Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Copyright

“This is a picture of my wife.”

“So I’ve been sleeping with a married man for the past nine months!”

“I’m not married,” James said. “The thought of adultery leaves me with a very sour taste in my mouth. My wife died ten years ago.”

“I had no idea,” Claire whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“Claire, let me make one thing absolutely clear between us. I want you. But if you’re looking for commitment, then you’re looking at the wrong man. My capacity for love was well and truly expended on Olivia.”

CATHY WILLIAMS is Trinidadian and was brought up on the twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago. She was awarded a scholarship to study in Britain, and went to Exeter University in 1975 to continue her studies into the great loves of her life: languages and literature. It was there that Cathy met her husband, Richard. Since they married, Cathy has lived in England, originally in the Thames Valley but now in the Midlands. Cathy and Richard have two small daughters.

Shadows Of Yesterday
Cathy Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CLIAIRE’S hand was trembling. There had to be some kind of mistake, some kind of dreadful mistake.

That didn’t go very far towards making her feel any better, though, and she subsided into the leather chair by the window with a sick, faint feeling.

She leaned her head against the palm of her hand, her eyes flicking around the small, exquisite study, but not really seeing it at all.

She would have to wait for him. He was due back any minute now, and everything would be neatly explained.

She breathed a little sigh of relief at the thought of that and settled back in the chair, her eyes half closed. Outside, it was pitch dark, and freezing cold. It was March, but a bitterly cold March, with forecasters reminding them every day that England had not seen a spring like this for decades.

Inside, however, the study was warm, as was the entire place. That had been one of the first things that had struck her when she had started working at Frilton Manor nearly a year ago. This was not one of those splendid country mansions which were breathtakingly beautiful to look at but dismally archaic inside. No, James Forrester was a man who liked his creature comforts, and he was wealthy enough to ensure that every one of them was indulged at the snap of a finger.

Not for him vast, unheated rooms, threadbare carpets and unflattering portraits of deceased ancestors. The place was entirely heated, the carpets were luxuriously deep-piled and the unflattering ancestral portraits were confined to the gallery in the left wing. In their place an assortment of mostly Impressionistic masterpieces adorned the walls.

It wasn’t so long ago that she had wandered through the rooms, lost in speechless wonder. Everything had been a revelation of good taste.

Right now, with that little seven-by-five photo clutched in her hand, she felt as though all that impressionable, youthful ingenuousness had finally been killed off and she had to insist to herself that she was being prematurely pessimistic, that James would be able to explain away that cool blonde, with her arm linked through his, dressed in an ivory suit and holding a bunch of some unidentifiable flowers against her stomach.

Next to him, with his impossibly impressive, dark and slightly cruel good looks, she was like an ice maiden, tall, pale and with a peculiar, frozen beauty of her own.

Her fingers tightened on the photo and she found that she was breathing quickly, nervously, like a scared wild animal that had wandered into an unsuspected trap.

Maybe, she thought with a rare stab of bitterness, this fear was simply a culmination of what she had been feeling, deep inside, for the past nine months, ever since she had begun sleeping with him. What, after all, had she to offer a man like James Forrester—someone with power, wealth and looks, a man who could crook a finger and have any woman he wanted running to him? She was no great beauty with her uneventful brown hair, blue eyes and pale complexion, a brunette who couldn’t tan, of all things.

And she certainly did not inhabit his rarefied world of the rich, the privileged and the powerful. Her roots were humble ones, her parents both teachers and both now retired, safely tucked away in deepest Devon, a thousand light-years away from stocks and shares and the cut-throat concrete jungle which was his life blood.

Which brought her to the photo and the inevitable question it raised: where was their relationship going? She was desperately in love with him, and she knew that he was fond of her and was attracted to her, that much had always been obvious in the flare in his eyes whenever they were together, but there it ended. He did not want commitment. That was something which had needed no explanation. It was evident in every caress, every touch that was unaccompanied by the declarations of love she longed to hear. It was as intangible but as powerfully present as the air she breathed.

And for the past nine months she had, with increasing unease, played the game by his rules; but now, she thought, staring at the photo in front of her, things were going to change. She was not going to become one of those women who spent years miserably devoted to a man who had no intention of offering anything beyond the occasional meal out and sex on demand.

