Hostile engagement (13 page)

`I said would you like a cup of tea?'

Yes—thank you.

Jud's arm dropped away from her shoulders as they turned their backs on the view and he pointed out another marker that proclaimed 'Worcestershire Beacon. The highest point of the Malvems
1395
ft.', before he placed his hand beneath her elbow and guided her through a cutting to the café.

The café was full, but there were benches and tables outside, and Lucy sat in the sunshine waiting for Jud to bring the tea, very much of the opinion that she would be glad

when she returned to Brook House. As she had suspected she was finding this weekend upsetting-but not as she had thought because of her fear of betraying the true state of affairs between her and Jud to his mother, but because Jud was proving to have the most upsetting effect on her equilibrium.

The walk down the hill was completed much more quickly and almost without conversation. On her part Lucy was afraid of making any comment that could be construed in any way as challenging, and Jud seemed to have thoughts of his own to keep him occupied.

The rest of Saturday passed without incident. But where Lucy had set out by wanting to avoid being left alone with Mrs Hemming lest she gave something away without thinking, she now found herself anxious to avoid being alone with Jud. So much so that when at ten o'clock Mrs Hemming said she was going to bed, regardless of what she might think, knowing only that she couldn't face being left alone with Jud, Lucy stood up too.

`I think I'll go to bed myself if no one minds,' she said quietly, and as both Jud and Mrs Hemming looked at her —Mrs Hemming with faint surprise in her look, Jud giving her a look that if she knew him better she might have thought said `coward'—she added, 'That climb up the hill-all that fresh air ..." her voice tailed off as Mrs Hemming's surprise turned to understanding.

`Shall I come and tuck you up?' Jud asked outrageously. `Jud !' his mother said sharply, which had little effect on

him other than to produce a most definite grin as he studied

both his mother's and Lucy's shocked faces.

Lucy had wild thoughts of putting a chair beneath the door handle of her room when the door was firmly closed and she was alone, then she realised that wouldn't be necessary. Jud's 'Shall I come and tuck you up?' had been said merely to jolt her, and she hadn't been quick enough to disguise the fact that his aim had been achieved.

Lucy awoke the next morning glad she would be going home that day. She hadn't slept very well, with thoughts of Jud Hemming too much at the forefront of her mind to make sleep easy to come by.

Something had been said yesterday about her and Jud leaving some time after lunch-she wished the hours quickly to roll by so that she could once again be at Brook House with her brother.

Poor Rupert, she had given him very little thought over this weekend, and it wasn't that she was so uncaring either —it was just that Jud Hemming was so vital somehow that being in the same house with him seemed to have eclipsed thoughts and worries about the one person in the world she was close to.

Lucy regretted that she couldn't be completely herself with Mrs Hemming, but never knowing what Jud's mother might say next that might require an evasive answer, Lucy knew she had at times been far from natural with her—though she was glad to think that since Mrs Hemming didn't know her very well, she wouldn't have noticed anything amiss and if she had seen she was hesitant from time to time she would, in all likelihood, put it down to a quirk in her personality.

The morning passed with Jud driving them all to church and then he had a look at the washing machine which Louie said was 'playing up', but not so badly that it required an engineer to be called out to take a look at it. Lunch of roast beef with all the trimmings passed off with no awkward moments for Lucy, and when Jud said as the three of them sat in the sitting room afterwards, 'We'll get

off in about an hour, Lucy,' her relief had her on her feet to go and pack her few things together.

Quite what made her change into the ice blue linen two-piece she had worn to travel in on Friday she wasn't sure, but instead of packing it away once she had taken it from the wardrobe, she laid it on the bed instead, then pulling the dress she was wearing over her head, she popped that inside her case and stepped inside the bathroom to have a quick wash.

She was just zipping up her skirt, the top still reposing on the bed, when her bedroom door opened and without so much as a `by your leave' Jud strolled in.

