Читать книгу Silver - Пенни Джордан, Penny Jordan - Страница 7

SILVER waited out the twenty-four hours in her chalet. The oil sheikh had installed a Jacuzzi in a specially built extension that was raised on pillars some thirty feet above the ground.

The room was circular, one third of its wall-space taken up by specially treated glass that allowed those inside to look out, but no one to look in. From the Jacuzzi the view of the mountains was spectacular.

Low divans followed the curve of the glass wall, heaped with priceless rugs and silk cushions. The jacuzzi was large enough to hold an entire rugby team, and sometimes, when she relaxed in it, Silver wondered about the women who had shared it with the sheikh.

Had they enjoyed the experience? He was fifty-odd years old and fat, with heavy jowls and small, greedy eyes. His hands flashed with jewels and his beard smelled of perfume.

Silver had rented the chalet through an intermediary who had been instructed to describe her as a very wealthy middle-aged widow. She had not wanted any unheralded visits from the chalet’s owner while she was in residence, something which she had heard on the grapevine had happened to a beautiful, amoral socialite she knew, who had described the event with a shudder of distaste.

The socialite’s companion, a sleek, too pretty nineteen-year-old boy with homosexual tendencies, had laughed maliciously and taunted, ‘Oh, come on, you must have been tempted. They say he’s a very generous lover, and gives uncut stones as a mark of his appreciation. The more appreciative he is, the higher the carat of the diamond.’ And he had looked pointedly at the brilliantly cut stone she had been wearing on her finger.

Everyone had laughed until she had told him tartly, ‘This, my dear one, is a fake. He also punishes those who don’t please him by knocking them around or passing them on to his bodyguards.’

Silver had no real fears that he would arrive unexpectedly. She moved languidly in the warm water and then got out. The twenty-four hours were almost up, and she had heard nothing from Jake.

She dried herself, standing carelessly in front of the huge window, enjoying the room’s heat. A jungle of plants covered the back wall, turning the room into a luxurious green cavern of tropical indolence, an erotic contrast to the crisp sharpness of the snow outside.

Before she dressed she smoothed body lotion into her skin; it had the same expensive perfume as her scent. It left her skin velvet-soft and with the same lustrous gleam as expensive heavy satin.

Jake had another two hours. After that she would start packing for her return trip.

The phone rang, and she dropped the silk underwear she had just picked up, reaching for the receiver, subduing the wild dance of elation that sang through her blood.

‘Silver?’

It wasn’t Jake. She forced down her disappointment.

‘Annie. How are you?’

‘Fine. Can you make it for dinner on Friday? It will only be a fairly informal affair. Some old friends are passing through. Jake will be there…’

‘Does he know you’ve invited me?’ Silver questioned her, wondering if this was a skilful ploy of Jake’s to evade her time-limit and yet accept her terms at the same time.

‘He doesn’t even know yet that I’m going to invite him,’ Annie told her.

‘Mm… Friday… I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it. I won’t be here.’

There was a short silence, and then Annie queried almost sharply, ‘So you’re going through with it, then? I understand why you feel the way you do, but is it really wise? Wouldn’t it be better to simply leave things as they are? To put the past behind you?’

‘No,’ Silver told her with emotionless economy. They had been through this so many times before, ever since in that moment of weakness she had confessed to Annie how important it was to her that she reach the goal she had set herself—an impossible goal, some might claim; an unhealthy, even dangerous goal, others might say… especially Annie… especially if she knew the full truth. There were certain things that Silver had kept back from her, certain truths which she had suppressed because even now she could hardly accept them herself.

To have learned that the man she loved had not only betrayed her but was also involved in her father’s death, and in supplying drugs to other members of the wealthy and élite circles he moved in, had devastated her.

No, these were not things that could be told to anyone. Charles had boasted to her that he was beyond the reach of the law, that he had powerful friends who would protect him… well, she was going to show him that, though he might think himself invincible, he was vulnerable just as she had been vulnerable… just as her father had been vulnerable. She was going to bring him down… to destroy him… to…

‘Silver, think!’ Annie cautioned her. ‘If you do succeed, what then—what afterwards?’

‘I don’t care about afterwards,’ Silver told her truthfully.

In her cluttered, untidy office, Annie stared at the calendar on the wall. It depicted a paradisiacal Indian Ocean island, all pale yellow sands, emerald seas and waving palm trees. If she was truthful, she had never felt happy about doing Silver’s operation; that was why she had abandoned the lucrative field of cosmetic surgery in the first place. The puritan in her had balked at what she was doing… And yet there had been something about Silver that had called out to her for help… something in her very desolation and determination that she hadn’t been able to resist. She had felt an awareness of the extent of her suffering, of her need… she, who had thought herself armoured against emotionalism, just hadn’t been able to refuse to help her.

