For nearly an hour she guided him from one group to another, her eyes twinkling at Matt with shared laughter while she smoothly told outrageous half-truths about who he was and what he did for a living. And Matt stood beside her, not actively helping her, but observing her ingenuity with frank amusement.
"There, you see," she announced gaily as they finally left the noise and music behind and walked out the front doors, strolling across the lawn. "It isn't
what
you say that counts, it's what you
don't
say."
"That's an interesting theory," he teased. "Do you have any more of them?"
Meredith shook her head, distracted by something she'd subconsciously noted all evening. "You don't talk at all like a man who works in a steel mill."
"How many of them do you know?"
"Just one," she admitted.
His tone abruptly shifted to a serious one. "Do you come here often?"
They'd spent the first part of the evening playing a kind of silly game, but she sensed that he didn't want any more games. Neither did she, and that moment marked a distinct change in the atmosphere between them. As they wandered past rose beds and flower gardens, he started asking her about herself. Meredith told him she'd been away at school and that she'd just graduated. When his next question was about her career plans, she realized that he'd erroneously assumed she meant she'd graduated from college. Rather than correcting him and risking some sort of appalled reaction when he discovered she was eighteen, not twenty-two, she sidestepped the problem by quickly asking him about himself.
He told her he was leaving in six weeks for
Venezuela and what he was going to be doing while he was gone. From there, their conversation shifted with
astonishing ease from one subject to another, until they finally stopped walking so that they could concentrate better on whatever was being said. Standing beneath an ancient elm on the lawn, oblivious to the rough bark against her bare back, Meredith listened to him, completely entranced. Matt was twenty-six, she'd discovered, and besides being witty and extremely well-spoken, he had a way of listening intently to what she said as if nothing else in the world mattered. It was disconcerting, and it was very flattering. It also created a false mood of complete intimacy and solitude. She'd just finished laughing at a joke he'd told her, when a fat bug dived past her face and buzzed around her ear. She jumped, grimacing and trying to see where it had gone. "Is it in my hair?" she asked uneasily, tipping her head down.
He put his hands on her shoulders and inspected her hair. "No," he promised. "It was just a little June bug."
"June bugs are disgusting, and that one was the size of a large hummingbird!" When he chuckled, she gave him a deliberately smug smile. "You won't be laughing six weeks from now, when
you
can't walk outside without tripping over snakes."
"Is that right?" he murmured, but his attention had shifted to her mouth, and his hands were sliding up the sides of her neck to tenderly cradle her face.
"What are you doing?" Meredith whispered inanely as he began slowly rubbing his thumb over her lower lip.
"I'm trying to decide if I should let myself enjoy the fireworks."
"The fireworks won't start for another half hour," she said shakily, knowing perfectly well she was going to be kissed.
"I have a feeling," he whispered, slowly lowering his head, "they're going to start right now."
And they did. His mouth covered hers in an electrifyingly seductive kiss that sent sparks exploding through Meredith's entire body. At first the kiss was light, coaxing; his mouth shaped itself to hers, delicately exploring the contours of her lips. Meredith had been kissed before, but always by relatively inexperienced, overeager boys; no one had ever kissed her with
Matthew Farrell's unhurried thoroughness. His hands shifted, one of them drifting down her spine to draw her closer, while the other slid behind her nape, and his mouth slowly opened on hers. Lost in the kiss, she moved her hands inside his tuxedo jacket, up his chest, over his broad shoulders, and then she wrapped her arms around his neck.
The minute she molded herself against him, his mouth opened farther, his tongue tracing hotly across her lips, urging them to part, and then demanding it. The moment that they did, his tongue plunged into her mouth, and the kiss exploded. His hand covered her breast, caressing it through her bodice, then restlessly swept behind her, cupping her bottom and pulling her tightly against him, making her vibrantly aware of his aroused body. Meredith stiffened slightly at the forced intimacy, and then for no explainable reason on earth, she laced her fingers through his hair and crushed her parted lips to his.
It seemed like hours later when he finally dragged his mouth from hers. Her heart racing like a trip-hammer, she stood in the circle of his arms, her forehead resting on his chest, while she tried to cope with the turbulent sensations she'd felt. Somewhere in her drugged mind it began to occur to her that he was going to think she was behaving very oddly about what had, in reality, been only a simple kiss. That embarrassing possibility finally made her force her head up. Fully expecting to see him watching her with puzzled amusement, she raised her gaze to his chiseled features, but what she saw there wasn't derision. His gray eyes were smoldering, his face was harsh and dark with passion, and his arms tightened automatically, as if unwilling to let her go. Belatedly, she realized his body was still rigidly aroused, and she felt a peculiar sense of pleasure and pride that he had been, and was still, as affected by the kiss as she was. Without thinking what she was doing, her gaze dropped to his mouth. There was bold sensuality in the mold of those firm lips, and yet some of his kisses had been so exquisitely gentle.
Tormentingly
gentle ... Longing to feel that mouth on hers again, Meredith lifted her gaze to his, an unconscious request in her eyes.
Matt understood the request, and a sound that was half groan, half laugh tore from his chest, his arms already tightening. "Yes," he answered hoarsely, and seized her lips in a ravenous, devouring kiss that stole her breath, and drove her mad with pleasure.
Some time later, laughter rang out, and Meredith jerked awkwardly out of his arms, whirling around in alarm. Dozens of couples were strolling out of the club to watch the fireworks—and well ahead of them was her father who was stalking toward her with rage in every long, ground-covering stride. "Oh, my God," she whispered. "Matt, you have to leave. Turn around and walk away! Now."
"No."
"Please!" she almost cried. "I'll be fine, he won't say anything to me here, he'll wait until we're alone, but I don't know what he'll do to you." A moment later Meredith knew the answer to that.
