Читать книгу A Reluctant Mistress - Robyn Donald - Страница 9

NATALIA should have laughed in his face. She should have said, Really? with every ounce of sarcasm she could muster, lifted her brows in scorn and disdain and left Clay there in the middle of the dance floor.

Instead her mouth dried and she felt as though she’d fallen into a black hole and was being torn apart by forces she couldn’t fight. Beneath that succinct word there had been a controlled, menacing determination, the remorseless patience of the hunter he’d likened himself to.

She was frightened. She was exhilarated. And that reckless excitement wasn’t tempered by common sense or pragmatism. He’d issued a challenge, one she was so tempted to take up she could taste the wanting—keen, enticing, insistent, dangerous as a drug.

‘I’m not into surrender,’ she parried, surprised to hear a steady voice.

Clay swung her around a couple who’d forgotten their neighbours were watching and were swaying together in an embrace that came close to being embarrassing. ‘Perhaps I am,’ he said, and laughed quietly at the swift flash of fire in her glance. ‘Yes, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, Natalia,’ he said, reading her so perfectly that it was a statement, not a question.

‘I’m very into power,’ she said offhandedly.

But that terrifying, untamed desire stirred again. She felt as though he’d put his mark on her; his scent, fiercely male, filled her nostrils; her fingers tingled, seeking slick, tanned skin. And sensation flowed through her, glowing, fiery, merciless as lava, devouring everything in its path.

This is simple lust, Natalia thought disdainfully, nothing more. Intensely relieved when at last the music died on a flourish, she pulled free of his arms, turning her head away in the hope of disguising the hasty flutter of her breathing.

‘It cuts both ways,’ Clay Beauchamp said unhurriedly, tawny eyes glittering as he held out his arm.

If only her mother hadn’t been so determined to bring up her daughter as a lady! Reluctantly Natalia put the tips of her fingers on his sleeve, straightening her spine as they walked across to the side of the room.

Liz was already sitting there; horrified, Natalia endured a sharp stab of jealousy at her friend’s sunny, unaffected smile at Clay.

Woodenly, she introduced them. ‘Liz, this is Clay Beauchamp, who has bought Pukekahu Station. Clay, Liz Kaiwhare. Her parents own the Tourist Lodge in Manakiwi Bay.’

Dimpling, Liz held out her small hand. With a smile that indicated more than appreciation, Clay took it. Another spear of jealousy rankled through Natalia.

‘You looked wonderful together,’ Liz said with a rare lack of tact. ‘Everyone was watching you—you’re really well matched.’

‘Just what I’ve been trying to convince Natalia,’ Clay said outrageously, mockery glimmering in his golden eyes.

Liz laughed. ‘And I’ll bet she told you she didn’t have time.’ She glanced at Natalia’s unresponsive face, then back to Clay. ‘She works far too hard,’ she said firmly.

Fortunately Mr and Mrs Kaiwhare arrived back then, and the ensuing bustle of introductions silenced Liz.

A little later, however, Natalia—carefully ignoring Clay Beauchamp, still with their group—said half under her breath, ‘Stop trying to matchmake.’

‘Not interested?’ Liz’s eyes widened further. ‘Truly, Nat?’

‘Truly.’ Natalia picked up her glass of water with a jerk that almost spilled it.

Liz grinned. ‘Then you won’t mind if I try my luck, will you?’

The icy water sizzled down Natalia’s throat. Meticulously she put the glass down and contemplated the green-skinned wedge of lime decorating its rim. ‘Not in the least,’ she said tersely, stiffening slightly as she heard Clay laugh.

‘Liar,’ Liz said cheerfully. ‘You’re fascinated by each other. Nat, give yourself a break. One rotten apple doesn’t mean you have to retire to a nunnery.’

‘I haven’t got time for romantic entanglements.’ Or unromantic ones.

Liz leaned forward, her pretty face vengeful. ‘I could throttle Dean Jamieson. He might belong to an old, stiff, rich family with a lot of old, stiff, rich power, but he is a nasty piece of goods. Keeping quiet about his wife, and then spreading it around the district that you tried to break up his marriage was a totally rotten thing to do. Not that it matters—everyone knows he was lying.’

