Читать книгу The Flawed Marriage - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 4

IT was cold and damp. The mist, which had been no more than tiny wisps veiling the highest peaks of the Lakeland mountains on her journey to the children’s home earlier that afternoon, had now descended as far as the road she was walking along, Amber noticed wearily. It was also growing dark; a strange eerie darkness, unlike the city twilight she was more accustomed to. She shivered, drawing her thin suede coat closer around her almost too angular body, her right leg dragging slightly as she tried to increase her walking pace. Her leg. She grimaced to herself as she glanced impotently at the limb she was fast coming to consider the author of all her misfortunes, including this latest unsuccessful attempt to obtain a job. She had been so full of hope when she set out from Birmingham this morning, buoying herself up during the long train ride by reminding herself of the excellence of her qualifications. Not only was she a fully qualified teacher, but she also had over a year’s nursing experience. Her eyes went involuntarily to her leg again. Six months now since the accident; six months! It seemed to Amber that six centuries separated the happy, fulfilled girl of twenty she had been from the bitter, maimed person she was now, and the irony of the whole thing was that it needn’t have happened at all.

She had been on her way to work at the time. Having qualified as a teacher, she had left university just in time to find herself a victim of local government education cuts, and so instead had decided to train as a nurse. Rob had been full of approval. He was on the point of finishing his own medical training—he wanted to go into private practice, though, which meant specialising, a costly business both in terms of money and time, but with Amber working as a nurse they should be able to bring the date of their wedding forward. That was what Amber had been thinking about as she walked to the large hospital on her way to work. She didn’t have to walk very far, living as she did in a nearby student nurses’ home, and her mind had been on Rob and his bombshell of the previous evening—that he intended to go out to Saudi Arabia to work for two years. He had been offered a plum job as assistant to an eminent plastic surgeon working in the Middle East, a chance he simply could not afford to pass up, as he had earnestly explained to Amber. She had been dismayed by his news. They had met at university and she had known that because of Rob’s chosen career it would be several years before they could marry, but she had visualised him specialising at one of the large Birmingham hospitals—not thousands of miles away.

She had noticed the bus stopping ahead of her as an automatic reflex action; the giggling children disgorged on to the pavement; the small yellow-raincoated little, girl stepping out behind the bus; the car speeding towards her. Her reaction had been automatic, and ridiculously unnecessary. The child—streetwise—had managed to avoid the skidding wheels of the car, and it was Amber, who had so recklessly gone to her rescue, who had been tossed like a rag doll to lie inert and unconscious in the road.

She had been lucky, or so they tried to convince her, but Amber didn’t consider a leg which because of its torn and destroyed muscles might never move properly again to be something to feel grateful for, and had said so, even when the surgeon told her gravely that she was lucky to have it, and that there had been talk of amputation. And there were also the scars; horrible, maiming scars, running along the slender length of her thigh and marring the slender perfection of her calf. At first she had refused to accept the truth; she would walk properly again. But it was six months now since the accident and she knew that no amount of willpower was ever going to restore her right leg to the lithe manoeuvrability it had once had. There was a slight chancé, Mr Savage, the consultant, had told her when she demanded to be told the truth; a very risky and highly technical operation only available in America, but it cost many thousands of pounds, and was not guaranteed to be successful, and then there would be the plastic surgery to remove her scars.

Rob had been understanding at first, but then there had been those evenings when he had not visited her; those conversations about the necessity of a successful society doctor having a glamorous, elegant wife. He hadn’t needed to labour the point. Amber had understood, and when she offered to call things off, he had agreed without protest. That night after he had gone had been the first time she had cried. She had never felt more alone in her life. Who did, she have to turn to? Her father had died when she was eight and her mother had remarried while Amber was at university. She liked her stepfather, but they weren’t a close family. Her mother was easily upset and had wept bitterly on the one occasion she had come to visit Amber in hospital. It had been impossible for her to go on working at the hospital; hence the necessity for her journey here today to the Lake District. The moment she had seen the advertisement for a junior housemother at a children’s home, her hopes had started to rise. They had been most enthusiastic over the telephone; right up until the moment they had seen her, in fact.