God only knew why she had stuck it out for so long. It was completely out of character. She frowned, and in the dim recesses of her mind she wondered whether there wasn’t some inevitable logic to her behaviour after all. She had had boyfriends in the past, but they had never measured up to the hopelessly impossible standards which she had set in her imagination. I’ve spent my life searching for a fairy-tale, she thought bitterly, looking for some dark, dramatic knight in shining armour. How could college boys and local lads ever have filled the role? None of them had fuelled her imagination.

With James it had been different from the word go. He had been altogether different from the sort of boys she had been accustomed to, as different as a shark was from a goldfish. Underneath that sophisticated exterior, he possessed a rapier mind and a lean, predatory sex appeal which she had never in her life come across.

She had taken one look at him and she had been bowled over. Nothing in her life had prepared her for that heady rush of excitement which his mere presence could arouse in her, and she had done nothing to protect herself.

But then, looking back on it now, she had not realised just how quickly she would become engulfed, until he filled her every waking moment, until she only seemed to breathe, to come alive, when he was around. She had given everything of herself to him, without ever really stopping to realise that he had given precious little in return.

What a fool I’ve been, she thought with an angry stab of pain, throwing myself into bed with him, lapping up the crumbs he’s tossed out like a thirsty dog at a bowl of water. Where has all my pride gone?

Little wonder she had never mentioned him to her parents. Some instinct must have warned her that their relationship, if it could be called that, was far from satisfactory, and her parents would have had a fit if they had known what an emotional mess she was in. They were old-fashioned people with old-fashioned principles, and sleeping with a virtual stranger did not, by any stretch of the imagination, fit into the category of upholding old-fashioned principles.

All these things had been fermenting away in her head for some time now, but it was only here, sitting in this armchair, clutching this photo, that they all came together and filled her with horror. How could she have been so stupid?

It had been sheer cowardice, she realised, sticking with James. It had been an intense, addictive relationship from the start, and whenever common sense had shown the slightest sign of putting in an appearance, she had quickly ushered it away because just the thought of never seeing that hard-boned, arrogant, good-looking face again, of never knowing that dry, incisive humour, had terrified her.

She was so lost in her thought that she was unaware of the door opening until he filled the doorway, a tall, looming figure that made her heart skip a beat. For a second, she had to blink because it was almost as if the intensity of her thoughts had managed to conjure him up in front of her, then she began to feel that familiar pounding in her chest, that weak-kneed craving she had whenever he was around, and she had to steel every nerve in her body not to respond to him.

If he was surprised to see her, he didn’t show it. He came into the room, moving with the lithe grace of someone whose body was finery tuned to perfection, and discarded his coat, loosening his tie and tugging at it so that he could undo the top button of his shirt.

‘What,’ he said at last, walking towards her and giving her a long, appraising look, ‘are you doing here? I thought that you would have been safely tucked up in bed in the cottage.’ He bent down, reaching out to support himself on the arms of the chair, and she had a dizzy sensation of drowning.

This was how it always was. He could always somehow reduce her to a mindless, obedient female, but this time it wasn’t going to work, this time she wasn’t going to allow herself to get swept into that vortex of passion that he could generate without even really seeming to try.

‘I knew that you would be back around now,’ Claire muttered, grateful that the study was in virtual darkness. The lamp on the desk was switched on, but that was the only source of light, not enough for him to detect the sharp red colour that had flowed up to her cheeks.

‘So you came to greet me,’ he murmured softly. He reached out and lazily trailed one finger along her neck, under the thin material of her blouse. She had earlier discarded her thick blue jumper, and now she wished desperately that she hadn’t. It would have provided a barrier against those long, sensual fingers. Her body felt as though it had been frozen, and she was hardly aware of him undoing the buttons of her shirt until he slipped his hand under, to caress the full swell of her breast, his thumb moving erotically over the tight bud of her nipple.

She gasped with a mixture of astonishment and unwilling arousal, and her body jerked into life. She pushed his hand away and wriggled frantically to get up, but he was still leaning over her and he coiled his fingers into her hair, forcing her to remain where she was.

