Читать книгу Too Short A Blessing - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 5

‘WOW! It’s terrific, isn’t it, Aunt Sara? Just like that jigsaw Gran sent me for Christmas?’ Carly demanded enthusiastically as Sara emerged from the driver’s seat of the car to stand alongside her. The rutted track which had led from the main road to the front of the house had jolted Sara’s small car roughly from side to side, and she grimaced slightly, wondering how long her ancient Mini’s suspension would last if it was constantly exposed to the rigours of the cart track. Little wonder that Sam had not seen fit to mention it during his eulogy on the delights of their new home!

Carly was quite right, though: the white plaster-work and black beams of the cottage, and the lavish display of cottage garden flowers in the beds bordering the road, made an ideal picture-postcard scene. A narrow brick path led towards the open front door, the bright May sunshine bouncing off the diamond-paned windows.

Sam had travelled down to their new home the previous day with Phil, leaving Sara and Carly behind to finish cleaning up the house and to check that the furniture removers did their job properly.

The furniture van had not yet arrived, and Sara suspected that its driver would be none too pleased with their cart track of a road. Still, she certainly could not carp at the setting: lush fields, broken up by green clumps of woodland spread all around out on three sides of the cottage. On the fourth was what Sara guessed must be the paddock, complete with the donkey, which had just caught Carly’s eye. On the far side of the paddock was a high brick wall, presumably the boundary of their land and the beginning of that belonging to their one neighbour.

Sara had driven through the village before turning off for the cottage. It was only a mile or so away, but it seemed a pity that the nearest neighbour had to be such an unpleasant sort of person. Mentally shrugging the thought aside, she pushed open the small gate and ushered Carly up the brick path ahead of her.

Sam was waiting to welcome them inside, and he was actually standing free of his wheelchair, Sara noticed with delight, and beaming at both of them as he stood back to let them get past him and into the small square hall.

The soft cream walls and exposed beams made Sara cry out with pleasure. The stone floor underfoot was worn and polished by time. As yet the hall was unfurnished, but in her mind’s eye Sara saw the floor covered by the Persian rug Holly had bought the first Christmas she and Sam were married.

A narrow staircase twisted upwards, light pouring into the hall from a casement window with a seat just big enough for Carly to perch on.

‘Come into the sitting-room. Luckily everything’s been finished on schedule. Phil told me the builders were working late every night last week to get it all done. I must say they’ve done a superb job. Just wait until you see the kitchen—complete with Aga, I might add.’

When consulted about what she would like in the kitchen, Sara had opted for the traditional fuel-burning cooker, knowing that it could be relied upon to provide both heat and somewhere to cook food should there ever be any problems with their electricity supply. The cottage was too remote to have been supplied with gas, and despite Sam’s claim that he could get the generator working, Sara felt that she would prefer not to have to depend on it. Dorset was notorious for its heavy snow-falls, and the last thing she wanted was to be snowed up in a remote cottage without any form of warmth or means to cook by.

‘When the builders started work, they discovered this fireplace,’ said Sam. ‘It was bricked up and hidden behind some plasterboard.’

He stood to one side so that Sara could admire the large traditional fireplace that had been uncovered. As with the hall, the walls in this room had been painted a soft cream, the starkness offset by the dark beams.

The sitting-room was suprisingly large, with windows at either end. The rear windows overlooked the gardens, and Sara wandered over to look out, catching her breath in a gasp of pleasure as she did so.

Beyond the overgrown brick-paved patio area stretched an emerald-green lawn bordered by a wilderness of traditional cottage garden plants. A lattice trellis, broken in places and smothered in roses and clematis, separated the lawn from what Sam told her was the vegetable garden and a small orchard.

‘You can explore it all later,’ he told her firmly, grinning at her. ‘Come and have a look at the rest of the house.’

Thanks to Phil’s careful planning, the downstairs of the house had been extended to incorporate what had once been a motley collection of outbuildings. These now comprised a comfortable sitting-room-cum-study for Sam, a good-sized bedroom, and his own specially organised bathroom.

