Читать книгу A Bad Enemy - Сара Крейвен, Sara Craven - Страница 7

LISLE woke with a start in the pitch dark, remembering she had forgotten to telephone Gerard. Well, not forgotten, simply had no opportunity to do so without Jake guessing what she was up to. And she didn’t want him to know. She wanted to be able to speak to Gerard in perfect privacy without Jake being able to overhear so much as a word.

Not for the first time, she sighed over Murray’s intransigence on the subject of phone extensions in bedrooms. He thought they were immoral, a blatant temptation to people to be idle and run up enormous bills at the same time.

‘A telephone’s place is in the library,’ he said. ‘Let people make their calls at a civilised hour or not at all.’

The middle of the night was hardly a civilised time, Lisle thought ruefully, but it was all that was available.

She had fallen asleep at once, behind that safely locked door, so she hadn’t heard Jake pass her room on his way to bed, but he would be sound asleep by now.

She sighed as she pushed back the covers and reached reluctantly for her robe. The first thing she would have to do was go to Gerard’s own room, find his address book, and hope that Carla Foxton’s Barbados villa was in it. If that address book ever fell into the wrong hands, it would probably be grounds for a dozen divorces, she thought as she padded softly across the carpet to the door. She stood for a moment on the landing, listening intently, but the house was at peace, not a light showing anywhere.

She found the address book in Gerard’s bureau, and slid it into the pocket of her robe, before beginning the journey downstairs.

The drawing room door was open when she reached the hall, and she could see the remaining embers of the logs still glowing red in the wide hearth. She wondered if Jake had remembered to set the spark guard in front of the fire, and decided she would see to it on the way back.

She closed the library door behind her noiselessly, and switched on the light, blinking for a few seconds at the sudden glare. Murray’s big desk was set in the window recess, and the telephone was perched on one corner of it, trim scarlet lines looking strangely out of place among the antiques and rubbed leather which surrounded it.

After some initial difficulty in dialling, she managed to get through to the villa. The phone rang for a long time, and she was just about to give it up as a bad job, when the receiver was lifted and a woman’s voice said, ‘Yes?’

Lisle spoke politely, ‘Good evening, Mrs Foxton. I wonder if I could speak to Gerard Bannerman.’

Silence crackled at her. Then, ‘Who is this?’

‘I’m his sister, Lisle. We met once, actually, at the Hargreaves’ dinner party.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Carla Foxton’s voice conveyed complete indifference. ‘Well, what makes you think Gerard’s here, Miss Bannerman?’

Lisle prayed for patience. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m not sure where he is, Mrs Foxton. I hoped you might be able to help me. You see, there’s rather a crisis here. My grandfather has had a severe heart attack, and I feel Gerard should come back immediately, for a number of reasons.’ She paused, but there was no response from the other woman. ‘So, if you do happen to know where he is, perhaps you could pass on a message for me.’

Another lengthy pause, then Carla Foxton said curtly, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ And rang off.

Lisle sighed as she replaced her own receiver more slowly. It occurred to her that really she liked very few of Gerard’s women, and Carla Foxton probably least of all. She was petite, black-haired and beautiful in a voluptuous way which spoke of the Latin-American blood in her recent ancestry, and Gerard had been frankly besotted with her for several months. Carla was some fifteen years younger than her wealthy indulgent husband, and although Gerard was undoubtedly more to her taste as a lover, their affair had been carried on fairly discreetly. Carla much preferred to have the best of both worlds, and was shrewd enough to ensure that she did so. Lisle could understand her caution on the phone, but not the lack of humanity she had displayed.

Dispiritedly, she walked to the door, and stepped out into the hall, pausing as her hand reached for the switch to plunge the library back into its former peaceful darkness.

‘Walking in your sleep?’ Jake asked.

She nearly screamed, her hand flying to her mouth just in time to stifle the sound, so that it emerged instead as a kind of strangled squeak.

He was lounging in the doorway to the drawing room, his hand clasped round a tumbler of whisky. His head was thrown back slightly, and the grey eyes were narrowed as he looked at her.

Lisle said faintly, ‘You—you startled me.’

‘You startled me,’ he returned pleasantly. ‘When I saw you go past the door, I thought for a moment you were the resident ghost.’ A faint appreciative smile twisted the corners of his mouth. ‘But if you were, of course, I’d be able to see right through you, instead of merely through that pretty nonsense you’re wearing.’

Lisle realised with embarrassed dismay that, standing in the strong light streaming from the room behind her, she was providing him with a frank revelation of the outline of her body through the thin nightdress and robe. Hastily her hand moved to the switch again, snapping it to the ‘off’ position.

‘What are you doing down here?’ she asked. Apart from a couple of extra buttons unfastened on his shirt, he was dressed exactly as when she had left him. It didn’t seem as if he’d been to bed at all.