A gasp of pure amazement left Lucy to see him there, taking completely out of her head for a split moment that while the bottom half of her was decently clad, Jud had full view of her bare arm and the rest of her top covered in a fine lacy petticoat. She saw from his look that he appreciated what he could see.

`I d ... Get out !' she spluttered, jerking the matching

top to her skirt off the bed and holding it in front of her. Jud had left the door standing wide open, but nevertheless he was blocking the doorway, giving her the oppressive, breath-halting feeling that the door was solidly shut with no way out.

`Such modesty,' he said lightly, and advanced further into the room. Lucy tried to back away from him, but the solid bed was against her legs and she could go no further.

`Y—You have no business in here,' she said heatedly, hugging the top to her and wishing it possible to get into her jacket without revealing her front-she wasn't going to turn her back on him.

`Oh, but I have,' he said, coming another step nearer.

Lucy's eyes widened in alarm. Oh God, he was scaring her—was he now about to exact retribution for those unthinking remarks he had taken as challenging? She felt herself go pale at the thought, then to her further astonish-

ment, Jud stopped where he was. Two feet away was too close, Lucy thought—then he opened his mouth and laughed as if he thought the sight of her half dressed, with her fear naked for him to see, amusing.

`Oh, lord, Lucy,' he grinned, when his mirth had died away. 'You look as though you fear a fate worse than death!'

Lucy felt the colour return to her cheeks; so he hadn't got that in mind. 'I have told you before I'm unused to having men in my room,' she said chokingly, refusing to allow the tight grip she had on the ice blue shield in front of her slacken.

`You don't know what you're missing,' Jud told her. He could be quite monstrous when he chose, she thought with one corner of her mind, while the rest of her watched him as though still not convinced she could trust him. 'Oh, put that thing on,' Jud said irritably. 'You haven't got anything I haven't seen before.'

Oh, if only she had her hands free, Lucy thought, still refusing to let go of the top, she'd make his ears sing for him. 'If you have something constructive to say,' she told him coldly, 'just say it and get out.' She knew from the way his eyes narrowed that he didn't like her tone, but she refused to let her eyes drop.

`Very well,' he said after a few moments of tense silence. `I've just been having a word with my mother—or rather,' he amended, 'my mother has been having a word with me. It seems you and I have not been playing the role of an engaged couple the way we should.' Lucy's mouth opened, then was firmly closed again as she waited for him to continue. 'A few things haven't escaped her notice this weekend,' he went on, 'and though she's aware that I'm not openly demonstrative she's left wondering if you're happy —my mother is very concerned about you, Lucy.'

The last thing Lucy wanted was for Mrs Hemming to worry about her , particularly since she was now acquainted

with the fact that Jud's mother had a slight heart condition.

Wh—what sort of things haven't escaped her notice?' she asked, realising now it had perhaps been necessary for Jud to come to her room if he wanted a word-with her where there was no chance of them being overheard—though they would be going home shortly ...

`Things like the way you and I never touch each other for a start,' Jud said. 'Apparently it's the done thing for people in love to touch each other now and then—My mother noticed when you went to bed last night that although you kissed her cheek, I got nothing.'

`Oh !'

`Yes, Lucy—oh.'

`I never thought,' Lucy faltered, and knew even if she had, if Jud had proffered his cheek the way his mother had done last night, she would have pretended not to see it.

Jud ignored her comment and went on to tell her what he proposed they should do. `I've said that we had a lovers' tiff when we were out yesterday,' he told her, 'but that we've enjoyed making up and now everything is fine. We now have less than an hour in which to convince her that we're in love and su
blimely happy in each other's Co
mpany.'

That good an actress Lucy knew she was not. 'You're not proposing I come downstairs and fling myself in your arms, I trust?' She took refuge in sarcasm as the very idea set up a fluttery sensation in her stomach. Flinging herself into Jud's arms wouldn't have convinced Mrs Hemming anyway, she would know by now that, like her son, she wasn't demonstrative in public.