The extension ran at right angles to the main building, and opening the French windows of his sitting-room, Sam told her that he wanted to extend the paved area of the garden so that he would have somewhere to sit and work during the summer months.

In addition to the sitting-room, the main part of the house also had a very small study, a dining-room and a well-proportioned kitchen. Upstairs there were three bedrooms and a bathroom. One of the bedrooms had obviously been decorated with Carly in mind, but the two others had plain cream walls—so that she could choose her own décor, Sam told her when she rejoined him downstairs.

‘It’s perfect, Sam,’ she told him, laughing when he teased,

‘In spite of the cart-track outside? Apparently the guy who owns the property next door wanted to have it made up properly, but Miss Betts wouldn’t agree. She liked her privacy and maintained that the state of the lane prevented her from getting unwanted visitors. Jonas Chesney, who owns and runs the nursery, wanted the road made up because his buyers find it difficult to use—especially in winter. It runs right into the back of his property.’

‘And considering himself the local squire, he wouldn’t want the hoi polloi turning up at his front door, of course,’ put in Sara nastily.

Sam raised his eyebrows slightly. ‘I don’t think it’s a matter of that. It seems that the greenhouses and his office are close to what used to be the stable block, and that’s where this lane leads to. The house itself and the main gardens are open to the public certain days of the week. I haven’t seen it myself, but apparently it’s a lovely place—beautifully maintained, which can’t be cheap. Derek Middleton, Miss Betts’s solicitor, had nothing but praise for the man. I get the impression that he thought Miss Betts had behaved very unreasonably towards him. It seems that at one time the family owned all the land around here, but Jonas Chesney’s uncle had to sell off most of it to meet death duties. Middleton told me that Jonas has done wonders with the place. It seems he gave up a very promising career abroad to come home when his uncle died, and he’s made a real success of this nursery business. He wanted the land to extend into, it seems.’

‘Mmm … I don’t suppose he’s going to be overjoyed about getting us for neighbours,’ said Sara aggressively. ‘I expect he’d hoped to get the place at a knock-down price when Miss Betts died. No doubt it came as quite a shock to him to discover the contents of her will.’

‘What’s got into you?’ Sam looked distinctly puzzled. ‘Anyone would think you’d actually met the man and taken a violent dislike to him.’

‘I know his type,’ Sara said shortly.

Sam frowned, his mouth relaxing a little as he said softly, ‘Sara, I know what you’re thinking, but from what I’ve heard, he isn’t the same type as Wayne Houseley at all. Far from it. A less scrupulous man could easily have found some way round Miss Betts’s will, you know, and this morning when I arrived I found he’d sent over a basket of eggs and some milk and bread. I think you’re making an unnecessary ogre out of the man. Don’t forget he’s going to be our closest neighbour,’ he added warningly, his voice lightening as he commented, ‘and one whose help we’ll probably be very grateful for if that jungle out there is as bad as it looks! I found a goldfish pond on the far side of the lawn. We’ll have to get something to cover it—a net or something. I don’t want to run the risk of Carly falling in. Speaking of my daughter, where is she?’ he asked.

‘Talking to the donkey,’ Sara told him. She glanced round and asked, ‘Where are the cats and the dog?’

‘Being looked after by our neighbour, apparently. He offered to take charge of them after Miss Betts’s funeral. Mmm … that sounds like the furniture van. I’ll leave you to deal with them. By the way, I’ve invited Phil to join us for dinner tonight, if that’s okay with you?

Sara nodded her head briefly. Whatever her private doubts might be about the wisdom of their move, she could already see an improvement in Sam. He spoke and moved with a much greater sense of purpose—a resurgence of the old Sam she had missed so much during the last eighteen months. It had been frightening at times to realise how much both he and Carly depended on her, and yet she had needed their dependence simply to give her a reason to go on living.

Rick’s death had devastated her. Always a fairly quiet girl, she had become totally withdrawn, unable to cope with the cruelty of the loss. Rick had been outward-going and extrovert, and she had loved him to the extent that he had filled her whole world, leaving little room for anyone else. Even now there were times when she could scarcely comprehend that all that vitality had been wiped out. She dreamed some nights that he had come back to her, that she only had to reach out to touch him. Waking up after those dreams was agony.

