Kitabı oku: «Four Christmas Treats», sayfa 3

He watched as Tilly’s lips framed his name, and felt the aching drag of his own sexual need to bend his head to hers and to explore the shape and texture of her mouth. Not just once, but over and over again, until it was imprinted on his senses for ever. So that he could recall its memory within a heartbeat. So that he could hold it to him for always.

Silas tensed as he heard the sharp ring of an inner warning bell.

This was not a direction in which he wanted to go. This kind of emotional intensity, this kind of emotional dependency, was not for him. And certainly not with a woman like this. Tilly had lied to him once already. He did not for one moment believe the sob story of concerned and loving daughter she had used when describing her mother’s marriage history. Logic told him that there had to be some darker and far more selfish reason for what she was doing. As yet he hadn’t unearthed it—but then he hadn’t tried very hard, had he? After all, he had his own secret agenda. He might not have discovered her hidden motive, but that didn’t mean it didn’t exist. For now he was content to play along with her game, and the role she had cast for him, because it suited his own purposes. But this looking at her mouth and feeling that he’d stepped into another dimension where emotion and instinct held sway rather than hardheaded logic and knowledge had to be parcelled up and locked away somewhere.

In the few seconds it had taken for him to catalogue his uncharacteristic reaction, Tilly’s face had started to glow a soft pink.

‘Darling…’

Abruptly Tilly wrenched her unwilling gaze from Silas’s mouth to focus on her mother.

Physically, Annabelle Lucas looked very much like her daughter, although where Tilly downplayed her femininity, Annabelle cosseted and projected hers. Slightly shorter than Tilly, she had the same hourglass figure, and the same honey and butter-coloured hair. However, where Tilly rarely wore make-up, other than a hint of eyeshadow and mascara and a slick of lipgloss, Annabelle delighted in ‘prettifying’ herself, as she called it. Tilly favoured understated businesslike suits, and casual clothes when she wasn’t working; Annabelle dressed in floaty, feminine creations.

Tilly tried to wriggle out of Silas’s grip, but instead of letting her go he bent his mouth to her ear and warned, ‘We’re supposed to be a deliriously loved-up, newly engaged couple, remember?’

Tilly tried to ignore the effect the warmth of his breath against her ear was having on her.

‘We don’t have to put on an act for my mother,’ she protested. But she knew her argument was as weak as her trembling knees.

The arch look her mother gave them as she hurried over to them in a cloud of her favourite perfume made Tilly want to grit her teeth, but there was nothing she could say or do—not with her mother’s new fiancé within earshot.

‘Art, come and say hello to my wonderful daughter, Tilly, and her gorgeous fiancé.’

Her mother was kissing Silas with rather too much enthusiasm, Tilly decided sourly.

‘How sweet, Tilly, that you can’t bear to let go of him.’

Tilly heard her mother laughing. Red-faced, she tried to snatch her hand back from Silas’s arm, but for some reason he covered it with his own, refusing to let her go.

‘Silas Stanway,’ Silas introduced himself, extending his hand to Art, but still, Tilly noticed dizzily, managing to keep her tucked up against him. She could have used more force to pull away, but slipping on the ice and ending up on her bottom was hardly the best way to make a good impression in front of her stepfather-to-be, she decided.

Her mother really must have been wearing rose-tinted glosses when she had fallen in love with Art, Tilly acknowledged, relieved to have her hand shaken rather than having to submit to a kiss. Fittingly for such a fairy-tale-looking castle, he did actually look remarkably toad-like, with his square build and jowly face. Even his unblinking stare had something unnervingly toadish about it.

He was obviously a man of few words, and, perhaps because of this, her mother seemed to have gone in to verbal overdrive, behaving like an over-animated actress, clapping her hands, widening her eyes and exclaiming theatrically, ‘This is all so perfect! My darling Art is like a magician, making everything so wonderful for me—and all the more wonderful now that you’re here, Tilly.’ Tears filled her eyes, somehow managing not to spill over and spoil her make-up. ‘I’m just so very happy. I’ve always wanted to be part of a big happy family. Do you remember, darling, how you used to tell me that all you wanted for Christmas was a big sister? So sweet. And now here I am, getting not just the most perfect husband but two gorgeous new daughters and their adorable children.’