The embarrassment of being warned off only an hour or so previously by yet another wife sprang to Natalia’s mind. ‘Not everybody,’ she said cynically. ‘Thanks to his malice, I’ve now got a reputation.’

‘Only with nasty-minded creeps,’ Liz said with trenchant, partisan bias. ‘They’re jealous because you’re so stunning and you don’t give a cent for the men who try to hit on you.’

Natalia stifled a yelp of laughter. ‘You make it sound as though I’ve cut a swathe through the district!’

‘You could if you wanted to.’ Liz leaned closer and dropped her voice. ‘And you’d better accept that you’re as attracted to Clay Beauchamp as he is to you or you’re going to find yourself in deep trouble. I suspect he’s the bulldozer sort! And as he’s living only a mile away—’

Natalia’s lip curled. ‘He’s not a farmer, Liz, he’s an agri-businessman, so naturally he lives in Auckland with all the other rich entrepreneurs.’

‘Pity,’ Liz said pragmatically.

‘So no more matchmaking, all right?’ Natalia said with emphasis. The band struck up again, a much more modern foxtrot. Gratefully she accepted an invitation from Greg.

‘You’re looking a bit flushed,’ he said, studying her with a professional eye.

‘It’s hot in here,’ she returned. ‘You wouldn’t think it was the first month of winter, would you? I wonder when it’s going to get cold?’

Greg snorted. ‘This is north of Auckland—it never gets cold here. In Dunedin it freezes.’

‘Poor darling,’ she said, primming her mouth. Greg was in his last year at medical school in New Zealand’s exquisite southernmost city. Lifting a hand, she patted his cheek. ‘I remember the first year you went away, and your parents kept getting anguished faxes about the cold—Liz and I knitted you a jersey each for your birthday, and your mother shipped you off an electric blanket. Did you ever wear those jerseys?’

‘Both together, if I remember correctly,’ he said with a grin.

Laughing, Natalia looked over his shoulder and met a blaze of gold. Clay Beauchamp was dancing with Liz; as Natalia’s brows climbed he deliberately looked away from her and into Liz’s small, mischievous face. It felt like a blow.

‘…saved my life,’ Greg was saying. ‘I honestly thought my blood would freeze that first winter.’

Awkwardly she dragged her gaze away from the two striking black and white figures. ‘Good,’ she said vaguely.

Greg frowned. ‘Sure you’re all right? You sound a bit disassociated.’

‘I’m fine,’ she told him crisply.

Within a few moments she’d almost managed to put Clay Beauchamp out of her mind. She and Greg were friends; several years previously he’d fancied himself to be in love with her, only giving up when she told him gently that although she did love him, it was as a brother rather than a lover.

Now they were both satisfied with the way things were between them. When the dance ended, and they were called by friends to the other side of the elegant Victorian ballroom, she went happily with him, staying snug within his arm for the intermission. The next dance was a tango, and she and Greg enjoyed themselves enormously, hamming it up, one of the few couples who dared try it.

Clay Beauchamp, she noticed reluctantly, wasn’t dancing; he’d deposited Liz back with the rest of her party and was talking with a group of the major players in the district, including their host.

‘Nat, I love showing off with you,’ Greg said when it was over and they were the centre of a laughing, clapping group. ‘You dance like a dream!’ He hugged her extravagantly.

‘So, best-beloved, do you.’

Well pleased with each other, they came off arm in arm. Still smiling, Natalia realised that in spite of the disturbing, unsettling, far too intriguing Clay Beauchamp, she was glad she’d come; secure with friends who knew her and loved her she could forget the worry that hung over her like her own private thundercloud.

Back with the rest of their party, she laughed off the compliments and sat down beside Liz, picking up her glass of water. ‘Gosh, I enjoy a good tango!’

‘You were born to do it,’ Liz told her enviously. ‘Well, go ahead and ask me.’

‘Ask you what?’

‘What he said.’

Colour whipped along Natalia’s cheekbones. Had she been so obvious? ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said haughtily.

Her friend half closed her eyes and pursed her mouth. ‘He’s far too sophisticated to discuss one woman with another, is Clay Beauchamp. Although I must say I felt him not looking at you, if you know what I mean. He was utterly charming. We talked about a lot of things and he didn’t lose concentration once, which I thought was pretty clever of him because he just hated seeing you dance with my big brother.’

