A Little Revenge Omnibus (27 page)

Julian Cox.

She could remember now, but what had he to do with Ward? It was like lifting the newly formed scab off a vicious wound, opening the door to a dark cellar, knowing that what lay as yet unseen was something potentially threatening and frightening.

Anna forced herself to look a second time at the paper on Ward’s desk, and this time she deliberately read it.

When she had finished, her face was chalk white.

It was a report on Julian Cox and her as co-partners in an investment company.

Totally in shock, Anna walked into the kitchen, Whittaker following at her heels. Beside the Aga Missie was curled up in her basket. She jumped up as her mistress walked in and raced to the back door.

Walk time!

Anna stared at her blank-eyed and then automatically opened the door, following Missie out into the courtyard and then beyond it.

It was still raining but Anna neither noticed nor cared as she followed Missie up the steep hillside; she was totally absorbed in the traumatic chaos of her thoughts and the return of her memory.

She and Ward weren’t really lovers at all. He had come to see her, claiming that she had cheated his brother out of money. Anna could remember it all.

The path she was following climbed steeply; her clothes, her hair, her skin were drenched in rain, but she scarcely noticed. All around her the landscape was now clothed in a wet white mist, but Anna trudged on, placing one foot in front of the other like an automaton.

Ward didn’t love her—he didn’t even like her; but he had gone to bed with her, let her think...let her believe... Anna bit back the anguished sound that bubbled in her throat.

Oh, God, why? Why had he done it? To punish her, hurt her. Anna felt sick with shock and disbelief. Up ahead of her Missie barked and a startled rabbit suddenly shot across the path virtually under her feet, almost causing her to stumble.

Anna called out to her dog as she raced after the rabbit, but Missie ignored her, her small white body quickly melting into the surrounding mist-covered landscape.

Anna’s teeth started to chatter. It was almost impossible to believe it was summer, she felt so cold.

She called out to Missie again and then waited, listening, but all she could hear was the anxious thudding of her own heartbeat. A patch of slightly thicker mist caught her eye; swiftly she walked towards it, letting out a small protest of dismay when it dispersed without revealing her errant dog.

‘Missie,’ Anna called again, and was rewarded with an excited bark.

Thankfully, she turned towards the sound. She had lost the path now, and the hillside beneath her feet was rough with tussocks of grass and boulders. She almost stumbled on one of them but managed to save herself just in time, wincing as she realised that she had scraped the hand she had put out to prevent herself from falling.

‘Missie,’ she cried out anxiously, hearing the sound of her own voice bounce back to her in the mist.

This was crazy. She couldn’t possibly be more than a few minutes from the house, but she couldn’t see further than a few inches in front of her nose and she couldn’t recognise anything either. It made sense that if she went uphill she would be going further away and if she went down she had to be going back.

Half an hour later, her hands and clothes muddy from a series of stumbles, her heart pounding and her legs aching, Anna acknowledged that she had absolutely no idea where she was. Logically she ought to have reached the house long ago, but no matter how hard she tried to pierce the gloom of the mist all she could see was mist. A darker shadow suddenly loomed out of the hillside, making her scream in fright until she realised it was only a sheep—a sheep hotly followed by Missie.

‘Oh, Missie.’ She scolded the little dog in relief. ‘Where have you been, you naughty dog?’

She had a terrible pain in her head, a knife-like ache that was making her feel sick and dizzy. Missie wriggled in her arms and broke free.

Anna called to her to come back. She had to sit down, her legs felt so shaky and weak. The grass felt wet, but no wetter than her damp clothes. She was cold as well, but the cold on the outside of her body was no worse than the dreadful icy chill inside it.

How could Ward have done that to her?

Anna closed her eyes, trying to put her chaotic thoughts into some kind of order. She could remember that first meeting with him quite clearly—his anger, their argument. She could remember, too, seeing him again in the hospital. A low moan of pain escaped her as she recalled what she had said to him.

How could she have done that? What on earth had possessed her?

But he hadn’t corrected her. He had let her... Oh, the exquisite memory of what she had believed—how he must have relished it, knowing the humiliation that lay ahead of her once she regained her memory—the self-inflicted humiliation.

