folds of the robe. So he still used the same cologne, she thought, her
mind wincing from the memories it evoked.
The door on the other side of the room stood half open. Presumably
that was the bathroom, and the source of the sounds which had
disturbed her. Moving with unwonted care, because she still felt
faintly groggy, Joanna made her way across the room and peeped
round the door.
Cal was standing at the basin, his only covering a towel draped round
his hips. He was busy removing lather from his chin with long brisk
strokes of the razor.
He turned immediately, as if sensing her presence, and grinned at her
sardonically. 'Good morning,' he said. 'I hope you spent a pleasant
night.'
He'd made his greeting deliberately ambiguous, she thought crossly,
as her face reddened involuntarily. But there was no point in beating
about the bush. She had to
know.
She said, 'I don't understand.
Exactly what took place?'
'We slept.' Cal rinsed away the lingering traces of lather, and
subjected the smoothness of his shave to a minute inspection iff the
mirror. 'You with chemical assistance, I with the benefit of a clear
conscience.'
She gave him a look of total disbelief. 'What the hell do you
mean—chemical assistance?'
'You were clearly in a highly nervous state.' He applied aftershave. 'I
decided you needed a good night's sleep, and arranged for you to have
one.'
She went on staring at him. 'Do you actually mean that you drugged
me? My God, that's the most despicable --'
'Hardly drugged.' He replaced the cap on the bottle of aftershave. 'My
secretary suffers from insomnia sometimes. Her husband works on an
oil rig in the North Sea, and obviously she worries about him. I asked
her for a couple of the sleeping-pills she uses, and put them in your
coffee.'
'You've got a nerve,' she said bitterly, remembering the cloud of
weariness which had descended on her. 'They were more like
knock-out drops!'
'They seemed to be what you needed.' Cal ran a comb through his
thick dark hair. 'You had bags under your eyes you could have
brought coal home in,' he added kindly.
'Thank you,' said Joanna, quivering with temper. 'I suppose it never
occurred to you that I've been under a. certain amount of stress
lately?'
'I'm sure you're just as capable of working yourself into a frenzy over
nothing as any other woman,' he said, shrugging bare brown
shoulders.
Joanna bit her lip hard, refusing to take the bait. 'I still need to know
what happened,' she said stubbornly. 'After you put me to sleep, did
you...?' She paused, at a loss how to phrase the enquiry.
Cal's brows lifted. 'For a married woman, Joanna, you can be
incredibly naive,' he said, with an edge to his voice. 'If I'd made love
to you last night, don't you think your body might have known about
it this morning?'
Her flush deepened. 'I—suppose so,' she admitted sullenly.
'And I'm bloody sure of it,' he said grimly.
'Yet that's what you brought me here for.'
'I invited you for dinner, which you ate, and breakfast, which is on its
way up—the Continental variety. I don't like heavy meals at the start
of the day.'
'But you let me think...'
'The worst,' he supplied affably. 'Of course I did, Joanna. I enjoyed
having you on the hook. Seeing that celebrated cool of yours melt
round the edges. And all for nothing. I never had any intention of
touching you last night.'
She said unevenly, 'You utter bastard!'
'Don't call me names, beauty,' he said gently, 'or I might think of one
or two for you.'
'You can think up a whole dictionary, as far as I'm concerned,' she
said curtly. 'I'm leaving here now, and you can find someone else to
torment with your sick games.'
'You're going nowhere,' he said. 'Except into the next room, while I
dress, to wait nicely for your breakfast like a good girl.'
'Don't treat me like a child!'
'Then stop behaving like one. You know as well as I do that walking
out of here isn't part of the deal at all.'
'You intend to go on with this—obscene farce?'
'If that's how you wish to regard it—yes. It's what you agreed to, after
all.'
'I didn't really think that you were serious—that you meant to go
through with it.'
'Don't lie to me, Joanna, not now or ever. You've always known
exactly my intentions where you're concerned. Your only error was to
presume I was going to rush you into bed immediately, and I admit I
misled you a little.'
She didn't look at him. 'Why—didn't you—last night?'
'Because you were tense, hostile and emotionally exhausted,' he said
calmly. 'You were also unconscious. I prefer to wait a little longer,
and hope for better things.' He walked across to her and put a finger
under her chin, tilting her face up towards him. His voice was very
quiet. 'I have a fantasy, Joanna, which I've been nursing for a long
time. You, in my arms, warm, relaxed, and quite definitely wanting
me as much as I want you.'
She,drew a sharp, uneven breath. 'Then you'll wait forever!'
He shook his head, holding her gaze with his. 'I don't think so. I
haven't that much patience. And I suspect, you haven't either, beauty.
You're curious already—asking questions, and that's good. And, if
you're honest, it's been inevitable since the first time we saw each
other.'
'No.'
'Oh, yes,' he said gently. 'In spite of everything that's happened in the
past—the antagonism, the bitterness—whenever you and I have been
together, it's always been the same. I'm looking at you. You're
looking at me. Don't pretend you haven't been aware of it.'
'Your—arrogance is quite incredible.'
'Not arrogance,' he said. 'Certainty. The knowledge of who I am and
where I'm going. The intangible thing my grandfather fought for.'
'Well, don't be too sure of yourself,' she bit back at him. 'I expect
you've heard the old saying, "From clogs to clogs in three
generations."'
He laughed, releasing her chin. 'Is that what you hope for me—ruin?
It won't happen, Joanna. I'll see to that. We Blackstones have worked
too hard and sacrificed too much for what we've got to let it slip
away.'