His face had hardened at her unexpected reaction, but he was still in control, although he wasn’t pleased, that much was evident from his tight expression. She felt a swift dart of pleasure and very slowly but very pointedly she began to button up her shirt, taking her time and hoping that he couldn’t make out just how nervous she was.

‘Playing games, Claire?’ he asked coolly, straightening up and walking across to the mahogany bar in the corner of the study. He poured himself a drink and turned to face her.

‘No,’ she answered, over-loud. ‘When have I ever played games with you?’ Her hands were still trembling and she sat on them, feeling the photo under her thigh and curling her fingers around it.

‘Then would you care to explain your presence here? It’s been one hell of a day and I don’t relish rounding it off by trying to guess what’s going on in that head of yours.’ He switched on the overhead light and she blinked, dazzled and taken aback. She didn’t want to see that dark, arrogant face any more than she wanted him to see hers, and with the light switched on she felt as though there was nowhere to hide.

‘Perhaps,’ she said, with a hysterical edge to her voice, ‘I came for conversation. Having a relationship with someone does involve the odd bit of conversation, doesn’t it? Or maybe I’m asking for too much from you.’

‘What the hell has got into you?’ he asked grimly. ‘If you’ve decided to come up to the house, at eleven-thirty at night, to subject me to a monologue on the values of conversation, then it can wait. I’m damned tired and I have no intention of indulging this unexpected bout of temper.’ He gulped down the remainder of his drink and then slammed the glass on to the desk, making her jump.

‘I want to talk to you!’ she said in a burst, sliding her eyes away from his because she knew that he had the ability to reduce her to a gibbering wreck if he decided.

‘By all means.’ He began walking towards the door, undoing his shirt.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, springing up and following him, half running to keep up as he strode into the massive hall, then up the winding staircase towards his bedroom.

This is ridiculous, she thought. She had sat there for well over two hours, clutching that wretched photo, armed and prepared for confrontation, and here she was now, racing along behind him like some damned serf while he casually undressed along the way. By the time he arrived at his bedroom door, he was tugging his white shirt out of the waistband of his trousers.

She stopped where she was, by the door, knowing that his bedroom was just about the last place in the world where she should be having a serious conversation. But maybe, she thought with unaccustomed cynicism, that was his ploy. He was damned shrewd, shrewd enough to know that by bringing her here he would immediately have the advantage. Hadn’t he always had the advantage in the bedroom?

He stripped off his shirt and tossed it on the chair by the window, not looking in her direction.

His body had always fascinated her, with its sensual, powerful lines and light bronze colouring so unusual in the English. In one of his rare moments of confidence, he had told her that that had to do with the fact that his mother had been Italian, a wild, dark-haired beauty who had swept his stolid English father off his feet, much to his relatives’ disgust. The only thing English about me, he had assured her, is my name, and she could believe that because there was something untamed about him.

‘I don’t intend,’ he informed her, still without looking in her direction, walking towards the marble en-suite bathroom and dressing-room, ‘to shout to you from the bathroom, so you can either step over that threshold or else whatever you have to say will have to wait until another, more appropriate time.’

He turned on the shower and Claire reluctantly closed the bedroom door behind her and followed him to the dressing-room.

He had turned on the shower and through the open door she could see him getting undressed until he was completely naked. He was making no effort to continue their conversation. Either he was totally incurious about what she had to say or else he was simply waiting until she was forced to break the silence.

Claire took a few steps towards the bathroom but she didn’t enter, and she refused to give in to the temptation to stare at the sleek, strong body, hazy behind the smoked shower-door. She deliberately turned away and stared in the opposite direction. It was a dramatic bedroom, full of deep reds and golds, with an eighteenth-century fourposter bed dominating everything. Quite out of character from the rest of the place, which relied on muted colours to create a feeling of refined good taste. It had always struck her as a fitting background for someone as sensuous as James.

‘Still pretending to be a shrinking violet?’ he whispered from next to her, and she jumped, turning around to stare at him. His hair was damp and he was wearing nothing apart from a thick beige towel wrapped precariously around his waist. The shower had obviously refreshed him, though. He was in a better mood, not as abrupt and biting as when he had first walked into the study.