Natalia put her glass down. ‘Liz, don’t.’

Her friend’s smile disappeared. ‘All right, but it’s such a waste. I hate to go off to England for years and know that once I’m gone you won’t let anyone make you go out and have fun. Sometimes I look at your stubborn, tired face and I could kick your father for leaving you in this situation. OK, sermon’s over.’

Natalia’s eyes stung. ‘I have to keep going, Liz.’

Liz opened her mouth, then closed it.

‘Yes,’ Natalia said with a wry twist to the words, ‘his friends were foolish to lend money to him, but you know how persuasive he could be. He really believed he’d make everyone’s fortunes with the tunnel-houses.’

‘I know. Promise me one thing?’

‘What?’ Natalia eyed her warily.

‘Just have dinner with Mum and Dad once a fortnight, will you? They love having you, and you’ve cried off their last few invitations.’

‘All right,’ Natalia said. ‘Damn, I’m going to miss you.’

‘I’m going to miss you too.’

The band struck up again, and within seconds both were back on the floor. As the evening lengthened, Clay Beauchamp danced with the wives and daughters of the men he’d been speaking to, the district’s most solvent and powerful citizens. Bowden wasn’t exactly cliquey, but it usually took time for newcomers to be accepted so it was mildly unexpected for him to be welcomed into the fold with such enthusiasm.

Although piqued by his apparent lack of interest, Natalia recognised a ploy as old as time: make your interest known, then pull back to whet the appetite of the person you want.

It was disappointing; she’d expected him to be more subtle.

She set herself to enjoying the rest of the evening, and succeeded so well that the last dance came as an unwelcome surprise. Much more unwelcome was that she found herself in Clay’s arms, waltzing.

‘Who taught you to dance?’ he asked casually.

‘My father.’

He nodded. ‘He knew what he was doing.’

‘Indeed he did.’

‘What did I say wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ she parried. ‘Why?’

His eyes were narrowed, the golden fire concentrated and intense. ‘He left you in debt, I gather.’

‘You have been talking,’ she said with a false brightness.

That aloof, tilted smile scorched through to her toes. ‘And I didn’t even have to initiate it. The tango you did with the boyfriend was blatant enough to catch everyone’s eye. People were only too eager to talk about you.’

Oh, I’ll just bet they were, she thought bitterly. She fought with temptation, but it wasn’t fair to embroil Greg in this. ‘Greg’s a friend—almost a brother—not a boyfriend.’

Dark, straight brows lifted. ‘That wasn’t what I heard. They were close to taking bets on how long it would take him to get you into bed. Apparently he’s been trying for years.’

Grittily, her eyes sparking, she said, ‘I’m sorry that men I’ve known and respected for years should be dirty-minded, lying rumour-mongers.’

Although he laughed, no humour glinted in his eyes. ‘It’s a human prerogative to be envious of those younger and better-looking, and to wish young women a happy marriage. Especially when the two they’re talking about are practically making love on the dance floor.’

‘Greg and I were spoofing that tango—as I’m sure everyone else but you realised. And the next time the subject arises,’ she said between her teeth, ‘you can tell them from me that I have no intention of marrying anyone. If I ever decide to, I’ll send a notice to the local newspaper.’

Beneath her hand his shoulder went taut. She felt heat, and a purely male power, and a threat, but his voice was cool and self-contained as he said, ‘There won’t be a next time. At least not while I’m around.’

‘Why?’

He looked over her head, the arrogant features uncompromising. ‘Because I indicated that I don’t find that sort of speculation interesting.’

‘So they just shut up,’ she said with sweet cynicism. ‘How wonderful to have that sort of authority.’

His smile was formidable. ‘You’ve got an acid tongue. I like that.’

Shrugging, Natalia turned her head away and closed her eyes. Just once—just for a moment—she’d allow herself the illusion that she was safe and protected and in good hands. The green, glittering mask concealed her emotions; no one would know she was listening to the driving beat of Clay’s heart, responding helplessly to the strength of his big body against her, breathing in his faint, purely masculine scent.

Neither spoke until the music stopped.

