Storm Force Read online

  ‘There is no prospect of that,’ she said. ‘In fact, it isn’t even a remote possibility.’

  ‘Too true,’ he said equably. ‘Unless I ask you. And I have no immediate plans to invite you to bed.’

  ‘Am I supposed to find that reassuring?’ She drew a quivering breath. ‘Your arrogance is appalling. And if you dare lay another hand on me …’ She hesitated.

  ‘Yes?’ he prompted. ‘What will you do?’

  She flung back her head. ‘I’ll make you sorry, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m deeply repentant already,’ he said. ‘But you don’t have to worry, Ms Carlyle. Whether you believe it or not, I’ve never forced myself on a woman yet. I’ve never found it necessary. And you won’t make me break that excellent rule.’

  ‘What a pity that poor girl—Debbie Burrows—can’t hear you say that.’ Maggie’s tone was heavily sarcastic.

  ‘Don’t worry—she will—when the case comes to court.’ He paused, then added flatly, ‘If it does.’

  ‘I suppose you’ll try and pressure her to drop her case,’ Maggie said with contempt. ‘How wonderful it must be to have money and power.’

  ‘Miss Burrows is being backed financially by a Sunday newspaper. She won’t be short of cash at the moment. Of course, that may change when they discover she’s a pathological liar.’

  ‘I hope she wins,’ Maggie said breathlessly. ‘I hope they put you in prison for the rest of your life.’

  ‘I really believe you do. As it happens, I feel as if my sentence has started already.’ He pushed his chair back, and got to his feet, stretching lithely. ‘Well, thanks for the breakfast, Ms Carlyle. I’m glad it’s only your tongue that’s poisoned,’ he added silkily. ‘I’m going for a walk across the fields now. When I return, I suggest we should declare some kind of truce. Because whether we like it or not—and it’s just as much a hardship for me as for you, believe me—we’re stuck with each other for the duration.’ He gave her a brief, wintry smile. ‘Think about it.’

  She could think about nothing else, she thought tautly, as the cottage door closed behind him.

  She was being asked to endure the unendurable, she argued with herself. The cottage was too small to permit them to avoid each other, unless she spent the greater part of her time in the seclusion of the spare room. She grimaced, knowing that she would find that unbearable too.

  She supposed reluctantly that his proposal of a truce was the only answer, although the thought of the awful kind of artificial intimacy that would impose made Maggie cringe.

  For a moment, she sat staring into space, her nails curling like claws into the soft palms of her hands, as she remembered the things he had said to her—what he had implied. A kid in a candy store. The memory made her writhe.

  It’s not true, she insisted to herself. It isn’t. I was in a state of shock—that’s all. I wasn’t myself. I was upset over Robin—missing him.

  But Robin never made you feel like that, said a small sly voice in her head. With Robin, you felt secure—contented. Making love with him would have been a normal pleasant progression in the relationship. But the thought of it was never a burning ache—a hunger—coming between you and sleep.

  A deep flush of shame swept over her. It wasn’t just the storm, or the narrow bed which had disturbed her last night, she was forced to acknowledge. For the first time in her life, sexual curiosity—sexual need—had kept her awake.

  And it was all the fault of that—creature. That arrogant, womanising bastard, Jay Delaney.

  And he had known exactly what he was doing to her—known, and been able to draw back. That, somehow, was the worst—the most humiliating thing of all.

  She got abruptly to her feet, clattering the plates together, angrily aware that her hands were shaking.

  A mild lesson. Yet, brief as it had been, it had taught her things about herself that she’d never imagined. Never wanted to know.

  And now nothing would ever be the same again.

  The sound of the doorlatch made her jump like a scalded cat, and one of the beakers slipped from her hand, cracking against the side of the sink.

  ‘Damnation,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘That was a short walk,’ she said, acidly, as she turned, then stopped abruptly, confronted by the stocky figure of Dave Arnold, who worked at the farm. ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  She forced a smile, wishing that she could like him better. He was about the same age as herself, and not bad-looking in a coarse way. When she’d first moved into the cottage, he had come down at Mr Grice’s behest to help her get her furniture settled, and she had been grateful for that, but afterwards he’d persisted in hanging around, making excuses to come to the cottage, and eventually she had had to tell him bluntly to leave her in peace.