Like sharp knives she could clearly recall the interviewer’s voice, pitying but firm, as she explained that whoever got the job would need to be agile and tireless—looking after about twenty-five children ranging from thirteen downwards was a very demanding job. And not suitable for a cripple, Amber told herself bitterly.

She shivered suddenly as the mist reached out damp tendrils towards her. Who would guess that it was May? It was cold enough to be the middle of winter. Of course, it was pretty high up here, and if she hadn’t lingered to watch the trout in the mountain stream she wouldn’t have missed her bus, and there would have been no necessity for her to trudge down this seemingly endless road, although she distinctly remembered seeing a sign in the village on the way up announcing that it was merely a mile and a half to Inchmere House, the children’s home.

Gritting her teeth against the nagging pain from her torn muscles, she kept on walking. Pain was something she had grown used to living with. The doctors had prescribed various drugs, but she had refused them. Sometimes she thought the only thing that kept her going was her constant battle not to give in. She had been so full of hope this morning. The job would have provided her with a means of earning her living and a roof over her head, both important considerations, as since leaving the hospital she had been depleting her small savings on the rent of a shabby, chilly room in a Birmingham boarding house, and the necessities of day-to-day living.

She could have turned to her mother, but pride had prevented her; the same pride which had forced her to smile and look pleased when her mother announced her stepfather’s plans for retirement in Spain. In another two weeks they would be gone, and then she would be completely on her own.

Weak tears of self-pity welled in her eyes and she dashed them away angrily. It was pointless thinking about what was past; she could never have lived with her parents anyway, even if they had offered her a home. But she had to get a job; some means of earning money—any means of earning money!

Like an Eldorado the surgeon’s words lured her on; the memory of his advice that there was an operation which could restore her leg to full strength, the frail hope she had clung to in the weeks after Rob’s defection; weeks when she battled daily with a swamping sense of rejection and bitterness, telling herself that once restored to her old self she would show Rob what he had lost by deserting her when she needed him most! Her hands curled into her palms, bitterness etched in the magnificent tawny eyes which had given rise to her unusual name. Tiger eyes, Rob had lovingly called them, going on to whisper passionately that he loved them just as he loved everything about her. But no one would whisper words of love to her now! She shuddered suddenly with cold, the sleek length of her dark gold hair plastered to her neck by the damp air, her too thin body telling its own story of illness and neglect.

Rob. She closed her eyes momentarily, overwhelmed by weakness. How she longed for him at this moment—the warmth of his arms; the sweet tenderness of his kisses—a tenderness which had promised to ripen into passion, but time and circumstances had always been against them. Amber refused to have her first experience of total possession spoiled by being rushed or being conducted unromantically. Rob had laughed at her, but he hadn’t argued. They had been planning to go away together for a week’s holiday before the Saudi business came up, and she had bought, in anticipation of the holiday, brief wisps of underwear, and a soft, feminine nightdress that had been far too expensive, but irresistible.

Lost in the past, she didn’t hear the warning sound heralding the approach of a car, and her first intimation of its intrusion was the loud blaring of its horn.

Time rolled back and she was held fast, transfixed in the beam of powerful fog lights, frozen and unable to move, her face a pale, fearful oval caught in the powerful lights for a brief second before the car swerved across the road and up the banking, and the engine was suddenly cut.

The sudden cessation of sound broke through her wall of terror, and moving awkwardly, Amber stumbled to the side of the road. Behind her she heard a car door open, and brisk hard footsteps. Impelled by a fierce urgency to escape, she pressed on, almost running, her cry of pain as hard fingers grasped her shoulder swallowed up by the curling mist.

‘What the hell’s the matter with you? Why didn’t you move? Got a death wish, have you?’