‘I’ll follow you home,’ Clay said as they made their way across the floor.

Natalia bestowed a glittering smile on her old school fellow and his possessive wife. ‘That’s not necessary, thank you.’

‘Possibly not,’ Clay agreed with an infuriating inflexibility, ‘but I’ll do it nevertheless.’

After saying goodbye and thanking her hosts, after arranging a time to get together before Liz left for Oxford, after defiantly accepting Greg’s kiss goodnight, Natalia drove her small utility truck carefully away in procession with fifty or so other vehicles. Most of them eventually turned towards Bowden, but one stayed behind her all the way to the intersection of the main highway and the corrugated gravel road that led to her patch of land, and ultimately to Pukekahu.

The dipped lights in her mirror made her jittery. When at last the Xanadu gateway came into view, Natalia put on her indicator and ducked down the drive, glad that she’d left the gate open.

Puddles shone ahead, eerily reflecting the headlights back at her like a series of tiny fallen moons. She knew where the potholes were, but the man who followed her didn’t. Hiding a kick of nervousness with a muttered curse, she stopped outside the big shed that acted as a garage.

The car behind stopped; telling herself she was being an idiot, Natalia banged down the lock on the truck door and waited with her hand hovering over the horn, eyes stretched almost painfully as Clay’s tall figure unfolded from the car.

Her breath whooshed through suddenly relaxed lips. Quickly she unlocked the door and opened it. ‘Why did you follow me in?’ she asked, trying to rein in a swift, unusual fury.

‘Because I wanted to,’ he said caustically, and shocked her by lifting her down.

Alarmed at the strength of the hands that bit into her waist, she grabbed his shoulders to steady herself. Beneath the black cashmere of his dinner jacket she felt muscles curl and flex. He suddenly seemed very large and far too strong. ‘Thank you,’ she said in a brittle, tense voice.

He settled her on to her feet and let her go. ‘I’ll go in with you.’

‘Thank you again, but I really don’t need you to see me to my door.’

‘I don’t see how you’re going to stop me.’

Now was the time to finish this once and for all. Trying to sound both patient and composed, she said, ‘Clay, I’m sorry if the very light flirtation we indulged in made you hopeful of going to bed with me tonight, but I don’t do one-night stands—’

‘That “light flirtation”,’ he interrupted with nervetightening self-assurance, ‘was a pleasant, mildly exciting preliminary. As you’re being so frank, let me tell you that when we make love it won’t be a one-night stand. I want you, and I know perfectly well that you want me.’

‘How do you know?’ she blustered, his blunt statement exploding an unbidden, erotic charge in the pit of her stomach.

Pale light from the hidden moon sifted through the thick cloud pall, revealing the forceful angles and planes of his face. Clay’s mouth twisted into a smile; Natalia was already stepping back when he caught her wrist and pulled her against him; still holding her wrist, he bent his head. Unerringly his mouth found hers, shaped it to his own.

Made prisoner by the firmness of his mouth, its warmth, its hunger, Natalia sank into suffocating, humiliating need. Her lips softened, parted slightly in the signal of surrender—and Clay straightened.

‘That’s how,’ he said levelly.

Shame washed the heat and carnality out of her, stiffened her spine, hardened her resolve. ‘Clay, I’m not getting involved with you.’

Against the heavy, turbulent sky she saw his head move. Panic warred with exhilaration. More than anything else in the world she wanted him to kiss her again, and that terrified her. She’d never felt like this before, as though everything she’d built her life on was worth nothing without Clay’s kisses.

Staring up at him like a terrorised rabbit, she shivered.

‘What the hell are we doing sniping at each other in the cold?’ he demanded, exasperation sharpening his tone. ‘Get inside—it’s going to rain any minute.’

Summoning her dignity, Natalia pivoted on her high-heeled sandals and stalked ahead of him through the gate, past the daphne bush her mother had planted and the ghostly heads of the luculia, their scents mingling in a glorious combination of musk and citrus on the damp, cool air.

At the front door she took out the key and turned to say meticulously, ‘Thank you for seeing me home.’

‘I’ll wait here until you’ve checked the place,’ he said inflexibly.

No doubt she should be grateful he didn’t insist on doing it himself! Switching on the light inside the door, she marched stiffly down the short hall.