And then, of course, there had been the money.

Five million pounds to help finance her clinic here in Switzerland… her very special clinic where she used her skills to treat the victims of human violence and destructiveness, mending ruined faces and bodies torn, ripped apart… destroyed by human cruelty.

All her skill, though, hadn’t been enough to save Tom.

As always, the memory of her husband weakened her, pain sweeping through her, blotting out the environment of her hospital with its orderly, sane demands on her, taking her to another place… another life and the man she had shared them with.

It was no good remembering Tom. He was never going to come back, never going to bound into their flat, sweeping her off her feet and into bed. She trembled, remembering how it had been between the two of them, and knowing that it was as much because of that… because of all she had shared with Tom that Silver would never have… that she had finally been persuaded to carry out the operations which had given Silver her new face.

‘Be careful,’ she said quietly. ‘Be very careful, Silver…’

Silver smiled mirthlessly as she replaced the receiver. She had no need of Annie’s warning. She knew full well the enormity of the task she had set herself, but it would be accomplished, and without Jake Fitton’s help if necessary. There were other men.

But none quite as ideal, she acknowledged bitterly twelve hours later, standing on the platform waiting for the local train which would take her to Innsbruck. She was travelling light, the same way she had arrived: one piece of hand luggage, into which she had managed to pack everything she had brought with her.

In Paris she would buy new clothes, clothes for the woman she had made herself into. For the woman Annie had made her into, she amended grimly. She had no illusions about herself. Outwardly she now bore the physical attributes of a beautiful woman. The ability to reflect those physical attributes inwardly, to project the reality of being that woman—that task lay with her. She had the determination to do it… the motivation… she had the intelligence. And the skill? Only time would tell.

She now possessed the physical body and face of a beautiful woman; in Paris she would clothe that body as it needed to be clothed if she was to attract Charles’s attention and ensnare him. She knew exactly what kind of woman appealed to him. How he liked initially to be challenged, even dominated by the woman he desired… It was only later that his own true character surfaced and he began to need to inflict cruelty and humiliation on his lovers… to subjugate them…

She had learned a good deal about the real Charles since her father’s death… about the Charles who hid behind the mask of almost godlike physical beauty… behind the appeal of his tall, broad-shouldered body and his golden, deceitful face.

Yes, in Paris she would buy clothes: clothes from Valentino and Armani, from Chanel arid Yves St Laurent, clothes from those designers who knew all about how subtly to emphasise a woman’s sexuality without making a parody of it.

And from Paris she would go to London. To a new life… a new identity. Everything was arranged: the exclusive apartment that whispered sleekly of old money… the letters that would allow her to enter Charles’s milieu as an accepted member of that exclusive and very small world.

Everything was planned, right down to the smallest detail.

A frown touched her forehead as she acknowledged the one major obstacle still confronting her. She now had to find someone to take Jake Fitton’s place. Someone dispensable… someone who would give her what she wanted… what she had to have if her plan was to succeed.

Damn Jake Fitton. She had known he would be difficult to persuade, had known it instinctively, a gut-deep reaction rather than any logic. After all, by his own admission he needed the money… and she had counted on his needing that money too much to refuse her.

That she should have miscalculated so badly and so early on in her planning was more worrying than she wanted to admit. It spoke of an underlying lack of facts; of having made an emotional rather than a clinical decision; of having made the kind of basic error her father would have derided. He had taught her to play chess, he had taught her to gamble for the highest stakes, and he had taught her to run his business affairs, which were now hers… and she had thought she had learned those lessons well. She had thought there was nothing anyone could teach her about man’s basic greed and vulnerability; now she was having to rethink the assessments she had made… to backtrack… to look for an alternative route by which she could reach her ultimate goal.

The train arrived. She got on board without looking back, swaying easily down the carriage, knowing that people were watching her, but remaining outwardly oblivious to their interest.

She sat down and removed a magazine from her bag, coolly snubbing the attempts of the man seated opposite her to engage her in conversation.

Maybe in Paris she would find a man. She told herself it was stupid to allow herself to get so worked up over Jake’s refusal of her proposition, that there was no point in dwelling on what was after all a very minor matter, but it remained there like a small shadow, clouding her mood, growing as the miles passed. The fact that he had rejected her as a woman didn’t bother her… After all, she reasoned mirthlessly, that was something she was used to.

