Dark Summer Dawn (18 page)

But she certainly did not expect the next development. She was alone in the drawing room one afternoon when the door opened rather abruptly and Celia was shown in by a flustered-looking Mrs Arkwright.

'Oh.' Lisa put down the newspaper she'd been glancing at and got to her feet. 'Hello, Celia. Did you want to speak to Julie? She's not here at the moment. She…'

'I did not want to speak to Julie. My business is with you.' Celia snapped the words out, her eyes bright with anger.

'I don't think I understand,' Lisa said carefully.

'Oh, I'm sure you do.' Celia gave an unpleasant laugh. 'It's a pity there's no one here with a camera now. You could pose for a picture of guilt.' She walked aggressively up to Lisa and stood staring at her. 'Keep away from my husband!'

'Oh, come on,' Lisa exploded in her turn. 'I haven't seen him, except in your company.'

'Liar!' Celia's breathing was stormy. 'You've been with him, in his car when you were both supposed to be somewhere else. And you've been meeting him on the sly. I'm not a fool!'

Lisa controlled her temper with an effort. 'I'm sure you're not, but really, Celia, you're on the point of making an utter fool of yourself. James gave me a lift once, and once only. We really haven't the slightest interest in each other.'

'And you expect me to believe that?' Celia gave an incredulous laugh utterly devoid of mirth. 'Ever since you came back, James has been different—moody, restless, barely answering me civilly. And he can't even do his work properly. My father is furious.'

'Perhaps he's not well,' Lisa suggested temperately.

'Perhaps he's lovesick,' Celia snapped. 'Of course he was flattered by your interest—he's a man when all's said and done. But don't imagine there's anything more in it than that. James is married to me, and he knows when he's well off. He won't leave me.'

Lisa was suddenly weary, and disgusted by the vulgarity of Celia's remarks. 'Are you really sure of that? I'd have thought your visit here today was a sign of insecurity rather than anything else.'

Celia's hand jerked up and administered a vicious slap across Lisa's cheek. Lisa recoiled with a little cry, as a grim voice behind them demanded, 'Exactly what is going on here?'

'Dane!' Celia swung to him, her hands outstretched. 'I'm sorry to have made a scene, but I cannot reason with this girl. She doesn't realise the harm she's doing to my marriage —to me. I came here this afternoon to appeal to her, to try and make her see the damage her thoughtlessness is doing—and I'm afraid I lost my temper.'

Dane's voice became gentler. He said, 'I suggest you go home, Celia. You're doing no good here. I'll deal with Lisa myself.'

He escorted her to the door, and they disappeared. Presently Lisa, still standing rigidly by the sofa, heard the sound of Celia's car drawing away.

By the time Dane returned she was almost molten with rage.

'Before you say a word,' she said between gritted teeth, 'I am not, nor have I ever been having an affair with James Dalton. If he is carrying on with another woman, and God knows I wouldn't blame him, then his charming wife can look elsewhere for the culprit. It—is—not—me.'

'You little fool!' His voice bit at her. 'Didn't I warn you about Celia—about her obsessive jealousy? God knows you've done everything you can to add fuel to the flames— talking about your girlhood crush on Dalton, accepting lifts in his car.'

She wanted to protest. After all, it wasn't her who had mentioned her crush, but Julie—and Julie had forced her into the position of having to come home with James. She wanted to say so, but something held her silent, some tiny flicker of unease.

Meanwhile Dane went on relentlessly, 'You'd better thank your lucky stars she only slapped you. It wouldn't have done your face much good if she'd used her nails, as she's quite capable of doing.'

Lisa felt a swift rush of nausea. She kept seeing Celia's face contorted with jealousy and rage, hearing her voice raised shrewishly, and for a moment she swayed a little, her hand raised to her burning cheek.

'Lisa!' Dane's voice sharpened into something like concern.

'I'm all right,' she said in a low voice. 'Just let me sit down for a moment.'

He swore under his breath, then moving as swiftly as a tiger stalking his prey, he lifted her into his arms and placed her on the sofa.

She stiffened in panic. 'Leave me alone!'

'Be quiet!' His voice was terse. 'I'll get you some brandy.'

