Читать книгу Lover By Deception - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 7

CHAPTER THREE

HUMMING exultantly beneath his breath, Ward checked the last signpost before his ultimate destination. Rye-on-Averton.

It sounded such a middle England, respectable sort of place, but at least one of its inhabitants was anything but honest and trustworthy.

He hadn’t been able to believe his luck when the agents he had employed had informed him that, whilst they could find no trace of Julian Cox, who according to their enquiries had, in fact, left the country and apparently disappeared, his partner, Anna Trewayne, had been traced to the small English town of Rye.

They had even been able to supply Ward with an address and a telephone number, as well as a considerable amount of other pertinent information about Ms Trewayne.

Widowed, childless, outwardly she appeared to live a life of almost boring propriety and respectability. Ward knew otherwise, of course. He could picture her now. She was in her late thirties and no doubt struggling to hold onto her youth. She probably possessed a certain amount of surface charm—a useful tool for helping to persuade vulnerable men to part with their money. Her make-up would be too heavy and her skirts too short. She would have sharp eyes and a keen interest in a man’s bank account and, of course, a very shrewd business brain—but not, it seemed, shrewd enough to warn her to do what her erstwhile parmer had done and disappear whilst the going was good. Perhaps she even had plans to continue with their ‘business’ on her own.

Perhaps he was a chauvinist but for some reason Ward felt an even greater sense of revulsion and outrage towards the woman who had cheated his half-brother than he had done the man. An avaricious, heartless woman. Ward had a deep sense of loathing for the breed. His ex-wife had, after all, been one of them.

He dropped the speed of his powerful, top-of-the-range Mercedes to turn off the bypass and into the town.

Nestled in a pretty green valley, it had an almost picture-book quaintness. Mentally he compared it to the grimy, run-down, inner-city area where he had grown up and then grimaced. No haggard-faced, old-before-their-time, out-of-work men gathered on the corners of this place. No gangs of testosterone-driven youths with nothing in front of them, no way out of the underclass environment that trapped them, roamed these clean, tree-lined streets.

Ward saw a parking area up ahead of him alongside the river and he pulled into it. Time to study his map. As he switched off the engine he was conscious of the beginnings of a tension headache. He picked up the street directory map he had brought with him. A few seconds later Ward jabbed his forefinger triumphantly onto the map as he found the place he was looking for.

Anna Trewayne lived a little way out of town, her house solitary, without any neighbours, but then, no doubt, a woman of her ilk would not want the complications that curious neighbours could bring.

As he reversed his car back into the traffic Ward’s expression was bleak.

Anna was in the garden when Ward arrived, the sound of his car stopping on the gravel drive causing her to put down the basket she had been filling with flowers for the house and frown a little anxiously.

She wasn’t expecting any visitors, and the car, like the man emerging from it, was unfamiliar to her.

Expecting her visitor to announce himself at the front door, Anna turned to slip into the house through the still open conservatory door, but Ward just caught sight of her flurried movement out of the corner of his eye and, wheeling round, started to walk swiftly towards her, calling out to her, ‘Just a minute, if you please, Mrs Trewayne; I want a word with you.’

Instinctively Anna panicked. Both the way he was walking and the tone of his voice were distinctly threatening and she started to run towards the protection of the conservatory, but she wasn’t quite fast enough and Ward caught up with her just as she reached the door, grabbing hold of her wrist in a grip that almost made her flinch at its strength.

‘Let me go... I... I have a dog...’ Anna told him, issuing the first threat that came into her mind, but just as she felt his grip starting to slacken Missie came trotting round the corner, her small, furry body quivering with welcome as she rushed happily towards Anna’s captor.

‘So I see,’ he agreed sardonically. He started to lift his free hand and immediately Anna reacted, her fear for her little dog far, far greater than her fear for herself.

‘Don’t you dare hurt her,’ she told him fiercely, holding out her own free arm protectively to Missie.

The little dog, a bundle of white fluff, had been a rescue dog, bought as a puppy and then abandoned when the family who’d owned her had decided that her small, sharp teeth were doing too much damage to their home.

Anna had taken her in, trained and loved her, and Missie adored her.

