A Convenient Husband (12 page)

Even while she was protesting, she had the feeling they both knew she was just going through the motions. Some things in life were inevitable and she'd discovered pretty late on in hers that one of them was when Rafe said he wanted her she was a lost cause! Could this be a genetic flaw? she wondered.

‘It's nothing of the sort. So far all we've done is argue and fight…'

‘We
always
argue and fight.'

‘And normally I don't give a damn.'

She saw a thoughtful expression drift into his eyes. Stifling a cry of vexation, she bit her tongue until she tasted the tang of salt. ‘Listen, Rafe,' she said, grabbing a pillow from above her head and pushing it between them. It hurt her sensitised breasts and it made a puny defence, but it was better than nothing. ‘I value our friendship, but it'll never survive us…'

‘Being lovers? Aren't you being just the tiniest bit perverse? One minute all we do is argue and fight, the next our friendship is worth preserving at any cost…including my sanity!' he growled.

Shock made her forget how imperative it was not to look directly at him. It took about two seconds of exposure to that dark, smouldering glare to almost paralyse her with desire.

‘You should go visit your grandfather.' She found it hard to form the words. ‘I should…'

‘Sit here all alone and brood. I think my idea is better. You know how to wound a bloke, Tess. Here I am offering you my body and my not inconsiderable expertise…'

He might have made it sound like a joke, but Rafe was deadly serious. He knew she'd enjoyed their first frantic coupling; her reactions had been more eloquent than any lavish words of praise. Rafe found he wanted to teach—to hell with want! He
needed
to show her the finer subtleties, show her how good restraint could be. He'd be so damned restrained that she'd be begging him to take her, he decided, smiling with grim determination into her flushed, aroused face! He might do a bit of begging himself, just to show her there wasn't a damned thing wrong with it.

Just when his own was climbing to explosion-point, the strain faded from Tess's face and she burst out laughing. ‘Why, you…!'

Rafe grabbed the pillow she'd just whacked him over the head with. ‘That wasn't just an idle boast.' Tess found the combination of warm laughter and smouldering awareness in his eyes tremendously potent and attractive. The smile faded from her face.

‘I'm sure you've been around, but spare me the details.'

‘Compared to you, Tess, a newborn kitten has been around, but I'm here to change all that.' He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and refused to let her look away.

‘I don't think I want anything to change.'

‘What are you going to do—pretend we didn't make love? Pretend you didn't enjoy it? Pretend you don't want to repeat the experience just as much as I do?' He shook his head reprovingly from side to side. ‘Too much pretending for one woman. Break the habit of a lifetime, Tess. Live for the moment, lover…'

‘That's a very dangerous philosophy.' Attractive and extraordinarily tempting, she didn't add.

‘You're a warm and sensual woman, Tess.'

She knew it wasn't true, but Rafe had a very authoritative way with words. The fact his hand was expertly caressing her breast again probably helped the illusion along slightly too!

Tess felt as if she were dissolving along with her doubts. ‘Was it
very
obvious, Rafe?' she whispered, unable to restrain her curiosity any longer. His thumb moved across her nipple and she moaned.

‘It was obvious you were made to do this to me,' he responded huskily. ‘God knows why I never realised it before.'

‘Do what?'

‘This.' He took her hand; Tess got the drift straight away.

‘You feel…'

‘Overdressed.'

‘That too,' she conceded huskily.

‘You could do something about that. Would you like to?' he asked, brushing the heavy swathe of hair from her hot cheek.

‘I want to so much I can't breathe.' Her confession came in a rush and with much heavy breathing. His reply was music to her ears.

Rafe inhaled deeply, drawing the female fragrance of her deep into his lungs. ‘You can do all the things you want to.' He continued to kiss her face and neck, sliding his fingers deep into her hair as he angled her chin first this way and then another until there seemed hardly a centimetre of skin his lips hadn't touched.

