

So why the odd sensation in the pit of her stomach? Why the shaky, quivering feeling of unease that tightened her skin and made her feel acutely vulnerable? These were feelings that an impressionable teenager might experience, but hardly applicable to a grown woman of twenty-six. And besides … besides, she was not in the least attracted to Guy—far from it.

Attracted to him? She froze, staring into the darkness, her body tense and still. Where had that thought come from? She shuddered slightly, trying to hold at bay the sick, nervy feeling invading her senses.

She must be sickening for something, she told herself; these odd feelings she kept having, this feeling of vulnerability, they were so unlike anything she was used to feeling. It was because she was upset about her book. Yes, that was the answer; she was upset about her book, and Guy French was exacerbating the situation. If only he had not decided to come down here, she wished cravenly. She didn’t want him here. He unnerved and unsettled her. She wanted him to go away and leave her in peace, and most of all she wanted him to stop looking at her with that infuriating blend of sadness and compassion.