The harsh male voice filled her senses, rasping against over-sensitised nerves. Her assailant was practically shaking her, her damp hair falling against her face, concealing it from him. With a sudden impatient movement he grasped it, pushing it away and forcing her face up.

‘My God!’ he breathed sardonically when he saw her too finely drawn features and the cheekbones made prominent by lack of nourishing food. ‘What a waif and stray it is! What were you trying to do? Seek oblivion under my car wheels?”

‘And if I was?’ Amber flared at him, suddenly too angry to bother denying his mocking comment.

‘Then you’re a fool,’ came the crisp retort. ‘Life is for living, little miss waif and stray, not for throwing away. That’s something you learn early up here amongst the mountains. Not local, are you?’ he asked, giving her unsuitable coat and city shoes a dry and cursory glance. ‘What are you doing up here? Hired one of the holiday cottages and had a tiff with the boy-friend?’

Amber’s chin tilted defiantly, and she longed for the mist to lift and the dark landscape to be illuminated so that she could let this insufferable stranger see the contempt in her eyes.

‘Nothing so juvenile. No man is worth killing oneself for.’

‘So what are you doing up here? Taking a quiet stroll?’

The sarcastic retort stung.

‘If you must know, I was looking for a job—at the children’s home.’

‘And because you didn’t get it you decided to fling yourself under my wheels. Bit drastic, wasn’t it?’

It was sheer exasperation that made her retort crossly, ‘Oh, don’t be so ridiculous! I wasn’t throwing myself under your wheels at all. If you must know I…’ She stopped abruptly, remembering how she had just stood frozen in the beam of his lights, and changed her tack, to say accusingly, ‘You shouldn’t have been driving so fast. You could have caused an accident. Drivers never think of pedestrians.’ A trace of bitterness crept unknowingly into her voice. ‘They don’t care what risks they take with other people’s lives, and when they do, they get away scot free…’

‘What are you implying? That I owe you compensation? You’ve been watching too much American television, lady, and you’ve got it wrong. The car has to actually touch you before you can claim.’

‘And even then you don’t always get anything,’ Amber said coolly, remembering her own inability to claim compensation from the driver who had injured her, despite the fact that he had been speeding, because he had not been properly insured.

She remembered that she was not wearing a watch, and that the last train for her connection left the village at eight-thirty. She had no idea what time it was now. She had left the home at seven and seemed to have been walking for hours.

‘Could you tell me the time, please?’ she asked quickly. ‘I have a train to catch.’

She saw the glint of gold on a lean male wrist clad in a dark jacket which seemed to be of a leather fabric, although because of his dark clothes, Amber could make out very little of her companion’s appearance apart from the fact that he was tall, with dark hair.

‘Just gone eight,’ he told her laconically.

Eight! She tried to fight down a sense of panic. She only had a few pounds in her purse. If she missed her connection she would have to wait until morning, which meant finding somewhere to stay.

‘Thank you. I must go…’ Without waiting to see his reaction she started to hurry down the road, for once not concerned with what the man watching her might think of her ungainly gait.

She heard the car door slam seconds after she had left him, and knew from the brevity of time which had elapsed that he had not spent much time watching her, and an irrational feeling of resentment filled her. He might at least have offered to run her into the village, even if it was in the opposite direction to that he was taking.

But why should he? Perhaps if she had been the girl she used to be he might have found her attractive enough to have offered her a lift—but then the girl she had been would not have needed one.

She was so intent on hurrying, so deep in her thoughts, that she didn’t hear the soft purr of the car engine untl it drew level with her, and the now familiar hard voice drawled, ‘Get in. I’ll take you to the station.’

The passenger door was thrust open, the interior light coming on to reveal the opulent luxury of cream hide seats and a thick matching carpet. The light which illuminated the car interior also revealed the features of its owner, and Amber caught her breath in mingled awe and uncertainty.