There had been several occasions recently when Sam had told her that she ought to go out more, to rebuild her life. To find another man, he meant, but Sara did not want another man. She was content with her life as it was. She had Sam and Carly to love and to love her in return, and that was all she wanted from life. She didn’t want to love again, if the truth were known. She didn’t want the pain of loving someone only to risk losing them. No … she was perfectly happy as she was.

She’d already met Phil on several occasions. He was pleasant enough and she quite liked him, but if Sam had any matchmaking in mind …

The sound of the removal van stopping outside galvanised her into action. She hurried to the front door, glad of an excuse to dismiss thoughts that she thought of as too introspective. She didn’t like delving deep into her emotions any more. It was too painful. There had been so much pain in her life that now she had almost no tolerance of it at all. It was as though she was so emotionally scarred that she couldn’t bear anything touching the wounded area.

As she instructed the removal men she glanced across towards the paddock, checking on Carly. It was an automatic reaction these days, a reassurance to herself that the little girl was safe. How she had hated it when Carly first started school, but she had taught herself to let go, not to pass on to her niece her own fears. Carly enjoyed school, and Sam had already spoken to the headmistress of the small village school she would be attending from the end of the summer holidays. In view of her age it had been decided that there was no point in her starting at her new school until then, when she would do so with children of her own age, since the country school did not start its pupils at four as had the London one she had previously attended.

She had the whole summer in which to enjoy the company of her brother and her niece, to put down roots and let them flourish in the rich country earth. As she glanced at Carly, her attention was caught by the brick boundary wall, the sight of it reminding her of their neighbour.

Sam didn’t want her to be antagonistic towards him, she knew that, but even without knowing the man she didn’t like him. Illogical, she knew, but it was there.

‘Just one more story,’ begged Carly, snuggling further down into her small bed.

Where on earth did children get their energy from? Sara wondered fatalistically as she complied with her small niece’s request. There was Carly, all bright and bouncy, while she could barely keep her eyes open.

The removal men were long gone; the furniture all in place. Sam was in his study with Phil discussing his plans for the future. Both men had insisted on helping her with the washing up after dinner, and although she had found Phil pleasant enough she had been glad to excuse herself on the pretext of needing to put Carly to bed.

Now all she wanted to do was to go to bed herself. It had been a long day and she was tired out. The cottage was much larger than Sam’s London house, and soon she would have to get down to buying furniture and carpets.

She had been so busy that she hadn’t even had time to explore the garden, a treat she had been promising herself all day. Sara had a thing about gardens. She had always loved them, and as a child had longed for one of her own, but her parents had never lived anywhere long enough for her to watch the seeds she had sown grow.

The garden was to be her province; Sam had promised her that. In her mind’s eye she could already see a productive kitchen garden, and kitchen shelves filled with bottled fruits and jams. Rick had teased her about her dream of becoming a busy country wife; his future lay in the city, and Sara had willingly abandoned her own girlhood dreams to share it with him. But the garden surrounding the cottage was something that would give her life a new purpose, something of her own that she could cherish and nurture. She wanted that—needed it, she acknowledged, as she gently pulled the covers up round her sleeping niece.

In her own room she stood for a long time looking out into the dark silence. No cars … no traffic sounds … nothing. It was bliss. Tomorrow she would get up early and explore the garden. Suddenly she felt almost childishly excited, full of anticipation she had not felt in a long, long time.

A flash of orange beneath the green of the lily pad caught her eye and Sara bent to look a little closer, childishly delighted to see the fish. It was only half past six, and she had been awake since five.

Unable to deny herself the treat of exploring the garden any longer, she had sneaked downstairs in her cotton nightdress and bare feet, forgetting that the lawn would be damp with dew.

The sky was a bowl of pale blue edged with lemon where the sun was starting to climb; the garden was so still and peaceful.

The fish rose to the surface, searching for food, its round eyes observing her with calm indifference. Sam was right about one thing: they would need to cover the pool with something to make it safe for Carly.