‘Still set on talking?’ he asked in the same low voice, and he gave her a smile of such devastating charm that the breath caught in her throat. ‘Or should we postpone the conversation in favour of something less cerebral?’ His fingers curled into her hair and he drew her forward, tilting her face up to him. Her lips parted, an unconscious reaction, and he covered them with his own. She felt him harden, aroused, against her and she placed the palms of her hands on his chest and pushed him away. He stepped back, surprised and irritated.

He would be surprised, she thought, and irritated. She had never rejected him before. On the contrary, she had yielded to him like a flower bending in the wind, allowing him to dictate her responses, the eager novice so willing to be taught. The thought of it was enough to make her feel ill.

‘Well,’ he said, turning away and unhitching the towel from his waist, throwing it across a chair then rummaging through the chest of drawers to extract a pair of silk boxer shorts, which he slipped on before turning to her, ‘get it off your chest. You’re standing there like a virgin about to be raped. I don’t think I can stand the suspense of wondering what you have to say that’s of such great importance.’

‘Really?’ Claire said flatly. ‘You don’t look like a man who’s crying of suspense. In fact, you don’t look as though you give a damn about what I have to say.’

That outburst surprised him even more. He folded his arms across his chest and stared at her as though she had taken leave of her senses.

This was the first time that she had ever confronted him. He was not a man to encourage confrontations. There was a steel-hard core to him that made you think twice before you decided to cross him. Now, she was beginning to wish that she had never begun on this route. He was making her nervous, staring at her like that with those dramatic, shuttered green eyes, his arms folded, like someone who was temporarily willing to be indulgent, but not for very long. She licked her lips and told herself that she had nothing to be scared of. She had slept with this man, and besides, she had every right to ask him whatever she chose to. He could hardly kill her just because he didn’t care for the question.

‘Well?’ he prompted silkily. ‘I’m all ears.’

Claire took a deep, steadying breath and stretched out her hand with the photo. ‘I’d like to know about this,’ she said quietly.

He stepped forward and took the picture. He stared at it, then he looked up at her, his eyes as hard as diamonds.

‘And where did you get this?’

‘In the drawer of your study,’ Claire said defiantly. ‘I was doing some artwork at the cottage and my paper supply ran out. I thought that you might have had some foolscap up here. I know you sometimes work from your study, and I didn’t think that you would mind…’ Her voice trailed off and she realised that her courage was beginning to desert her. When she had been angry, it had been easy to face the thought of confronting him, but now she was no longer angry, she was scared stiff, and she had no idea what to say next. Every word was like taking one step further on molten lava.

There was a long, unbroken silence and finally he said in a cold voice, ‘I would have locked that bureau if I had suspected that you would feel free to come up here and rummage through it.’

‘I was not rummaging through it,’ Claire defended hotly. ‘But how else would I have found the paper if I hadn’t…?’

‘Had a good, long look at everything else in there,’ he finished for her and she went scarlet, even though what he was implying was far from the truth. She hadn’t been nosing around. That sort of thing simply wasn’t in her nature.

‘I wasn’t even looking in the drawer,’ she said angrily. ‘I stuck my hand in…’

‘And to and behold, what should it chance upon but this?’ He threw the photo on the bed where it landed face-down.

‘Will you let me finish?’ she asked tightly. ‘Yes, I pulled it out, and yes, I looked at it, of course, I’m only human after all. I thought,’ she added with a trace of sarcasm, ‘that you might want to provide an explanation.’

He was beginning to look dangerously angry, and her eyes widened in apprehension as he took a step towards her.

‘I can’t imagine why you would think any such thing,’ he said in a soft voice that carried a hint of distaste in it. ‘I didn’t realise that I owed you anything, least of all an explanation about something that’s really none of your business.’

That hurt, but she wasn’t going to let him see that. The man in front of her wasn’t the James that she had fallen in love with. This was a stranger, a cold, menacing stranger.

‘We’ve slept together,’ she began, and he gave a bark of laughter.

‘And?’