Handsome wasn’t the word it was possible to use in connection with this man, she admitted as she limped awkwardly towards the open door. Striking, sensually compelling; intensely male; these were the words with which to describe the hooded grey eyes which swept her with predatory intentness, assessing and dismissing her feminine appeal, the aquiline profile turned autocratically towards her.

‘You’re limping.’ The words held none of the pity she had grown accustomed to and withdrawn from in the long dark days since her accident, and just as she registered that fact he leaned across the passenger seat, long fingers grasping her wrist as she was pulled effortlessly into the warm interior of the car, and the door firmly closed behind her, rather as though she were an irritating child unable to fend for herself.

‘How did it happen?’

He was watching her intently, the cool grey gaze sending frissons of awareness flickering her body. The old Amber would have described him as a very male and attractive man, but the new embittered Amber saw only the hard purpose in the depths of the grey eyes fixed upon her, white face, and knew a shuddering desire to escape from the too intimate environs of the car and the disturbing proximity of its owner. Only the knowledge that without his offer of a lift she could well miss her train prevented her from quitting the car immediately. As always when her limp was mentioned she stiffened involuntarily, her face closing up, the huge golden eyes shadowed and shuttered.

‘An accident,’ she told him tonelessly. ‘Do you live locally?’

‘Relatively speaking. What sort of accident?’ he asked smoothly, refusing to allow her to change the subject.

‘I was hit by a car—driven too fast.’

‘Which makes your carelessness of a few moments ago all the more foolhardy.’

‘Only if you happen to be a speed-crazed maniac,’ Amber snapped back.

The dark eyebrows rose, reinforcing the almost demonic features of the man opposite her, his mouth curling downwards sardonically as he scrutinised her.

‘Speed-crazed? Oh, I hardly think so,’ he offered. ‘Forty isn’t considered excessive on these roads—not when one knows them.’

Which meant that he must live locally, Amber reflected, even though he hadn’t answered her earlier question.

‘Even in thick fog?’ she demanded, refusing to cede victory.

‘A little mist,’ her companion scoffed, deftly navigating a series of tortuous hairpin bends. ‘You said you were up here for an interview for a job. Why? You aren’t a local.’

‘I wasn’t aware that was another prerequisite,’ Amber began sarcastically, a little dismayed by the alert, ‘Another? Why, what was the other?’ that he fired at her.

Exhaustion and depression forced down her guard, allowing a little of the bitterness she normally kept bottled up inside her to spill over her iron control.

‘Can’t you guess? I should have thought a man of your perception would have realised immediately. As you so sapiently mentioned earlier, I limp.’

‘And because of that you were turned down for the job?’

Although all his concentration was on the road and the powerful car, Amber felt his sideways glance, probing the thin skin barely covering her emotional scars.

‘Although my qualifications were good, as a junior housemistress they wanted something more mobile.’

‘Junior housemistress? That would have been a living-in position, surely, and a time-consuming one.’ She felt him looking at her ringless fingers and guessed the mental assessment he was making. Single, and likely to remain so through circumstances rather than choice: an object of pity and derision.

‘So what will you do now?’

Cold and shaken by her experience both at the interview and afterwards, Amber made an attempt to shrug unconcernedly and failed pitifully.

‘I don’t know. God knows I wish I did,’ she muttered under her breath, not intending the words to be overheard, but his hearing was obviously as acute as a predatory hunter’s, because his head swivelled towards her, and the car slid to a smooth halt in a small layby, across the bridge from the village. Thinking that he had taken her as far as he meant to, Amber reached for the door handle, but he stopped her, reaching across her body to grasp her hand. Amber shrank from him instinctively. She had learned in hospital that although she might be an object of medical interest and curiosity to the young doctors clustering daily around her bed, as a desirable and attractive woman she no longer existed; pity rather than admiration was what she read in their eyes; a pity that she had seen time and time again in the months that had followed. From taking the vibrant beauty which had been a facet of her personality before the accident for granted, she had retreated into a world where her beauty had been dimmed by pain and loss of self-confidence. If Rob could no longer find her attractive how could any man? Unwittingly over the weeks she had adopted the mien and shrinking manners of a girl who knows herself unattractive to men, and so she shrank now; not from any fear that her companion might touch her but from his assumption that she might want him to do so and the humiliation of rejection which must surely follow.

