Distracted by her Virtue (16 page)

‘I would never try to coerce you into anything you didn’t want to do … by fair means or foul. If you think I would then you really need to get to know me better.’ Finishing her comment with a grin, and with her hand
still in his, she spun round to pull him firmly towards the door. ‘But I have to tell you I’m highly intrigued to know whether you can cook half as well as you kiss, Mr Gaskill, and I’m warning you … you’d better not disappoint me!’

Jarrett had indeed cooked Sophia the best breakfast she’d ever eaten. She shouldn’t have been at all surprised, because it seemed that the man could undertake any task given him and make it look like a master-class in effortless ease. And when they’d both moved back to her great-aunt’s old junk room to start work on transforming it into the darkroom she craved they’d worked alongside each other in complete harmony—moving furniture out into the hallway, briskly sweeping the stone-flagged floor clean after every item was removed.

As if by unspoken consent they kept their conversation light, with a fair amount of mutual banter. But it wasn’t long before Sophia became aware that they were both trying hard to resist the powerful undercurrent of electricity that sparked between them whenever their gazes inadvertently met and held.
She felt like an excited bride-to-be on the eve of her wedding day
. And it wasn’t just Jarrett’s compelling dark looks or his tender lovemaking that fuelled her growing attraction towards him. His unfailing good humour was a powerful incentive too. Although sometimes she found herself holding her breath, in case his light-hearted teasing turned into a cruel or unkind barb, it never did.

It bitterly saddened her to realise yet again that the desolate and painful years with her husband had set up a belief in her to
expect
to be treated badly by a man.
Was she really going to let that soul-destroying experience dictate the pattern of the rest of her days? What effect might such a way of being have on Charlie?
It hardly bore contemplation
. No. If she wanted to change such a damaging belief then she had to be more determined to learn to trust … to anticipate love and respect instead of the hatred, mockery and deceit she’d lived with for far too long.

‘Jarrett?’

‘Hmm?’ He was halfway across the room, moving the last item of unwanted furniture—a squat gate-legged table—out into the corridor. He set it down on the stone flags and dusted off his hands.

To Sophia’s amusement she saw that he had acquired a fair amount of dust on his sculpted cheekbones, as well as in his curling ebony hair. Crossing over to him she reached up on tiptoe to plant an affectionate kiss on his mouth.

‘What’s that for?’ The timbre of his voice was a little husky and his gaze became more intense.

‘You indicated when we first met that you were rather partial to apple pie.’

‘I did?’

‘Yes, you did. You came up to me at the market, remember? You asked me if I wanted an extra guest for tea.’

‘So I did.’ His hands settled lightly either side of her hips as his beautifully carved lips quirked a smile. ‘My mother always taught me that if you don’t ask you don’t get.’

‘I thought I’d nip out to the corner shop and buy some cooking apples to make you one … as a reward for all your help. Sound good?’

‘Sounds very good … except for the fact that I don’t want you to go.’

‘I’ll only be gone about twenty minutes.’

‘Trust me—it will feel like a lifetime.’

Dipping his head towards her, Jarrett delivered a melting kiss that buckled Sophia’s knees the instant his lips touched hers. As his tongue dived hotly into her mouth, eliciting a helpless moan from her, it made her think about the exciting possibility of whiling away the rest of the afternoon in bed with him. The thought made her tremble. Funny how the imperative to get on with her darkroom suddenly waned in light of such a provocative alternative …

Consequently it took every ounce of will-power to extricate herself from his enticing embrace so that she could carry out her mission to bake him an apple pie. ‘I won’t be long,’ she said, and with her heart racing she smiled cheerfully and headed for the door. ‘I promise.’

Rowena Phillips—the middle-aged brunette with the rather severely pencilled-in eyebrows who ran the local corner shop—had never exhibited the least bit of friendliness towards Sophia before. In fact there were times when she’d been downright unhelpful—hostile, even. As far as Sophia knew, all she’d done to warrant such an attitude was to arrive in the village as a stranger and keep herself to herself. But now, as the door swung shut behind her with the tinkle of a melodic bell to announce her entrance, the older woman’s small dark eyes widened with peculiar interest as she recognised her customer.