No, it was her own miscalculation that worried her… her own failure to correctly judge the situation, guess what his reactions would be. It showed a grave lack of judgement—a lack of judgement she could not afford. And only now did she admit that she had chosen Jake Fitton as much because he was such a challenge as because of his suitability for the role. It was that small piece of vanity that had been her downfall, and now she was furious with herself too for putting her whole plan into jeopardy simply for the unnecessary and trivial pleasure of putting Jake down, of forcing him to acknowledge her superiority.

His thinly veiled contempt of her had rankled after all… and that was a weakness she could not afford to have. After all, before she was finished, there would be people who felt far more than mere contempt for her…

She closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat, ruthlessly regimenting her thoughts, forcing herself to admit her own stupidity…

The train rattled into Innsbruck.

She was spending the night in a hotel before flying out in the morning. A porter caught sight of her and hurried towards her beaming, only to grimace when he saw she had no luggage. She walked out into the sharp winter sunlight, looking for a taxi. A car drew up alongside her, the rear door opened and from inside it Jake Fitton said quietly, ‘Two million pounds.’

She wanted to refuse, to tell him that it was too late, that the deal was off. The words trembled on her tongue, but she fought them back. She couldn’t afford to give in to emotionalism now.

Instead she smiled and said coldly, ‘You put a high price on yourself, Jake. I hope you’re worth it.’ And then she slid into the car beside him, closing the door and settling herself into her seat while he instructed the driver.

He was taking her back to his chalet, she realised, listening. Two million pounds. Well, she could afford it—easily! She closed her eyes again; her heart was thumping frantically. Until this moment she hadn’t wanted to admit to herself how important it was that it was this man who completed the final hurdle for her… that his acceptance of her terms had a symbolism that was very important to her. Far more important than the man himself.

On the drive back to Gstaad he addressed no comment to her, and she was skilled enough to make none of her own.

She had been brought up by a father whose realisation, eight years after her birth, that she would be the only child he could ever have had led him to pour into her all that he himself had learned in his determination to make her a fitting heir to his name and possessions. Car journeys, for her, were always a reminder of those times when she had sat beside him in the back of the Bentleys he had always chosen over the more status-laden Rolls-Royces, listening while he talked, answering while he questioned. So Jake’s silence was an added burden.

She wondered if such silence was habitual to him, or if he was deliberately trying to unnerve her. Apart from that afternoon in his chalet, she had never really been alone with him, having always encountered him only in Annie’s company.

On those occasions he and Annie had talked as old friends did. There had been silences, generated when he’d become aware that she was there, a silent third, an interloper on their intimacy, and then it had been Annie who had talked, sensing the atmosphere between them and trying her best to disperse it.

The road twisted and turned, offering superb views that were not designed for the nauseous or nervy. In Gstaad they had to stop to allow returning skiers to cross the road. Silver recognised Guido Bartoli among them. Even now it was not too late to change her mind.

The skiers cleared, and the car pulled away smoothly.

‘Second thoughts?’ Jake said quietly beside her, focusing on her as though he could see her.

She had known from the moment she met him that he was dangerous, ruthless—a merciless foe—but such enmity demanded a degree of involvement, of intimacy even, that would not enter their relationship.

Allowing only polite coldness to inform her face and voice, she said quietly, ‘Two million pounds is a lot of money.’

He smiled at her, a curling, taunting smile that said what they both knew: that her second thoughts had nothing to do with money.

As she looked away from him, Silver wondered why, when, since he was blind, she was completely free to look at him, to study and assess him, she found it so difficult to do so.

Where did it come from, this innate distaste for breaching his privacy even when she knew he would be unaware of it?

It was true that he was conspicuously formidable, hardened by life into something almost indestructible. You could see that in him by just looking at him, by seeing how he reacted to his blindness, how he accepted it and adapted to it, daring it to imprison him.

They had reached the chalet. Silver fumbled for the door-handle and got out, waiting for Jake to join her. He stopped to say something to the driver and then walked across to her, finding her unerringly.

He unlocked the chalet door, telling her calmly, ‘Just as a matter of interest, I’ve had the locks changed.’

Silver followed him inside. The stove was burning warmly, and from the kitchen came the mouth-watering aroma of something cooking.

‘I thought it might be as well if you moved in here for the duration of your… tuition. I’ve allocated you a bedroom—second on the left. It doesn’t have a private bathroom, but there is a shower. Since I’m sure neither of us wants to draw this out any longer than necessary, I suggest we make a start this evening. Since you specifically mentioned that seduction was your prime objective, I have to assume that where the non-sexual aspects of such a role are concerned you require no enlightenment.’

He paused, as calmly polite as a lecturer addressing a student, which of course she was.

Silver inclined her own head and replied evenly, ‘Your assumptions are correct.’