When she returned a few minutes later he was looking out over her small domain; although she’d walked quietly, he swung around before she got to the door.

Natalia’s eyes widened. He’d taken off his mask, as had she. His potent male mystery and glamour should have departed with it, but Clay Beauchamp’s magnificent bone structure gave him a fierce, elemental beauty that was dramatised dynamic power. Natalia had to keep her hands by her sides to stop them from exploring the thin scar reaching from his jaw to the tip of his right eyebrow.

‘I’d expected to be disappointed,’ he said, his magnetic gaze raking her face.

She forced her dazed eyes to gaze levelly at him, forced her unwilling mouth into a taunting smile. ‘And do you like what you see, now the mask is gone?’

‘You lovely witch,’ he said, his voice deep and smoky. ‘We’ve a long way to go before all the masks are off. But it’s going to happen. Sleep as badly as I’m going to.’

He turned his back on her and walked away. Swallowing to ease an arid throat, Natalie stared after him. He had the ideal male form—triangular torso, long, strong-muscled legs, and that steady pace, lazily menacing as a panther’s predatory prowl. At the gate he turned and lifted his hand in a wave that was probably an exercise in sarcasm.

Nerves jumping, she waited until she heard the car start, then slammed the door and stood with her hands clenched until the sound of the engine had died into a silence unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

Shouting meaty, satisfying oaths at the Hereford steer as it ambled carelessly through the teatree and gorse, Natalia dragged black, sticky strands of hair back from her hot face.

‘And stay off my property, or I’ll kill you for dog tucker,’ she finished with vindictive venom, mopping her forehead on the sleeve of her faded T-shirt.

‘If you kept your fences in better repair it wouldn’t be able to wander.’

The crisp male voice had her whirling around to see Clay Beauchamp dismounting from a horse in one swift, easy movement. Why ride a horse nowadays when farm bikes were a much more efficient way of getting around rural New Zealand? Tall, so big he almost blotted out a couple of tree ferns and a gorse bush, he strode towards her, his angular, autocratic face amused as he looked down his nose at her.

His amusement set tinder to her already explosive temper. Unwisely, she returned, ‘Why should I look after your fence? My livestock don’t wander.’ Fairness compelled her to add, ‘And neither do yours, except for this blasted wretch. It keeps breaking in and eating the capsicums. It’s smashed through my electric fences more times than I can count.’

The aristocratic amusement vanished; Clay said abruptly, ‘A new fence will be up shortly.’

‘Good. Until then, keep that damn steer off my land or I’ll shoot it,’ Natalia snapped.

Furious with herself for losing control, she turned to make her way across the small swamp that marked the boundary between Xanadu and Pukekahu. Sweat blinded her, sweat and anger and frustration. The steer had pushed its way into a tunnel-house and that long pink tongue had ruined too many plants.

But, however angry she’d been, she shouldn’t have shouted at Clay. It wasn’t his fault that one steer had damaged the tunnel-house—and she certainly couldn’t blame him for the state of the boundary fence, because it was Dean Jamieson who’d systematically stripped Pukekahu of every asset and refused to spend a cent on the station.

She’d made an idiot of herself.

An insect came barrelling at her, a tiny, threatening missile in the sunshine. Dread kicked in her stomach; she leaped sideways, landed in muddy water with one ankle twisted beneath her, and fell on to her knees with a yelp as pain pierced the skin of her bare arm.

‘What the hell is the matter with you?’ Hands wrenched her to her feet, jerked her out of the water and hauled her across to dry land. Setting her on her feet, Clay demanded harshly, ‘What is it?’

‘Only a bee-sting,’ she gasped, looking at the poison sac left in her arm. He moved, she thought dazedly, very fast for such a big man.

‘You’re allergic to them?’

‘No.’ She dragged in a deep breath and squared her shoulders, forced herself to meet frowning tawny-gold eyes. ‘I’m allergic to wasps,’ she said succinctly. ‘That’s what I thought the bee was—and when it stung me I realised I’d come without my pills.’

Before she’d finished speaking Clay had taken a pocket knife from his hip pocket and opened it. She barely had time to register the cold steel sliding along her heated skin before he’d flicked the poison sac free. Another movement, and she watched, shivering, as the blade was folded back, the knife returned to its place.