If only her father were here to witness this, and to share this moment of almost black humour with her, Tilly thought wryly, as she wondered how her mother had managed to mentally banish the various sets of step-families she had collected via her previous marriages.

Her mother beamed, and turned away to lead them back into the house. Silas bent his head and demanded, ‘What was that look for?’

Too disconcerted to prevaricate, Tilly whispered grimly, ‘Ma already has enough darling ex-steps and their offspring to fill her side of any church you could name.’

‘Somehow I don’t think that Art would want to know that.’

‘You don’t like him, do you?’ Tilly said, with a shrewd guess of her own.

‘Do you?’

‘Hurry up, you two.You’ll have plenty of time for whispering to each other later, and it’s cold with the door open.’

The first thing Tilly saw as she stepped into the hallway was an enormous Christmas tree, its dark green foliage a perfect foil for the artistically hung Christmas tree decorations in shades of pale green, pink and blue, to tone with the hallway’s painted panelling. Suddenly Tilly was six years old again, standing between her parents and gazing up with eyes filled with shining wonder at the Christmas tree in Harrods toy department.

That had been before she had understood that when her father complained about her mother’s spending habits, and the circle of friends from which he was excluded, he wasn’t ‘just teasing’. And that the ‘uncle’ her mother had been so desperate for her to like was destined to replace her father in her mother’s life. That Christmas she had been so totally, innocently happy, unaware that within a year she would know that happiness was as fragile and as easily broken as the pretty glass baubles she had gazed at with such delight.

Christmas—season of love and goodwill and more marital break-ups than any other time of year. A sensible woman would take to her heels at her first sighting of a Christmas tree and not come back until the bleakness of January had brought everyone to their senses.

‘What time is dinner, Ma?’ Tilly asked her mother prosaically, determined to set the tone of her enforced visit from the start. ‘Only, I could do with going up to my room and getting changed first.’

Behind Art’s back Annabelle made a small moue, and then said in an over-bright voice. ‘Oh, I am sorry, darling, but we won’t be having a formal dinner. Art doesn’t like eating late, and then of course we have to consider the children. The girls are such devoted mothers, they wouldn’t dream of breaking their routines. Art is quite right. It makes more sense for us to eat in our own rooms. So much more comfortable than dressing up and sitting down for a five-course dinner in the dining room.’

Tilly, who knew how much her mother adored dressing up for dinner, even when she was eating alone at home, opened her mouth to ask what was going on and then closed it again.

Her heart started to sink. She knew that she wasn’t imagining the desperation she could hear in her mother’s voice.

‘Isn’t this the most gorgeous, magical place you have ever seen?’Annabelle was saying in an artificially bright voice, as she indicated the huge octagonal hall, decorated in its sugared almond colours, from which a delicate, intricately carved marble staircase seemed to float upwards.

‘It is beautiful, Ma,’ Tilly agreed. ‘But rather cold.’

Immediately her mother gave small pout. ‘Darling, don’t be such a spoilsport. There is heating, but…With the children being used to living in a controlled-temperature environment they really do need to have the benefit of what heating there is in their suites, even if that means that some of the other rooms have to go without.’ Annabelle was heading for the stairs. ‘I’ve put you and Silas in the same room, just like you asked me to do.’

So he had been right, Silas decided grimly. So much for this just being an innocent, escort-duties-only commission! However, before he could say anything, Art had begun to study him, frowning.

‘You look familiar…Have we met somewhere before?’

Silas felt his stomach muscles clench. ‘Not so far as I know,’he responded truthfully.Art had turned down all his attempts to get an interview with him, but that didn’t mean Art hadn’t seen his photograph somewhere, or perhaps requested information about him. And if he had…

‘So what exactly is it you do?’ Art persisted.

‘Silas is an actor,’Tilly answered firmly for him, preempting the criticism she sensed was coming by adding determinedly, ‘And a very good one.’ She gave her mother a look which she hoped she would correctly interpret as I need to talk to you urgently about this bedroom situation, but to her dismay her mother was refusing to make eye contact. In fact, now that she looked at her mother more closely, Tilly could see how tense and on edge she was beneath her too-bright smile, how desperate she was for everyone’s approval of the castle. And of herself? Was it because of this insecurity within her mother that she had always kept the gates to her own emotions firmly padlocked? Because she was afraid of becoming like her mother?