‘Mm… you sound confident, but a confident woman wouldn’t have worn that perfume you were wearing the other day. It’s too strong… too obvious. Unless, of course, your prey has a particular penchant for it.’

Silver almost gasped at his astuteness. He was so close to having guessed exactly why she had chosen that particular perfume. The perfumer who had mixed it for her had disapproved.

‘Tuberoses are not really for you,’ he had told her critically, but she had ignored his advice, insisting that he made the strong, heavy scent.

‘I’m sure I don’t need to say this, and you must forgive me for being crass, but since the object of this exercise is not to seduce me I’d prefer you not to use it…’

It took her several seconds to assimilate the subtle insult. When she did she was tempted to retaliate, but she forced herself to say mildly, ‘It costs a thousand pounds an ounce. In view of your extortionate fee, every little I can save is a bonus.’

He didn’t smile, but simply gave her a level, assessing look which she withstood only by reminding herself that he could not actually see her.

‘Next point—clothes. Since you are ultimately to play the seductress, I have no doubt you will probably want to dress for the part. Again, I would caution you against overstatement. I personally find nothing particularly erotic about a woman who has obviously dressed herself with sex in mind. However, the discovery that a woman dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, with her face free of make-up, is wearing silk satin underwear… now, that…’

Silver was tempted to lie and say that she was allergic to silk, but controlled the childish impulse, saying curtly, ‘I’d like to go up to my room and unpack.’

He shrugged, looking at her impatiently.

‘In a moment. There are still some points we have to discuss. The first, and I should have thought one of the most important as far as you are concerned, is that I have a clean bill of health, at least as far as any sexually transmitted diseases are concerned.

‘The second is that I have assumed that you will have taken the necessary precautions to ensure that no pregnancy occurs.’

‘I have,’ agreed Silver coldly.

‘Good. Now, since I’m hungry, we may as well start the first lesson now. You can leave your unpacking until later. Right now, try imagining that you’ve invited your prospective victim round for a meal. During the course of this meal you intend to make him sexually aware of you and also of your availability. How would you accomplish that?’

Silver felt her heart thumping just a little bit too fast. This was what she wanted, but now that it was here… She tried to blank out of her mind Jake as a person and instead use her imagination to create the scenario he had just described.

She closed her eyes, summoning concentration, asking him a little huskily, ‘Two questions…’

She opened her eyes. He seemed to be watching her.

‘One: how long have we known one another? Two: what is our existing relationship? Do we work together, or…?’

‘We’ve met twice before,’ he told her immediately. ‘The first time a mutual acquaintance invited us both to dinner. The second was at a cocktail party when you discovered that my existing lover has gone to spend a fortnight with her parents. This invitation for dinner was given on the pretext of your having been asked to keep an eye on me, so to speak, by my lover.’

Silver gave him a sharp look spiked with dislike.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked her evenly. ‘Don’t you like the character I’ve cast for you?’

She digested his silky-voiced comments in silence. Annie had obviously told him a great deal. Too much. ‘I have no feelings at all about her. I was just wondering why you accepted the invitation.’ She wasn’t going to let him guess at her disquiet. He was trained to play on people’s weaknesses. For all she knew, he might simply be assessing… guessing… He smiled at her then, a mocking, warning smile that made her muscles lock.

‘Ah, now that’s for me to know and you to gamble on, isn’t it?’ he told her softly. ‘After all, surely that’s what this is all about—knowing your victim’s vulnerabilities? You’ve got five minutes and then we begin. I’ve arrived at your front door and you’ve let me in.’

She closed her eyes, blotting out both the man and her surroundings; the latter was easy to do, the former surprisingly difficult. She tried to superimpose on his granite-tough features another man’s smoother, younger face and to hold on to that vision. She waited until she had only seconds left before saying softly, ‘Jake… you’ve made it. Marvellous,’ and wondered if he’d notice her subtle and deliberate betrayal of the fact that she had doubted that he would arrive. ‘Come on in and make yourself at home. Dinner won’t be long… It won’t be anything very special either, I’m afraid.’ She mimicked the warm gurgle of laughter she had once heard an acquaintance use to devastating effect. She had a good ear and was adept at reproducing intonations and nuances. ‘I was running late at the gallery and only had time to rush into my local delicatessen on the way back, but then I did warn you that I was no cook, didn’t I?’

She gave a slow, warm smile that promised that she was far more accomplished in other areas, which she hoped was carried through into her voice, because Jake could certainly never see the smile.

‘What should I do with my coat?’

The interruption was unexpected, as was the way Jake feigned uncertainty, looking back over his shoulder as though searching for a hallway.