She had resented Sam’s decision to uproot them, but now that she had seen the house and the garden, she knew that nothing could drag her away from it. Smiling wryly at herself, she stood up and moved backwards, the breath leaving her lungs as she cannoned into something solid and warm.

‘Careful!’

Calloused brown fingers circled her wrist, the shock of the unfamiliar male voice behind her sending ripples of sensation quivering down her spine. She wrenched her wrist free and swung round, anger sparkling in her eyes.

He was standing so close to her that she had to tilt her head quite a long way to look up into his face.

And what a face! she acknowledged on another wave of shock. Lean and tanned, and so totally masculine that she could feel the tendrils of antipathy curling through her stomach. Whoever he was, she didn’t like this man; he was far too male and sure of himself. Beneath the lazy mockery, the grey eyes were regarding her in a way that made her skin prickle. He was looking at her the way a man looks at a woman he finds sexually desirable. She was shocked by the discovery. It affronted her that he should dare to look at her like that. Her throat felt tight with anger. Didn’t he know that he had no right to look at her that way? She belonged to Rick—Rick, who was dead, and who could never again look at a woman with desire in his eyes.

A searing, penetrating pain engulfed her, making her stumble back from the concern she saw unexpectedly darkening his eyes. His hand came out and she dashed it away, trembling with fury and dislike.

‘What is it?’

His voice was low and urgent, his fingers curling imprisoningly round her wrist as she tried to jerk away.

Tension seized her as she suddenly realised her vulnerability. Her cotton nightdress did nothing to conceal her body from him; she had forgotten how inappropriately dressed she was. Hot colour seared her pale skin as she looked up into his face, demanding to be set free, and saw the way he was studying her body. No one, not even Rick, had ever looked at her with such open sexuality. She could almost smell the maleness of him, she recognised on a wave of revulsion.

‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ she demanded huskily, dragging her eyes away from his jeans-clad figure. The jeans were old and worn, the check shirt open over his chest and rolled up to reveal powerful forearms roughened by dark hairs.

‘I’m your neighbour,’ he told her easily, confounding her. ‘I saw you standing by the pool as I walked down the lane, and I thought I’d come and introduce myself.’

He was laughing at her now, and Sara felt her skin burn. She hadn’t realized she was so highly visable. Anyone could have walked down the lane and seen her standing there.

Almost as though he knew what she was thinking, he added softly, ‘Don’t worry about it. The lane only goes as far as my property and no one other than me uses it at this time of the morning.’

‘I wasn’t worried.’

His intimation galled her, all the more so because he had guessed so accurately at her thoughts. That was another intrusion that she resented. He had no right to read her mind so easily; Rick had been the only man she permitted to do that. It was all wrong that this arrogant, over-confident man should be alive and healthy while Rick … A sob of resentment rose in her throat. She had felt like this before, but only in the first weeks after Rick’s death, illogically resenting that other young men should be alive while he was dead—but that feeling had faded in time. It disturbed her that this man should be the means of resurrecting it, and she glared up at him, willing him to release her and go away.

‘Not exactly friendly, are you?’ he murmered wryly, watching the emotions chase one another across her face. ‘I wonder why?’

‘Perhaps because I don’t like you,’ retorted Sara waspishly.

The dark eyebrows rose. His hair was almost black and very thick. It was also too long, she thought disparagingly.

‘Really? But you don’t know me, do you?’

His good-humoured amusement increased her sense of ill-usage.

‘I don’t want to know you,’ she told him through gritted teeth, ‘and if you would kindly release my arm …’

‘In a moment.’

He wasn’t amused now. In fact, there was a distinctly disturbing glint in his eyes, a warning that his temper was not perhaps as equable as she had first supposed.

He moved towards her, crowding her against the pool so that she could not escape, the fingers of his free hand drifting lightly along her arm. She shivered beneath the light caress, watching his eyes darken with sexual awareness as his head bent towards her.

He was going to kiss her, she recognised disbelievingly, hardly able to understand what was happening. But it was happening. His parted lips were touching hers, coaxing and very, very experienced.

She wanted to reject him and pull away, but frighteningly, her body wouldn’t respond to her will. And worse, it did respond to the sexual expertise it was being subjected to.

