Authors: Jessica Steele
Her mouth dried. Her heart began to race, nowhere near certain she didn't want him to kiss her. Every womanly instinct was telling her his kiss wouldn't be that same brief meeting of lips he had saluted her with last night —this would be more in the nature of the kiss that had grown and grown that night in her flat. That night she had wanted more!
'Nash,' she said, her voice all strangled and a stranger to her.
At once his expression altered. The sound of his name on her lips, the look of half fear, half wanting was clear for all to see. He turned away, at random picking up one of the magazines from the table and thrusting it into her hands, his honesty defeating her as he wouldn't pretend that tense moment hadn't happened.
'Read,' he instructed grittily. 'Apart from the fact your emotions must still be haywire from that episode yesterday, it wouldn't do either of us any good to let our biological urges get out of hand.'
That snapped her quickly out of her trance. 'You're so right,' she came back pertly, only just holding back 'as usual', wanting to tell him he'd be so lucky it should get that far that she would ever let her
biological urges
get out of hand again. She tried to think of something brilliantly cutting to add, but by the time she had, Nash had been gone a full five minutes.
The couple of hours sitting out of bed were completely wasted, she considered, when Ellie, no doubt sent by Nash, came to help her back to bed before serving her from the tea tray she had brought in with her.
Perry hadn't enjoyed any of it. All she had done was rail silently against Nash that he could so unbalance the steadiness of her emotions just by looking as if he wanted to kiss her. And when she hadn't been railing against him she had been lashing herself with the, thought of how it could be that he disturbed her so, when up until yesterday she had been in love with Trevor. And more punishing self-analysis—did she still love Trevor?
It was a fresh shock to discover that no, she did not. Yesterday she had thought it was because she felt numbed that there had been no feeling in her for the man who had shown an ugly side to him. But she was no longer numbed, and couldn't help wondering, had it been his attack on her that had killed her feelings stone dead? Or was it that she had never loved Trevor so wholeheartedly as she had thought anyway?
CHAPTER TEN
PERRY checked her watch when she wakened in the same bed she had slept in for the past nine nights, saw it was nearly seven and decided she would stay put for another half hour. As it was Sunday she suspected Ellie liked to have a lie in, and though she felt well enough now to go down and make a start on the breakfasts, knew Ellie would frown over such an action.
Both Ellie and her husband Bert had been so kind to her, she reflected, recalling Bert had taken her into the nearest shopping centre with him on Friday when he had gone. He hadn't wanted to, she'd known that, she thought with a smile, remembering his, 'I can bring you back anything you're short of,' just as if he had known Nash hadn't bothered packing her cosmetics.
'Please, Bert,' she pleaded, and saw his glance at Ellie for guidance.
'If you're sure it's not going to be too much for you,' he had given in at last. But she hadn't missed the way he watched over her like a mother hen, going with her and waiting while she selected a lipstick.
Everybody had been wonderful to her, she mused. Even Nash, when she had thought she would get very short shrift from him after that episode a week yesterday. That episode when he had as good as told her with his '... it wouldn't do either of us any good to let our biological urges get out of hand' that like that other time he was still ruled by his head and wasn't about to do anything to make their divorce the harder to come by. Oddly, though, with the many conversations she had with him since, the subject of the divorce had never had an airing.
She hadn't expected to see him again that Saturday,
and had not. But Sunday morning he had strolled into her room as though nothing out of the way had taken place, his_ manner easy as he had asked how she was. So easy in fact she had forgotten she was going to have her nose in the air the next time she saw him, and had found herself replying, her manner just as easy, 'Fine, thanks.' Though she hadn't forgotten she was determined on going home the next day. 'So well, in fact,' she'd added, 'I think I'll go back tomorrow:' She had said the wrong thing; she knew it as straight away his mood had changed.
'For God's sake,' he had barked, 'you can't still be hankering after Coleman after what he tried to do to you.'
Stunned that he was thinking she couldn't wait to get back Trevor, she was speechless for a moment, then she felt her ire rise and was ready to hold her own.
'Trevor has nothing to do with it.'
'No?'
She knew in that one hard spat out word that he didn't believe her. 'No,' she snapped, 'he hasn't,' and glared at him, mentally getting her sleeves rolled up for the right royal battle that was to come.
Only it didn't come. Unexpectedly Nash's expression relaxed, and he'd perched himself on her bed, his eyes laughing even if his mouth wasn't.
'Right, little Miss Fury,' he said calmly. .'Tell why, after agreeing on Friday to spend a few weeks in the peace and serenity of the country, you've suddenly decided—after less than forty-eight hours—you've had enough.'