‘Here… let me take it.’

Silver knew she was several seconds late in picking up her cue. She also had an odd reluctance to approach him and take the jacket he was slipping off.

‘It’s freezing outside, isn’t it?’ she improvised wildly, thrown off-key by his unexpected participation. And then, remembering something a friend had once told her, she added quickly, ‘I’ve lit a fire in the sitting-room. Come on through.’

She still hadn’t taken his coat and he checked her abruptly, saying briefly, ‘Adequate, Silver, but not good. The fire was good, but you failed to make good use of the opportunity I gave you when I asked what I should do with my coat, and the suggestion that something more exciting than dinner might be on offer was very precious… some might even say tacky. We’ll go through it again, only this time we’ll reverse the roles. Still, at least you didn’t pretend I’d arrived early and caught you in the middle of getting changed,’ he said drily. ‘I suppose that’s something. Now listen…’

Speaking as though he were she, he turned to her, matching the smile she had used.

‘First, before he even sets a foot inside the door, you’ll have prepared a mental dossier on him: what he likes and doesn’t like, his weaknesses and strong points. Let’s say this particular victim is an up-and-coming producer of television documentaries with a slant towards the political. You just happen to number among your acquaintances a politician you know he’s been keen to meet. And if you don’t, I’m sure you’ll be able to find a way to make sure that you do.

‘You open the door. He’s on edge, not sure what the evening’s going to hold. He’s aware of the signals you’ve been sending out, enjoyed the prelude to flirtation, but is now getting cold feet, wondering if the evening is going to end up heavy and problematical.

‘You surprise him, get him off guard. You pull a pretty regretful face and tell him you’ve been trapped into joining some old friends for dinner, but that he’s included in the invitation. He breathes relief. The pair of you leave for the kind of venue you know is going to impress him. Your tame politician is already there. You introduce them and discreetly pretend not to notice how impressed he is.

‘At a suitable opportunity, whenever the politician’s gone to the bar or whatever, you tell the victim how marvellous he’s being, helping you to entertain your father’s brother’s cousin’s dull friend. If you’ve done your homework well, you can even get the politician to dangle some tempting bait in front of him, by praising his work and suggesting that the two of them get together.

‘Already your victim is disarmed. He’s totally forgotten that he wasn’t sure he wanted to have dinner with you.

‘As soon as dinner’s over, you start getting a little on edge. You look at your watch… make it subtly obvious that your attention isn’t really on your victim. He’ll feel the withdrawal symptoms like a blast of Arctic air. You announce hesitantly that you really must leave. On the way home he asks you if something’s wrong. You hesitate and then admit to man-trouble. You’re expecting a phone-call or whatever. He then starts thinking he’s misunderstood the entire situation and suffers the consequent challenge to his ego. When you invite him in for a drink, he’s only too eager to accept and offer you his “brotherly” advice—–’

‘Oh, come on,’ Silver interrupted him acidly. ‘That wouldn’t deceive a five-year-old. It’s so obvious.’

‘Never underestimate the efficacy of the obvious. That is why it is obvious, after all.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ Silver told him sharply. ‘I haven’t come here to play these kind of games. What I require you to instruct me in is sexual technique. That’s all.’

‘If that’s the way you want it.’

He shrugged and seemed completely unaffected by her outburst. Silver, on the other hand, was flushed and angry. Did he think her such a fool that she hadn’t got the intelligence or the ability to be able to coax her prey into her carefully baited trap? She had seen others do it often enough.

‘I’m hungry,’ she said, aggressively now. ‘Do I get any dinner, or is that an optional extra?’

There was a small silence. She could feel him assessing her, and she cursed herself for so nearly losing her temper. He was probing her for her weaknesses as deliberately and cold-bloodedly as she had searched for his.

‘Board and lodging is inclusive,’ he told her unemotionally.

Over dinner neither of them spoke, Silver because she was still too angry, as much with herself as with him. His silence, she suspected, had a more dangerous and manipulative motive.

She didn’t offer to help afterwards as he loaded the dishwasher and deftly restored the kitchen to pristine order.

He hadn’t offered her anything to drink during dinner, or had anything himself, and he didn’t offer her anything now, saying briskly as he walked back into the room, ‘Well, we’d better make a start, hadn’t we? We’ll take all the opening stages as accomplished. Your victim has reached the stage where he’s ready to contemplate wanting to make love to you.’

She was sitting in one of the chairs in front of the fire, and as he came towards her he told her drily, ‘In order to facilitate matters, it might be advisable if I show you what’s possible, preferable—and desirable.’

He sat down on the sofa and added, ‘Come and sit here,’ and when she would have sat next to him said firmly, ‘No, not there… Here on the floor.’