'That,' she said, 'was what the Chalfonts thought too.'
He grinned at her. 'What sort of clogs have you been wearing,
Joanna? Italian ones with four-inch heels?' He took her by the
shoulders and turned her towards the door. 'Now run away, and wait
for your breakfast.'
'I'm not hungry. And I don't take orders from you.'
He shrugged again. 'As you wish. Stay and watch me get dressed if
that's what turns you on.' He began to loosen the towel he was
wearing, watching her mockingly. 'Unless, of course, you'd prefer me
to cancel breakfast altogether—and take you back to bed?'
'No,' Joanna said, furiously conscious that she was blushing again, 'I
would not!'
She swept out of the bathroom with as much dignity as she could
muster, trying not to trip on the trailing hem of Cal's robe.
The living-room, she found, had already been tidied and made ready
for the day, the sofa cushions plumped and the windows opened.
It really was a most attractive room, she decided grudgingly. The
previous night she'd been feeling too fraught to appreciate its finer
points, but now she could view them at her leisure.
It was clear Cal hadn't opted for wall-to-wall professional interior
design. The few ornaments on display had obviously been personally
chosen over a number of years. Some were antiques, and others were
just fun, like the collection of china bears she found on a side-table.
The pictures were interesting too, prints mingling with original
water-colours, while above the fireplace hung a magnificent
oil-painting of a stark stretch of moorland, lashed by rain under a
thunderous sky.
Joanna wandered over to study it more closely, and it was then that
her attention was caught by a much smaller painting hanging on the
wall to the right of the. fireplace. It was a miniature—a head and
shoulders portrait of a woman, no longer in the first flush of youth,
but vibrantly, glowingly beautiful, the corners of her mouth lifting in
a smile, half shy, half mischievous.
I've seen her before, Joanna told herself, frowning. But where?
The little portrait clearly belonged to a much earfier era. The
demurely high-necked blouse, and the thick fair hair, waving back
from her forehead, and drawn into a loose chignon at the nape of her
neck, betrayed that.
She was still puzzling over it when there was a tap at the door and a
girl in an overall came in, pushing a trolley. There was a jug of chilled
fruit juice, a basket of hot rolls and croissants wrapped in napkins,
dishes of marmalade and other preserves, and a tall pot of coffee.
'Is there anything else I can get you, madam?'
Joanna's lips tightened at the sly avidity in the girl's voice. She said
shortly, 'No, thank you,' then stopped as her eyes took in the dumpy
figure and over-frizzed hair with dismayed recognition. She said, 'It's
Stella, isn't it?'
•That's right, Miss Chalfont—Mrs Bentham, I should say. Fancy you
remembering me after all this time!'
Once seen, never forgotten, Joanna thought without pleasure. Stella
Dyson had worked briefly as a domestic at Chalfont House before
Joanna had married Martin Bentham.
She had become convinced the girl was an obsessive snoop,
searching regularly through drawers, desks and cupboards in the
house. She had always been finding her things slightly disarranged,
especially in her bedroom, but couldn't prove a thing. Nothing had
ever been missing, but the girl's behaviour was disturbing, and it was
a relief when she'd given notice instead of having to be asked to leave.
She was also an inveterate gossip, Joanna thought wretchedly. And
now the whole of Northwaite would know that Joanna Bentham had
not only dined but had breakfasted with Cal Blackstone, wearing his
dressing-gown too.
She said, 'I didn't know you worked at the country club, Stella.'
'I've been here over two months, madam. The hours are a bit long, but
the wages are really good.' She giggled. 'I'm always short of money,
though.' She sent Joanna a meaning look. 'A little more always comes
in handy.'
Oh, no, you little witch, Joanna said silently. I'm already being
blackmailed by an expert. You stand no chance at all.
Her smile was civil but totally dismissive. 'Then you'll have to ask Mr
Blackstone for a rise.' She began to pour herself some coffee. 'That
will be all, thank you.'
'Yes, madam.' The words 'stuck-up bitch' seemed to float in the air
between them, as Stella turned to depart with one last, malignant
look.
Joanna sighed, as she drank some coffee. There was no way back
now, she realised despondently. After Stella had said her piece, there
wouldn't be a soul in the West Riding who would believe she was
anything but Cal Blackstone's mistress. Which, of course, was
precisely what he intended, she thought sombrely. He wanted
everyone to know that his victory over the Chalfoats was total and
complete.
'You look rather grim.' Cal's approach had been silent and
unsuspected, and she started as he came to sit beside her, knotting his
tie.
'I'm hardly likely to feel like the life and soul of the party in the
circumstances,' she retorted.
His brows lifted. 'Not when I've assured you that your virtue is in no
immediate danger?'
'I'm not interested in games of cat and mouse,' Joanna said shortly.
He smiled at her. 'No? Then what does interest you? We'll talk about
that instead.'
She bit her lip. He seemed, infuriatingly, to have an answer for
everything. And there was little point in continuing to be churlish
with someone who refused to be needled.
She said with an effort, 'Well—I like some of your pictures.' She
nodded at the moorscape. 'Isn't that by Ashley Jackson?'
'Yes. You know his work?'
'Martin's aunt gave us one of his paintings as a wedding present.
I—returned it to her—afterwards.'
'Isn't that rather unusual?'
Joanna shrugged. 'It was what she wanted.' She hesitated. 'I—I was
never a favourite of hers, so I preferred not to argue about it.'
Now what did I tell him that for? she asked herself vexedly. I've just
provided him with another stick to beat me with. But apart from
sending her a slightly enigmatic look Cal offered no comment,