As had happened so many times in the past when she sensed that her mother was unhappy, Tilly felt her protective instinct kick in. Leaving Silas’s side, she moved over to Annabelle, linking her arm with her mother’s in a gesture of daughter-to-mother solidarity.

‘An actor. How exciting!’ Annabelle exclaimed. ‘That’s probably why you think Silas’s face is familiar, Artie, you must have seen him in something.’

‘I doubt it. It don’t waste my time watching people play at make-believe.’ Art gave a snort of derision.

How could her mother be in love with a man like this? Tilly wondered despairingly. Her original misgivings about the marriage were growing by the second.

She gave her mother’s arm a small squeeze. ‘Why don’t you take me upstairs and show me the room?’ she suggested lightly, adding, ‘I’m sure that Silas and Art can entertain one another while we indulge in some mother-and-daughter gossip.’ She knew she was taking a risk, throwing Art and Silas together without being there herself to make sure Silas didn’t say the wrong thing, but right now her need to ensure they had separate rooms took precedence over everything else. ‘I haven’t even seen your dress yet,’ she reminded her mother.

‘Oh, darling, it’s so beautiful,’ Annabelle enthused, the tension immediately leaving her face to be replaced by a glow of excitement. ‘It’s Vera Wang. You know, she does all the celebrity wedding gowns. Her people swore at first that she couldn’t fit me in, but Art persuaded them to relent. It’s just such a pity that I didn’t think to get you to come to New York at the same time, so that we could have looked for something for you. Art’s grandchildren are going to be our attendants, of course. We’ve agreed that they’ll be wearing Southern Belles and Beaux outfits, so…sweet. And it would be lovely if your Silas would give me away…’

Suddenly Tilly wanted to cry—very badly. Here was her mother, trying desperately to put a brave face on the fact that while Art had his daughters and grandchildren to provide him with family support and fill the traditional wedding roles, Annabelle had to rely on her daughter and a man who was being paid to escort her.

Swallowing hard, Tilly sniffed back the tears that were threatening to fall.

‘Dad would probably have given you away if you’d asked him.’

Immediately her mother looked anxiously at Art. ‘I did think of your father,’ she admitted. ‘But Art’s daughters can’t see how it’s possible to maintain a platonic relationship with an ex-husband, and Art feels…well, he thinks…Well, Art agrees with them.’

The retort Tilly was longing to make had to be smothered in her throat when she saw her mother’s please don’t look.

What the hell had he got himself into? Silas wondered angrily as he watched the two women walk up the stairs arm-in-arm. Whatever was going on, mother and daughter were both in on it—and deep in it too, right up to their pretty little necks. He was being used, and not just for the escort duties he was being paid for. Annabelle had let the cat out of the bag with regard to Tilly’s sexual expectations. No woman asked to share a room with a man unless she expected sex to be on the agenda. Tilly had lied to him when she had claimed they would be having separate rooms, and if it wasn’t for the fact that he needed information from Art he would be calling a cab right now, to take him straight back down to the airport in Madrid. Because he didn’t want to have sex with a woman he had just spent the last few hours acknowledging had a mind-blowingly intense erotic effect on his body.

Who was he kidding? Okay, so he did want to have sex with her—but on his terms, not hers. And he certainly wasn’t going to let her get away with lying to him—even if she had surprised him with her determination to show Art she wasn’t going to let him put Silas down for being an actor. That had surprised him, Silas admitted. The last woman to protect him from someone’s unflattering opinion had been his mother, and he had been all of five.

Tilly was gutsy; he had to give her that. But that didn’t mean he was going to let her get away with manoeuvring him into her bed. There was no real danger to him in being plunged into this kind of situation. He could handle it. But what if it had been Joe she had tricked into sharing her bed? The young idiot was green enough to have had sex with her without any thought for the possible consequences: to his health, to the fate of any child that might be conceived, to anything other than giving in to a young heterosexual male’s natural reaction to being in bed with a sexually attractive woman who had invited him there.