  He seemed to have accepted that, but she still felt uneasy in his presence, and wished that either Mike or Alan, the Grices’ sons, could have made the delivery instead.

  ‘I brought you some food.’ He placed two loaded carrier bags on the table. ‘Who was you expecting?’

  She shrugged evasively, ‘Oh, no one in particular. Did Mr Grice put a bill in?’

  ‘I’ve got it here.’ He produced a folded piece of paper from his anorak pocket. ‘Got someone staying, have you? I seen a bloke on your roof, earlier.’

  ‘I lost some tiles in the gale,’ she said non-committally.

  ‘I’d’ve put ‘em back for you, if you’d asked.’

  ‘Well, now you won’t have to. And I’m sure there’s a lot to do at the farm.’ She sounded brisk and schoolmistressy, she realised.

  ‘Funny thing was—I thought I knew him—that bloke on your roof. Thought I’d seen him somewhere before. Been down here other times, has he, then?’

  Mind your own bloody business, Maggie told him silently. Aloud, she said, ‘I often have people to stay. Will you tell Mr Grice I’ll drop off a cheque for all the food when I leave? Now, if you’ll excuse me …’ She began to run water into the sink.

  ‘Funny, though, me thinking I knew him.’

  ‘Hilarious.’ Maggie squirted detergent into the water, and whisked it to a foam with her hand, letting her back tell him the interview was over. He accepted his dismissal, and presently she saw him mooching off down the track, on his way back to the farm.

  She unpacked the carriers. The Grices had done her proud, she discovered. There was a chicken, some steaks and a small leg of lamb, as well as a home-made meat and potato pie carefully wrapped in greaseproof paper. Hurricane or not, Mrs Grice had been baking.

  She put the meat and vegetables away in the pantry, then made another pot of coffee. While she was waiting for it to brew, she sat in the rocking chair beside the Aga, staring into space.

  When she heard the door open she didn’t even look round. She knew who it was, her whole body tingling in a frightening awareness. Her fingers clenched round the beaker she was holding.

  Her voice strove for normality. ‘Would you like some coffee?’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said with cool politeness. She watched him help himself.

  She said, ‘One of the men was here from the farm. He saw you on the roof earlier, and he recognised you, although he hasn’t placed you yet.’

  ‘You should have jogged his memory,’ Jay said after a pause. ‘Told him that I was “McGuire” and that several newspapers would pay a lot of money to know where I am. That would have got me out of your hair.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said slowly, still not looking at him. ‘That’s what I should have done.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know. It—didn’t occur to me about the newspapers.’

  ‘An opportunity missed.’ He drank some coffee, his eyes never leaving her face. ‘To regain your precious solitude.’

  ‘The roads will re-open soon. Then I can go back to London.’

  ‘Where you live alone?’

  The curious note in his voice made her flush. ‘Is there something unusual about that?’

  H
e shrugged. ‘You certainly seem to enjoy your own company, Ms Carlyle. Take this place, which is clearly intended for sole occupation. One easy chair by the stove, one comfortable bed upstairs.’ He paused again. ‘Were you going to Mauritius on your own too?’

  ‘No, I was not.’ Maggie lifted her chin. ‘I was going with a friend. A man,’ she added, and instantly despised herself for doing so.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said softly. ‘So the lady has her human side, after all. What went wrong?’

  She hesitated. ‘His mother was taken ill at the last minute.’ She gave him a defensive look. ‘Make a joke about that.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. He’s clearly a devoted son.’ His mouth twisted slightly. ‘But maybe not such an ardent lover. Think about it.’

  ‘I’ve thought about nothing else,’ Maggie said, untruthfully.

  She hadn’t had time to think about Robin. There had been too much else on her mind, too much happening, she realised with faint incredulity. Yet for months now he’d been the most important person in her life.