Dry-eyed, Anna stared into the mist. She was lost and alone but she didn’t care. She didn’t care if no one ever found her. In fact, she decided, it would be far better if they didn’t. How on earth was she going to face people now? How on earth was she going to face Ward? She had humiliated herself utterly and completely—and he had let her. And she had thought him so wonderful, so caring, so upright and honest.

Anna started to laugh, a wild, high-pitched sound, only partially muffled by the thickening mist.

CHAPTER NINE

W
ARD
HAD
BEEN
gone much longer than he had planned. He had bumped into an old friend of his mother’s in the garage, an elderly widow who had been having an anxious discussion with the mechanic about the state of her small car.

Automatically Ward had gone to see if she needed any help. It had turned out that the mechanic was trying to explain to her just why he considered her small car to be unfit to drive, but, as she had explained tearfully to Ward, she couldn’t manage without it nor afford to replace it.

After soothing her over tea in a nearby café, Ward had driven her home. He had then gone back to the garage where he had questioned the mechanic and given him certain instructions. After he had gone, the mechanic had shaken his head and told the apprentice, ‘Weird guy. He only wants me to replace that Mini with the one we’ve got for sale—and he’s paid cash for it—but he wants us to re-spray it the same colour as the other one. I warned him what it would cost but—’ he gave a brief shrug ‘—he said he wasn’t concerned about the cost... Like I said—weird...’

Ward had his apology and his explanation ready for Anna as he drove into the courtyard, but she wasn’t, as he had expected, waiting for him in the kitchen, annoyed by his tardiness. Her cat was there, though. Ward stroked him absently as he walked past him and into the hallway.

His study door was open, the report he had been reading the previous night still on his desk. He went in and picked it up. Last night he had made himself re-read it just to remind himself of exactly what Anna was, but it hadn’t worked. He had still gone to bed aching for her, longing for her, missing the soft, sweet weight of her in his arms. How was it possible for him to feel like that in such a short space of time, to miss her so intensely in his bed that he was constantly waking up, searching for her? It had been less than a fortnight since he had first met her, for God’s sake.

Less than a fortnight, hardly more than a week. No time at all, but more than time enough to change his whole life.

Abruptly he picked up the report, tore it in half and then in half again, needing an outlet for the anger he could feel building up inside him.

The house felt quiet and still...empty...just the way he liked it—just the way he used to like it! He called out Anna’s name sharply, warned by some prescient instinct even before he had taken the stairs two at a time and pushed open her bedroom door to discover her suitcase but no Anna.

It took him less than ten minutes to search the house from top to bottom.

No sign of her. So where was she?

In the kitchen the cat was lying triumphantly in Missie’s basket. Ward frowned. Where was Missie?

He glanced through the window, his heart starting to thud.

Surely Anna hadn’t taken her out for a walk in this?

He raced back into the courtyard calling both Anna and Missie’s names as he pulled on a thick waterproof country jacket.

She must surely have recognised how dangerous it was to walk anywhere in this mist. Even he, who knew the hills around here like the back of his hand, would have thought twice. It was the easiest thing in the world to get lost...

He found Missie first. She came flying towards him out of the mist, barking excitedly, flinging herself at him. She was wet and her white coat matted with mud.

Ward hugged her fiercely.

‘Where is she, Missie?’ he demanded thickly. ‘Where’s Anna? Where is she...?’

When he put her down Missie stared at him and wagged her tail.

‘Where is she, Missie?’ Ward begged. ‘Find Anna. Find her.’

The dog ran off uncertainly and then ran back to him.

Ward’s heart sank. Anna could be anywhere out there. Anywhere.

‘Anna... Anna...’ He cupped his hands together and called her name.

And then he heard it, the eerie, almost inhuman sound of someone laughing, so faint that at first he thought he must have imagined it.

Straining his ears, he listened, hurrying as fast as he dared in the direction of the faint sound.

‘Anna! Anna!’

Silence.

Ward cursed. At his feet Missie whined and then barked excitedly. Ward tensed hopefully, but she was only barking at a stray sheep.

‘No,’ he told her sternly as she made to chase it, but Missie wasn’t listening to him.

‘Missie,’ he called as she ran off, then plunged into the thick mist behind her, cursing her under his breath.