`Others have done it without feeling any after-effects,' Jud said coolly, his eyes watching the expressions flitting across her face.

`Like you, Jud, I'm choosey,' Lucy said recklessly, while thinking if she wasn't careful she was going to end up pay-

ing for her sarcasm. But it wasn't fair—he didn't own all rights to stinging comments

`You haven't been around enough to know anything about selection,' Jud came back.

`I've been around enough to know who I enjoy being kissed by,' Lucy returned.

`And you think you wouldn't enjoy being kissed by me?'

Lucy gave him a single look, 'Huh!' she scoffed. 'There's kissing and kissing. I've been kissed by you before, remember—your kisses leave me cold.' She hadn't meant to sound challenging, but too late realised that was how he would construe her words.

`Do they now?'

Lucy didn't know when to leave well alone. `I'd get as much enjoyment out of kissing a—a piece of hard rock,' she said, and was rather pleased with that metaphor.

`You know, Lucy,' Jud said slowly, almost conversationally, 'you really can't expect me to leave this room with that remark unquestioned.'

Lucy looked at him, her head coming up quickly, and too late saw what she had done. Once more she had challenged him—challenged him when she had been warned not to do so again. She wanted to say, I'm sorry, I take it all back, but there was no time, for suddenly there was no longer two feet of carpet dividing them. Jud was close up to her, yanking the protective shield of her linen top out of her hands, tossing it down on the end of the bed and saying coolly, 'We don't want to crush it, do we, Lucy, not if you intend to wear it for the journey home.' Then for the smallest part of a second he looked into her face, saw the staggering astonishment there that the lace front of her petticoat was now against the warmth of his shirt-fronted chest, then his head was blotting out the light, and inside moments Lucy was experiencing at first hand that being kissed by Jud in no way resembled her mouth coming into contact with consolidated minerals.

Oh, she resisted, fought against him, but he was holding her hands behind her back, his own hands not touching her body, but her body felt alive nonetheless as she felt his heat, felt his chest move as her firm breasts were pressed into him.

She tried to keep her mouth tightly closed, and when Jud lifted his head and asked softly, 'Still rock?' she bit back, `Yes,' refusing to respond, for all the oddest of sensations were passing through her body. That 'Yes' was all the time she had, for again Jud's mouth closed over hers and finding her lips were still firmly closed his mouth moved from hers to trail kisses down the side of her throat and back again to kiss first one corner of her mouth and then the other, and Lucy had to hang on grimly to the thought, I don't want him to kiss me, I don't. But when she was foolish enough to open her mouth to let a husky, 'Don't,' escape, Jud was quick to seize advantage of her parted lips and claimed possession with a lightning speed that shook her almost as much as the knowledge that she didn't want to say 'Don't' any longer.

Without her knowing it, the stiffness left her body and she became a yielding, pliant woman in his arms, so that when his hands let go the hold they had on her wrists, instead of beating and clawing at him as she knew she must, her hands got no further than to come up to rest on his shoulders.

Then all the kisses she had received in the past, and if she was honest she had not allowed too many, were as nothing, and she knew she had never been so shockingly, mind-bendingly kissed before. Jud's hands were making a nonsense of her spinal column, and when he eased her down on to the bed she was only half conscious that the part of her that should be saying no was being swamped by the part of her that wanted to say yes, yes, yes.

`Still rock?' Jud's voice came from above her head, and she opened her eyes to find he was staring down at her a

look of warmth, a look of desire in his eyes for her. Wordlessly she looked back at him, and he said softly, 'Don't fight it, Lucy.' Then his mouth was over hers again and her lips parted and she was responding, was putting her arms around him to pull him even closer. When his hand came to push the lacy straps away from her shoulder, she made no objection. She felt his lips on the swell of her breast and gloried in the feel of-that mouth she had once thought so hard that was now warm, sensuous and exciting as he aroused her further.