Читать книгу Capable Of Feeling - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 7

IT WAS GONE ten o’clock, the silence in the study as they both worked a companionable one and then Jon got up and walked over to the window, his back to her as he stared out into the garden. His hair had grown slightly while he was away, Sophy noticed absently and it looked better, even curling faintly into his nape.

‘Will you have to fly out to Nassau immediately?’ she asked him suddenly, uneasy with the silence she had found so relaxing only seconds before.

He turned round and smiled mildly. ‘No, not straight away. Not until Sunday.’

‘So…’ All at once her throat was dry. ‘So you’ll still be here for the wedding, then?’ Fool, idiot, she derided herself mentally; without him there wouldn’t be a wedding and she had made him sound like one of the guests.

‘Oh, yes…I’ve made all the arrangements. Got the special licence organised through someone I know in Brussels.’

‘You’re not having second thoughts, then’

Good heavens, what was the matter with her? What was she asking him for? She was behaving like a total fool.

‘No. Are you?’

It was unusual for Jon to ask such a direct question and in such a crisp tone. She shook her head without looking at him, suddenly too restless to stay in her seat. She got up and paced a few steps.

‘There is one thing though.’ She tensed. ‘When we were discussing the…er…style of our marriage I neglected to mention one point.’

‘Yes?’ Her mouth felt frozen and stiff, so much so that it was difficult to shape the word.

‘We have discussed my reasons for our marriage, Sophy, but I don’t think we’ve fully discussed yours. I know you care deeply for the children,’ he went on before she could speak, ‘but—and please correct me if I am wrong—you could always have children of your own. No, please,’ he stopped her when she would have spoken. ‘You are, in addition, a very attractive woman.’ He saw her expression and his mouth twisted slightly. ‘I assure you, Sophy, that even my shortsightedness is not sufficient to blind me to that fact. A woman whom I am sure very many members of my sex would be only too pleased to marry. Men who would want to share with you a far more intimate relationship than the one I am offering.’

It was ridiculous to feel embarrassed but she was.

‘I don’t want that kind of relationship,’ she managed to say thickly, turning away from him.

‘I see. This is, I presume, because of the romantic involvement you once had with someone else. You did tell me some such thing the first time we met,’ he reminded her.

Her face flamed. She had had so much to drink that night she could not remember what she had told him, but it embarrassed her now to think that she had probably poured out to him all her maudlin misery over what had once been her love for Chris.

‘I take it there is no question of this, er…relationship—’

‘None at all,’ Sophy managed to interrupt huskily.

‘I see. Having suffered the pangs of love once and been hurt by it you have no wish to risk yourself with such an emotion again, is that it?’

It wasn’t because she was frightened of loving that she was marrying him, Sophy reflected, but it was much simpler and easier to let him believe that than to tell him the truth.

She lifted her head and looked at him, forcing a cool smile. ‘Yes, Jon, that is it. The relationship you are offering me, the chance to take over the role of mother to the children, is exactly what I want.’

‘Very well…but I must tell you, Sophy, that, er…that there can be no question of me tolerating a sexual relationship which you might form outside our marriage.’

‘You mean you wouldn’t want me to take a lover?’

‘Yes, that is exactly what I mean.’

It was getting dark and in the dusk she could barely see across the room.

The aura that Jon projected when she was not able to see him clearly was unnervingly at odds with the man she knew him to be. Even his voice seemed to have changed, become slightly silky and somehow subtly menacing.

‘You have my word that there will be no question of that, Jon,’ she told him quietly and truthfully. Not wanting him to ask any more questions she gave a small shrug and added lightly, ‘Perhaps, like yourself, I am one of those humans whose sex drive is so low as to be almost nonexistent.’

She thought for a moment he seemed to tense, as though about to say something and wondered uncertainly if she had perhaps hurt or offended him by being so frank. No man would enjoy hearing himself described as virtually sexless, she thought guiltily.