‘Thinking,’ he said. ‘And drinking.’ He held up the tumbler of whisky in a kind of mocking salute.

‘You find alcohol aids your thought processes?’

‘I find that sometimes it blocks them out altogether, which can be equally useful. May I ask, in return, what you’re doing down here?’

‘I—I couldn’t sleep,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Worrying about Grandfather, I suppose.’ She gestured towards the doorway behind her. ‘I came down to get a book.’

He looked past her into the shadowed room with its tier upon tier of booklined shelves, then back to her empty hands. He began to laugh.

‘But you couldn’t find one. Or have you read them all before?’

She glared at him. ‘Only I decided I’d rather have some hot milk instead. I was just going to get it.’

‘Hot milk,’ he said softly. ‘How very girlish. May I recommend my own personal anodyne instead?’

‘Whisky, I suppose.’ Lisle pulled a small, jeering face.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not whisky.’ And his eyes slid down her body from head to foot, assessing her in a slow deliberate sensual scrutiny, which left her oddly breathless and as vulnerable as if it had been his hands which had stripped her and left her naked beneath his hungry gaze.

She said on a little gasp, ‘You’re disgusting!’

‘And you’re a hypocrite,’ he said derisively. ‘You know what to expect when you flaunt yourself in front of a man with hardly a stitch on. And I’m not interested in your fables about books and hot milk either. There’s a very good reason why we should both be roaming the house at two in the morning suffering from insomnia, and I’m sure I don’t have to spell it out to you.’

She swallowed. ‘It isn’t what you think. …’

‘As I’ve already told you, I’ve stopped thinking.’ Jake put the glass down on the huge carved chest which stood against the wall next to him. ‘I suggest you do the same. Just let your feelings take over. We may not like each other, Lisle, but I’m ready to bet any money that we have a common meeting ground just the same.’

He walked towards her, watching her, missing nothing, she thought desperately as she tried to steady her breathing, to control the hurry of her small breasts under the lace bodice of her nightdress.

He touched her face, his thumb caressing the soft curve of her cheek, his fingers discovering the delicacy of her jawline.

He said quietly, ‘If it’s any consolation, I never intended this to happen either.’

He took her quite gently into his arms, not kissing her, just holding her against the hard, lean length of him, and deep within her a pang of desire began a crescendo into real pain.

She was bewildered by it. It was too new to her experience, too sharp, and too urgent for her to know how to deal with it, although in some dim recess of her mind, something told her that she should pull away now while she still had some will to do so.

She knew by the pressure of Jake’s body against hers that he was deeply and hotly aroused, and in the past she had always found that faintly disturbing, even alarming. Evidence, she had thought, of passions and emotions which seemed to pass her by, and which she had no wish to share.

Now, suddenly, it was exciting to know that she was wanted, and she evinced no kind of protest as his hands slid down her body to her slender hips, moulding her against him, because she knew that she wanted to be even closer still.

His hands moved on her without haste, his fingers stroking her body through the thin nightdress, the silky material creating a sweet erotic friction against her skin. She was silent, eyes closed, within the circle of his arms, conscious only of this new sensual clamour in her blood, the uneven race of her pulse.

A few hours before, the thought of his kiss had filled her with tension, but now, when his hand gently cupped her throat, tipping her head back slightly so that his mouth could find hers, she reached for him with blind eagerness, like a parched flower thirsting for rain. His lips were warm and incredibly sensuous, demanding and winning an equally passionate response from her. Her hands locked behind his dark head, she felt her senses swim, her body melt in quivering eagerness.

Still kissing her, Jake slid an arm beneath her knees, lifting her bodily off the floor, then carried her across the hall to the warm shadows of the drawing room.

He knelt, lowering her gently to the huge fur rug spread in front of the fire, sliding the robe from her shoulders as he did so. The breath caught in her throat as she looked up at him, saw the grey eyes glittering suddenly, and hungrily intent. With the first sign of impatience he had shown, he pushed down the straps of her nightgown, baring the small rounded breasts, and Lisle gasped, lifting her hands instinctively to cover herself.

His fingers gripped her wrists, tugging her hands away. He said in a low voice, ‘You’re too beautiful to hide yourself. Let me look at you. I want to see every perfect inch.’

He freed her arms, and pulled the nightdress down from her body. In an agony of shyness, Lisle closed her eyes as she felt the soft silk slither away. There was little light in the room, but she’d never been naked in front of a man before, and it was a shattering experience for her, the cool reserve, which had always been her safeguard, broken in pieces.

Jake kissed her deeply and hotly, the aching thrust of his lips against hers exciting her feverishly. His hands closed on her breasts, his fingertips stroking their sensitive peaks, and she gave a little husky moan, her mind blanking out at a point between desire and panic.