‘What’s the matter?’

There was a fine thread of amusement woven into the conventional words, a smile deepening the attractive grooves either side of a mouth which looked as though it didn’t smile often enough. ‘Having second thoughts about the wisdom of accepting a lift? Too late, fair maiden,’ he mocked. ‘I have you within my toils now, and there’s no one to stop me having my wicked way with you. Tell me about your life before this accident,’ he demanded with an abrupt change of front.

‘What on earth for? Look, I must go, otherwise I’ll miss my train.’ Amber reached again for the door handle, only to find the door immovable beneath her urgent fingers.

‘I’ve locked it.’ He motioned towards the highly technical-looking dashboard. ‘And I won’t unlock it until you’ve answered my questions.’

‘But why? What possible interest could you have in me?’

’The very natural one of a prospective employer,’ came the totally unexpected reply. ‘I need someone to look after my son.’

‘How old is he?’ Ridiculously it was the first question which came into her mind.

‘Six.’

‘But why should you want to employ me? Before this evening we hadn’t even met. I don’t even know your name…’

‘That’s easily remedied. I’m Joel Sinclair. I live about eight miles away from here.’

‘And you need someone to look after your son. Surely a fully trained nanny would be better? And your wife…’

He was shaking his head.

‘I’ve made up my mind that you’ll be ideal. What’s your name?’

Hesitantly, hardly daring to believe that the day might after all have have some benefit for her, Amber told him.

‘Amber? Because of your eyes, of course.’

She blinked at him, surprised that he had noticed. Rob had been going out with her for over a month before he had made the connection.

‘Mr Sinclair, are you sure? About this job, I mean?’ she asked formally. ‘You aren’t just…’ she fumbled for the right words, hating the thought that he might have offered her the job on impulse because of some misguided feeling of pity.

‘Sorry for you?’ His face hardened. ‘When you get to know me better you’ll learn that there isn’t room in my life for such unnecessary emotions.’

‘Well, hadn’t I better meet your son before we settle anything? I mean, he might not…’ She was glancing down at her leg, and she saw that he too was looking at the frail limb.

‘Oh, he’ll like you all right,’ came the response. ‘So, do I take it you’re prepared to accept the job?’

A tiny frown touched Amber’s forehead. He seemed to be treating the whole affair far too lightly. After all, what did he know about her, apart from what she had told him? What did she know about him, come to that? She moistened her lips, darting a quick glance up at him, dismayed to find him watching her with sardonic amusement.

‘It all seems so… so unconventional. I mean, you’ve just met me and you offer me the job of taking care of your son without asking for references, without…’

‘I know all I want to know,’ he told her, cutting her short, ‘In fact, Amber Douglas, you’re something in the nature of a gift from the gods.’ His laughter shocked and hurt her, although she tried to conceal it. Rob had thought her a gift from the gods once, but not in the same terms as Joel Sinclair, who only saw in her twisted leg a flaw which would probably make her pathetically grateful for his offer of a job.

‘But we haven’t discussed terms,’ she said uneasily. ‘A contract…’

‘Don’t worry,’ he told her suavely, ‘you’ll have a contract; and you’ll be well paid. Now, are you interested, or shall I drive across the bridge so that you can escape on the train that’s due in any moment now?’

Well paid! Amber knew that he hadn’t missed her expression of indecision. Goodness knows, she needed all the money she could get her hands on, and presumably she’d be living all found. She wanted to ask him exactly what he would be prepared to pay her, but pride—and the look in his eyes—prevented her.

She took a deep breath.

‘I’m interested.’