‘And,’ she stuttered in confusion, ‘and I would have thought, I would have imagined… I mean when two people sleep together, they usually share things…’ As soon as the words were uttered, she realised how ridiculous they sounded. There was nothing cosy about their relationship, it wasn’t an ordinary, run-of-the mill situation where two people shared their bed and their hearts. It was wild, and obsessive, and ultimately, she knew now, fatal, at least for her.

‘I always knew that you were far too young for me,’ he said coolly. ‘Because, my dear Claire, we made love, that does not entitle you to scour my private life.’

‘But I am your private life!’

‘You flatter yourself.’ He turned away and she blinked rapidly, fighting down the sting of tears.

He moved across to stand at the window, half turned away from her, an impressive animal without an ounce of scruple, and she wanted to rush across to him and tear his eyes out.

‘Didn’t I mean anything to you?’ she asked, trying with great difficulty to maintain some semblance of self-control.

His shoulders stiffened and he remained silent for so long that she began to wonder whether he had heard her question. Not that she was inclined to repeat it. After all, it didn’t take a genius to deduce the answer from that telling, prolonged silence.

‘What do you want me to say to that?’ he asked, facing her, half sitting on the window ledge.

Yes! she wanted to scream at him, I want you to say yes! I want you to say that you’re as crazy about me as I am about you! I want you to declare undying love and fidelity!

‘You don’t have to say anything,’ she managed to inform him. ‘I’m not stupid, whatever you might think. I can read between the lines.’

‘I never encouraged you to think…’

‘I know. And I don’t think…I don’t expect anything from you. I would, however, still like to know what that picture was all about, not that you owe me anything, as you’ve told me in no uncertain terms.’

‘That,’ he said without a change of tone, ‘is a picture of my wife.’

Claire blanched, then turned bright red. Her body felt as though it was on fire. What had she expected? she asked herself. It was obviously a wedding photo, wasn’t it? If she had been a bit more realistic instead of hiding behind some stupid pretence that he could explain it away, she would have acknowledged that.

‘So I’ve been sleeping with a married man for the past nine months,’ she said through still lips. ‘Have you any more surprises in store for me, James? Perhaps you’re an escaped convict and this house doesn’t really belong to you at all!’ Her voice had risen sharply. ‘You’ve managed to keep your wife a secret for the past nine months. Where is she, anyway? Locked away in one of the bedrooms somewhere? Or does she hide away and let you get on with your little affairs on the side? Tell me, James, I’m dying to know!’

He moved swiftly towards her and grasped her hands, pinning them to her sides so that she couldn’t escape.

‘You’re hysterical,’ he said harshly, dragging her towards the bed and throwing her on it. She made to get up but he forestalled that by trapping her with his arms, so she lay there passively, lowering her eyes so that he couldn’t see the mutiny in them.

‘Can you blame me?’ she asked viciously.

‘I’m not married,’ he said. ‘The thought of adultery leaves me with a very sour taste in my mouth. My wife died ten years ago.’

‘I had no idea,’ Claire whispered. ‘I’m sorry.’ There was a pause while she fought down the accusations she had hurled at him. ‘How is it that you never mentioned her?’

There was no softening in his expression as he looked down at her.

‘I didn’t see the need,’ he said in a smooth, hard voice. ‘Claire, let me make one thing absolutely clear between us. What we have is physical. I want you. But if you’re looking for commitment, then you’re looking in the wrong place, at the wrong man. My capacity for love was well and truly expended on Olivia.’

Olivia. Lovely name. It suited that blonde, imperious beauty. Not forgetting tragic. Tragic beauty, she thought—the worst kind. How on earth could you fight the past?

‘You can’t mean that,’ she said without thinking.

‘Don’t play the crusader with me, Claire. I’m quite happy to enjoy what we have, but don’t waste your time with me if marriage is what you’re after. Is it?’

‘Did I ever imply that?’ she asked weakly, averting her eyes. She was breathing quickly, her breasts rising and falling.

‘Good,’ he said, ‘because it would be so unfortunate if what we have was forced to end prematurely, wouldn’t it?’ He pushed aside her blouse, exposing her breasts and slowly, tenderly he began to caress them.