Silver shot him a suspicious glance, but his face was perfectly grave and composed, as controlled and emotionless as though he were quite simply a lecturer instructing a rather dull pupil.

As she knelt ungraciously at his feet, he told her wryly, ‘In the harems of the East, the concubines used to be taught to wriggle snakelike upwards from the foot of the bed, adoring their master’s person with their hands and lips as they went.’

Silver was glad that he couldn’t see the betraying wave of colour that burned her skin. With great difficulty she managed to stop her colour from fluctuating.

‘Not that I’m suggesting you do the same thing, at least not at this stage, but it’s a point worth remembering. Now, sit in front of me, resting your back against my legs.’

Silver did as he instructed, sitting ramrod-straight as she stared into the fire.

‘Now, when I speak to you, instead of turning round to look at me you can tilt your head back so that, were I able to see, what I would see would be the undoubtedly tempting line of your exposed throat… your breasts… very temptingly within easy reach of my hand… thus.’

She wasn’t prepared for the brief, clinical touch of his hand, and her body flinched at the contact until she willed it into acquiescence. ‘I could, if I wished, lean down to kiss you, or, more probably, reach down to pull you up over my body, like so.’

His hands fitted easily beneath her armpits, and although she was so tall he turned her easily, so that for a brief, startling moment of time her face was pressed against his hard thigh. Then he was drawing her upwards, as though she were as fluid as a piece of silk.

‘At this stage if I were physically aroused you would be aware of it, and if I weren’t… Well, there are several options open to you, depending upon how much time you have and how far the relationship has already advanced.

‘If it’s still in its early stages and you think I’m drawing you up to kiss you, like so…’

He lifted her easily so that she was virtually draped across his body. One hand in the hollow of her back pressed her torso against his; the other found her nape and locked smoothly in her hair, his mouth cold and clinical on hers.

She wondered a little unkindly if he closed his eyes when he kissed her or if his perpetual darkness rendered it unnecessary.

Her own had closed instinctively, more to blot out the sight of him than to focus her awareness on his mouth, which was just as well, she acknowledged grimly, because there was certainly nothing provocative or erotic in its distant possession.

His eyes weren’t closed, but his lids were lowered so that his dark irises glittered between them. She lay totally unmoving against him, not wanting to remember how she had felt when Charles had kissed her—how joyously, frantically grateful she had been that he loved and wanted her; how eager to respond… to please…

‘You’re not concentrating.’ The harsh criticism jolted her out of her memories, her body tensing in dislike before she could stop it.

‘You’re supposed to be learning how to arouse a man to desire, not wallowing in self-pitiful memories,’ he derided her.

She stifled her rage that he should so easily have followed her thoughts.

‘Now listen and remember. You’ve gained an advantage—physical contact. Now you’ve got to make the most of it… turn a tentative embrace into an erotic enticement.’ When she said nothing, he muttered under his breath, ‘My God, what the hell happened to you when they were handing out good old-fashioned feminine instinct?’

She could have told him that she had never been encouraged to develop her femininity; that her father had treated her as the son he could never have; that plain women, ugly women, as she had heard herself described, were not given many opportunities to develop such instincts. But instead she folded her mouth into a hard line and reminded him coldly, ‘If I had those kinds of instincts, I wouldn’t need you to teach me, would I?’

He was still holding her, but there was nothing intimate about it, apart from the proximity of their bodies, his own all hard, solid, unyielding muscle, unprepared to accommodate her more vulnerable softness, so that leaning into him and being held there hurt her breasts. She tried to ease her discomfort by moving away, but the weight of his hand on her back wouldn’t allow her to put any space between them, and all she could do was move slightly sideways.

‘Let go of me,’ she complained. ‘I can hardly breathe.’

She felt his chest expand as he suddenly took a deep breath and she winced at the uncomfortable pressure against her breasts.

‘You can feel that, can you?’ he asked her.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that’s a start, at least. Now this time, when I kiss you, I want you to move your body against mine. Here,’ he told her, the hand in her hair sliding unerringly to her waist and then upwards to the curve of her breast, touching her briefly before moving away. ‘And here…’ His other hand left the hollow of her back and traced the curve of her hip.

‘As rhythmically as you can manage. I trust I don’t have to tell you what kind of rhythm,’ he added under his breath, and Silver was glad that he couldn’t see the fierce flood of angry colour that burned her face. She wanted to wrench herself away from him and tell him that she would find someone else to help her, but the stubborn streak of hardiness that had enabled her to survive so much wouldn’t let her. There was far more than mere pride at stake here.