‘Good.’ He switched on the engine. ‘In that case, I’ll take you up to Lake Fyne now, so that you can meet Paul first-hand.’

She thought about the long journey back to Birmingham, the cold, inhospitable room waiting for her, and then darted a glance at the man sitting beside her.

‘Any objections?’

Without giving herself time to think she shook her head, feeling the powerful surge of the engine as the car pulled swiftly away, and the darkness swallowed them up.

Joel Sinclair had told her that he lived eight miles from the village, but it might as well have been eighty for all the sense of direction Amber experienced on the drive. Mist swirled all around them; the odd sheep materialising in the powerful headlights as they swept the grey blankness of the road, and the now frost-rimed hillsides stretching uproads from the tarmac.

Lake Fyne! She couldn’t remember ever hearing the name before, but then she knew that the Lake District possessed many small lakes whose names were not universally known, and she assumed this must be one of them.

The road curled upwards, a pale grey ribbon, disappearing into the mist.

Sitting on the edge of her seat, gripping the expensive hide cover, Amber was unaware of the fear in her eyes, until Joel turned towards her mockingly, commanding her to relax, telling her there was nothing to fear.

What did he know? she demanded inwardly in a flash of irritation. He had never had to face people with her disability to see the expression in their eyes. She had yet to be accepted by his son and his wife. She could just picture her; a man like him would demand sophistication and elegance in the woman who bore his name; she would be blonde, almost undoubtedly; expensively dressed, an ex-model perhaps, who would raise her eyebrows pityingly when she saw the stray waif her husband had brought home.

They came to an abrupt halt. The mist lifted momentarily and Amber had a brief glimpse of moonlight on water—Lake Fyne?—and then they were driving through huge wrought iron gates which had opened as though at some magic command from Joel to allow the car to move smoothly down a gravel drive towards, the grey granite house slowly materialising ahead of them out of the mist.

Joel, stopped the car. The silence was almost uncanny, heavy, and somehow waiting. There were no lights from the house, and Amber presumed that there must be rooms overlooking the back, where no doubt his wife eagerly awaited his return.

He climbed out of the car, and for one awful moment Amber thought he intended to leave her, but even as she moved frantically towards her door, he was opening it, assisting her to alight, his fingers hard and warm beneath her elbow.

Gravel crunched underfoot. The house was huge, Victorian and austere, and Amber shivered as she waited for Joel to unlock the door.

‘Housekeeper’s night off,’ he told her with heavy irony as the door swung open and he ushered her into a large but cold hall. He saw her shiver and told her, ‘Mrs Downs is Lakeland born and bred and thinks central heating should be kept only for the depths of winter.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s too late for you to see Paul tonight, he’ll be asleep, so I’ll show you to a room, and then in the morning…’

‘But surely your wife will want…’ Amber began, only to be silenced by the look of grim mockery she saw on his face.

‘Ah yes, my wife. Well, you see, my dear Amber, I no longer have a wife, which is why I need you—to take her place.’

The room reeled. Amber placed her hands to her head, telling herself that she was leaping to absurd conclusions.

‘You mean you need someone to look after Paul full time because you don’t have a wife? she said hesitantly, her heart starting to sink when saw him dislodge himself from the wall upon which he had been leaning and come towards her, his hands on her shoulders as he pulled her forward into the harsh overhead light of the hall.

‘What I mean, Amber,’ he said slowly and coolly, ‘is that I need a wife. Not just any wife, but you.’

‘You must be mad!’

He seemed amused rather than affronted.

‘Not mad, just determined. Determined that my ex-wife won’t revoke the custody ruling which gave Paul into, my care. So determined, in fact, that I am prepared to pay you very generously for say, six months of your life… Very generously,’ he repeated significantly, his eyes resting on the tell-tale pulse throbbing in her throat.

‘No!’

‘No?’ Again he seemed more amused than annoyed. ‘I’m going to give you the night to think over your decision, Amber, and don’t forget, will you, that I saw the look on your face in the car when I said I was prepared to be generous.’