‘Careless of you, wasn’t it?’ Clay said pleasantly, black brows lifting.

Natalia had as little liking as anyone for being called foolish, but he was right. In early winter most wasps were slow and easily seen, but the newly mated queens could be aggressive. She’d been lucky this time; normally she wouldn’t have set foot outside the house without her pills.

‘Very,’ she said coolly. ‘But I was too busy getting rid of the steer trashing the tunnel-house to think about wasps.’

Eyes the golden-brown of topaz examined her, travelling from her tangle of curls to her wide, green eyes, and then on to her mouth. His smile acknowledged ivory skin and soft red lips, the female desirability of a body honed by hard work.

It was a purely sexual appraisal, and it was done with every intention to intimidate. Natalia’s skin tightened as more adrenaline surged through her bloodstream, quickening her breath. I don’t need this, she thought savagely, stepping away.

‘Thank you for picking me up,’ she said in aloof dismissal. ‘I’ll be all right now.’

‘You don’t want a ride home?’

Natalia glanced at the patiently waiting horse. Mellow sunlight washed over its black hide. Had Clay chosen the horse to go with his hair?

‘No, thank you,’ she said, and turned her back on man and horse. Stiff-spined, she walked up the hill, bristling under that golden predatory scrutiny until she reached sanctuary in the native bush cloaking the hillside.

Only then did she relax, her breath whistling out between dry lips. If he’d slept as badly as she had, he’d have been sluggish too. Instead, he’d shown her up as a clumsy, forgetful idiot. Why did he have to buy the place next door? It infuriated her that she was totally unable to deal with a man who exuded sex and authority from every pore of that big, lithe, graceful body.

OK, so she’d responded to it. And, yes, her nostrils still quivered at the faint male scent she’d registered when he’d carried her across the swamp, and her skin felt oddly tender where he’d grabbed her.

However, she knew how little it meant. A mixture of attractive packaging and pheromones—abetted by some elemental treachery in the female psyche—had stirred her hormones, but she wasn’t going to surrender to them again. Dean Jamieson had taught her a lesson she wouldn’t forget—she was no more immune to masculine charisma than any other woman of twenty-three.

However, she had more pressing things to do than worry about Clay Beauchamp. Fixing the gap in the electric fence, for one.

It turned out to be one of those days. While the steer had been satisfying its appetite for capsicums it had smashed a vital piece of the hydroponic watering system. Not only that—until she could afford to replace the broken piece, Natalia would have to get up every two hours during the night to check the tunnel-house.

She toyed with the idea of billing Clay Beauchamp; the only thing that stopped her was that he would be entirely within his rights to demand that she pay half the cost of fixing the boundary fence.

Her afternoon was cheered by a phone call from the local supermarket, asking for a couple of boxes of peppers. Whistling, she went out to pick and pack them, then headed off down the road in the truck.

Before she’d got off the gravel road an explosion like a rifle-shot and a sudden vicious yank on the steering wheel sent adrenaline pumping through her. Battling with the wheel, she managed to wrestle the runaway vehicle on to the grass verge and kill the engine.

‘What else?’ she muttered as she got out, hiding her desperation with a ferocious frown.

Everything had been going so well until—until Clay Beauchamp arrived on the scene. He was turning out to be a bad luck charm. It figured, she thought sourly. Clay—what a ridiculous name! It was probably short for Clayton, only he didn’t look like a Clayton. He fitted Clay—or it fitted him; in spite of that worldly gloss he was elemental, earthy, primally male.

She knelt by the offending tyre, wincing at the strips of rubber shredded from it. Beyond prayer. Gravel bit into her knee; she got to her feet and brushed down her threadbare jeans.

Of course the spare wheel didn’t want to come out, and it was filthy. Pressing her lips together, Natalia tugged it free, coughing in the cloud of clinging road dust that accompanied it.

The sound of an engine coming fast made her start; infuriatingly, because normally she wasn’t clumsy, the wheel escaped through her hands and bounced on to the road too close to her feet. After an involuntary leap backwards she snatched at it, but had to watch helplessly as it rolled across the road towards the big burgundy car swinging around the corner.