He had been her first and only lover. He had taught her to make love, giving her enjoyment until she was confident enough to return it to him. Her body responded to him now with an almost reflex rush of desire. The peaks of her nipples hardened, ready to receive the warm wetness of his mouth. Her mind seemed to shut down completely, so that when his lips finally did encircle her swollen nipples it took a while for coherent thought to resurface. But resurface it did, and she wriggled against him, pushing him back, desperate to get away.

This time, though, he was less willing to release her. He pinned her arms down and she immediately stopped squirming. There was no point. He was strong, she knew that from experience, and in a physical contest he would always be the winner, so why waste energy in trying to fight him? He couldn’t restrain her forever, and the minute his hands were off her she’d be out of here.

Her passivity annoyed him yet further.

‘It’s no good,’ she said flatly. ‘You can strip me until I’m completely naked, but you can’t make me want you.’

‘Can’t I?’ There was disbelief in his voice and she watched him angrily from under her lashes. ‘Shall we put that to the test?’

His eyes raked over her, and it was like being branded by a hot iron. Who, she thought, was she trying to kid? She wanted him now just like she had always wanted him. It was an illness, a craving that was bigger than her. The thought of him looking at her nudity, caressing her bare breasts with his eyes, was enough to bring hectic colour to her cheeks, even though he was no longer touching her.

‘If that makes you happy,’ she said with a careless shrug, and she could tell from the stiffening of his body that she was really beginning to get under his skin. She didn’t know whether to feel afraid or elated. ‘You can subdue me easily, but what does that prove except that you’re stronger than I am? And sure, if you make love to me, I’ll probably be aroused by you, but just because my body might respond it doesn’t mean that my mind is as well.’ Anger, bitterness, hurt had loosened her tongue and, now that she had started talking, it was as if she could no longer stop herself. She had stored up nine months of passionate, unbridled, frustrated love, and all that was pouring out of her in an unstoppable torrent.

‘You’re so sure of yourself, aren’t you, James?’ she asked in a high-pitched voice. ‘Have you ever run into any obstacles in your life? I doubt it. You’ve sailed through life assuming that it’s your right that everyone bends to your will.’ She gave an uncontrolled, acid laugh and sat up, smoothing her appearance with trembling fingers. ‘I was a fool to ever be taken in by that charm of yours’ She lifted her face rebelliously to his, her chin jutting forward with unaccustomed aggression. ‘You play with women, don’t you? Did it amuse you to play with me? Did my virginity turn you on?’ She had gone beyond the point of rational thought. She was fired by the biting pain of knowing that the man she loved belonged to his dead wife.

‘You turned me on,’ he said harshly, the green of his eyes glittering like a cat’s, ‘and yes, your virginity was part of you. Would you prefer it if I lied? Would you like me to tell you that I loved you? Would you like me to feed you stories about eternal bliss?’ She was staring up at him, her eyes as wide as saucers. ‘Dammit, woman!’ He stood up and began pacing the room, like a caged animal, raking his fingers through his hair and she watched him with unwilling, greedy fascination.

Of course she should leave, but something kept her nailed to the bed.

‘Don’t look at me like that!’ he commanded, standing still and fixing her with those amazing eyes.

‘Like what?’

‘You told me that you never played games with me. Well, I never played them with you. I never offered you what I couldn’t provide.’

The atmosphere was thick with tension and she looked away hurriedly, physically unable to outstare him even though she would have liked to. She felt as though she had opened a door and found a nightmare behind it. Her sister, she knew, would have been proud. Jackie was seven years older than her, and she had never met James Forrester, but that hadn’t stopped her from lecturing on his unsuitability.

‘I know you,’ she had told Claire early on in her relationship. ‘You’re too green for a man like that. You’re a dreamer, you’ve always been a dreamer. Even when you were a teenager and you should have been out having fun, you locked yourself away in your bedroom with your books and your fantasies. Right now you’re a novelty for him because he’s accustomed to other types of women, sophisticated women with carefully applied make-up and designer wardrobes. You’re young and fresh and just so damned innocent, but he’ll tire of you and when he does you can be sure that he won’t think twice about sending you on your way.’