Hating herself for the question, but knowing she just had to ask it, Amber ran her tongue nervously across dry lips and asked huskily, ‘How generous?’

She almost missed the surprised contempt in his eyes—it was banished so quickly by mocking satisfaction.

‘Twenty-five thousand pounds!’

Her heart almost stopped beating. Twenty-five thousand pounds—far, far more than she had imagined. Far, far more than she could ever envisage earning in so short a space of time, and more than enough to cover all the expenses of her operation, plus the plastic surgery she would need afterwards.

‘You can’t do it,’ a tiny inner voice warned her. ‘It isn’t right. You’ll have to refuse.’

The words were on the tip of her tongue when she looked down at her leg and all her good resolutions fled. What were six months, after all?

‘It would have to be purely a business arrangement,’ she began hesitantly. ‘I mean…’

‘I think we can take what you mean as read,’ came the smooth rejoinder, ‘and certainly I can assure you that I have no sexual designs upon your person, if that’s what’s worrying you.’

Amber flushed to the roots of her hair. Of course he hadn’t. What man in his right mind would have, never mind a man as stunningly attractive as Joel Sinclair?

Chagrined, exhausted and defeated by her own desire to be restored to what she had once been, she gave in.

‘Very wise,’ Joel Sinclair told her softly. ‘I am glad we were able to reach an agreement. Tell me, the money—do you need it for any special purpose?’

In a moment he might guess about her leg, and Amber couldn’t bear his pity. Quickly she interrupted, ‘No more special than any other woman’s. I want to enjoy life before it’s too late. I’ve always fancied a world cruise…’

‘With the bonus of some gullible male thrown in?’ Joel Sinclair suggested sardonically. ‘Still, why should I complain? In this instance your mercenary greed is furthering my ends as well as yours. I’ll take you to your room now,’ he told her. ‘I have to go out again—some business I have to attend to, but in the morning we’ll talk again.’

They had reached a long landing and he had paused outside a panelled mahogany door, and Amber had almost collided into him before she realised he had stopped.

He opened the door and stood back to allow her to enter the room. It was furnished with timelessly elegant Regency antiques, but despite the expensive furniture, the soft pale green carpet and daintily femine décor the room had a cold almost unwelcoming atmosphere, and Amber shivered as she stepped inside it.

‘The bathroom’s through there,’ Joel Sinclair told her, indicating another door opening off the bedroom. ‘We normally have breakfast about eight. I have business interests in Kendal and try to leave the house by nine, although recently my schedule has been somewhat interrupted.’

Amber stared up at him, wanting him to leave and yet reluctant to be abandoned in a strange house.

‘Something wrong?’ he enquired dulcetly, watching the shadows chase across her golden eyes. ‘Or are you waiting for me to seal our bargain in the traditional manner?’

It was several seconds before Amber realised what he meant, and she cringed inwardly wondering if he thought she had been mutely hoping that he would kiss her.

‘Certainly not,’ she told him with as much cool composure as she could muster. ‘You’re buying my time, not my body.’

His suave, ‘Perhaps that’s just as well,’ left a bitter aftertaste long after he himself had gone, reminding her yet again that she was no longer a girl men would want to hold in their arms or kiss. For several totally irresponsible seconds she allowed herself to wonder what it would be like to be kissed by Joel Sinclair. His kisses wouldn’t be like Rob’s, she thought instinctively; there would be nothing tentative or rushed about them. He would know exactly how to arouse a woman’s desire; how to fan it until it threatened to become a raging inferno. Horrified by the train of her thoughts, she started to undress, realising almost too late that she had nothing to wear. Shrugging wearily, she decided that she was too tired to care whether she slept in a nightdress or the nude. Fortunately the bathroom, unlike the bedroom, was adequately heated, and she was able to wash out her undies and tights and place them on the hot towel rail to dry ready for the morning.