All she wanted to do was love him, this person she'd known almost all her life but had never really
seen
until today. Had she changed…? Had he…? Tess thought it didn't really matter. It mattered that she'd never been as sure of anything in her entire life. Not that it does me any good, she thought bleakly, when it's the one thing I'm not allowed to do.

‘I'm not sure I know how.'

Rafe stopped playing at kissing and did it properly. Rafe's casual was way better than most people's best; his best was very good indeed! ‘I know how, I'll show you. All you have to do is tell me what you want.'

‘I couldn't do that,' she whispered.

‘You've never run scared of telling me what's on your mind before.' His thumb moved rhythmically over one tight, swollen nipple.

Tess gave a tortured moan. ‘That's different.'

‘Beautifully different, just like you.'

It was.

R
AFE
sat at the opposite end of the long table from his grandfather. The arrangement wasn't exactly intimate. You could have comfortably seated at least twenty people between them along the gleaming mahogany surface. In the past he'd frequently seen it accommodate at least that many people. The atmosphere had been convivial on those occasions; tonight it was not.

He toyed with the empty crystal goblet beside his plate. ‘Do you eat in here when you're alone?'

‘Some of us like to maintain standards.' Edgar Farrar looked with thinly veiled disapproval at his grandson's casual attire. His grandfather's disapproval had stopped bothering Rafe a long time before. ‘What would you have me do—eat on a tray in front of the television?'

Rafe's lips twitched. What a scandalous thought! He had noticed the old man's colour had got progressively darker through the meal as he'd accepted the wine his grandson had refused…drinking for two? Rafe wondered how the old man's blood pressure was behaving these days. He didn't ask—he didn't think his concern would be well received. He supposed the ironic thing was that he did actually feel concerned.

‘Yeah, the dreaded telly, it's really killed the art of conversation, hasn't it?' Rafe drawled, his sarcasm pronounced. They'd sat through four courses and not exchanged more than half a dozen words before the coffee stage.

I'd have been better off staying at the cottage with Tess, he thought, not for the first time. Actually he would have stayed if she hadn't forcibly expelled him, insisting she wanted to cope with Chloe without any distractions.

‘Heard from Dad lately?'

His father had been living in luxurious exile with his wife in the South of France since he'd been caught with his fingers in the till. Actually, the embezzlement had been a little more sophisticated than that—Guy Farrar might be greedy and impatient, but he was also clever. Not as clever as his father, though, it turned out.

When he'd discovered the crime Edgar had used his own money to cover the theft and set about limiting the damage. He'd succeeded. Inevitably there had been rumours but the family honour had survived the incident intact, which Rafe pondered cynically, was all that mattered! This done, Edgar had told his son he was no longer welcome in the country. Guy had known that Edgar had the power to make life very uncomfortable if he hadn't obeyed the edict.

Rafe didn't regret his parent's departure, but he did feel a twinge of remorse as the older man's ruddy colour intensified.

Despite all the odds, he felt an affection for the bigoted, intolerant old despot which he had never felt for his own father or, for that matter, his brother. His mother had been tearfully delighted to see him when he'd sought her out just after his eighteenth birthday, but you couldn't turn back the clock. Rafe didn't resent this. He knew she had a new family to consider, and he was genuinely happy she'd found someone to make her happy. No, he and Edgar were stuck with each other.

It was probably cruel to bait his grandfather, but then, he reflected wryly, the old man always had been a lifelong advocate of blood sports!

‘I hear from your father. He worries I've disinherited him.' Edgar's heavy-hooded lids lifted and he gave a thin-lipped smile.

‘And have you?' Rafe wondered casually.

‘You'd like that, wouldn't you?' Edgar accused.

‘If you think I give a damn one way or the other about your money and this estate, you couldn't be more wrong,' Rafe told him without heat.

Edgar Farrar's face betrayed the frustration he felt knowing the boy only spoke the truth.

The shrill buzz of his mobile interrupted Rafe's thoughts, which had already wandered in the direction of Walnut Cottage.

Under his grandfather's austere gaze he fished the phone from his pocket.