  In fact, he had been the only person in her life. There’d been work, and there’d been Robin. Concerts, theatres, car trips and meals at her flat. Settled, safe and—cosy.

  The holiday in Mauritius had been something else. It would have broken the domestic mould, taken them both on a step into the unknown together. It had represented a kind of danger, she thought suddenly, and maybe even without his mother Robin would have backed away at the last moment. Perhaps their relationship wasn’t ready for that kind of intimacy. Perhaps it never would have been.

  But there was danger everywhere. She hadn’t had to go half-way round the globe to find it. It had been waiting for her—here at World’s End. She shivered.

  ‘Do I take it then that our truce has been declared?’ Jay asked quietly, and she nodded in silent reluctance, getting to her feet.

  He held out his hand, but she pretended not to notice, making a business of pouring more coffee for herself. It occurred to her with terrifying force that she dared not risk even the slightest physical contact with him.

  ‘There—doesn’t seem a great deal of choice at the moment.’

  ‘Spoken with your usual graciousness.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘Well, as I’m going to be around for a while, I’ll deal with those nettles.’ He gave her an edged smile. ‘Leaving you free to enjoy your solitude in any way you wish.’

  ‘A broken neck this morning, and nettle rash this afternoon. You are living dangerously, Mr Delaney. I’m sure Hal McGuire would be proud of you.’

  ‘It might be wiser not to speculate on McGuire’s reactions to the current situation,’ Jay drawled, his eyes sliding insolently down her body. ‘The scripts I’m offered don’t usually include platonic relationships.’

  She glared at him. ‘Perhaps they should. Maybe that would have cured you of the delusion that you’re irresistible.’

  ‘And what about your own delusion, Ms Carlyle, that you’re immune? How do we find a cure for that?’

  Maggie bit her lip. ‘We don’t. And I find this conversation thoroughly distasteful.’

  ‘You began it. And as I suggested last night, it’s wiser not to start something you can’t finish.’ He gave her a level look, before walking to the door.

  It seemed very quiet when he had gone. Maggie found she didn’t really want the rest of her coffee, and poured it down the sink. She began to wander restively round the room.

  The next twenty-four hours, or even—heaven forbid—couple of days promised to be among the most tricky she would ever experience. Like treading on eggshells, she thought, or through a live minefield.

  I’d better establish some ground rules, she decided uneasily. And speaking only when spoken to might be a good start.

  How was it, she wondered, that an arrogant chauvinist brute like Jay Delaney always seemed able to place her at a disadvantage—put her in the wrong? Although that wasn’t the worst of it. Loathsome as the idea was, Maggie couldn’t deny that he had the ability to make her physically aware of him as no one had ever done before. The circumstances of their meeting, and their enforced proximity ever since, had made that inevitable, she supposed with reluctance, but certainly no less shameful.

  When I get my hands on Sebastian, she planned, seething, brother-in-law or not, I’m going to kill him for doing this to me.

  But somehow she had to fill in the hours until Seb’s murder. She couldn’t spend all her time at World’s End, prowling round, brooding over her manifold wrongs.

  She prepared some vegetables to go with the meat and potato pie for supper, then settled to some heavy-duty cleaning of the living-room. It didn’t really need it, but she badly needed an outlet for her suppressed energies and her temper. Many of her contemporaries dismissed housework as a form of male-inflicted slavery, but Maggie had always obtained a curious satisfaction from making her immediate domain gleam from scrubbing, polishing and window-shining. To her relief the electricity supply was suddenly restored during the afternoon, so she was even able to vacuum.

  Housework couldn’t make her forget her present situation, but it set it at a safe distance for a while, and she was grateful for that at least.

  She had just finished rearranging some dried flowers she had brought to the cottage on her last visit as a centrepiece for the living-room table when Jay returned with the news that it was raining again.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, dismayed. ‘Do you think it will delay the clearing-up operations?’

  ‘Not for a moment,’ he said. ‘Except within a hundred-yard radius of this house. My landscape gardening is over for the day.’

