Past All Forgetting (16 page)

His eyes met hers, and Janna felt a sudden dizziness sweep over her that had nothing to do with the amount of alcohol in her bloodstream. A warm sweet quiver of desire pierced her innermost being, and she knew with utter certainty that if he as much as touched her fingertips with his, she would shatter into a million tiny pieces.

She closed her eyes, panic gripping her. This couldn't be happening. She wouldn't let it happen. This was her enemy. He was going to destroy her if he could. If he took her, it would not be solely to satisfy his desire, but also his need for vengeance. As long as she remembered that, she would be safe.

'So there you are.' Sir Robert from the doorway made it sound like an accusation. He came in dabbing a handkerchief at his face, frowning thunderously. 'Funny sense of loyalty you've got, my girl, letting me find put a thing like that from a stranger.' He shot Rian a venomous look.

Janna lifted her chin. 'Why are you so upset?' she asked coolly. 'From what I was told this evening, you no longer have any real interest in buying the house. You intend that we shall live here, with you.'

'That doesn't mean I'm in favour of a lot of riff-raff from the cities coming to stay almost on the doorstep,' Sir Robert retorted violently. 'It's a mad idea, and I warn you, young man, you'll have to fight me every step of the way on this.'

Rian raised his eyebrows languidly. 'I never doubted it, Sir Robert Fortunately, you aren't the only member of the Planning Committee—yet.'

'They do as I tell them,' was the unwise reply. Sir Robert swung on Janna. 'And you'll do as you're told, too, so you can just stop looking down your nose, my girl. Having you and Colin here at Thornwood wasn't my original intention, I'll admit, but it has a lot to recommend it.'

'Oh, it will keep us both under your thumb. I'll grant you that,' she said tightly.

'Janna!' Colin had followed his father into the room, and had been standing, silent and uncomfortable, during the past exchange. But now he interposed himself into the conversation. 'Where else are we going to live, may I ask? I've been looking at properties locally. There's nothing that provides all the amenities we would need. I think it's extremely generous of Dad…'

Janna's eyes flashed. 'You outdo each other in generosity,' she exclaimed passionately. 'It never occurred to you to ask me what I thought of these—unsuitable properties, of course. And what are these—essential amenities? Does your wife fit into this Category as well—a nice little yes-girl, who knows her place? Will you put me on the mantelpiece with the rest of the ornaments?'

Colin appeared to have been turned to stone,' but his father was less inhibited.

'Nice kind of talk, I must say,' he commented virtuously. 'You'll be telling me next that you've joined these Women's Libbers. Well, tonight's been an eye-opener to me, I can tell you.'

'And to me.' Janna had already gone beyond the point of no return, but she was too angry to care. 'I've just found out what it's like to be a chattel. I wonder where I'll figure on the Travers balance sheet—as an asset or a liability?'

'You'll be damned lucky to figure on it at all on this showing!' Sir Robert roared.

'Dad.' Colin spoke pacifically, a hint of desperation in his tone, 'Janna's overwrought. She doesn't know what she's saying...'

'Overwrought?' his father echoed derisively. 'Over-wrought with my best wines and brandy! I'm not blind or soft in the head either.' He wagged that portion of his anatomy with some vigour as if to prove his point.

There was a soft knock on the drawing room door and Mrs Masham appeared, her eyes rather startled as she surveyed the tense group.

'I beg your pardon, sir,' she began diffidently. 'But the works have been on the phone. Mr Fitzgerald said would I tell Mr Colin that there are pickets at both gates, and they're stopping the night shift going in.'

Sir Robert swore obscenely and swung on Colin. 'I thought you said the situation was under control? Do I have to do every bloody thing myself?'

'But I thought it was sorted out.' For an instant, Janna thought curiously, Colin had looked like a smacked child.

'Well, it isn't. Order, the car, Mrs Masham, please and ring the works and say we're on our way.' Personal problems dismissed as the trivialities they were, Sir Robert was obviously relishing the thought of the combat ahead.

'Janna?' Colin said helplessly. 'I—I'm needed, you see. Can I get you a taxi?'

'No need.' Rian rose in a leisurely manner from the large armchair beside the fire where he had ensconced himself. 'I'll drive Miss Prentiss home.'