‘Now, just in case you haven’t already realised it, the object of this exercise is to transform what is on my part merely a light kiss into… Well, let’s see what you can turn it into, shall we?’

She hated him… Hated the cold, dismissive way he spoke to her, the way he touched her… the way he made no effort to hide his dislike and contempt. But she needed him too much to show her feelings, and so she waited as his hands moved back to her body and he held her as he had done before, pressing the same cold mouth to her own.

Instinctively she froze, while her mind screamed its impatience with her body’s ineptness and she forced her unwilling muscles to obey her mental commands, moving her body against his, trying to imagine that he was Charles, and that this situation was real.

It was harder than she had thought, her body made clumsy and bashful by the unresponsiveness of his. It was like trying to soften iron, she decided angrily, knowing even before his mouth left hers that she had failed to impress him.

It was a shock to open her eyes and find his boring into her, as though he really could see her. Her heart jerked uncomfortably and she pulled away from him, saying bitterly, ‘Is all this really necessary?’

‘You seemed to think so… Look, I’ll show you how it should be done and then we’ll give it another try. Now concentrate,’ he instructed her, taking hold of her, ignoring her body’s tense rejection as he manoeuvred her ungently on to the sofa and then kept her there with the weight of his body.

‘Now,’ he said grimly against her mouth, ‘this is what should happen.’

This time his mouth was just as clinical, but it moved slowly and subtly on hers, matching the slow tempo of his body, the subtle rotation of his hips pressing her deeper into the sofa, the movement of his chest against her breasts, his hands in her hair, as he deliberately increased the rhythm, enforcing their erotic cycles on her body. He held her head between his hands so that she couldn’t evade his mouth, making a thousand unknown pulses leap under her skin, making her breasts swell and harden and her belly turn weak. The rhythm quickened, changed and became more forceful, and then, shockingly, stopped.

‘This is what I meant when I told you to move your body against mine,’ she heard him saying calmly in her ear. ‘If he’s attracted to you, it should turn him on. Now it’s your turn.’

He levered himself away from her briskly, leaving her to stare up at him. She felt too shocked to move, her pride bruised by the inescapable knowledge of the effect he had had on her. She shuddered as she sat up, wondering why on earth she felt so weak.

As she looked at him, sitting relaxed and composed at the other end of the sofa, she knew there was simply no way she could do to him what he had just done to her.

He must have read her mind, she suspected, because suddenly his voice changed, softening slightly.

‘Forget about me. Just try imagining that I’m someone else—this all-important man that all this is for.’

The palms of her hands had gone damp. She was more scared than she had ever been in her life, even when Annie had explained to her just what the surgery she had wanted would involve… how painful it would be… how potentially dangerous. She didn’t want to touch him… didn’t want to experience his amusement and contempt when she failed to match the effortless sensuality he had just shown her. Was it just experience that brought such skill, or was there more to it than that? Did you have to be born with a facility for it? If so… If so, her plan was doomed, and she wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

Taking a deep breath, she got up.

‘We’ll take it from the top this time, when you’re sitting on the floor.’

Obediently she sat at his feet, closing her eyes and willing herself to believe that she wasn’t here in this chalet, but in the library at Rothwell, that it wasn’t Jake’s body behind her, but Charles’s. She breathed slowly and deeply, trying to relax, trying to capture the evocative scent of old leather and wood that permeated the high-ceilinged room. Trying to imagine the heat of the fire, the guttering of the candles on the desk behind the old leather chesterfield, the feel of Charles’s hands on her hands as he reached for her and twisted her round in his arms, drawing her up over his thighs.

She tried to imagine she was water, amorphous and fluid, flowing against him; her hands touched his chest, feeling the hardness of muscle that unexpectedly flexed beneath her palms. Again the touch of that cold mouth; for a second her concentration wavered and her nails dug into his shoulders as she tensed, but then she pushed Jake’s image to one side and fought to superimpose over it that of Charles.

The kiss was warm and teasing, as Charles’s had been, but instead of accepting it shyly and awkwardly she remembered what Jake had taught her. She was a powerful, seductive woman, and he was her victim. She murmured softly beneath the cold mouth and slid her fingers into his hair, frowning momentarily, conscious of its texture and thickness, knowing by some form of osmosis that Charles’s fair, fine hair would never feel like this, vibrant with male energy. For a moment her confidence faltered, the image of Charles she was fighting to fix behind the closed eyelids fracturing and the pieces reassembling into Jake’s face. She shivered and suppressed the image, telling herself fiercely that this wasn’t Jake, it was Charles… Charles, and that this was her chance to take hold of her own fate and shape it… form it. This was her chance to start exacting payment, and to do that she must seduce him away from other loyalties… other loves.