Ward frowned his surprise. Odd that a woman of her type should ignore her own danger just to protect her dog. Not that he had intended to hurt the little creature, and Missie seemed to know it.

Ignoring her mistress’s frantic attempts to shoo her away, she was happily investigating the stranger’s shoes, and then, as Ward extended his hand towards her, she jumped up and licked it, wagging her small tail approvingly.

‘Look, I don’t know who you are or what you want,’ Anna began nervously, ‘but’

‘But you do know Julian Cox, don’t you?’ Ward slipped in quietly.

‘Julian.’ Anna went pale. Was this man someone Julian had sent to demand more money from her? Had he perhaps guessed what they were doing?

As he watched the blood drain from her face Ward experienced a disturbingly unfamiliar—and unwanted—sensation. All right, she might not look anything like he had imagined. Her skirt was calf-length, all soft and floaty, and as for her make-up—well, she had to be wearing some, surely? No woman of her age could have such a soft, pink, kissable-looking mouth naturally, could she? And her hair had to be dyed, he decided triumphantly, whilst as for that air of frightened vulnerability she was projecting—well, that was, no doubt, as false as the colour of her hair.

‘Don’t bother lying to me,’ Ward announced sternly. ‘I know you know him and know something else as well. I know just what the pair of you have been up to...’

The p-pair of us...?’ Anna repeated, stammering a little. ‘I...’

‘I’ve got the evidence here,’ Ward told her curtly, releasing Anna’s wrist as he reached into the inside pocket of his suit.

As she rubbed her tender wrist Anna wished that she had the courage to risk slamming the conservatory door and locking him on the outside of it, but a quick, fleeting glance at him warned her of the danger of doing anything so reckless. For a start there was the size of him. He was...he was huge, she decided. So tall, over six feet, and so...so big. Not fat...no, not that. She could feel her face growing hot as her feminine instincts conveyed the message to her that the male body, under its quietly dignified suiting, owed its size to hard-packed male muscle and the kind of physique one might normally associate with a man who spent a lot of his time working physically hard. His hair was thick and dark brown, tinged unexpectedly with gold at the ends where the sun had caught it, giving him an almost leonine look.

‘This is you, isn’t it?’ he demanded as he turned the paper he was holding towards Anna, jabbing his forefinger at a name printed on it.

Anna’s eyes widened as she saw that it was her own.

‘Yes. Yes... it is...’ she admitted, her face burning hotly as she saw from the look he was giving her that he hadn’t, after all, missed the discreet female inspection she had been giving him. Trying to ignore him, she forced herself to read the document. What on earth was it?

Anna blinked and stared hard at what he was holding, her heart starting to pound heavily. In front of her on the paper she could see her own name quite plainly, and just as plainly beneath it was written the word ‘partner.’ What on earth did it mean? Why on earth had Julian Cox untruthfully and surely illegally claimed her as his partner? Anna had no idea. All she could assume was that he had done it because he’d felt it added weight and credibility to whatever he had been planning. Or had he perhaps known that something like this could happen and, in that knowledge, had deliberately set her up to act as a fall guy? Anna wondered queasily. He was, she knew, perfectly capable of that kind of deliberately dishonest behaviour.

The words of denial and protest springing to her lips were ruthlessly suppressed. Could this be the breakthrough, the evidence of Julian’s fraudulent deceit which Dee had striven so hard to find? She needed time to think, Anna decided, time to consult Dee and tell her what had happened, and, most of all, she needed that all-important piece of paper. But as she reached out to take it, as though he sensed what she was about to do, the man stepped back from her, determinedly folding it and putting it back in his pocket.

‘Well, your partner might have been clever enough to disappear, but you, it seems, were less wise—or perhaps more arrogant,’ Ward challenged softly.

Arrogant!

Anna couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

‘How does it feel, knowing that you have deprived other people of their money; that this house, the clothes you wear and the food you eat are, no doubt, paid for out of other people’s pockets?’ Ward demanded with scornful anger. ‘Nothing to say?’ he queried. ‘No protests of innocence? You do surprise me.’