Whereas he, of course, wouldn’t be facing any of those problems? Okay, he would be facing one of them, since he wasn’t in the habit of travelling everywhere with a packet of condoms. Would Tilly have thought to deal with that kind of necessity? She was certainly old enough and no doubt experienced enough to be as aware of the risks as he was himself, he decided cynically as he turned to follow his uncommunicative host into the bar.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘HERE is your room, darling. It’s lovely, isn’t it…?’

Annabelle had thrown open the door into a room on the second floor of the castle.

More because she wanted to make sure they weren’t overheard than because she was genuinely interested in her accommodation, Tilly stepped past her and into the room.

It was large, certainly. Large, and cold, and very obviously an attic room, decorated in faded cabbage rose wallpaper, and scented with the unmistakable odour of damp.

‘It’s got its own bathroom. With the most fabbie real Edwardian bath.’

The determined brightness in her mother’s voice made Tilly’s spirits plummet. Annabelle looked so vulnerable, getting angry with her felt like being unkind to a child.

Very gently Tilly took hold of her mother’s hands and led her across to the large double bed, pulling her down until they were both seated on it, facing one another.

‘Ma, what is going on?’ she asked, as calmly as she could. ‘You know that Silas and I aren’t really engaged. We don’t even know each other. He’s just someone I’ve hired to pretend to be my fiancé.You know that. We were supposed to have separate rooms. I’ve told him that we are having separate rooms.You assured me that we would be having separate rooms. So what’s gone wrong?’

Tears filled her mother’s eyes. ‘Oh, Tilly darling, please don’t be cross with me. It isn’t my fault. I had planned to put you and Silas—he is gorgeous, by the way, and he would be just perfect for you—in the most heavenly pair of interconnecting rooms. More like a suite, really, both with their own bathrooms and the most divine little sitting room, but then Art’s daughters arrived and everything went horribly wrong.’

Tilly waited while her mother paused to blow her nose and clear her throat. ‘You see, I hadn’t realised that Susan-Jane and Cissie-Rose would want to have their children sleeping on the same floor with them, or that they would expect to have connecting rooms. But of course once Susan-Jane had explained that she and Cissie-Rose need to be close by, and how it made much more sense for them to have the suite I’d earmarked for you and Silas…

‘She said that the children’s nannies, and the personal assistants to Dwight and Bill—that’s their husbands, of course—would also have to be on the same floor, because Dwight and Bill frequently work late at night. They have to be in touch with Head Office at all times, and having to come all this way has caused them so much disruption. I felt so guilty about that—especially when Cissie-Rose told me that the children had been upset because they wouldn’t be spending Christmas at home. I don’t know how it happened, but somehow or other it turned out so that they practically took up the whole of the first floor, apart from the suite Art and I are sharing, and that meant the only rooms left were up here on the second floor.’

Inwardly Tilly counted to ten. Something was telling her that her relationship with her new stepsisters-to-be was not going to be one made in heaven, she thought grimly.

‘Okay, but there must be more than one room up here, Ma. I mean, there’s only one bed in here—’

‘Darling, I know, and I am truly sorry. But I’m sure that Silas will behave like a perfect gentleman. I mean, a man like him doesn’t need to go around persuading women to have sex with him, does he? Do you know what I think?’ she said brightly. ‘I think that he’ll probably be glad of the opportunity to be with a woman who isn’t coming on to him.’

‘Ma, let’s stick to the point. How many rooms are there on this floor?’

‘Oodles,’ Annabelle told her promptly. ‘But there’s been a problem with the roof, apparently, and most of them are damp, and the ones that aren’t are already occupied by the staff. Strictly speaking we aren’t supposed to be using any of the rooms up here, according to the contract the Count’s legal people gave us, but when I spoke to the major-domo and explained the problem he was really sweet about it, and everyone has worked so hard to get this room ready for you. I’d hate for them to think that we aren’t grateful.’

Tilly wrapped her arms around her cold body. ‘Ma, it’s freezing in here.’

‘Yes. I’m sorry about that. The Count’s PA did explain to us how the heating system worked, and that we weren’t to turn up any of the radiators because if we did it would mean that some others wouldn’t work. And I did try to explain this to Art’s daughters, but I can see their point about the children needing to be kept warm.’

Tilly could hear a strange noise in her ears. It took her several seconds to realise that it was the sound of her teeth grinding in suppressed frustration.