Colin bit his lip, obviously indecisive, not relishing the suggested solution.

'No!' Janna spoke sharply. 'I'd rather get a taxi— please!'

'You need a lesson in manners, young woman,' said Sir Robert, but his tone was absent, and contained little of its earlier menace. 'Accept the lift when it's offered and be thankful. Can't you see we're busy enough as it is, without trying to get taxis out here at this time of night, charging their fancy prices.'

Janna stared at him for a moment in total disbelief, then left the room to fetch her wrap. When she came back downstairs, Rian was waiting for her in the hall. He smiled sardonically up at her.

'The techniques of union bashing are being hammered out in there,' he commented, nodding towards the closed drawing room door. 'I don't think we'll be missed if we quietly slip away.'

'I'm not coming with you,' she informed him defiantly, ignoring her swimming head, and the legs that seemed curiously reluctant to obey her. 'I'd rather walk back to Carrisford in my bare feet than ride with you.'

He raised his eyebrows. 'Would you now?' he drawled. Before she could guess his intention, he reached for her swinging her up into his arms like a child. She kicked at him furiously, thinking he intended to carry her, but the next moment she was set down again forcibly, and Rian was casually slipping her shoes into his pocket.

'Let's see how you make out,' he said smoothly, and walked out of the front door and down the steps to where his car was parked.

For a moment, she was so angry that she could neither move, nor speak, nor think. Then she ran after him, tripping slightly on the folds of her long skirt. The stone steps were like ice through her flimsy tights, but they seemed positively pleasurable compared to the gravel she was confronted with when she reached the drive. Rian was in his car, the engine quietly ticking over, watching her, she knew, waiting for her to signal defeat. She lifted her chin. She would see him in hell first, she thought wildly, and stepped out trying not to wince.

By the time she reached the end of the drive, her tights were in shreds. But that was not her only problem. It was becoming increasingly difficult to walk straight, she had discovered hazily. She tried to imagine there was a white line painted on the road for her to walk along, but the line, began to do alarming things, like forming curves and: strange intricate patterns, and sometimes dissolving altogether, so she decided to abandon it.

'Pooh to you,' she told it haughtily.

'Oh, my God,' Rian said resignedly. She had been so intent on what she was doing she had not noticed his car drive slowly past and stop a little way ahead. Nor had she observed him get out of the car and walk back to her.

'I'm quite all right,' she informed him, and felt herself sag helplessly as his arms enfolded her. 'Oh, Rian, I feel so ill,' she whimpered against his chest.

'I'm not surprised.' There was a laugh in his voice. 'Dutch courage has to be paid for, my sweet.

Janna paid. She paid kneeling by the side of the road while Rian held her head, and wiped her face when the spasm was over with his handkerchief. She had never felt so ashamed or humiliated before—except once, and she tried, stumblingly, to tell him so, but he did not seem concerned.

'Everyone's entitled to behave badly once in a while.' He sounded almost soothing.

'But I never behave badly.' She stared up into the frosty starlit sky which, thank heavens, had stopped revolving with the earth at last. 'I haven't behaved badly for seven years. I thought if I tried hard—if I was good then perhaps what I did wouldn't matter so much. But it does…' Her voice was stopped by tears.

He gave a small harsh sigh, and helped her to her feet.

'I can't wipe out the past for you, Janna,' he said abruptly. 'Not even if I wanted to. Now I'll take you home.'

'Oh, no!' Her hands gripped the lapels of his coat with alarmed urgency. She stared up at him, her face wet,' her mouth trembling. 1—I can't go home yet, Rian. Not like this.'

He muttered an expletive under his breath. 'Hiding behind me again, Janna?' he asked. 'That too has its price.'

'Please,' she whispered. 'I—I can't let my parents see me like this. I'm too ashamed.'

He tugged her shoes from his pocket, and knelt to fit them, rather roughly on to her feet. Then he rose and looked at her. 'On your own head be it,' he warned, and turned away.

She followed him tiredly to the car. She still felt nauseated, and her feet were very painful, but that meant little compared with the ache of desolation inside her. Suddenly he had become a stranger again, dark and remote. Yet for a time there, his arms had seemed a refuge rather than a menace. It was too hard for her to understand, she thought, pressing a hand against her throbbing temples.