He would be even more surprised if he knew the truth, Anna reflected, but would he believe her if she tried to tell him? From the look on his face, somehow she doubted it. But if he thought she was going to stand there and allow him to revile her verbally...

Tilting her head so that she could look straight into his eyes, she told him firmly, ‘Look, I’m sorry if you feel that you’ve been cheated...’ She paused. Something about his attitude made her so angry that she felt physically weak at the knees. At least, she supposed it must be anger, after all, what else could it be?

She smiled sweetly before saying, very, very gently, ‘However, surely the fact that you were being offered such an exceptionally high rate of interest on your investment must have alerted you to the fact that something might not be quite...genuine...?’

Ward could scarcely believe his ears. Was she actually daring to tell him that it was his own fault he had been cheated; that he had been guilty of either a lack of intelligent caution or an excess of simple greed?

Her head barely touched his shoulder. She was as fine-boned as a little bird and he guessed that he could have spanned her waist with both his hands and picked her up off the ground without straining his breath, and yet she stood there and had the audacity to challenge him!

Reluctantly Ward acknowledged that she had guts. Certainly more than her partner. By heaven, though, she was cool and calm—both virtues that he admired.

Abruptly he pulled himself back from the dangerous brink he was teetering on, reminding himself of just what she had done.

‘I’m sure it would have,’ he agreed grimly. ‘I pride myself on being able to spot a phoney a mile off. As it happens it isn’t me the pair of you gulled—but then, of course, you know that already.

‘Does the name Ritchie Lewis mean anything to you?’ he shot at Anna.

‘No...I’ve never heard of him before,’ Anna told him honestly, starting to frown as she questioned, ‘But if you didn’t invest money with Julian then what are you doing here?’

‘Ritchie is my half-brother,’ he told her impatiently, demanding bitingly, ‘Have you any idea just what you’ve done? Ritchie should be studying, not worrying about the loss of five thousand pounds. No, of course you haven’t,’ he told her scornfully. ‘I’ll bet you’ve never strayed out of your cosseted, comfortable little world. Of course you don’t know what it is to suffer pain, disappointment—’

‘You’re making judgements about me without knowing the first thing about me,’ Anna interrupted him swiftly, her gentle expression suddenly replaced by one of pride and anger.

‘Oh, but I do know the first thing about you. I know that you’re a liar and a cheat,’ Ward returned softly.

Anna gave a sharp gasp.

‘Well... nothing to say?’ Ward demanded.

‘I...I don’t intend to say anything until... until I’ve spoken to my legal advisors,’ Anna fibbed, suddenly gaining inspiration from a recent television series she had been watching.

‘Your legal advisors? They’re no doubt as guilty of sharp practice as you and your precious partner,’ Ward told her bluntly. ‘Well, let me tell you here and now, there’s no way I’m going to let him or you get away with this. You owe my half-brother five thousand pounds and I intend to make sure you pay it back.’

‘You do?’ Anna was impressed. Dee would love to meet this man, she knew. Here at last was someone who was prepared to stand up to Julian; to pursue him, Anna was certain, to the furthermost corners of the earth with relentless determination.

Even so, there was something about his attitude towards her that had got her hackles rising in a way she could never remember anyone else doing.

‘Er...what you have to say is extremely interesting, Mr...er...’

‘Hunter,’ Ward supplied briefly. ‘Her—Ward Hunter.’

Ward Hunter. Well, at least now she had his name. She could pass it on to Dee along with the information he had given her and then she could leave him and Dee to pursue Julian Cox together.

Suddenly Anna had a brainwave.

‘You say you want me to repay your half-brother’s money. I’m afraid I don’t have five thousand pounds here at home with me. Could you call back, say, tomorrow...?’

Ward stared at her. Now what was she up to? One minute she was claiming she knew nothing about the money, the next she was accusing him of deserving to be cheated, and now here she was calmly and coolly announcing that she would repay him. She was even more dangerous than Ward had first suspected.

‘Why should I believe you? You could pull the same disappearing stunt as your partner.’

‘Leave the country, you mean.’ Anna looked down at where Missie was lying on the conservatory floor. ‘No. I couldn’t do that,’ she said simply and ridiculously.