‘Ma—’

‘Please don’t be difficult about this, darling. I so want everything to go well, and for all of you to get on. Art’s daughters have been so sweet—offering to help me once Art and I are married, explaining to me how their social circle works. They’ve even warned me that some of Art’s late wife’s friends will be hostile to me, and that some of the men might behave towards me in a flirtatious way because of the way that I look, and because I’ve been married before. It’s kind of them, really.’

‘Is it? It sounds more to me as though they’re trying to undermine you,’ Tilly told her mother shrewdly, and then wished that she hadn’t been so blunt when she saw the hurt look on her mother’s face.

‘Darling, don’t say that. You’re going to love them, I know. Now, why don’t I leave you to unpack, while I go down to the kitchen and organise evening meals for everyone?’

‘Some hot water bottles might be a good idea as well,’ Tilly suggested dryly.

After her mother had gone she examined the room and its adjoining bathroom. The bath was, as her mother had said, truly Edwardian. Of massive proportions, it stood in the middle of a linoleum-covered floor in a room that was so cold Tilly was shivering even though she was still wearing her coat. There was also a shower, and a separate lavatory.

She heard the outer door reopening, and hurried back into the bedroom, saying despairingly, ‘Ma. I don’t—Oh, it’s you.’ She came to an abrupt halt as she saw Silas standing just inside the door, holding it open for a young man carrying their luggage.

She had to wait for him to put it down and leave before she could speak. ‘I’m really sorry about this. My mother seems to have allowed Art’s daughters to bully her into letting them take the two-bedroom suite she had earmarked for us, and this appears to be the only room that’s left.’

‘And presumably the only bed?’ Silas asked silkily.

‘I don’t like this any more than you do,’Tilly assured him. ‘But there’s nothing I can do except offer to sleep on the floor.’

‘And of course you’re fully prepared to do that?’

‘Actually, yes, I am,’ Tilly said. She didn’t like the tone he was using, and she didn’t like the way he was looking at her either. If she had thought the bedroom and the icy-cold bathroom were cold enough to chill her blood, they were nothing compared to the coldness of the look Silas was giving her.

‘Do you make a habit of this?’ It infuriated Silas that she didn’t seem to think he had the intelligence to see through what she was doing.

‘Do I make a habit of what?’ Tilly demanded, perplexed.

‘Hiring men to have sex with you.’

Tilly was glad she had the bed behind her to sink down onto. His accusation hadn’t just shocked her, it had also blocked her chest with a huge lump of indigestible and unwanted emotional vulnerability—and pain. Pain? Because a man she didn’t know was misjudging her? Why should that cause her to feel like this? She had only just met Silas. He meant nothing whatsoever to her, and yet here she was reacting to his unpleasant remarks with the kind of hurt feelings and sense of betrayal that were more appropriate for a long-standing and far more intimate relationship. Was that it? Did she secretly want to have sex with him? Had he somehow sensed that, even though she hadn’t been aware of it herself? Was that the reason for his accusation, and her own emotional reaction to it?

This time when Tilly shivered it wasn’t just because she was cold. She didn’t like what was happening. She had never wanted to do any of this in the first place—not coming here, not hiring herself an escort, and most certainly not sharing a bed with Silas. She took a deep breath.

‘I do not hire men to have sex with me. I don’t need to.’Well, it was true, wasn’t it? ‘I’ve already made it perfectly clear to you why I need an escort, and if you thought I was lying or had some ulterior motive then surely it was up to you to refuse the commission. You don’t strike me as the kind of man who would allow himself to be put in a situation you don’t want,’ she told him shrewdly.

Her reaction wasn’t what Silas had been expecting. He had assumed that she would use his accusation as an excuse to lay her cards on the table. At which point he had intended to make it plain that, while he was prepared to act as her fiancé in public, making use of the intimacy provided by their shared accommodation was most definitely not on the agenda.

The nature of his profession meant that Silas was immediately and instinctively suspicious of everyone’s motives. As far as he was concerned, everyone had something to hide, something they were prepared to sell, and something they were prepared to buy. He himself wanted to hide the fact that he was using his position as a fake fiancé to get closer to Art, but he was only prepared to sell his time, not his body. He was also a man who hated being wrong-footed and forced to accept that he had made an error of judgement—especially by a woman he had no reason whatsoever to respect.

