Don't Hurt Me (12 page)

  
‘We were,’ Julia admitted. ‘But I
wanted to look at the cathedral and she wasn’t keen. I’m sure she’ll be here
any minute.’

  
He looked back at her, his jaw
tightening, but said nothing. In the warm atmosphere of the museum cafe, he had
shed his sheepskin jacket and was sitting opposite her in a dark blue shirt,
casually open at the neck, his fingers tapping impatiently on the table top.
She was reminded again of a caged tiger, his whole body tensed, a muscle
jerking in his cheek as he waited for Victoria to arrive.

  
‘You have to trust her sometime,’
she pointed out lightly.

  
‘It’s only a few days since we had
to chase up to London after her,’ he said with dry emphasis. His eyes flicked
to the entrance door and back again. ‘Victoria may seem happier now but I’m not
one hundred percent convinced.’

  
‘What do you mean?’

  
‘As soon as you relax your guard
with any female, regardless of her age or disposition, she knocks you for six
by doing something completely unpredictable.’

  
‘We’re talking about your daughter.
Not your ex-wife.’

  
He met her eyes then, his gaze cool
and sardonic. ‘Very amusing. When you’ve finished played the amateur
psychologist, perhaps we could discuss your illustrations for the book. I was
impressed with your latest drawing of the tiger. You really captured the mood
of the novel there. But I’m not so keen on your portrayal of the girl. She’s
too timid. And her hair is all wrong. It should be loose, not in pigtails.
Perhaps even a little wild-looking.’

  
‘That’s not how I see her – ’

  
He interrupted her sharply. ‘You’re
the illustrator, not the writer. Make these drawings your own, by all means.
But you must keep to the spirit of the original. Is that understood?’

  
Keeping a tight rein on her own
temper, Julia nodded and picked up the menu again, pretending to read it while
she seethed inwardly at his arrogance. She found it hard to stay cool and
detached when he was looking at her with those narrowed eyes. He was
infuriating, she thought, itching to tell him to go to hell. Such an outburst
would only serve to amuse him though. Not to mention the fact that her agent
Richard would be furious with her too. It would be a costly gesture to walk out
on her contract at this late stage.

  
She tried not to let her animosity
show, glancing at him over the menu with a saccharine smile. ‘I’ll see what I
can do,’ she agreed. ‘There should be time to make the necessary changes before
I leave.’

  
Marshall sat there without speaking
for a moment, but she sensed an unexplained tension in the air and frowned,
wondering what he was thinking. Picking up his own menu, he ran his eyes down
the selection of meals with a curiously blank expression. ‘I’d forgotten you
were going home this weekend. Saturday, isn’t it?’

  
‘First thing in the morning,’ she
nodded calmly. ‘Could you let me have the number of a good local taxi firm? I
need to book an early pick-up to the railway station.’

  
‘No need. I’ll run you there
myself.’

  
She looked at him, surprised by the
curt tone. ‘Thanks,’ she said huskily, inclining her head so that he could not
read the expression in her eyes. ‘That would be perfect.’

  
‘No problem.’ Straightening up in
his seat, Marshall lifted his head and gestured abruptly to someone over her
shoulder. His voice had become hostile, almost antagonistic. ‘There’s Victoria.
Now at last we can order some food and get the hell out of here. I’ve got work
to do back at Moor’s Peak.’

  
The meal passed in an odd silence
after that, Victoria glancing from one to the other with a surprised look but
saying nothing. The cafe only served light lunches, so they had an assortment
of sandwiches and a slice of cake to follow. Julia chose a meltingly delicious
apple strudel, served with whipped cream. When they had finished, Marshall
helped his daughter to carry the heavy shopping bags and they began to make
their way back to the car park.

  
Passing an exclusive-looking arcade
of shops in the city centre, a woman’s voice called out and they all stopped,
glancing round.

  
It was Sasha, dressed exquisitely
in red and black woollen check, designer heels adding an extra two inches of
height. She came hurrying out of a jewellery shop and flung her arms around
Marshall with a cry. ‘I’ve been calling you, darling. Didn’t you get the
message I left on your mobile? There’s a party tonight at Oscar’s and I want
you to take me. Say you will, darling.’

  
Marshall hesitated, shooting a
brief glance at Julia over the other woman’s shoulder before looking down into
Sasha’s face. He fumbled in his jacket pocket and threw the car keys to his
daughter, dismissing them both with a cursory gesture. ‘You two go on ahead.
I’ll meet you at the car in a few minutes.’

  
Struggling back to the car with the
shopping bags, Julia stared straight ahead, an angry flush in her cheeks. So
his relationship with that woman was over, was it? That was not how it had
looked to her just now. He had certainly not pushed her away.

  
‘That was Sasha’s shop, by the
way,’ Victoria commented, glancing at her curiously. ‘She makes some of the
jewellery herself. Necklaces and bracelets. Dad says she’s very talented.’

  
‘Does he indeed?’ Julia replied, a
distinct snap in her voice, then instantly regretted having spoken to the girl
so sharply. Putting her arm around Victoria, she gave her a quick hug. ‘Sorry,
I didn’t mean to snap. I’m just a bit tired after all that shopping.’

  
‘That’s okay.’

  
They reached the car and unlocked
it, carefully packing the shopping bags into the boot. It was windy in the
multi-storey car park. Victoria tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear,
watching Julia with a knowing smile on her face.

  
‘You like my dad, don’t you?’ she
asked shyly. When Julia spun to stare at her, a protest already forming on her
lips, the girl shook her head. ‘Don’t bother to deny it. I’m not stupid. I’ve
seen the way you look at him.’