She moved her body sinuously, ignoring the unresponsive muscle and tissue that was Jake, letting her movements whisper promises of pleasure, trying to recreate the rhythms Jake had shown her, forcing her mouth to soften and linger coaxingly on the implacable, shuttered lips that refused to give her any encouragement.

When Jake took hold of her shoulders and held her away she stared at him, waiting for his judgement. This time her body had not reacted the way it had when he had kissed her, for which she was profoundly grateful. That was a complication she didn’t need or want. Nor did she want to remember that, despite all she had felt for Charles, he had never drawn that involuntary, unstoppable feeling from her.

‘You’re beginning to get the idea,’ Jake told her.

Beginning… Silver glared at him, conscious of a fierce stab of disappointment. What had she expected? she derided herself. Lavish praise? She suppressed her chagrin and said as lightly as she could, ‘I see. And how long will it be, do you suppose, before I’ve absorbed it to your satisfaction?’

‘Who knows, but until you have we don’t go any further.’

As though he heard the angry protests locked in her throat, he said evenly, ‘What do you want from this, Silver? You told me you wanted to be able to seduce a man to the point where he’d virtually kill to have you. Judging on your present performance, you wouldn’t even be a good lay; you’d be forgotten even before the bed had gone cold,’ he told her brutally, and although the words cut into her ego like thin whip-strokes she knew he was telling the truth.

‘Now… we’ll do it again, and remember, a seductress doesn’t necessarily love the man, but she does love herself and her power over him, and because of that she enjoys what she’s doing. She loves making him ache and burn… making him want…’

An hour later, her throat burning with suppressed tears of rage, her pride cut to rags and her temper burning through her like vitriol, Silver pulled back from Jake’s restraining hands and gritted, ‘Don’t tell me… I know… try again. Tell me something, Jake. What exactly do I have to do to get a pass mark?’

He wouldn’t release her, and a flash of caution warned her against trying to overcome his physical strength. She reminded herself that there was nothing personal in this; that it was idiocy to let her dislike for him prejudice her progress. After all, she had chosen him.

‘I should have thought that was obvious,’ he told her. He was beginning to sound terse, and his mouth snapped shut with uncompromising hardness. She had known all along that he wasn’t a man who would suffer incompetence easily, and now he was proving it to her. ‘When you can arouse me, you’ll get your pass.’

Arouse him? She couldn’t stop the shudder jolting through her as she snatched her hands away from his shoulders.

‘We’re talking about a physical reaction, nothing more,’ he told her drily, correctly reading her reaction. ‘A physical reaction to deliberate provocation. It isn’t impossible. It isn’t easy, either… I don’t like you, and I certainly don’t want you,’ he told her frankly, ‘but until you can draw that involuntary physical response from my flesh, we don’t go any further. There wouldn’t be any point.’ He gave her a hard look which made her catch her breath until she remembered that he couldn’t actually see her.

‘Now, let’s try it again, and this time remember: the sooner you get it right, the sooner we can move on to the next stage, and ultimately the sooner you and I can go our separate ways.’

It should have been all the encouragement she needed, but it had exactly the opposite effect. She became unbearably conscious of herself and of him, and totally unable to superimpose Charles’s image on to his features, no matter how tightly she tried to close her eyes and use her imagination. Her movements became clumsy, her body tense and awkward.

After three humiliating attempts to recapture her earlier burgeoning skill had failed, she was tempted to call the whole thing off.

She was too demoralised even to hide from him how she felt, pushing her hair back off her hot face as she protested angrily, ‘It’s no use. I’ll never get it right…’

She expected him to agree with her and was surprised when he remained silent, until she remembered that, for all his contempt, he would stand to lose two million pounds if she backed out now.

‘We’ll have a break,’ he told her equably at last, adding, ‘Think of it as mind over matter, Silver. The physical skills alone aren’t enough. You have to be confident of success… to know you have the power to arouse me… to know that you can make me want you. Without that mental strength, no matter what I teach you, you won’t succeed. The outward skills can only facilitate the effectiveness of the inner ones. Which is perhaps why they say seductresses are born and not made.’

It infuriated her that, after she had faced so much, endured so much, she was failing at this last obstacle… surely the most simple of them all?

‘I’m tired,’ she told him pettishly. ‘I’m going to bed.’

She waited for him to stop her, to make some cynical and mocking retort, and when he didn’t she walked stiff-backed over to the stairs and then up them.

A month of Jake’s time was what she had bought. Four short weeks of his time and his tuition. So why should it suddenly seem as though those short weeks were going to prove a lifetime of endurance and punishment?