‘I thought your explanation owed more to imagination than truth,’ he told her uncompromisingly. ‘As far as I am concerned, and in view of what has transpired, I was right to question the validity of what you were telling me. Not, I must say, that I admire your taste in sexual boltholes,’ he added disparagingly. ‘Apart from anything else, it’s freezing. Are those radiators on?’ He walked over to one of them and put his hand against it.

‘Apparently Art’s daughters have messed up the delicate balance of radiator temperature and fair heating for all,’ Tilly told him tiredly. ‘Or at least I think that’s what my mother was trying to tell me.’

Somehow Tilly managed to answer his mundane question with an equally mundane answer, even though her heart was pumping so much blood through her veins she could actually feel the adrenaline surge. There was no way she was going to let his insults go unchallenged.

‘You don’t have to stay here, you know,’ she told him. ‘There’s nothing to stop you leaving if you want. I certainly won’t be trying.’ She tried to put as much withering scorn into her words as she could.

Silas gave her a derisory look. ‘We’ve only just arrived, and we’re supposed to be engaged. I can hardly walk out now.’

‘Why not?’ Tilly demanded, in a brittle voice that betrayed her tension. ‘Engaged couples do quarrel and break up. It happens all the time. In fact, I think it’s a very good idea.’

She could feel the comfort of her own relief at the thought of him leaving. He was having an effect on her she really did not like or want. It—he—had made her feel uncomfortable and on edge even before he had accused her of lying to him. There was no way she wanted to spend a week sharing a room with a man who thought she was gagging for sex with him and about to pounce on him at any minute. She might be being a tad old-fashioned, but the truth was that she much preferred the traditional scenario in which she was the one imagining that he might pounce on her. Not that she wanted him to do so, of course. Not for one minute.

‘In fact,’ she continued fiercely, ‘I think it would be an excellent idea if I went down right now to find my mother and tell her that the engagement is off.’

‘Wouldn’t that be somewhat counter-productive? I thought the whole idea of this was to help your mother.’ The conversation and Tilly’s behaviour were taking a direction Silas hadn’t expected, and one he did not want. Tilly was quite obviously working herself up into a mood of moral outrage and, worse, she was throwing out the kind of challenges he had no intention of taking up.

It wasn’t like him to misjudge a situation, and it irked him that he might have here. But Tilly was behaving in a way he considered out of character for the slot he had mentally fitted her into. He despised women who insisted on playing games, and normally he wouldn’t have tolerated an assumed ‘injured innocent’ act, but right now he had too much at stake to risk her carrying out her threat. Much as he disliked having to admit it, he recognised that it night have been wiser for him to have played along with her pretence for a bit longer before letting her know that he had guessed what she was planning. He couldn’t allow this new situation to accelerate.

He might not mind walking out on Tilly, but if he did he would also be walking out on his chance to talk to Art. He had already sown the seeds for what he hoped would become more informative confidences once Art had let down his guard a bit more.

He walked over to the bed and eyed it assessingly. At least it was large enough for him to ensure that Tilly kept her distance from him.

He was standing next to her when they both heard Annabelle calling out from the other side of the door. ‘It’s only us, darlings!’

‘That’s my mother now,’ Tilly told him unnecessarily. ‘I’ve made up my mind. There’s no way I want to continue with this charade now, after the accusations you’ve just made. I’m going to tell her that we’ve had a row, that our engagement is over and that you’re leaving.’

She was making to remove the ring he had given her as she spoke, and Silas could tell that she meant what she was saying. The door was already opening. He thought quickly, and then acted with even greater speed.

It shocked Tilly how silently and lethally fast Silas moved, dropping down onto the bed next to her and imprisoning her in his arms as he rolled her torso down under his own and then covered her mouth with his.

Tilly tried to push him away, but he was holding her too tightly, one muscular leg thrown over her in what was surely one of the most intimate embraces a fully clad couple could perform—even if he was only adopting it to keep her pinned beneath the weight of his body. Pinned in such a way that she was shockingly aware of the physical differences between them—his hardness pressed to her softness, his body dominating and unyielding, while, to her outraged horror, her own was soft and accommodating, as though her flesh welcomed the possessive maleness of his.