'I hate brandy.' She found she was crying. Enormous tears she was unable to control were rolling down her pale cheeks. 'Just leave me alone—please. Oh, why did you ever have to bring me back here? I wish I'd died first!'

Dane's voice was harsh. 'And I? What do you imagine I feel? Don't you think I haven't cursed the day you came here? Do you think I haven't wished the past to be dead and buried a thousand times? But it isn't that easy, Lisa.' His voice sank almost to a whisper. 'You're like a madness inside me, a fever I can't cure.' He put out a hand, twining his fingers in her hair, examining the silky strands as if they were some exotic fabric, altogether foreign to his experience. Then his gaze shifted, resting almost tormentedly on her parted lips. He spoke hoarsely, his voice scarcely recognisable. 'Dear God, Lisa, give me back my peace of mind!'

He leaned forward, and his mouth took hungry possession of hers, kissing her so deeply that it seemed he would drain her sweetness dry.

She tried to struggle, but her body was pinned to the softness of the cushions by the weight of his, and she was unable to move except to lift and mould herself more closely against him. His hands were cupping her face, his thumbs softly stroking the line of her jaw, the curve of her throat, and all desire to fight him was dissolving away under the mastery of his touch.

His lips left hers and began to kiss her skin in brief featherlight caresses which left her craving for more. He let his mouth brush hers, then moved to linger on the lobe of her ear and the small erratic pulse in her throat.

Lisa heard herself gasp. Her hands slid up convulsively to fasten at the back of his head and draw him urgently down to her. Nothing seemed to matter except this wild excitement that Dane was creating within her. The bitter sterility of the past months seemed to roll away, and she was a young girl again, just emerging from the chrysalis of childhood, experiencing her first taste of physical passion with a man she had begun to love with all the singleof her youthful heart.

The realisation of it dazed her. All her life she had been telling herself she hated him, it seemed. But it wasn't true. She knew that now. Oh, in the beginning she had resented him, his lordly attitude, but his good opinions had mattered to her desperately. Even a casual word of praise had made her glow, and though they had been rare, she had treasured each one.

Even when she had joked with Julie over Dane's girlshe had been aware of this strange, poignant ache deep within her.

She had told herself that she hated him, that his angry, contemptuous violation of her had withered the flowering of her womanhood, imposing a burden of frigidity upon her from which she could never recover. Every time another man had kissed her, tried to touch her, she had recoiled. And now she knew why.

As Dane's mouth gentled hers, as his hands stroked her body, her instinct carried her blindly towards passionate surrender. This was the power he had over her—that even when she had been most wounded by him, she would still have crawled to his feet for a tender word, a caress. That was what she had fled from—the acknowledgement of her submission, of the longing for him which transcended everything.

She was kissing him in her turn now, her lips moving softly and feverishly along the high cheekbones, the hard line of his jaw. She could think now of that with regret instead of bitterness, knowing how different, how glorious it could have been.

A faint moan escaped her as Dane's hands slid beneath the fine wool sweater she wore to find and release the catch on her bra. He touched her breasts as if they were flowers, and they swelled and blossomed under his questing fingers.

Her yearning for him was becoming an agony. She was moving restlessly against him, her fingers tangling in his thick hair, tasting him, breathing him, longing to enfold him in the closest embrace of all.

Suddenly he groaned 'No!' against her mouth and levered himself up, away from her. There was a glazed, burning look in his eyes as he stared down at her, and strands of hair curled damply on his forehead. Lisa looked back at him, letting him read her own deep desires in her half-closed eyes, her languorous body and the softness of her trembling mouth.

She whispered longingly, 'Dane,' and he shook his head almost violently, jerking away from her so that he was sitting at the other end of the sofa, not touching her.

He muttered, 'Oh God, Lisa, what are we doing? We must be mad!' He looked around him, his mouth curling in self-derision. 'My father's drawing room,' he said flatly. 'Anyone could walk in at any time, yet you make me forget everything—even my sense of decency.'

She sat up stiffly, trying to push her sweater back into the waistband of her skirt with hands that shook too much to allow her to accomplish this simple task.

He said roughly, 'Let me.'

