Dragon's Lair (27 page)

she was lying with her head on his shoulder and her good arm flung

possessively across his bare chest. „

She knew what had woken her. Her right shoulder felt cramped

from the unnatural position her broken arm had got into. Moving

carefully so as not to wake Gethyn, she moved her arm to a more

reasonable level, and eased her shoulder ruefully. It was

encouraging to find that her arm hardly hurt at all this morning, and

there was no sign of swelling or discoloration in her fingers.

She was thankful she had woken first. It was one thing for Gethyn

to keep her warm in the night, but quite another for him to wake up

and find her draped all round him. Not that he wasn't perfectly

capable of extricating himself from the situation if he was so

minded, she thought bitterly, recalling how he had left her bed

without waking her on the day he left for America, and she had

fallen asleep wrapped in his arms only a few hours previously.

She sat up warily and glanced at her wristwatch. It was just past

seven a.m. She turned and looked down at him. He looked much

younger when he was asleep. The harshness seemed wiped

magically from his face. Almost as if he was conscious of her

regard, he stirred suddenly and muttered something. She bent

closer, frowning a little as she tried to catch the words, and heard,

'Rydw i eisiau cusan.'
Whatever that meant. She straightened

hurriedly as his eyelids flickered and opened.

'Good morning,' he said lazily. He lifted his hands and raked them

through his dark hair. 'And how is your arm this beautiful morning?'

'Fine,' she replied huskily. She was only too aware of his potent

attraction. The tan on his shoulders and chest looked darker still

against the white sheets. -His hair was tousled and the green eyes

were lazily warm as they looked at her. Davina felt the silence

between them fill with all kinds of tensions. She could feel her heart

beating with a slow languor. Her lips parted soundlessly and she

moistened them with the tip of her tongue.

Gethyn sat up with sudden briskness. 'Well, that makes good

hearing. I'll be getting up now. We don't want to make too late a

start.'

'But it's still early. What time is breakfast?' Davina heard herself

protest lamely, and blushed.

'I haven't the faintest idea, but if I get up, no doubt I can find out.'

Gethyn spoke with studied patience. The warmth in his eyes had

faded, and he looked edgy.

Davina shrugged rather sulkily. 'Just as you please. If you're sure

Mrs Evans won't mind you roaming around downstairs before the

house is awake.'

Gethyn exhaled deeply.

'Davina,' he said with ominous calm, 'if you know what's good for

you, you won't argue any more. I'm trying—none too subtly, I

admit—to get out of this bed, and out of this room as well, come to

that.'

'Well, don't let me stop you.' Davina hunched a shoulder irritably.

He swore under his breath.
'Duw,
girl, don't you see that's exactly

what you are doing? Even with your arm in plaster and that—act of

vandalism you had perpetrated on your hair, you're still so lovely

that you tear at my guts. And in a minute you're going to ask me to

help you get dressed.' He swore again and began to push back the

covers.

'You talk in your sleep,' she told his back as he sat on the edge of

the bed and reached for his jeans.

'Only talk?' he enquired derisively. 'I'm surprised I don't gibber and

foam at the mouth.'

'What did you say?'

He threw her a look over his shoulder and she flushed again at the

idiocy of the question. 'It was in Welsh,' she mumbled, staring down

at the bedspread.

'Well, at least I have that much sense. If everyone sleeptalked in a

different language, it would probably save a hell of a lot of

recriminations in the morning,' he said drily.

'Please tell me what you said. I can remember what it sounded like.'

Haltingly she repeated the musical syllables. Gethyn was very still

suddenly. Then he gave a brief unamused laugh.

'Said that, did I? I must have been having sweet dreams. I wish I

could remember them. It means,
anwylwyd,
"I want a kiss." '

Without pausing to question the wisdom of her action, she leaned

across and pressed her lips to his brown, muscular back, halfway

down his spine.

He turned slowly and looked down at her. Davina leaned back

against the pillow and laughed up at him, but there was no

answering amusement in his face.

'What the hell do you think you're playing at?' he said very evenly.

'Have you any idea of the risk you're running— of how close I came

just now to breaking my word to you? I promised not to touch you,

and you're not making it easy for me, Davina.'

'And you're not making it easy for me either.' She was aware of the

provocative picture she must make in the brief lacy bra that barely

covered her breasts.

He said very softly, 'Then let's make it easy for both of us.' He

swung himself back on to the bed, and lay only inches away from

her, his eyes burning into hers. She tried to steady her suddenly

ragged breathing, but it was impossible. He put out a finger and

gently stroked the curve of her cheek, the lobe of her ear and the

long smooth line of her throat. And paused.

'Haven't you something to say to me?' he murmured. 'You were

fluent enough a moment ago.'

He repeated the syllables with her under his breath, smiling a little

as she stumbled in her eagerness to be word perfect.

'Rydw i eisiau cusan,
Gethyn,' she whispered at last. Her eyes

shone at him and her lips parted tremulously. 'Oh, darling,
rydw i

eisiau cusan.'

Her plea was forgotten as his lips met hers with a fierce seeking

wonder, and she responded without reserve. Her uninjured arm

went up to clasp his neck and her fingers tangled in his hair as she

held him to her. His mouth caressed her eyes, her ears, her throat

before returning over and over again to her lips as if he would drain

their sweetness dry. His hands moved on her, caressing her with

passionate longing, removing the final frail barriers to his desire.