‘Tess.' He could see her so clearly she could have been standing here in front of him. His nostrils twitched; he could almost smell the soft scent of her body. Taking into account the fact his imagination had failed to supply clothes, it was probably just as well—for his grandfather's continued mental well-being—that the image remained a product of his fertile, not to mention erotic imagination.

Rafe was shocked by the degree of pleasure he felt at hearing her voice. He was even more shocked by the way his body reacted lustfully. The pleasure rapidly faded as he registered the anxiety in her voice.

‘Blood group…?' His brows drew together in a perplexed troubled line as he supplied the information she requested.

‘You know I have. As rare as hen's teeth, so they tell me.' He recited parrot-like the constituents of his rare blood group. His expression darkened as he listened to the babbled explanation. ‘The infirmary—I'll be there.' He glanced at the metallic watch on his wrist. ‘Twenty…no, make that fifteen minutes.'

‘Did you know…?' he rapped, surging to his feet. Struggling to contain his anger, he towered over the older man looking forbidding.

‘Know what?' Edgar Farrar wasn't used to being looked at as if he were a particularly nasty bug; he didn't like it.

For once Rafe could find no redeeming humour in the old man's sneering attitude; the joke of being the object of his grandfather's distaste had abruptly vanished.

‘Know that your precious Alec had fathered a bastard of one of the local maidens.' One of the only things he'd ever had in common with his deceased elder brother was an extremely rare blood group. It seemed his brother had passed that same blood group on to his son Ben, who was now awaiting surgery in the local city hospital. Tess must be beside herself…He wanted to be there with her; he didn't want to waste time here with the old man.

Edgar Farrar shot to his feet, his arthritic knee forgotten. His eyes blazed.
‘How dare you?'

‘Sure,' Rafe drawled, throwing his jacket over his shoulder. ‘You shouldn't speak ill of the dead and he was worth ten of me, but don't say you didn't know my sainted brother habitually cheated on poor Annabel.' He laughed harshly as fresh colour suffused his grandfather's already ruddy cheeks.

‘Sure you knew, but he cheated with such exquisite discretion and good taste you turned a blind eye.'

‘Where do you think you're going, boy?' Edgar yelled at the ramrod straight back of his only remaining grandson.

‘Do you think I'd have ignored a child of Alec's if I knew he existed!'

The quaver in the old man's voice made Rafe pause. He slowed and turned back. ‘Any heir would be preferable to me, is that right?' He searched the old man's face. ‘I thought so.'

‘Rafe!'

‘Shut up! If I don't get to the hospital soon you won't have an heir at all!' he flung angrily over his shoulder.

It was the first time in his life that anyone had ever told Edgar Farrar to shut up. It took him several moments to recover from the shock, but recover he did.

 

‘You really can't get up yet, Mr Farrar,' a young nurse protested weakly as Rafe swung his long legs over the side of the narrow bed.

‘No, he can't,' the older and coolly imperious uniformed figure who had escorted Tess into the cubicle agreed. ‘I've no desire to spend my evening filling in accident forms in triplicate after you fall flat on your face.'

After a short pause Rafe, whose head had done some spectacular spinning as he'd sat up, complied with a rueful grin.

‘Right, I'll send along a nice cup of tea and biscuits and you'll feel yourself in no time,' she said briskly, withdrawing with the younger nurse in her wake.

They just looked at one another. Tess knew she had to do something…say something…You couldn't tell a man what she had told Rafe and leave it like that.

‘Fancy meeting you here,' Rafe drawled as Tess moved awkwardly forward. ‘Any more secrets stored within that delightful bosom?' His eyes lifted from the heaving outline and he saw colour suffuse her face.

Tess sighed regretfully. ‘I'm sorry I hit you with it like that, but things were a bit urgent.'

‘How's the boy?'

He sounded as if he cared…What am I thinking? If he didn't care he wouldn't be here, she chided herself. ‘He's in the operating theatre,' she explained huskily. ‘They'll probably have to remove his spleen…' she caught her lower lip savagely between her teeth and continued huskily ‘…but he should be all right; thanks to you.'