Ward found that he believed her. She might be quite happy to cheat his brother and goodness knew how many others, but he had seen the love in her eyes when she looked at her dog. She wasn’t going to abandon her.

‘I could, of course, give you a cheque now,’ Anna suggested sweetly. The look he gave her in return almost made her want to laugh.

‘Which your bank would, no doubt, refuse to honour,’ he told her, shaking his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. I want the cash...’

‘Then you will just have to wait until tomorrow,’ Anna told him firmly.

‘Very well, then,’ Ward agreed. ‘I’ll be here at nine sharp.’

‘Nine? But the bank doesn’t open until ten,’ Anna protested.

‘Exactly,’ Ward responded smoothly. ‘I can hardly allow you to take the risk of travelling there and back alone with such a large sum of money. I shall come with you.’

‘Come with me...?’ Anna’s outrage momentarily overwhelmed her. ‘Perhaps you’d like to stay the night and keep me chained to your side,’ she said acidly, only to flush bright red as she saw the look in his eyes.

Ward was as startled by the bright pink glow of her cheeks as Anna was. It would have been much more in character for her to have deliberately flirted with him, to have flaunted her sexuality and drawn his attention to it rather than to betray such embarrassment. It was just another one of her tricks, of course, and one she had no doubt used to good effect in the past on the more vulnerable members of his sex. He could well imagine how easily a man might feel tempted to rush to protect and cherish her. She was so tiny, so fragile... and yet, at the same time, so determinedly and so ridiculously feisty.

Angrily he turned away from her, warning her as he did so, ‘Don’t even think of not being here because I promise you, wherever you go I shall find you.’

He had just started to walk back to his car when Missie suddenly darted out from behind Anna and ran after him, whining pathetically.

Immediately he stopped, turned round and dropped down to fuss the little dog. From his kneeling position he looked up at Anna and growled, ‘Poor little thing. She deserves better—someone worthy of her loyalty and her trust, someone who knows what those things mean and values them, respects them.’

And then, before Anna could say a word, he got to his feet and strode towards his car.

Of all the nerve! What an arrogant, insensitive blockhead of a man, Anna fumed once he had gone. Nursing Missie on her lap and chiding her for her treachery, she told the dog severely, ‘Well, I certainly feel sorry for his wife.’

His wife. Heavens, but it must take an awful long time to caress every inch of that big hard chest, and heaven knew how much coaxing and cajoling it must take to get that hard mouth soft enough to kiss it. And as for his oh, so high moral principles... What must it be like to have to break through that stern, austere barrier to get him to react emotionally, to drive him out of control with longing and desire? If he were to wrap his arms around her she would be lost in them, Anna reflected. It would be like being mauled by a lion. Was his body hair as soft and delicious to touch as her old teddy’s? Did he growl, too, if you pressed his middle?

Anna gave a little giggle, her eyes dancing with amusement. Oh, but there was so much of him. A woman would have to be either very brave or very foolish to risk falling in love with him. He had been so antagonistic towards her, so ready to believe the worst... and yet, at the same time...Sternly she reprimanded herself.

‘Down you go. I need to ring Dee,’ she told Missie, gently dislodging her from her lap.

Anna’s heart sank when she listened to the message on Dee’s answering machine. She had, she informed her callers, gone north to see her aunt.

Anna had the- number of her mobile but when she tried it there was no reply. Well, she would just have to try again later, she decided. Heavens, but Ward Hunter had been so rude, so aggressive. She just hoped she had been right in thinking that paper he had could be used against Julian Cox. She certainly had never given Julian permission to name her as his partner, and his doing so had been a blatant piece of fraud on his part. Mulling over what she had learned, Anna headed for her kitchen.

She was an enthusiastic cook but she was the first to admit that there was much more fun in cooking for others than in cooking for herself, which was one of the reasons she enjoyed her work with the elderly so much. Which reminded her...

She would make herself something to eat and then she would go outside and finish her gardening before it got too dark.