  
‘Oh,’ she muttered, her face hot.

  
Victoria grinned at her reaction.
‘And if he prefers that silly cow Sasha to you, then he must be crazy. I’d much
rather have you as my step-mum than her.’

  
‘Vicky, you mustn’t say things like
that,’ she exclaimed, horrified to see Marshall heading towards them across the
car park. What if he had overhead their little exchange? Her voice dropped to
an urgent whisper. ‘I’m serious. Promise you won’t ever repeat that, especially
in front of your father.’

  
‘Fine,’ the girl shrugged, getting
into the car. ‘I promise. But I still think he must be crazy.’

  
Marshall gave her an odd look as he
slid behind the steering wheel, no doubt sensing that something had occurred in
his absence. He glanced at Victoria in the back seat of the car, then turned
his gaze to her, the strange eyes probing her face intently.

  
‘Anything wrong?’

  
Julia shook her head mutely and
tore her eyes away from his, not daring to answer in case he heard the
shakiness in her voice. To her relief though, he started the engine and drove
out of the city without pursuing the matter any further.

  
As they headed back through the
wild Cornish landscape, she found herself turning Victoria’s words feverishly
over in her mind. Was her attraction for him so glaringly obvious? If Victoria
could see it, she realised, then he must be aware of it too.

  
The thought made her sick with
embarrassment, hands clenched into fists in her lap. The moor flashed past but
she barely glanced at it, oblivious to the rugged splendour of its wind-torn
peaks and crags. In a few days she would be safely back in London, alone in her
flat. Until then, she had to find a better way to hide her feelings for
Marshall or risk losing her self-respect forever.

  
Her last few days at Moor’s Peak
passed in a blur, the weather matching her mood as chill winds tore the
remaining leaves from the trees, leaving stark branches against a brooding sky.
She finally managed to complete her portfolio of illustrations for
The Wounded Tiger
and presented them to
Marshall, pleased to see approval on his face as he looked through them. They
had not seen much of each other since the shopping trip to Truro, both wrapped
up in their own work and only meeting for evening meals around the kitchen
table.

  
She sketched outside in the
mornings while the light was still good, eager to take this view of the moor and
the lake home with her to London. Telling herself they might prove useful for
some future project, she tried not to admit that they were mementoes of her
time here; stolen little glimpses of a place she would forever associate with
him, a passionate yearning she could never consummate.

  
There were times when she found it
hard not to reveal herself, glancing up from her work to see him traipsing
across the fields in the distance, deep in his own thoughts. At such moments,
her heart would leap in her chest like a wild salmon and she would stare after
him with such intensity that it seemed impossible he could not feel her eyes on
his back. Her hunger for him was dangerous.

  
It was not real, she had to remind
herself, her hand moving across the paper again with an increased ferocity.
Each stroke of the charcoal pencil took a little more of her tension away. And
that was how this hunger would pass in the end, leaving her cold and empty. It
was better to suppress it and return to London with her dignity intact.

  
On her last evening, he invited her
into his study for a glass of wine after supper. She and Victoria had already
said their goodbyes, Julia surprised by her own emotion. Over the past two
weeks she had developed quite an affection for the girl.

  
Now Victoria had gone up to bed and
she was alone with Marshall, sitting on the deep ox-blood Chesterfield in his
study. She clutched her glass with a growing sense of apprehension, only too
aware of his proximity as she watched him move about the room.

  
‘I’ll make us a fire,’ he murmured,
noticing her slight shudder. ‘It’s always chilly in here during the winter
months. I really ought to move into the main part of the house where it’s
warmer. But the view’s superb from these windows, it’s worth having to put on
an extra jumper when I come in here to work.’

  
Marshall crouched for a moment to
stack logs in the open hearth, pushing screwed-up pieces of newspaper into the
gaps between them to help the fire catch. She watched him from beneath lowered
lids as he stood up from the hearth, waiting for the flickering tongues of
flame to grow higher. His dark hair was slicked right back, the thick
fisherman’s jumper still damp from the rain where he had been chopping logs
before supper. Her gaze moved hungrily over the tough lines of his face, even
the scar running up his sinewy throat towards his mouth, unable to disguise her
need.

  
One of the logs rolled out of
position just as the fire began to take hold and he lunged forward, catching it
before it fell smouldering into the hearth.
  
Glancing
round at her with a wry smile, their eyes met and her heart almost crashed, an
electric desire running through her body like a bolt of lightning.

  
Julia looked hurriedly away. Her
nerves were on full alert though. If she did not get out of this house soon,
she was going to make a fool of herself again. Trying to distract him, she
nodded at the sheets of paper piled up on the desk.

  
‘Is that the new book you’ve been
working on? It looks almost finished.’

  
From his ironic expression, she
guessed that her plan to distract him had not worked, his gaze dropping from
her face to the tell-tale tremble of her fingers. But he did not comment,
rising gracefully from the hearth and pouring himself a glass of wine. ‘The
last chapter isn’t quite there yet,’ he acknowledged. ‘But it should be
finished in time for the deadline. I often have a little trouble with endings.’

  
‘You don’t want to say goodbye to
the characters?’ she queried, fascinated by his working methods.

  
‘Not entirely,’ he said drily. ‘I
like my stories to be perfect and, as everyone knows, perfection is never
achievable. So I tend to get cold feet once the last few pages are in sight.’

  
‘Fear of completion?’

  
He smiled, settling down next to
her on the comfortable leather Chesterfield. His thigh pressed against hers as
he leant back, his head turning in her direction, so close she could see tiny
flecks of green in the hazel eyes. ‘Something like that. Do you ever feel the
same about your own work?’