Authors: Sara Craven
she was lying with her head on his shoulder and her good arm flung
possessively across his bare chest. „
She knew what had woken her. Her right shoulder felt cramped
from the unnatural position her broken arm had got into. Moving
carefully so as not to wake Gethyn, she moved her arm to a more
reasonable level, and eased her shoulder ruefully. It was
encouraging to find that her arm hardly hurt at all this morning, and
there was no sign of swelling or discoloration in her fingers.
She was thankful she had woken first. It was one thing for Gethyn
to keep her warm in the night, but quite another for him to wake up
and find her draped all round him. Not that he wasn't perfectly
capable of extricating himself from the situation if he was so
minded, she thought bitterly, recalling how he had left her bed
without waking her on the day he left for America, and she had
fallen asleep wrapped in his arms only a few hours previously.
She sat up warily and glanced at her wristwatch. It was just past
seven a.m. She turned and looked down at him. He looked much
younger when he was asleep. The harshness seemed wiped
magically from his face. Almost as if he was conscious of her
regard, he stirred suddenly and muttered something. She bent
closer, frowning a little as she tried to catch the words, and heard,
'Rydw i eisiau cusan.'
Whatever that meant. She straightened
hurriedly as his eyelids flickered and opened.
'Good morning,' he said lazily. He lifted his hands and raked them
through his dark hair. 'And how is your arm this beautiful morning?'
'Fine,' she replied huskily. She was only too aware of his potent
attraction. The tan on his shoulders and chest looked darker still
against the white sheets. -His hair was tousled and the green eyes
were lazily warm as they looked at her. Davina felt the silence
between them fill with all kinds of tensions. She could feel her heart
beating with a slow languor. Her lips parted soundlessly and she
moistened them with the tip of her tongue.
Gethyn sat up with sudden briskness. 'Well, that makes good
hearing. I'll be getting up now. We don't want to make too late a
start.'
'But it's still early. What time is breakfast?' Davina heard herself
protest lamely, and blushed.
'I haven't the faintest idea, but if I get up, no doubt I can find out.'
Gethyn spoke with studied patience. The warmth in his eyes had
faded, and he looked edgy.
Davina shrugged rather sulkily. 'Just as you please. If you're sure
Mrs Evans won't mind you roaming around downstairs before the
house is awake.'
Gethyn exhaled deeply.
'Davina,' he said with ominous calm, 'if you know what's good for
you, you won't argue any more. I'm trying—none too subtly, I
admit—to get out of this bed, and out of this room as well, come to
that.'
'Well, don't let me stop you.' Davina hunched a shoulder irritably.
He swore under his breath.
'Duw,
girl, don't you see that's exactly
what you are doing? Even with your arm in plaster and that—act of
vandalism you had perpetrated on your hair, you're still so lovely
that you tear at my guts. And in a minute you're going to ask me to
help you get dressed.' He swore again and began to push back the
covers.
'You talk in your sleep,' she told his back as he sat on the edge of
the bed and reached for his jeans.
'Only talk?' he enquired derisively. 'I'm surprised I don't gibber and
foam at the mouth.'
'What did you say?'
He threw her a look over his shoulder and she flushed again at the
idiocy of the question. 'It was in Welsh,' she mumbled, staring down
at the bedspread.
'Well, at least I have that much sense. If everyone sleeptalked in a
different language, it would probably save a hell of a lot of
recriminations in the morning,' he said drily.
'Please tell me what you said. I can remember what it sounded like.'
Haltingly she repeated the musical syllables. Gethyn was very still
suddenly. Then he gave a brief unamused laugh.
'Said that, did I? I must have been having sweet dreams. I wish I
could remember them. It means,
anwylwyd,
"I want a kiss." '
Without pausing to question the wisdom of her action, she leaned
across and pressed her lips to his brown, muscular back, halfway
down his spine.
He turned slowly and looked down at her. Davina leaned back
against the pillow and laughed up at him, but there was no
answering amusement in his face.
'What the hell do you think you're playing at?' he said very evenly.
'Have you any idea of the risk you're running— of how close I came
just now to breaking my word to you? I promised not to touch you,
and you're not making it easy for me, Davina.'
'And you're not making it easy for me either.' She was aware of the
provocative picture she must make in the brief lacy bra that barely
covered her breasts.
He said very softly, 'Then let's make it easy for both of us.' He
swung himself back on to the bed, and lay only inches away from
her, his eyes burning into hers. She tried to steady her suddenly
ragged breathing, but it was impossible. He put out a finger and
gently stroked the curve of her cheek, the lobe of her ear and the
long smooth line of her throat. And paused.
'Haven't you something to say to me?' he murmured. 'You were
fluent enough a moment ago.'
He repeated the syllables with her under his breath, smiling a little
as she stumbled in her eagerness to be word perfect.
'Rydw i eisiau cusan,
Gethyn,' she whispered at last. Her eyes
shone at him and her lips parted tremulously. 'Oh, darling,
rydw i
eisiau cusan.'
Her plea was forgotten as his lips met hers with a fierce seeking
wonder, and she responded without reserve. Her uninjured arm
went up to clasp his neck and her fingers tangled in his hair as she
held him to her. His mouth caressed her eyes, her ears, her throat
before returning over and over again to her lips as if he would drain
their sweetness dry. His hands moved on her, caressing her with
passionate longing, removing the final frail barriers to his desire.