Lisa sat with bent head while he refastened and straightened her clothes as if she had been a child again. His breath was warm on her neck, on her averted cheek, and she felt him lift the heavy fall of tawny hair in his hands and carry it to his lips, burying his face in its scented mass. She quivered, remembering how only days before he had recoiled from the accidental brush of her hair across his face as if it had been contamination. He kissed the uncovered nape of her neck, his lips slow and tantalising, and she turned with a shudder of passion, her mouth seeking his.

He murmured something under his breath, then bent and kissed her again, a long leisurely exploration of her mouth which had her clinging mindlessly to him.

When he released her her head fell back against his shoulder.

He said thickly, 'I must have you. We must have each other. You know that, don't you? You're in my blood, God help us both.' He pushed the soft cloud of hair back from her face and looked down into her eyes, his own gaze questing and intent. 'Come to me tonight, Lisa.'

She could not deny him or the clamour of her senses. So she said on a little sigh, 'Yes—oh, yes!'

Dane bent and brushed his mouth across hers in promise and possession, then he rose and went quickly out of the room.

Lisa lifted her hand and pressed it against her lips as if she could capture and hold there Dane's last kiss. She felt almost dazed. What had just happened between them seemed past belief, and now she needed time to think, to consider it.

She could hear voices approaching the drawing room and she rose quickly and went over to the french windows, letting herself out into the cold air. It was late afternoon and already nearly dark, and a few flakes of snow drifted in the air, and Lisa went down the terrace steps on to the gravelled walk that traversed the house, uncaring of the cold.

She'd had to escape, she thought. She couldn't face anyone, take part in any normal conversation when her emotions were in such a turmoil.

Julie was probably too absorbed in her own affairs to pay much attention, but Chas would notice that she was distraite, she thought, lifting her hands and pressing them against her flushed cheeks.

It had occurred to her by now that Dane had not said one word of love. He had spoken of desire, of possession, of a fever in the blood, but that was all. She shivered suddenly, telling herself that it was the ice in the wind getting to her. She hugged her arms around her body and began to walk slowly round the house, keeping in its shelter.

Don't be a fool, she told herself harshly. It isn't a permanent relationship he's looking for. It's a cure for his fever. When the wedding is over and I'm back in London that will be the end of it.

But at least I'll have had tonight, and I can live on that for as long as I have to. Perhaps I'll be cured too, freed from these chains he's had round me since the first time I saw him. I can make a life for myself away from here, away from him. I've done it before. I'm a success.

And for him there'll be his work, this house and Tina or some other suitable lady.

She stopped at that, and stood staring unseeingly in front of her while the snowflakes clung to her face like frozen tears.

She went back into the house through the side door meaning to slip upstairs quietly to change for dinner, but the hall seemed unexpectedly crowded. Chas was there, looking handsome and leonine in one of his favourite velvet jackets, and Dane was standing behind him.

Lisa's heart missed a beat at the sight of him. She thought unsteadily, 'Oh God, I love him sol'

She wanted him to look at her, to smile, to share their secret knowledge that they would be together that night as lovers. But he didn't smile. His eyes as they met hers were as remote as a stranger's.

Julie started forward. 'Oh, there you are, darling. Lisa, you haven't been out in the snow without your coat? You'll have pneumonia for the wedding. No wonder I couldn't find you!'

'Have you been looking for me?' It was a stupid question, she thought, but what did it matter? All she really wanted to know was why Dane suddenly seemed a stranger again.

Julie laughed. 'All over the house. You've had a phone call—someone with a very sexy voice, called Simon. It seems he's missing you.'

Lisa stood very still. She said, 'But that's impossible! I didn't tell him where I was going.'

'Apparently he badgered the address from someone called Dinah. He said he knew you'd forgive him.' Julie laughed again. 'Well, darling, I think you might look a little more pleased. Isn't it nice to have a devoted swain pining for your return?'

Lisa didn't look at Dane. She said lightly, 'Fantastic. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go up and change.'

'But aren't you going to phone him back?' Julie asked wonderingly.'

Lisa's fingers tightened on the ornately carved banister rail. She said, 'Later, maybe,' and went upstairs without looking back.