She was barking again, having no doubt caught up with the lumbering sheep. Ward could just about make out the shape of her up ahead of him. He hurried after her and then stopped abruptly as he saw why she had stopped.

Anna was sitting there on the hillside, looking as calm and unruffled as though she were sitting in the kitchen of her own home.

‘Anna!’

‘Hello, Ward,’ she greeted him quietly.

‘Anna!’

Relief poured through him as Ward hurried up to her.

‘What are you doing? What happened? Are you all right?’

In his anxiety Ward didn’t notice the way Anna was gripping her hands together to control the way she was shaking. She had heard him calling out to her and she had known that sooner or later he would find her and that once he did... But her head ached so much, hurt so much, that there was no way she could even think about what she ought to say to him. It was so much easier simply to say nothing, simply to let him take charge and urge her to her feet whilst he demanded to know why on earth she had gone for a walk in such dangerous conditions.

‘I didn’t realise,’ she told him emotionlessly. ‘I followed Missie...’

Her eyes felt heavy and she wanted to close them. She started to shiver violently.

Her body felt like ice but her face was flushed—almost feverishly so, Ward recognised in concern as he guided her carefully back towards the path.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Ward demanded anxiously once they were back in the farmhouse kitchen. ‘You don’t look well. Perhaps I should get a doctor out...’

‘No,’ Anna responded sharply. ‘No. I’m fine... Besides, we’re leaving anyway, aren’t we?’

‘Leaving?’ Ward looked at her grimly. ‘Not until you’ve had a hot bath and something to eat, we aren’t,’ he told her firmly.

‘I’ve packed all my clothes,’ Anna objected.

‘Then I’ll unpack some for you,’ Ward told her, adding sternly, ‘You’re soaking wet, Anna; you can’t go anywhere like that.’

Ward was growing increasingly concerned about her. She seemed so cold and distant, so unlike her normal warm, loving self. He should never have left her alone for so long. Anything could have happened to her out there on the moors. As it was, she would be lucky if she didn’t end up with a severe cold, if not something worse, and it would all be his fault.

Anna started to shiver convulsively. Ward cursed under his breath, sweeping her up into his arms.

‘What are you doing? Put me down,’ Anna objected, but Ward refused to listen to her.

The en suite bathroom off his own room had a huge whirlpool bath, which his mother had persuaded him to install.

‘They’re wonderful for rheumatism,’ she had told him.

‘But I don’t have rheumatism,’ Ward had pointed out.

‘Not yet,’ she had agreed. ‘But you aren’t getting any younger, you know, Ward.’

It had been a dig at the fact that he wasn’t married, that he hadn’t provided her with any grandchildren; Ward knew that but he had still installed the bath. Not that he often used it. He preferred to shower, but right now he was mentally blessing his mother for her interference as he kicked the bathroom door shut behind him and carefully placed Anna down on her feet.

‘Ward...’ Anna began to protest as he started to run the bath and fill it with hot water.

But then she stopped speaking as she was seized by another violent fit of shivers that made her teeth chatter. Ward had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to fill the bath and Anna noticed distantly how the light glinted on the soft fine hair on his arms. He was such a masculine man, such a male man, and she had felt so very, very safe in his arms. She gave a small sob and closed her eyes, only to open them again as she felt Ward’s hands on her body, tugging at her clothes.

‘Anna, for heaven’s sake,’ Ward protested as she started to push him away.

‘I can undress myself,’ she told him fiercely. ‘I will undress myself,’ she added pointedly. ‘When you’ve gone...’

Ward wasn’t going to argue. She was behaving very oddly, but the longer she stood there in her soaking wet clothes the greater her chances of becoming ill.

Shrugging, he walked past her and opened the bathroom door.

Anna waited until he had closed it behind him before inspecting it. No lock. Her lips tightened, her eyes suddenly bleak. She wasn’t really afraid that he was going to come back or try to force himself on her. After all, he had had the opportunity to have as much sex with her as he could have wanted these last few days and he had totally ignored her. She gave a bitter, mirthless smile.

Was there no end to her humiliation at his hands? First he encouraged her to betray herself to him in the most intimate way possible and then he rejected her.