  He sat down, inspecting a scratch on his hand.

  ‘Were you stung?’

  ‘Inevitably,’ he said. ‘But not terminally.’

  Maggie pushed a tress of hair back from her forehead. She felt hot and sticky after her endeavours, although there was a solution to that, she realised with reluctance. Not, however, an exclusive solution.

  She said constrictedly, ‘Would—would you like a bath—before we have our evening meal?’

  ‘I think I need one,’ Jay said with a grimace. He glanced round. ‘But how? The bedroom basin is rather small for total immersion, so is there some secret annexe you haven’t yet revealed to me, or do I just strip and stand in the rain with a bar of soap?’

  Maggie bit her lip. ‘None of those, actually. There’s a tub in the shed. I just—fill it with a jug, and bathe in front of the Aga.’

  ‘How very cosy,’ Jay drawled.

  She took a breath. ‘Of course, under the circumstances, there’ll have to be a certain amount of—cooperation …’

  ‘Naturally.’ He gave her a ferocious leer. ‘Shall I scrub your back first or you mine?’

  ‘Neither,’ Maggie snapped. ‘I was talking about respecting each other’s privacy by remaining upstairs for as long as necessary.’

  ‘But I enjoy certain refinements at bath time,’ Jay said softly. ‘Like—more hot water at intervals, and having a drink brought to me.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to fetch them yourself.’ To her fury Maggie felt a warm wave of colour sweep into her face, prompted by the image he had evoked. ‘This isn’t the Ritz. And I’m not your servant.’

  ‘Pity.’ Jay grinned at her. ‘You don’t fancy playing the role of willing and submissive handmaiden for one evening, I suppose? It could add a whole new dimension to your personality.’

  ‘I’ll leave my personality the way it is,’ she said curtly. ‘And it would do wonders for yours if you’d drop the sexual harassment for the next twenty-four hours. With a court case pending, I should have thought you’d have learned your lesson by now.’

  ‘And with a court case pending, I’m amazed you should suggest intimacies like bath time in front of the stove,’ he retorted, ‘Or are you planning to lock me in the bedroom in case my instincts as a sex maniac take over, and I rush down here and have you by force in a very large puddle?’

  In spite of an
ything she could do, Maggie felt her lips twitch.

  ‘No,’ she said, fighting an urge to laugh out loud. ‘I don’t think that.’

  ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ he said drily. ‘So—would you like me to fetch the tub and fill it for you?’

  ‘You’re the guest,’ she said. ‘You can have the first turn. I’ll get you a towel.’ She took the big enamel jug she used for filling the bath from the cupboard under the sink, and put it on the table. ‘You see—every modern convenience.’

  When she returned downstairs with the towel, the tub was already in position, and Jay, bare to the waist, was occupied in filling it.

  ‘It’s larger than I thought,’ he remarked, giving her a sideways glance. ‘Sure you don’t want to economise on hot water by sharing?’

  ‘Quite sure.’ Maggie realised with shock that she had been staring at him, absorbing almost avidly the width of his shoulders and the tanned muscularity of his long back. And his remark revealed that he was aware of it too, she thought with chagrin.

  She hurried into speech. ‘When you’ve finished, if you could drag the tub to the door, and empty it down the drain just outside, then—call me.’

  ‘No problem.’ Jay put down the jug, and began to unbuckle the belt of his jeans. His eyes met hers, held them for a long enigmatic moment.

  Maggie’s mouth was suddenly dry. She could feel her heart thudding against her ribcage. Felt sure its hammering must be audible in the heavy stillness of the room.

  She was aware that all she had to do was stand where she was, and that all further decisions would be made for her. But, dear heaven, just what was she contemplating?

  Reality came surging back with the force of a body blow, mingling panic with self-disgust. Maggie turned and headed blindly for the stairs, and the illusion of safety they seemed to offer. Nor did she risk even one fleeting glance over her shoulder, or pause for breath until she was in her bedroom with the door closed behind her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MAGGIE SAT ON the edge of her bed and stared into space.