'I ...' she began, trying to remember when it was she had ever
voluntarily
agreed to anything he suggested, 'Well—there's my job, for one thing,' she blurted out. 'I have to get back to work. Mr Ratcliffe ...'
'Mr Ratcliffe won't be expecting you to return for two weeks, if then,' Nash told her with the air of knowing something she didn't confidently.
'He won't?'
'I put through a call to him on Thursday acquainting him with the details of your accident.' He smiled suddenly, and she didn't know whether to smile with him or hit the smile from his face when, with a great deal of charm, he said, 'I thought you'd like me to do that for you.' And before she could draw breath to ask her next question, he answered it just as though he understood she was wondering how he knew who her employer was, 'Mrs Foster told me where you worked.'
Flabbergasted, not wanting to admit the dry way in which he delivered statements had the strangest knack of making her lips want to twitch, solemnly she stared at him.
'For all you're feeling "fine",' he went on, seeing she hadn't anything to come back with, 'I doubt you'd be able to manage the stairs up to your flat without feeling ready to collapse at the top.' And going on with logic she couldn't fault, damn him, not to say playing on her conscience, 'Mrs Foster disregarded the great pain it caused her to climb the stairs to you once before. Do you honestly believe she wouldn't again brave her disability to investigate your wellbeing if she thought you were too quiet up above her?'
He had won easily, then, though she had brought the subject up against last Thursday—the first day she had been allowed to have dinner downstairs. But before she had got properly started he had smoothly headed her off— so smoothly that even now she wasn't sure if it had been deliberate or not as he had apologised for being late home, going on to tell her how one of the directors, an arthritis sufferer, had been at a meeting that day when he had seized up through sitting too long—that word arthritis getting to her. Since he was unable to drive himself, it had been Nash who had driven him home, thereby delaying his own arrival home.
Expressing her immediate sympathy for the stricken director, Perry had recalled the days when Mrs Foster's bones seized up and she had needed help. And as Nash had gone on to regale her with some amusing incident, the idea of asking to go with him to London tomorrow had faded.
I
will
ask him to take me home tomorrow, Perry vowed, seeing it was now twenty past seven and deciding she'd had enough of bed, and she collected the clothes she was going to wear and headed for the bathroom. Some of her bruises had gone, others were fading. And though in all truth she wasn't sure she felt up to tackling a full day's work, she was certainly fit enough to be back in her own home.
And
able, she felt confident, to impress on Mrs Foster that she had no need at all to worry about her and make what must be an agonising journey up the stairs.
Her mind set on tackling Nash without delay, Perry, in smart fawn corduroy pants and brown jersey shirt, left her room, pausing only briefly on her way downstairs to admire the fine oak panelling, the, magnificent pictures placed here and there, more intent on finding Nash. She found the breakfast room empty, but turned undaunted, determined to seek him out, only to meet Ellie coming in having heard her and ready to serve her breakfast.
'I was looking for Nash,' Perry said, after greeting Ellie, who always had a smile for her.
'He's been in his study since before seven,' Ellie told her warmly. 'Catching up, he said, when I told him he ought to leave his office at his office.'
Her plans knocked on the head by the knowledge that Nash wouldn't be in a very receptive mood if she interrupted him while he was working, Perry wondered if he ever gave work a rest.
'Does he live in his study every weekend?'
'Bless you, no,' said Ellie promptly—which cheered Perry to think he did rest sometimes. Though why it should bother her that his nose wasn't always to the grindstone,
she couldn't fathom. 'It's only because you're here that he's behind.'
'Me!' Perry exclaimed, having not a clue how she could be the culprit. She didn't see Nash during his working day, for one thing. And though she thought of him often during the day—she frowned as she realised the truth of that thought—she was positive that, once enmeshed in his work, he never gave her another thought. 'I never see him until he comes home!' she further exclaimed.
'That's it,' Ellie pounced, not making her any the wiser. Then she added, 'Until he brought you to Greenfields we never saw Nash from Monday to Friday, since he preferred to work late into the night if need be so he could have most weekends free at home.' Smiling broadly now, Ellie went on, 'As you know, he's come home every night this week.'
'So the work he hasn't stayed to finish at night has been piling up,' Perry said slowly, seeing very clearly, more guilt added to her conscience, the inroads she had made into his time.
'I know which he would rather do,' said Ellie, her cheerful good humour telling Perry she thought that in his view the Devereux Corporation could go hang if Nash had to choose between it and the intended reconciliation he wanted with his wife. 'Would you like breakfast now or did you want to go in to see Nash first?' Ellie asked, not seeing she had given Perry more than enough food for thought.
'I'd better have breakfast since Nash is so busy,' she replied, and didn't believe it when Ellie told her Nash wouldn't mind if it was she who disturbed him, that he would be delighted to see her.
