Legally His Omnibus (26 page)

But he had always known that there would be pleasure between them; had known it from the moment he had looked beyond the shy awkwardness of the girl she’d been and seen the woman she would become. She had desired him then with all the innocent hunger of a young girl’s awakening sexuality and he had known it, and known too that he was equally drawn by longing to her as she was to him. The only difference had been that he’d been an adult and she had not. An adult male with an adult male’s needs for a mate, a woman.

Dracco closed his eyes and breathed in, filling his lungs.

What he had told her about wanting her father’s blood to run in the veins of his own child had been true, but it was only a small part of the truth.

John Atkins had been an astute and loving father. He had seen as clearly as Dracco had himself the growing intensity of Imogen’s youthful crush on Dracco.

‘She imagines herself in love with you,’ John had told him in a no-holds-barred man-to-man conversation he had instituted shortly before Imogen’s sixteenth birthday.

‘I know,’ Dracco had concurred. ‘I love her, John,’ he had told his friend and mentor rawly, ‘and I know too that she is far too young as yet—’

‘Dracco,’ John Atkins had interrupted him immediately, ‘I don’t dispute your feelings, but, as Imogen’s father, I would ask you to give me your word that you will allow her to have time to grow up and experience life before you tell her of your love. If you love her you’ll understand why I’m asking you this.’

And of course Dracco had, even though the thought of having to stand to one side and watch whilst the girl he loved grew into womanhood with someone else had torn him apart.

‘If you and Imogen should eventually become a couple,’ John Atkins had continued emotionally, ‘and I can promise you that there is nothing that would give me more pleasure, Dracco, it has to be as two equals, adults, not now whilst Imogen, for all she thinks she is passionately in love with you, is still little more than a child. I know how hard what I’m asking of you is going to be but, for Imogen’s own sake and for the sake of the love I hope you may one day share, will you promise to say nothing of your feelings to her until she is twenty-one?’

Twenty-one. Five years! But Dracco had known why John was demanding such a promise from him, and he had given it. Had Imogen been his daughter he would have done exactly the same thing.

He had told himself after her father’s death that he owed it to his friend and mentor to protect his only daughter, if necessary against himself, but then circumstances had left him with no choice other than to marry Imogen, for her own sake.

How he had agonised over that decision, ultimately seeking the advice of Henry Fairburn, John’s solicitor and oldest friend.

He had told himself that he would not break his word to John, that he would somehow find the strength to make sure that his marriage to Imogen was in name only and that she knew nothing of his feelings for her.

But then as they’d left the church she had asked him if there was someone he loved, and he had known that she knew the truth, had seen in her eyes that she already knew the answer to her own question. Her reaction to it had made it plain how she felt.

After all, there was no more obvious a way of stating that someone’s love was not wanted than to run away from them.

Lisa had taunted him about it, saying that he should have left Imogen to play teenage sex games with someone of her own age, claiming that the thought of having sex with a real live man had probably terrified her.

‘A real man needs a real woman, Dracco,’ she had told him, her hand on his arm, stroking it suggestively. He had shrugged her off, barely able to conceal either his dislike or his pain at losing Imogen.

Out of guilt and remorse and pain he had managed to stop himself from going after Imogen and bringing her back.

How could he possibly have claimed to love her and then forced her to accept that love when she didn’t want it?

And then David Bryant had told him about the letter he had received from her, and, almost as though he was watching himself from a distance, a part of Dracco had looked on in grim contempt whilst he set about making plans to...

To what? Couldn’t he even admit to himself what he had done? Well, perhaps it was time he did. He had manoeuvred and manipulated Imogen into coming back to him. And the result had far exceeded even the most fevered scenarios conjured up by the long lonely nights of wanting her.