‘And the others?'

‘Chloe had a nasty bang on the head, but it's only concussion. She should be able to go home in the morning. The driver of the lorry is suffering from shock, which isn't surprising. It must be a nightmare having your brakes pack up on you like that.'

‘Sit here.' Rafe rolled onto his side, lifted his head and patted the side of the narrow bed he lay on. ‘You look all in.'

Perhaps it was the trauma of the past hour or so, but the gentleness in his voice brought an emotional lump to Tess's throat.

‘Did they take much…?' She glanced warily at the plaster mark on his arm and took him up on his offer.

Actually she was glad to sit down. Her metabolic rate had been in a head-spinning, upward spiral ever since she'd received the phone call from a distraught Ian telling her about the accident. While she'd had something to do, namely get Rafe here to donate his all important blood, she'd been able to cope. Now all that was left was the waiting and she felt so tense a sharp word might be enough to make her crack wide open.

‘The odd armful or two. Do I look pale and interesting?'

Actually he looked so devastatingly handsome that her heart had almost leapt from her chest the instant she'd seen him lying there.

‘More pallid and pasty.' Tess heard the tremulous quiver in her voice and decided she might leave the sparkling repartee until she was more than one step away from being a basket case. She raised a self-conscious hand to her cheek.

‘That probably makes two of us. It was lucky I remembered about your odd blood group.'

‘I prefer rare, actually.'

‘You had your blood frozen in case it was needed when you had that knee surgery a few years back, didn't you?'

‘They do keep some in cold storage for me,' Rafe agreed.

‘When they told me about Ben's I realised straight away it must be the same one…'

‘Considering our close relationship,' he put in quietly.

‘I knew you'd be mad with me.' Worriedly she searched his face and discovered he was searching hers just as diligently.

‘For not mentioning in passing that I'm actually Ben's uncle?' The truth was he'd been planning on demanding an explanation from her, but one look at the wary, worried expression on her pale little face and his rancour had vanished leaving an urgent desire…no, actually,
overwhelming
came a lot closer to describing his desire to enfold her in a comforting embrace that would wipe the lines of worry from her brow.

‘I don't know what I am with you, angel,' he admitted abruptly. ‘I know I'm mad with Alec. Lucky for him he's dead,' he reflected, his eyes glowing with contempt as he thought about his late and unlamented brother. ‘He always was a randy sod, but I didn't think even he would stoop that low…
my mistake
,' he added drily as Tess rested her forehead against his.

With a sigh Tess slipped off her shoes and cuddled up properly beside him. It was a relief to her he had taken the accuracy of what she'd told him for granted. He could have got understandably irked if he'd just thought she was badmouthing a dead man who couldn't defend himself. But then Rafe knew better than most that his brother had not been a nice man; in fact it was pretty obvious to her that she couldn't despise Alec any more than Rafe obviously did.

Her perfume was a pleasant change from the antiseptic hospital smell. Rafe inhaled deeply; he wasn't sure if she found it soothing to have her hair stroked, but he found it soothing doing the stroking.

‘There's probably a rule about this sort of thing.'

‘Considering the overstretched state of the National Health Service, bed-sharing could well be the way forward.'

Tess smiled weakly and rubbed her cheek against the hand he'd lifted to brush her hair from her eyes. ‘Perhaps I'll just lie here for a moment. I can't actually do anything just now and they'll tell me if…'

‘Sure they will,' he agreed in a soothing voice.

‘I shouldn't have let him out of my sight.' Her voice was muffled against his shoulder.

His hand went to the back of her head. Rafe took a deep breath. How were you meant to console someone who sounded pretty damned inconsolable?

‘I expect every parent thinks that when anything happens to their kid…and don't start with that “I'm just a distant relative” routine!'

‘I just wish it was me lying…' Her voice cracked, before she ruthlessly stilled her trembling lip. She saved the luxury of tears for later when Ben was well again.