Bitterly she tugged off her clothes and then stepped into the hot water, gasping a little as its heat touched her icy cold skin. The bath really was huge, easily large enough for two people, even when one of them was as big as Ward.

Ward!

Anna closed her eyes as two tears dripped down her face. Angrily she reached for the button that turned on the bath’s water jets. What was she crying for? She hated him...hated him...

* * *

‘A
NNA
...?’

Ward paused outside the closed bathroom door as he called Anna’s name. No reply. Anxiously he opened the door and then stopped.

Anna was curled up on the bathroom floor, fast asleep, wrapped in a towel. With her hair damp and her face free of make-up she looked so young, so vulnerable, so...so lovable.

His throat raw with emotion, Ward leaned down and picked her up. Sleepily she opened her eyes and whispered drowsily, ‘Ward...’

‘Shush, it’s all right. Go back to sleep,’ Ward told her gently as he carried her through to the bedroom and placed her on his bed. Carefully tucking the duvet round her, Ward faced the truth. He loved her and there was no way he could ever let her go. No matter what she might have done. It was so odd, but now that his fight to deny how he felt about her was over and he had lost he actually felt almost euphoric with relief, as though a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

What he was thinking, feeling, planning was contrary to everything he had always believed in, and yet all he could feel was a tremendous surge of joy that he was finally free to admit his love for her.

Once he was sure she was comfortable he went back downstairs. Missie and Whittaker still had to be fed and he had some work he might as well do whilst he waited for Anna to wake up.

* * *

F
OR
THE
REST
of the day Anna drifted in and out of an uneasy sleep. Several times Ward went up to check on her, reluctant to wake her but anxiously checking her skin and her pulse just in case she had a temperature.

He ate a solitary evening meal. Outside the mist had started to lift. The house was quiet but not empty. Not any longer, not any more.

Humming lightly to himself, Ward went upstairs again. Anna woke up as the bed depressed beneath Ward’s weight when he got in beside her.

‘Ward.’

‘Mmm...’ he acknowledged as he reached for her, wrapping his arms tightly around her as he drew her down against his body—his very male and totally naked body, Anna recognised in shock. She wanted to tell him not to touch her, not to lie to her and deceive her, but Ward had already started to kiss her, gently at first and with such false tenderness that her eyes filled with tears.

‘Don’t cry, don’t cry,’ she heard him whisper softly. ‘You’re safe here with me, Anna. You’re safe now. Everything’s all right...’

Everything wasn’t all right. Anna knew that, but her body was turning traitor on her and Ward’s kisses were growing increasingly intense and passionate.

She tried to resist him and she might have succeeded, but she couldn’t resist herself. She wanted him so...loved him so... Her heart gave a painful jolt against her ribs.

‘You’re shivering,’ Ward told her huskily. ‘Are you cold? How do you feel? Are you all right?’

Anna knew that she wasn’t shivering, she was trembling, and the cause of her tremors wasn’t any residual cold from being trapped on the misty hillside but something much more immediate and personal. In fact, the cause of them was lying right beside her, holding her, stroking her arms with pseudo-tender, caring little caresses as though he wanted to comfort her with his own body heat. What was it about men that allowed them to behave so differently from women? He didn’t love her, didn’t even like her, and he certainly wasn’t blinded to the truth by any amnesia, and yet here he was, holding her, touching her, making love with her as though...as though...

Only her pride prevented Anna from blurting out that she had regained her memory; that she knew everything. Her pride and the sure knowledge that if she did so now the admission would be ignominiously accompanied by her tears, her anguish and pain that he should have treated her so callously and so cruelly. Surely, no matter what her supposed crime, to have done what Ward had done was a punishment far, far in excess of any true form of justice.

‘Anna...’

Perhaps if she just closed her eyes and lay still he would stop touching her, withdraw from her and leave her alone. Anna knew that she couldn’t trust her own voice to tell him that she didn’t want him, and she certainly couldn’t answer any of the questions he might try to ask her.

She didn’t want him. Behind her closed eyelids Anna felt her eyes burn with acidly bitter shaming tears. She couldn’t lie to herself. She did want him. She wanted his tenderness, she wanted his touch, she wanted his love.

How could she, when everything he had allowed her to believe was a fiction?