There was not an inch of her body that he did not explore with

intimate awareness, arousing her to a need as great as his own.

At last he lifted himself over her, his eyes fierce as a dragon's as he

stared down at the glow, the sheer wanton invitation of her.

'Oh, God, I love you, Davina,' he said hoarsely. 'Tell me you love

me,
cariad,
even if it isn't true. Say that you want me.'

She thought that her heart would burst with her joy.

'My love, my own ...' Her voice broke as she welcomed him to her.

Afterwards as she lay at peace in his arms, she murmured, 'What

was that you were saying about a divorce ...?'

'A divorce?' He frowned teasingly, pretending to try and remember.

He bent and kissed one of the soft strands of hair straying across

her forehead. 'Do you really think I'd let you go now,
anwylyd?'

She put up a hand and stroked his cheek. 'You need a shave.'

'For that I need a razor.' His mouth met hers lingeringly. 'And my

razors are all at Plas Gwyn. I'll phone Aunt Beth and tell her to

throw a few things in a suitcase for us. We'll collect them on our

way.'

'On our way where?'

He shrugged. 'On our honeymoon. Does it matter where?' He

smacked the curve of her hip lightly. 'Up with you, wench, and I'll

get you reluctantly back into your clothes.' • 'I'm sure I can manage,'

she protested. 'Get dressed and go and make your phone call.'

It was more of a struggle dressing one-handed than she realised, but

at last she was decent at least. She didn't put on her shoes because

she was nervous of the dangling laces, but carried them in her good

hand.

She was humming a light-hearted little tune as she crossed the

landing and went down the stairs. Gethyn was below her in the hall,

still talking on the telephone. His back was turned to her, but she

knew by his sudden rigidity that something was wrong.

She halted halfway down the stairs, watching as he replaced the

receiver and turned slowly to meet her.

He was a stranger again, cool and watchful. The passionate lover

who had caressed and taken her to the edge of rapture and beyond

might never have existed.

'Gethyn?' Her eyes were troubled as they returned his gaze. 'Is—is

something wrong?'

He looked her over. 'So you did manage,' he commented levelly. 'In

the circumstances that's just as well.'

She tried to laugh. 'All is not what it seems. I couldn't manage my

bra hook. Or these.' She held her shoes towards him with a little

pleading gesture.

He did not move. 'Just as well,' he repeated as if she had not

spoken. 'It seems our honeymoon will have to be cancelled after all,

cariad.
You have a visitor awaiting your return to Plas Gwyn.'

'A visitor?' she said stupidly. 'But I'm not expecting anyone.'

His lip curled. 'No? That's not the impression she gave Aunt Beth

when she arrived late yesterday evening. Raised Cain, apparently,

because you weren't there to make your obeisance. Seems to think

you want rescuing and taking back to London under her maternal

wing.'

'Oh, no,' she said faintly.

'Oh, yes, Davina.' There was a savage note in his voice. 'Mummy's

turned up trumps for you once again,
cariad.
And don't try and

pretend you didn't have it all arranged between you before you ever

came to Plas Gwyn. Well, I give you full marks for duplicity,

Davina. Your acting has improved beyond recognition. But don't

you think last night's—performance was carrying things just a little

too far?'

He turned on his heel and walked off, leaving her standing there on

the stairs, motionless.

The drive back to Plas Gwyn was a nightmare. They set off almost

at once, forgoing all the offers of breakfast which a bewildered Mrs

Evans tried to press upon them. Davina could not be sorry. Apart

from the physical handicap of trying to feed herself one-handed, she

knew she would not have been able to force a morsel past her dry

throat.

She was totally bemused by this new turn of events. To pass in one

brief hour from the heights of ecstasy to despair again was more

than she could bear. She felt drained of life as she sat beside

Gethyn in the Landrover, staring out at the rich sunshine which so

poorly reflected her own mood.

She had tried to plead with Gethyn, to convince him that her

mother's arrival was a complete shock, but to no avail. He had

accepted her assurances with an overtly cynical contempt which cut

her to the quick. But it was clear that he regarded Mrs Greer's

descent on Plas Gwyn as part of a carefully prearranged plot to

extricate Davina from any possible consequences of her reckless

action in coming to Wales. No doubt his aunt had also told him

about her phone call to London, although neither of them knew that

it had been totally unsuccessful. She supposed her mother must

already have been on her way to Wales by that time.

At first Davina had been tempted to dig her heels in and refuse to

return to Plas Gwyn at all. But in a way that would simply have

been another form of the running away Gethyn had previously

accused her of. She had to face her mother and convince her that

her interference in her life was both unwelcome and unnecessary.

At the same time, she had to find out the truth about what had

actually transpired while she was ill in hospital, no matter how

unpleasant these revelations might be.

She stole a sidelong glance at Gethyn. His dark face looked

intractable, his mouth set in a grim line, his brows drawn together.

He had not looked at her or spoken a word since they had set off,

and this new barrier between them was an agony to her when she

recalled the total intimacy they had enjoyed together only a short

while before.

Somehow she had to find a means of re-creating that emotion, the

sense of giving and sharing that had bound them so passionately

together. Last night she had wondered desperately how she was to

salvage her pride. Now in the clear light of day, pride seemed to