He pulled away from her, and she knew by his movements, from the small telltale rustling noises, that he was taking his clothes off. When he took her in his arms again, the point of no return would have been reached, she knew, and it wouldn’t be long after that before he was aware of her woeful lack of experience, and a long inward shudder gripped her as she wondered weakly what his reaction would be, recognising the fact that he could well be angry. After all, a willing woman was what he wanted, was expecting. A frightened virgin would make a poor substitute.

His lips brushed her eyelids. ‘Falling asleep?’ he sounded mocking. ‘You can’t be shy.’

Can’t I? she thought, her body thrilling involuntarily at the touch of his skin against hers.

‘Open your eyes,’ he ordered huskily. ‘You won’t be turned to stone.’ His hand moved down her body, moulding and tracing every supple fluent line as if he was learning her by heart, and she swallowed, her breath thickening as his fingers lingered intimately on her thigh, their subtle pressure luring her to a new and devastating submission. He was kissing her body, his mouth moving slowly and pleasurably on her skin, his head dark as night against her whiteness. She was dissolving in waves of delight, poised on the edge of yielding totally, letting those diabolically experienced hands explore her in any way he wished.

The sudden violent thresh of the telephone bell was like the shock of an electric current, a whiplash across her senses. Jake swore, levering himself away from her, the swift dark anger in his face turning to ruefulness as he looked down at her.

‘I’ll have to answer that before the Petersons do.’

Dry-mouthed, Lisle said, ‘Their room is in another wing. They won’t hear. …’

He drew a finger over her lips, silencing her. ‘You realise that it might be the hospital,’ he said quietly, and was gone.

She put her hands over her eyes, wanting to die of shame. No, she thought, it hadn’t occurred to her, because she’d been lost to all sense of reality, aware only of the devastation of this physical arousal he had created in her.

She sat up shivering, feeling bleak and cold, reaching for her crumpled nightdress and dragging it over her head, guilt and shame warring inside her.

How could she have behaved like this? she wondered desperately. In a matter of hours after their first meeting, Jake had made her act like the slut he believed her to be, and she would never forgive herself. Grandfather could be dying, and she had let a man she didn’t even like strip and touch her and kiss her, without lifting a finger to stop him.

She huddled on her robe, and sat hugging her knees, staring with empty eyes at the charred logs in the wide grate as she waited for Jake to come back.

He said from the doorway, ‘It’s Gerard. Returning the call you made to him earlier.’

Lisle got up stiffly, not daring to look at him, and fled to the library.

‘What’s he doing there?’ Gerard demanded instantly, without even the preamble of a greeting.

‘Taking over the company, unless you can stop him. What do you think?’ Lisle retorted.

He cursed viciously. ‘I’ll get the next plane out. Thank God Carla gave me your message, although it was touch and go,’ he added on a unmistakable note of satisfaction. ‘I don’t think she altogether believed you’re my sister. She was actually jealous!’

Lisle felt a little sick. ‘I’m not really interested in the emotional games you and your women friends play,’ she said tautly. ‘Aren’t you going to ask about Grandfather?’

‘Just how sick is he?’ he asked sharply. ‘What guarantee is there that I’m going to be in time?’

‘None at all,’ Lisle’s voice was crisp. ‘Thanks for caring.’

He sighed. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean it like that, sweetie. I’m just in a bit of a state, that’s all. I wasn’t expecting this—any of it.’

‘Nor was I.’ Lisle’s tone was still short. ‘Can I tell Grandfather that you’re on your way when we go and see him tomorrow—today?’ she corrected herself hurriedly.

‘Of course,’ Gerard said slowly. ‘Lisle—when you said “we” …’

‘That’s exactly what I meant.’ She was aware that Jake was standing in the doorway watching her, buttoning his shirt and stuffing it into the waistband of his slacks as he did so.

‘You keep that bastard away from Grandfather, do you hear!’ Gerard snapped with angry emphasis.

Lisle smiled bitterly. ‘If only it was as simple as that. Just get here as soon as you can.’ She put the receiver back on the rest and turned to face Jake with spurious calm.

He looked back at her with an angry disgust he did not bother to conceal. ‘I’d fogotten the telephone was in the library,’ he said half to himself. ‘That’s why you were in there, of course, summoning the cavalry to come galloping to the rescue.’ His mouth curled. ‘But you picked up the cue I gave you quite brilliantly, darling. When the world of public relations has nothing more to offer you, which should be soon, you might try the stage. A certain class of production, of course. All that romantic trembling, the modestly averted eyes as you take your clothes off, would be a riot with the dirty raincoat brigade.’

She shrugged elaborately, not daring to meet his hostile gaze directly. ‘It left you cold, naturally.’