Half an hour after leaving Anna, Ward was booking into a local hotel. It had been a warm day and he was beginning to feel in need of a shower and something to eat. After the porter had gone he looked a little disparagingly around the room. He had booked into the first hotel he had come across. Luxurious living was something Ward could either take or leave. He liked good things, appreciated them, and had a good eye for quality, but the comfort of a five-star hotel with a highly recommended restaurant was the last thing on his mind right now.

God, but she was the most distracting, deceitful, downright dangerous woman he had ever met.

When the sunlight had shone through that long skirt thing she had been wearing, revealing slim, surprisingly long legs, it had been all he could do to drag his gaze away.

It couldn’t possibly have been deliberate, and neither could the way her soft stretch tee shirt top had clung to the warmly rounded outline of her breasts as she’d bent so protectively towards her ridiculous little dog.

Her bare arms had been softly pale, just barely sprinkled with pretty freckles, and Ward had had to fight an overwhelming urge to run his fingertip all the way up the soft flesh of one of them from her wrist right up past her breast. She had smelled distractingly of roses and honeysuckle and there had been a piece of clematis in her hair that he had itched to reach out and remove.

He had wanted to hold her, stroke her and shake her all at the same time, so confusing and conflicting had been his reactions to her.

One reaction had been uncompromisingly plain, though. His jaw tightened irritably. He was forty-two and he couldn’t remember the last time his body had given such an impromptu display of its potent maleness.

Thankfully he had managed to control it before she had seen what was happening.

Ward swallowed hard. There was a print on the bedroom wall, a cornfield bright with red poppies, and, for one logic-defying moment, he could almost breathe in the field’s summer scent, feel the itchy sharpness of it against his bare skin, the sun hot against his naked body as he wrapped Anna’s equally naked form in his arms. Her flesh felt so soft, her breasts delicious mounds of femininity, creamily pale, throwing into prominence the erotic, contrasting darkness of her nipples. He touched them with his fingertips and heard her indrawn breath of pleasure, saw the eager, wanton look in her eyes as she commanded him, ‘Kiss them, Ward. I want to feel you mouth against me.’

Ward closed his eyes. The little triangle of hair between her thighs felt so unbelievably silky soft.

‘Ward, I want you so much...’ he heard her whisper.

Ward opened his eyes. Damn her. What was she, some kind of witch? Well, she wasn’t going to bewitch him. No way. His body felt hot and tense, aching with angry desire. Very deliberately he ran the shower cold. That should put a damper on such dangerous thoughts, amongst other things!

That was all the dead-heading done. Now all she needed to do was to put everything away and then she could go and have a bath. Heavens, she was tired. Her whole body ached. A little guiltily Anna flushed. It wasn’t just the gardening she had been doing that was causing that ache. Now, where was that hoe she had been using—a long-handled one especially useful for recalcitrant weeds? Tiredly Anna stepped backwards, and then cried out in pain as she inadvertently trod on the hoe and the handle came up and hit her right on the back of her head.

Missie whined unhappily. Why was her mistress lying in the middle of the lawn ignoring Missie’s anxious little cries and licks...?

Ward pushed away the room-service meal he had ordered, half-eaten. It was no good. He simply didn’t trust that woman. By morning she could be heaven alone knew where. Quickly Ward gathered up his coat and his keys, almost running out of the hotel towards his car.

Missie greeted his arrival with excited, relieved little barks. Ward frowned. The house was in complete darkness, even though it was now dusk, and the conservatory door was open. Where the devil was Anna?

Missie showed him, standing anxiously beside her unconscious mistress, her little tail beating the ground as she looked trustingly up at Ward.

On the ground Anna gave a little moan and started to open her eyes.

‘Oh, my head hurts,’ she cried out, tears filling her eyes.

‘It’s all right; you’ve bumped it. Don’t move. I’m going to call for an ambulance,’ Ward told her grimly.

When Anna had moved her head he had seen the dark patch of drying blood staining her hair and he could see a smear of blood on the handle of the hoe, too.

‘Who are you?’ he heard Anna asking him fretfully.

He checked before he started to dial the emergency services number on his mobile phone and stared at her.

‘Don’t you know?’ he asked her.

Tearfully Anna looked at him.

‘No, I don’t.’ She started to shiver as she told him frantically, ‘I don’t know anything.’