Her lips seemed to melt and flower against the seductive male warmth of his, rivers of heat flooding through her veins as his arms went round her to draw against his body.

She could feel the hard jut of his hips through the thinness of her nightdress, and the powerful movements of his chest against her breasts as he breathed deeply.

His hands moulded the contours of her back, resting momentarily on her waist and then moving lower as he made a small sound of satisfaction against her mouth.

Rick was the only man with whom she had experienced passion, with whom she had wanted to taste all the heady delights of fulfilment, but he had been snatched away from her before their love had been consummated, and incredibly, shockingly, her body now seemed intent on relieving all the frustrations of that denial with the man who now held her in his arms.

She heard him mutter something against her mouth as his teasing caress turned into a passionate assault, and then he raised his head to look down into her bemused and vulnerable eyes, his own dark with a desire that her body recognised and welcomed even as her mind and heart repudiated it.

‘Well, well. It seems both of us got more than we bargained for,’ he told her frankly, his voice rough and slightly unsteady.

Too shocked to make any response, Sara could only stare at him, watching in dumb disbelief as he raised one hand from her body to stroke a calloused fingertip along her moist mouth. His other hand still held her against him, and as he traced the outline of her lips he moved against her, making her intimately aware of his arousal.

It stunned her, both that he could be so easily aroused and that he should make no effort to conceal it. She had been right to tell Sam that she would not like him, she thought feverishly. It was obvious. The casual attitude to sex which his behaviour betrayed was, to her, thoroughly contemptible.

As she opened her mouth to tell him what she thought of him, his hand slid down her body, caressing first her throat and then the smooth curve of her shoulder, pushing aside the wide neck of her nightdress to expose the rounded gleam of her arm.

His mouth touched the pale flesh his hand had just revealed and the words of denial were choked in her throat as her body quivered in response.

His hand moved to her breast, sliding aside the cotton barrier to reveal its pink-tipped fullness to his gaze.

A dark flush of colour flooded his face, his body tense as his fingers cupped the flesh that had previously only known Rick’s caress. Mentally she was filled with a sickening sense of defilement, but physically … Sara caught her breath on a gasp of mingled shock and excitement as the dark head bent towards her breast and she felt the warm mouth take the place of his caressing fingers. The shudder that went through her made her whole body sag weakly against him, every nerve ending concentrating on the intense physical pleasure aroused by the heated movement of his tongue and mouth against her sensitive flesh.

‘No … No … please don’t …’

The sobbed words were torn from her throat, tears she wasn’t aware of shedding lying damply on her skin.

The look in his eyes as he reluctantly released her breast, only to cover the still moist nipple with the caressing heat of his palm, made her shiver violently.

‘I want you.’ He said it harshly, as though in some way he found the words as shocking as she did, the look in his eyes suggesting that he was as shocked by the violent passion that had errupted between them as she was herself, but she knew that that could not be so. After all he was the one who had initiated what had happened.

‘I want you.’ He repeated the words in a slurred, unsteady voice, a blank, almost dazed look in his eyes as he pressed his body into hers, his hips moving restlessly against her.

‘I want you!’

He said it more softly this time, bending his mouth towards her own, but the brief respite from the sorcery of his touch had been enough to bring Sara back to sanity. She was appalled by what had happened—that she had actually allowed this hateful man intimacies which before had been permitted to Rick alone—and even harder to accept was the fact that part of her at least had actually enjoyed and wanted the heat of his mouth against her skin. And if she was truthful, wasn’t there still a nagging ache deep inside her in rebellious response to the frantic movement of his aroused body against her own?

Shocked by this self-admission, she stepped back from him, an expression of disgust curling her mouth.

His eyes focused on her face, the pupils almost black and very brilliant. He looked like someone coming out of a drug-induced stupor, she thought bitterly as she watched shock and recognition of what he had done vie for prominence in his expression.

‘I …’ He shook his head as though trying to clear it, and Sara knew that whatever he was going to say, she didn’t want to hear it.