‘Hello, dear. What can I do for you today?’

Her voice had acquired the kind of fake cheeriness
that immediately put Sophia on her guard. Her glance honed in on the basket of cooking apples in the aisle opposite the newspapers, and she helped herself to one of the brown paper bags that hung suspended from a small nail above. ‘I’d just like three or four cooking apples, thanks,’ she answered distractedly, wanting to pay for the fruit and get out of there as quickly as possible.

‘Baking an apple pie, are we?’

‘Yes, I am, as a matter of fact.’

Flustered by the unwanted attention, Sophia quickly slipped three large green apples into a paper bag and approached the counter. As the woman relieved her of the bag to weigh them on the scales, Sophia saw that she was deliberately taking her time about it. It quickly became obvious that she had something on her mind that she wanted to share.

‘I see that you’ve become very friendly with our local landowner, Mr Gaskill,’ she remarked. ‘Wasn’t that his Range Rover that I saw parked outside High Ridge this morning?’

For a dizzying moment Sophia was dumbstruck. Feeling her cheeks flush hotly in embarrassment, she agitatedly closed the purse she’d just taken from her jacket pocket and opened in readiness to pay for the apples. ‘What possible business is it of yours or anyone else’s who I’m friendly with?’ she answered through numbed lips, suddenly wishing that she’d ignored the spontaneous urge to bake Jarrett an apple pie and stayed home with him instead.

‘I was only being neighbourly, Ms Markham … But you keep yourself to yourself, don’t you? A small village like this … well, we’re apt to notice things like that.’

‘That I value my privacy, you mean?’

‘No. That one of our most successful local businessmen is parked outside your house in the early hours of the morning.’

‘I’d like to pay for the apples, if you don’t mind. I’m in a hurry.’

In response Rowena Phillips curtly stated the price, holding out her hand at the same time. Sophia opened her purse and counted out the right money. Lifting up the bag of apples, she dropped them into her hessian shopping bag. Intent on leaving, she was about to turn away when the shop’s presumptuous proprietor added another barbed aside.

‘You
do
know that Jarrett Gaskill has always wanted to own High Ridge Hall, don’t you? I heard he made several attempts to try and buy it when Miss Wingham died, but you obviously pipped him to the post.’

Inside her chest Sophia’s heart was thundering so hard that she suddenly felt quite faint. She struggled to make the words teeming in her brain leave her lips. ‘Exactly what are you trying to say, Mrs Phillips?’

The woman folded her fleshy arms across her turtleneck sweater. ‘All I’m saying is that perhaps you should be wary of getting to know him, Ms Markham. A wealthy property developer might use any means possible to get the property or land that he wants … don’t you think?’

‘What I think is that you really should keep your nose out of other people’s business.’

As she walked back down the country road to where she’d parked her car several distressing thoughts ran through Sophia’s mind all at once. Jarrett had already told her that he was a rich
landowner
—but he’d said nothing about buying property, too. To learn of his interest
in High Ridge had come as a great shock. The obnoxious shopkeeper had said he’d made several attempts to purchase it. Why had he never told her? Surely it was obvious that she’d be interested?

She felt sick to her stomach. She’d been utterly foolish to trust him. If only she’d stuck to her initial suspicions when they first met that it was the house that drew him and not her! What was she going to do now? As well as entrusting him with the distressing and painful details of her doomed marriage she’d also made love with him … and that had been no insignificant thing. Because during their short association she’d lost her heart to the man.
Dear God
.

She murmured, as she turned the key in the car door with a hand that wouldn’t stop shaking, and by the time she’d arrived back at the house and walked up to her front door she was so angry and fearful that she’d been duped that she left the shopping bag with the apples in on the back seat of the car along with her intention to bake a pie.

As soon as she turned her key in the lock the door was wrenched eagerly open from the inside and a smiling Jarrett—dust still evident in his curling dark hair and on his cheek—appeared in front of her. Before he uttered a single word, she passionately burst out, ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you’d tried to buy High Ridge?’

The words came out on a broken sob as she blindly pushed past him into the hallway.