To hear that note of wonderment in her voice earlier when she had talked about last night, about them ‘making love’, had made him want to take hold of her right there and show her that last night had been a mere fraction of what they could share together. But what he wanted from her was a lot more than the orgasm-induced emotion of physical satisfaction. What he wanted was her love, a love that matched his own; a love that went way beyond the giving and taking of pleasure in bed. Yes, it was satisfying to know that physically Imo wanted him, but it was a bitter, tainted pleasure. It was her love he wanted, not her body, and how the hell could he ever win that after what he had done?

Even now Dracco found it hard to explain to himself why he had overreacted so uncharacteristically when Imogen had assumed that he wanted a divorce.

Yes, of course he wanted her to have his child, and, yes, he very much wanted to share a blood tie with the man who had meant so much to him, but to use that as an excuse to force Imo to consummate their marriage... There was no acceptable explanation for what he had done.

Dracco opened his eyes. He had kept track of Imogen all the time they had been apart, knowing that it was what her father would have expected him to do.

He had never for one moment intended... But somehow things had got out of hand; and he had found it far harder to control his feelings than he had expected. The reality of dealing with a fully grown woman and not a girl had brought it home to him how dangerously vulnerable he actually was.

He had tried to keep as much physical distance between them as he could, working away from home, sleeping downstairs in the study. But last night all those plans had been crushed out of existence, along with his self-control. Last night he had done the very thing he had promised himself he would never, ever do under any circumstances.

And now Imo was telling him that she loved him. Not because she did—dammit—but because he was her first lover, her only lover. For a woman as idealistic as Imogen, that meant she could not allow herself the physical pleasure they had shared without convincing herself that she must love him. But she hadn’t loved him when she had run away from him on the day of their marriage.

He had seen the hurt in her eyes when she had turned away in the hallway just now, and he had ached to take her in his arms and tell her just how he felt about her, just what she did to him, had always done to him.

Right now he didn’t know which was causing him the greater pain—his love for her or his guilt.

Dracco closed his eyes again. He had no idea how long he had been sitting here in his car, and neither did he care. He was back in the study of the house he had just left, Imo’s father’s study. It was the morning of Imo’s seventeenth birthday, the morning she had run downstairs to him and begged him shyly for a birthday kiss, when he had known that he had to plead with his mentor and friend to release him from his promise.

‘Yes, I know how hard it is, Dracco,’ John Atkins had accepted gently when Dracco had finished his terse little speech. ‘But Imogen is only seventeen.’

‘Seventeen going on a thousand,’ Dracco had groaned. ‘She looks at me sometimes with all the knowledge of every woman that ever lived in her eyes, and then at other times...’ He had paused and shaken his head. ‘At other times she looks at me with the unknowing innocence of a child.’

‘And it is the innocence and the future of that child I would ask you to protect and respect, Dracco,’ Imogen’s father had responded gently, getting to his feet and coming to Dracco’s side, placing his hand on Dracco’s arm in a benign, almost fatherly gesture.

He had paused before continuing in a sterner voice, ‘If you love her you will want her to give you her love as a woman, not take from her the naïve love of a child.’

His words had hit home, and Dracco had acknowledged their truth.

‘Nothing will ever change the way I feel about her,’ he had told the older man fiercely. ‘But for her sake I will do as you ask, and I will wait.’

‘It is nearly as hard for me as it for you, Dracco,’ Imogen’s father had told him gently. ‘When I said I love you as a son that is exactly what I meant, and I can think of no greater pleasure than having you marry my daughter unless it is that of holding your children. But Imo is far too young yet to be burdened by a man’s love. She needs time and space to grow up properly.’

Dracco hated himself for what he had done last night. He felt corrupted by his own emotions, his love, his desire, the constant, aching need for Imogen that had flared into a fiercely unstoppable conflagration the moment he had touched her.

He could feel it still now, knew he would feel it forever, just as he would love her forever.

It was over an hour since he had stopped his car. Reaching for his mobile, Dracco put a call through to David Bryant to explain that he was going to be late for their meeting.

* * *

Tugging viciously at the nettles growing in amongst the roses she could remember her mother planting, Imogen muttered an angry protest as she felt them stinging her through the thickness of the gardening gloves she had found in the old-fashioned potting shed.