Logically she knew quite well that when he had first kissed her he hadn’t meant it to be anything other than a light-hearted caress, a display of male superiority over the female, but whatever his explanation was going to be for the passionate desire that had exploded between them, she didn’t want to hear it. No doubt he would find some way of blaming her for what had happened, she thought bitterly as she pushed past him, ignoring his husky demand that she stay as she fled in the direction of the house.

He didn’t follow her, and although she told herself that she was glad, a tiny part of her felt something else. Not disappointment, Sara assured herself vehemently as she hurried back to her bedroom.

From her window she had an excellent view of the garden and the fishpond, but she didn’t take advantage of it. Instead she sank down on her bed, covering her face with her hands, engulfed by a feeling of self-disgust so strong that she actually felt physically sick with it.

What on earth could have possessed her? The man represented everything she detested; he was in the same mould as Wayne Housely—an arrogant bully, who thought himself lord of all he surveyed and above the law.

And yet, in his arms …

She shuddered deeply. That had been physical frustration, that was all. She had grieved so deeply emotionally for Rick that she had forgotten that her body must be grieving for him as well.

Until she met Rick she hadn’t considered herself a highly sexed person. She had found it depressingly easy to reject the clumsy sexual overtures of her teenage peers. But with Rick it had been different. He had been six years older than her, for one thing; for another, he had been very sexually experienced. He had not tried to rush her into a physical relationship she wasn’t ready for, but by the time they became engaged she would have gone willingly to bed with him had he wished it.

It had been lack of opportunity rather than the lack of desire that had preserved her virginity, and she suspected that her body, resentful of the pleasure Rick had promised it, which it had then been denied, had decide to make its displeasure felt.

Uncovering her face, she stood up and, ruthlessly tugging off her nightdress, studied herself in the mirror.

She was slender for her height, apart form her breasts which were lushly full—more full than usual at this moment, surely, her nipples stiff and aching a little, a sensation which was familiar to her from her days with Rick.

That was all it was, she assured herself guiltily; her body missed Rick’s passionate caresses and that was why it had responded so eagerly to … to someone else.

A deep wave of colour surged up over her skin as she remembered just how eager that response had been, but she hadn’t been alone in that almost frenetic flood of desire. He had been gripped by it too. Instinctively she sensed that he wasn’t a man who normally gave way so easily to physical desire. He was the sort of man who would always want to be in control, she thought intuitively, both of himself and of the situation he was in. She hadn’t been mistaken, surely, in the shock and surprise she had seen in his eyes? Or had it simply been her over-passionate response that had caused his reaction? she wondered uneasily, her skin suddenly feeling extremely hot.

Snatching up clean underwear, jeans and a top, she hurried into the bathroom.

It was half past seven. Carly would be waking up soon: Sam would want his breakfast. All she could do was put the incident behind her and forget about it.

But that was easier said than done, when her flesh continued to tingle disturbingly despite her attempts to ignore it.

It was galling in the extreme to have to admit that she had been aroused to such an extent by a man who was a complete stranger, even if that desire had been caused originally by her body’s physical loss of Rick.

Up until now she hadn’t given any thoughts to the physical aspect of her loss, or to the fact that she intended to spend the rest of her life without a lover, and now, suddenly, all her bitterness and resentment was focused on Jonas Chesney.

What right did he have to be alive when Rick was dead … to touch her and arouse her in a way that Rick no longer could? A sob tore from her throat as she pulled on her clothes. She hated him, loathed him … and if she ever saw him again … But she would take care that she didn’t, she decided grimly. He was not going to get another opportunity to catch her off guard as he had done this morning. No doubt he was already gloating over his conquest of her, she decided bitterly, conveniently forgetting that not ten minutes before, she had been acknowledging that he was as stunned by what had happened as she was herself.

No doubt it was a favourite hobby of his, to go round collecting female scalps. With those undeniably good looks, and that healthily muscled masculine body … Swiftly she checked her thoughts, resenting the admissions her body had forced upon her. So he was good looking—so what? That didn’t alter the fact that she detested and loathed him.

Perhaps she had been wrong about him, a traitorous inner voice whispered. Perhaps he wasn’t another Wayne Houseley after all?

What did it matter? her mind demanded bitterly. He was alive and Rick was dead, and she resented and hated him for that alone.