‘W
HO
have you been talking to?’ Scraping his hand through his hair in bewilderment, Jarrett spun round on his heel and tore down the corridor. He caught up with Sophia just as she stepped through the drawing room door. His heart threatened to burst out of his chest as he grabbed her arm to halt her flight. ‘Who told you that I wanted to buy High Ridge? I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret from you, but I’d like to know who told you.’

Her expression was more distressed than he’d ever seen it.

‘So it’s true, then? In that case does it matter who told me?’ Shaking her arm free from his hold, she stared up at him with emerald eyes that shimmered with tears. ‘What I want to know is, are you here because you really like me, Jarrett, or is it merely because you hope that I’ll sell High Ridge to you? I hear you made several attempts to try and buy it before I arrived. Is that also true?’

Telling himself to remain calm, and not let some interfering busybody’s spin on his intentions cloud his reason, Jarrett dropped his hands to his hips and shook his head. ‘I wanted to buy this place when I heard the owner had died. As someone who’s always
admired beautiful architecture, I had a yen to restore it to its former glory and perhaps one day live in it myself. But buying it ceased to be important after I met you, Sophia. If you honestly think I’d be so conniving that I would
pretend
to be attracted to you for the sole purpose of getting the chance to purchase your house, then I’m pretty devastated. If you’d rather believe some stranger’s incriminating story about me than my own testimony I honestly don’t know how we can regain the trust that I thought we were building. I know you’ve been badly hurt in the past, but I’m not a liar or a cheat or a bully. The last thing—the
very
last thing I would ever do is use you or abuse you. I’m shaken to my core to think for even a second that you could believe that I would.’

‘But why didn’t you tell me that you’d been interested in the house?’

‘What was the point? It’s
your
house … you inherited it from your family. If I was so intent on persuading you to sell it to me then why would I offer to make you a loan to help you keep it?’

Sophia hung her head for a moment, clearly busy processing what he’d said. When she raised it again to study him, he could see by her quivering lip and desolate gaze that she was even more distraught than before.

‘You’re right … it doesn’t make sense. But I reacted the way I did because it was my worst fear, you see … that you only wanted the house and not—and not me.’

Although Jarrett ached with every fibre of his being to take her in his arms, to hold her tight and reassure her, he didn’t. The idea came into his head that perhaps he had pushed too hard too soon to persuade her to enter into a relationship with him. Seeing how shaken
she was after listening to some gossip put damning beliefs about him in her head, he suddenly knew that he needed to back off a little and give her some space. Given time, would she come round to realising that he honestly
did
have her best interests at heart and would never deceive her?
He really hoped so
. He had felt sick to his stomach when she’d looked at him so accusingly just now. After spending that one incredible night with her in his arms he already knew that he would never want any other woman but
her
. But it was clear that the bird with a broken wing he’d likened her to still needed more time to heal.

‘You should stop scaring yourself. Try to realise instead how much you have to offer any man, Sophia. You should also believe and trust in your ability to discern truth from lies. Does your heart tell you that I’ve been deceiving you?’ he asked.

She shook her head, her hand rubbing away the moisture that glistened on her cheek. ‘No, it doesn’t. When I heard that I’m afraid I just panicked. Fear has had such a hold on me for so long that I’ve fallen into the habit of waiting for the other shoe to drop … for something to go wrong. I always think that if something good happens then I’ll have to pay for it in some way. It’s like I don’t deserve it. That’s all I can say in my defence, Jarrett. I’m so sorry that I was angry with you. I truly regret it.’

This time Jarrett
did
pull Sophia into his arms. As he enfolded her she shuddered and laid her head against his chest. Lifting his hand, he gently stroked his fingers up and down the back of her velvety-soft neck. ‘You blame yourself too much,’

‘You’re probably right about that. I promise I’ll try to change and be less unkind to myself … more optimistic.’

‘That would be good. But don’t change too much.’ He slid his fingers beneath her chin so that he could gaze down into her long-lashed emerald eyes. ‘There’s nothing wrong with the way you are. You react the way you do sometimes because you’ve been hurt. It’s perfectly understandable. In light of that, it makes sense that you need to give yourself some proper time to heal, to regain your self-confidence.’