There was not an inch of her body that he did not explore with
intimate awareness, arousing her to a need as great as his own.
At last he lifted himself over her, his eyes fierce as a dragon's as he
stared down at the glow, the sheer wanton invitation of her.
'Oh, God, I love you, Davina,' he said hoarsely. 'Tell me you love
me,
cariad,
even if it isn't true. Say that you want me.'
She thought that her heart would burst with her joy.
'My love, my own ...' Her voice broke as she welcomed him to her.
Afterwards as she lay at peace in his arms, she murmured, 'What
was that you were saying about a divorce ...?'
'A divorce?' He frowned teasingly, pretending to try and remember.
He bent and kissed one of the soft strands of hair straying across
her forehead. 'Do you really think I'd let you go now,
anwylyd?'
She put up a hand and stroked his cheek. 'You need a shave.'
'For that I need a razor.' His mouth met hers lingeringly. 'And my
razors are all at Plas Gwyn. I'll phone Aunt Beth and tell her to
throw a few things in a suitcase for us. We'll collect them on our
way.'
'On our way where?'
He shrugged. 'On our honeymoon. Does it matter where?' He
smacked the curve of her hip lightly. 'Up with you, wench, and I'll
get you reluctantly back into your clothes.' • 'I'm sure I can manage,'
she protested. 'Get dressed and go and make your phone call.'
It was more of a struggle dressing one-handed than she realised, but
at last she was decent at least. She didn't put on her shoes because
she was nervous of the dangling laces, but carried them in her good
hand.
She was humming a light-hearted little tune as she crossed the
landing and went down the stairs. Gethyn was below her in the hall,
still talking on the telephone. His back was turned to her, but she
knew by his sudden rigidity that something was wrong.
She halted halfway down the stairs, watching as he replaced the
receiver and turned slowly to meet her.
He was a stranger again, cool and watchful. The passionate lover
who had caressed and taken her to the edge of rapture and beyond
might never have existed.
'Gethyn?' Her eyes were troubled as they returned his gaze. 'Is—is
something wrong?'
He looked her over. 'So you did manage,' he commented levelly. 'In
the circumstances that's just as well.'
She tried to laugh. 'All is not what it seems. I couldn't manage my
bra hook. Or these.' She held her shoes towards him with a little
pleading gesture.
He did not move. 'Just as well,' he repeated as if she had not
spoken. 'It seems our honeymoon will have to be cancelled after all,
cariad.
You have a visitor awaiting your return to Plas Gwyn.'
'A visitor?' she said stupidly. 'But I'm not expecting anyone.'
His lip curled. 'No? That's not the impression she gave Aunt Beth
when she arrived late yesterday evening. Raised Cain, apparently,
because you weren't there to make your obeisance. Seems to think
you want rescuing and taking back to London under her maternal
wing.'
'Oh, no,' she said faintly.
'Oh, yes, Davina.' There was a savage note in his voice. 'Mummy's
turned up trumps for you once again,
cariad.
And don't try and
pretend you didn't have it all arranged between you before you ever
came to Plas Gwyn. Well, I give you full marks for duplicity,
Davina. Your acting has improved beyond recognition. But don't
you think last night's—performance was carrying things just a little
too far?'
He turned on his heel and walked off, leaving her standing there on
the stairs, motionless.
The drive back to Plas Gwyn was a nightmare. They set off almost
at once, forgoing all the offers of breakfast which a bewildered Mrs
Evans tried to press upon them. Davina could not be sorry. Apart
from the physical handicap of trying to feed herself one-handed, she
knew she would not have been able to force a morsel past her dry
throat.
She was totally bemused by this new turn of events. To pass in one
brief hour from the heights of ecstasy to despair again was more
than she could bear. She felt drained of life as she sat beside
Gethyn in the Landrover, staring out at the rich sunshine which so
poorly reflected her own mood.
She had tried to plead with Gethyn, to convince him that her
mother's arrival was a complete shock, but to no avail. He had
accepted her assurances with an overtly cynical contempt which cut
her to the quick. But it was clear that he regarded Mrs Greer's
descent on Plas Gwyn as part of a carefully prearranged plot to
extricate Davina from any possible consequences of her reckless
action in coming to Wales. No doubt his aunt had also told him
about her phone call to London, although neither of them knew that
it had been totally unsuccessful. She supposed her mother must
already have been on her way to Wales by that time.
At first Davina had been tempted to dig her heels in and refuse to
return to Plas Gwyn at all. But in a way that would simply have
been another form of the running away Gethyn had previously
accused her of. She had to face her mother and convince her that
her interference in her life was both unwelcome and unnecessary.
At the same time, she had to find out the truth about what had
actually transpired while she was ill in hospital, no matter how
unpleasant these revelations might be.
She stole a sidelong glance at Gethyn. His dark face looked
intractable, his mouth set in a grim line, his brows drawn together.
He had not looked at her or spoken a word since they had set off,
and this new barrier between them was an agony to her when she
recalled the total intimacy they had enjoyed together only a short
while before.
Somehow she had to find a means of re-creating that emotion, the
sense of giving and sharing that had bound them so passionately
together. Last night she had wondered desperately how she was to
salvage her pride. Now in the clear light of day, pride seemed to