Dracco’s rejection of her love and the scorn with which he had reacted to it and to her, instead of making her question the validity of her feelings had somehow had totally the opposite effect and brought out in her a passionate strength she had not guessed she possessed.

How dared he try to tell her that she did not know what love was? She tugged furiously on another nettle, giving a small sound of triumph as she threw it into the wheelbarrow without getting stung.

How dared he imply that she was some kind of naïve ninny who thought that just because she had sex with a man she must be in love with him?

Another nettle joined its fellows.

And as for his comments about her virginity... Well, it just so happened that the reason she had not...that she was still...had been still...had nothing to do with naïveté or timidity; it was simply that she had never met a man she had wanted enough.

Imogen yelped in pain as her momentary loss of concentration, whilst she battled against the dangerous images her brain was sending, resulted in a sharp reminder that nettles, carelessly handled, could and did sting.

‘Ouch,’ she protested out loud, as she inspected the swiftly lifting rash on the palm of her hand.

Like Dracco, it had caught her off guard and the result was pain. Well, this time at least she could retaliate, she decided grimly as she bent towards the offending weed and very determinedly removed it from the soil.

‘Now see how you like that!’ she told the nettle triumphantly.

‘Excuse me.’

The sound of a hesitant male voice behind her caused her to spin round, her face pink with confusion at being caught conversing with the vegetation.

‘It stung me,’ she said rather lamely to the young man who was standing several feet away from her.

‘My wife hates nettles,’ he responded easily. ‘Her brothers hid her doll in a nettle patch when she was a little girl.’

‘Oh, how unkind of them.’

‘Well, I suspect she might have deserved it,’ he told her, his voice ruefully candid. ‘She had buried all their toy soldiers in a pile of builders’ sand. The builder wasn’t too pleased when it ruined his concrete. Her excuse was that they had been overwhelmed by a sandstorm in the desert.

‘I was looking for Dracco,’ he went on. ‘I rang the bell but no one answered and then I saw you here in the garden. You must be his wife.’

‘Yes, yes, I am,’ Imogen responded. Who was this young man, and how did he know that Dracco was married?

As though he guessed what she was thinking, her unexpected visitor quickly explained, ‘I’m Robert Bates—I work for Dracco. He left a message at the office, saying that...that he had got married, and asking me to bring him some papers he wanted.’

He was looking rather pleased with his deductive powers, and Imogen couldn’t resist gently teasing him.

‘And because of that you assumed that I must be Dracco’s wife?’

‘Not just because of that,’ she was told sturdily. ‘He has a photograph of you on his desk, and I recognised you from it straight away. Your father started the business, didn’t he? Dracco told me about him.’

Now Imogen was surprised. Dracco had a photograph of her? She remembered that her father had had one taken on her seventeenth birthday; presumably Dracco must have inherited it. However, before she could reply her visitor was saying something she found even more surprising.

‘I know that your father started the business, but Dracco is the one who made it the success it is today.’ As he spoke Imogen could hear the admiration and respect in the younger man’s voice. ‘I couldn’t believe my luck when he took me on. I didn’t have the qualifications or the background.’ He flushed a little whilst Imogen watched him in silence. ‘I certainly didn’t deserve the faith he’s shown in me. The night we met I was sitting in a bar, full of self-pity and drinking myself into oblivion. Natasha, my wife now but my girlfriend as she was then, had just told me that her parents had threatened her that if she married me they were going to stop her trust fund.

‘We met at university and I knew straight away that she was the one for me, and she said she felt the same, but what I didn’t know then was that Natasha’s family had money—and ambitions.’ His voice grew slightly bitter. ‘And those ambitions did not include a son-in-law with no family connections, no money and no prospects. Oh, Tasha said that it didn’t matter, but of course it did. I couldn’t give her the kind of life she’d grown up with, the kind of future she deserved; I couldn’t even get a job. And then I met Dracco.