She sat in silence beside him as he drove, the white ribbon of road unfolding endlessly before them. She did not even ask where they were going. The nausea had passed now, and she felt desperately weary as if a ton weight was pressing down on her eyelids. It wouldn't matter, she thought, if she closed them for a few minutes… only a few minutes.

At some time in the future, she was dimly aware that the car had stopped, and that the night air was cold about her. She stumbled slightly. Drowsily she saw lights—a building of some kind, heard Rian talking to someone, the rustle of money, the chink of a key. Someone was carrying her. She was glad about that, because she did not think she could have moved a step unaided. She supposed it must be her father.

But when she opened her eyes, it was Rian, and there was the softness of a mattress underneath her, and the comforting freshness of clean sheets.

'You're not my father,' she said sleepily. 'What are you doing in my room?'

'A good question,' he said rather grimly. 'Perhaps I'll have found an answer by the morning. Now go back to sleep.'

As she began to drift, she felt something brush her hair. For one strange floating moment, she thought he had  kissed her, and her last coherent thought told her she was being quite ridiculous before sleep claimed her again.

It was a strange buzzing noise that woke her. For a moment she lay drowsily, then, with her gradual assimilation of the unfamiliarity of her surroundings—the stark white ceiling with the white plastic shade round the bulb, the colourwashed walls, the strident pattern of the cotton bedspread—she came hurriedly to her senses and sat up.

Rian was standing at the wash basin in the corner, stripped to the waist, using an electric razor. As if he could sense her eyes on him, he turned slightly and she snatched the bedclothes up around her shoulders.

Her startled gaze took in other things. The other bed a few feet away with its rumpled pillow and covers. Her velvet skirt and top lying on a chair in casual intimacy with Rian's dinner jacket and shirt.

'So you're awake,' he said coolly. 'There should be some coffee arriving in a moment. How's your head?'

His casual attitude shook her almost more than the situation in which she found herself.

'Are you out of your mind?' she asked tensely. 'What— what are we doing here? What does all this mean?'

He gave her a long, considering look, then turned back to his shaving.

'We're at the motel at Bartley,' he said expressionlessly. 'You didn't want to go home because you'd had too much to drink and were sick and ashamed. I'd had a hell of a day one way or another and I was too damned tired to drive you about all night, which was presumably what you wanted. This,' he waved a careless arm round the room, 'seemed a reasonable compromise.'

'Reasonable?' She heard the note of hysteria in her voice, and tried to control it. 'Is that really what you think? You've brought me to this place, kept me here all night. How am I going to face my family?'

He switched off the razor and unplugged it. 'Oh, I'm sure you'll think of something, with your inventive mind.'

Janna shut her eyes and lay back against the pillows. Surely this was all a nightmare and soon she would wake in her own room at home, she thought desperately.

'As for keeping you here all night,' his voice went on levelly, 'I didn't notice any protests when we arrived, virginal or otherwise, as the receptionist will no doubt bear out if you ask her.' He put the razor back in its case, and tossed it on to the other bed. Then he came to her side and stood looking down at her.

'Grow up, Janna,' he advised quietly. 'If you're in this trouble, you only have yourself to blame.'

'That's it, isn't it?' she said dully. 'That's why I'm here—like this. Just to satisfy your need for revenge. You've won, Rian. Does it make you happy?'

'My God!' She flinched at the note of suppressed violence in his voice. Then he laughed, and there was something in his laughter that was in some strange way more frightening than his anger had been.

'How right you are,' he said, his lips twisted cynically. 'But it was rather a muted revenge, you must admit, darling. It wasn't exactly my intention that you should sleep through it But you're awake now, so maybe I should make the most of my opportunity while it exists.'

She tried to twist away, to roll across the bed to the floor, but he guessed her intention and was too quick for her. She was pinned to the bed by hands that hurt, and the mouth that ravished hers was that of a man driven by darker forces than simple desire.

She struggled feebly against the steely arms that confined her, and a soft moan rose in her throat, but he did not relax his grip even momentarily. His kisses plundered the smooth line of her throat and shoulders, and then searched lower, as he ruthlessly dragged aside the sheltering bedclothes.