"There are two men on their way out here to escort you off the grounds, Farrell," her father hissed, his face contorted with
fury. He turned on Meredith and caught her arm in a viselike grip. "You're coming with me." Two of the club's waiters were already walking across the driveway. As her father gave her arm a jerk, Meredith appealed once more to Matt over her shoulder. "Please, please go—don't make a scene."
Her father pulled her two steps forward, and Meredith, who had no choice but to walk or be dragged, was relieved almost to tears when both waiters who had been coming toward Matt slowed and then stopped. Matt had apparently started walking toward the road, Meredith realized with
relief. Her father evidently reached the same conclusion, for when the waiters looked uncertainly to him for further instructions, he said, "Let the bastard go, but call the gate and make sure he doesn't come back."
As they approached the front doors, he turned to Meredith, his expression livid. "Your mother made herself the talk of this club, and I'll be damned if you're going to do it too. Do you hear me!" He flung her arm down as if her skin were contaminated by Matt's touch, but he kept his voice low. Because a Bancroft, no matter how great the provocation, never aired family grievances in public. "Go home and stay there. It will take you twenty minutes to get to the house; in twenty-five minutes I'm going to call you, and God help you if you aren't there!"
With that he turned on his heel and stalked into the clubhouse. In a state of sick humiliation, Meredith watched him go, then she went inside and got her purse. On the way to the parking lot, she saw three couples standing out in the shadows of the trees, all of them kissing.
Her vision blurred by tears of futile rage, Meredith had already driven past the solitary figure who was walking with a tuxedo jacket hooked over his right shoulder before she realized it was Matt. She braked to a stop, so consumed with guilt for the humiliation she'd caused him that she couldn't immediately look at him.
He walked up to her side of the car and bent slightly, looking at her through the open window. "Are you all
right?"
"I'm fine." With a halfhearted attempt at flippancy, she glanced at him. "My father is a Bancroft, and the
Bancrofts
never quarrel in public."
He saw the unshed tears shimmering in her eyes. Reaching through the open window, he laid his callused fingertips against her smooth cheek. "And they don't cry in front of other people either, do they?"
"Nope," Meredith admitted, trying to absorb some of his wonderful indifference to her father. "I—I'm going home now. Can I drop you somewhere on the way?"
His gaze shifted from her face to the death grip she had on the steering wheel. "Yes, but only if you'll let me drive this thing." He spoke as if he merely wanted a chance to drive her car, but his next words made it obvious he was concerned about her ability to drive in her state of mind. "Why don't I drive you home, and I'll call a cab from there."
"Be my guest," Meredith said brightly, determined to salvage what little pride she had left. She got out and walked around to the passenger side.
Matt had no trouble mastering the gearshift, and a minute later the car glided smoothly out of the country club drive and shot out onto the main road. Headlights flew past in the dark and the breeze blew through the windows as they drove in silence. Far
off to the left some other fireworks display came to a grand finale in a spectacular cascade of red, white, and blue. Meredith watched the brilliant sparks glitter and then slowly fade as they drifted downward. Belatedly recalling her manners, she said, "I want to apologize for what happened tonight—for my father, I mean."
Matt shot her an amused sideways look. "He's the one who should apologize. It hurt my pride when he sent those two flabby, middle-aged waiters to throw me out. At least he could have sent four of them—just to spare my ego."
Meredith gaped at him, amazed because he obviously wasn't the least bit intimidated by her father's wrath, and then she smiled, because it felt wonderful to be with someone who wasn't. With a jaunty look at his powerful shoulders, she said, "If he really wanted to get you out of there against your will, he'd have been wiser to send six."
"My ego and I
both
thank you," he said with a lazy grin, and Meredith, who would have sworn a few minutes ago that she'd never smile again, burst out laughing.
"You have a wonderful laugh," he said quietly.
"Thank you," she said, startled and pleased beyond proportion to the compliment. In the pale light from the dashboard she studied his shadowy profile, watching the wind ruffle his hair, wondering what it was about him that could make a few simple, quiet words seem like a physical caress. Shelly Fillmore's words floated through her mind, providing the probable answer... "pure, undiluted sex appeal." A few hours earlier she hadn't thought Matt was extraordinarily attractive. She did now. In fact, she was certain women drooled over him. No doubt they were also the reason he knew how to kiss as well as he did. He had sex appeal all right—and a whole lot of experience kissing. "Turn in here," she said a quarter of an hour later when they approached a pair of huge wrought-iron gates. Reaching forward, she pressed a button on the dashboard and the gates swung open into her driveway.
"This is home," Meredith said as he pulled to a stop in front of the house.
He looked up at the imposing stone structure with
its leaded glass windows while Meredith unlocked the front door. "It looks like a museum."
"At least you didn't say mausoleum," she said, smiling over her shoulder.
"No, but I thought it."
Meredith was still smiling at his blunt quip as she showed him into the darkened library at the back of the house and turned on a lamp, but when he went directly to the phone on the desk and picked it up, her heart sank. She wanted him to stay, she wanted to talk, she wanted to do
anything
to fend off the despair that she knew would overwhelm her again when she was alone. "There's no reason for you to leave so soon. My father will play cards until the club closes at
two
a.m.
"
He turned at the note of desperation in her voice. "Meredith, I'm not a bit worried about your father for my own sake, but you have to live with him. If he comes home and finds me here—"
"He won't," Meredith promised. "My father wouldn't let death interrupt his card games; he's an obsessive
cardplayer
."
"He's damned obsessive about you too," Matt said flatly, and Meredith held her breath while he hesitated before finally hanging up the phone. This was probably going to be the last pleasant evening she would have for months, and she was determined to make it last. "Would you like a brandy? I'm afraid I can't offer you anything to eat because the servants are already in bed."