After she had eaten she wandered, about outside, musing that she had plenty to thank Nash for, that to say she wanted to leave couldn't sound any other than ungrateful.
Oh, why did everything have to be so complicated?
As she had not strayed very far from the house her eyes ranged over the acres of tree-strewn land Nash owned. It was so lovely here any other girl would be thrilled at the idea of being able to stay another week—so why wasn't she?
Aimlessly she dawdled over the gravelled drive, ruminating on the question. Then all at once, gasping suddenly, an answer came—an answer that shook her to her very foundations, and had her standing stock still.
Still gasping at the unwanted truth going round in her head, in her heart region, she stared unseeing at the scene that moments before had enchanted. The answer rocked her. She had to leave, leave before it was too late! Go now —or she wouldn't want to go at all!
Shattered, Perry stood unmoving, facing the reason why Nash occupied so many of her thoughts. Why he was able to make her laugh as often as he had this week. Why the chemistry in her had her not only firing up at him angrily from time to time, but why that same chemistry had had her melting in his arms as far back—and just then it seemed aeons away
;
—as the time she had thought she had been in love with Trevor.
She hadn't been in love with Trevor, that positive knowledge came hurtling in. But if she didn't look sharp and get out of here, she stood a very good chance of facing the worst heartache of her life! She, unutterable idiot, was half way to falling head over heels in love with Nash Devereux—the husband who had strength sufficient to kill the headiest physical desire at the merest hint that he might find himself married for real.
Some hours later, knowing she would be called to account if she didn't present herself in the dining room, she thanked her guardian angel that Nash was still working.
'Nash is having his meal on a tray,' Ellis informed her. And beaming brightly, 'But he said he was nearly through. So you'll still have a good part of the day. to spend together.
Managing the best she could to find a smile, Perry tucked into her melon and grapefruit starter. She had swung from a very definite intention of seeking Nash out and getting her departure date settled, to now being afraid to face him in case when she saw him the message she suspected her heart of transmitting to her brain turned out to be terrifyingly true.
She didn't linger in the dining room, the ridiculous notion playing on her nerves as she refused coffee that Nash might take it into his head to leave his study and come to share a cup.
It was these same nerves attacking that had her going out the back way so she shouldn't have to pass his study, afraid as she was of bumping into him if his work was finished.
Her nerves threatening to get out of hand she entered the rear courtyard and saw Bert so engrossed with his head under the bonnet of his A40 he would have no idea had she gone by without speaking. But she liked Bert, and stopped, hoping a few moments spent in idle chat might have a calming influence on her agitation.
'Spot of trouble?' she enquired, wincing for him as his head shot up and came into contact with metal. 'Sorry,' she said quickly, thankful it was more a tap than a bang his head received.
'Not really,' Bert answered, always seeming to have time for her. 'Though I fancy a new air filter wouldn't come amiss.'
Perry found him easy to talk with and listen to. Bert carried on with his servicing as he told her he was meeting a fellow model railway enthusiast in London next Saturday, that they were going to an exhibition, and that he wanted to make certain the car would behave itself on the way.
Feeling much less anxious some ten minutes later, about to go on her way, all at once Perry was back to feeling full of anxiety again. For round the corner of the house, a jacket over his arm, hers if she wasn't mistaken, came Nash.
Manlike, he poked his head beneath the bonnet of the A40, passing comment to Bert, then turning to Perry observed by way of explanation for the jacket in his hands:
'When I couldn't find you downstairs I went to your room. Coming for a walk?' and obviously not expecting any answer but yes, he held her jacket up for her to put her arms in.
No, said her head. 'Yes, all right,' she heard her non-objecting heart answer. And before she could change her mind she found he had taken hold of her arm and was walking her away from the house, telling her they wouldn't go far and she must tell him immediately she began to feel tired.
'I'm not an invalid,' she protested, not knowing who she was most cross with, him or herself.
'You're not in a very good mood either, are you?'
'Sorry,' she found herself instantly apologising, and knew then that her heart was winning over her head.
'Consider yourself forgiven,' he said, interrupting their walking to stop and place a brief kiss on the end of her nose, setting up the most unimaginable riot inside her, before they walked on.
Not trusting herself to come back with anything, Perry stayed quiet for the next five minutes as they trudged across a field, hedgerows bursting with all manner of delights for anyone with an eye to see.
'How are you sleeping?' he asked suddenly, causing her to hope if they were to have conversation it wasn't going to be about her health, a subject she was growing weary of.
'Splendidly,' she answered, having second thoughts and thinking it a pretty innocuous subject anyway. At least she'd been able to answer his first question honestly enough.