Claire had listened because she loved her sister, but she hadn’t taken the slightest bit of notice of the warnings. The pull he had over her was too powerful to allow her any room for reason.

‘No, you never offered me anything that you couldn’t provide,’ she repeated dully. Her intense anger had evaporated and she felt drained and hopeless. ‘Thank you so much for that, at least. How good you’ve been, what a true gentleman.’

His lips tightened and he stared at her as though he would have liked to have shaken her and was only controlling himself with extreme difficulty.

She stood up and walked slowly towards the door. Inside, she felt dead and lifeless. This was the first time that she had ever exploded like this with James, with anyone for that matter. She was not a girl who liked arguments; she had always preferred to take the path of least possible resistance. Perhaps because her parents had so seldom argued, quarrelling perturbed her, made her feel awkward and uncomfortable.

‘I can’t compete with your wife,’ she said quietly, her hand on the doorknob. ‘I just wish that you’d liked me enough to tell me about her sooner.’

‘Liking,’ he said coolly, not trying to stop her from leaving, ‘had nothing to do with it.’

‘How can you still be so affected by the past?’ she heard herself ask, desperately, and the shutters clamped back down over his eyes. She preferred him cold, angry, biting, anything but this closed expression that gave her no inkling as to what he was thinking.

He took a step towards her and she cringed back, like a wounded animal.

‘Is it ever really possible to escape the past?’ he asked smoothly, an acid, humourless smile on his face. ‘You’re a child. I should never have given in to my impulses; I should have left you to play out your little infatuation.’

‘Thank you for that,’ she whispered, hating herself for loving this man when he was capable of being so utterly hateful. ‘But it’s not too late to be rid of me.’ She opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. ‘I’m leaving now and this is the last you’ll see of me, so you can carry on with your life and I can finish playing out all my stupid, childish games.’

She shut the door behind her and flew down the corridor, gaining momentum as she ran down the staircase as if there were baying hounds behind her, when in fact he hadn’t made even the slightest effort to stop her in her tracks.

Why should he? she thought as she let herself out of the front door. I’ve only ever been a little bit of fun on the side. He’s still in love with Olivia.

CHAPTER TWO

CLAIRE had been only just twenty when she’d met James Forrester.

It had been on one of those depressing winter days when the sun never seemed to rise and darkness fell like a shutter in mid-afternoon. Not a day to be wondering for how much longer she would be able to afford the rent on her poky bedroom in the house she shared with three other girls. Money was low and she was loath to mention the problem to her parents because they would immediately insist on helping her out. Even at twenty, they still thought of her as their baby, their little girl who should be protected.

Not to mention the fact that her parents would have been hard pushed to bail her out of her financial troubles. Her father wasn’t exactly rolling in money and although they had some savings, it was common knowledge to both their daughters that this money was being carefully put aside for a rainy day.

So she had continued scouring the newspapers, anxiously looking for jobs and wondering whether she would have been better off remaining in London instead of moving to Berkshire where the rent was much lower and where she had optimistically thought that the job situation would be good.

Six weeks out of work, with nothing hopeful on the horizon, was not doing much for her self-confidence, though.

Two of the girls who rented the house with her bluntly told her that she ought to find a job as a secretary, invest her time in a short typing course which would reap its rewards in the years to come; after all, they earned good money, thank you very much, working as secretaries in two of the larger companies in nearby Reading.

But Claire had not jumped at their suggestion. She had worked hard for her art diploma and to throw away everything she had studied for, to abandon her love of art in favour of a nine-to-five routine in front of a typewriter, did not hold much appeal.

But as she had sat at the kitchen table, scanning the job columns, she had been forced to admit that a love of art was not going to pay the bills.

She also doubted whether her landlord would smilingly accept her need to be creative and overlook the little matter of unpaid rent on his house. He was sharklike at the best of times, and she shuddered at the prospect of trying to engage his sympathy for her cause.

Then she had spotted it. Just when she had been about to crumple the newspaper into a ball and admit defeat. Cleaner wanted, it said, excellent rates of pay for the right person. More to the point, she would be working at Frilton Manor.

She had telephoned the number on the advertisement immediately and had been given an interview only hours later.

And she just knew that this was going to work out. She would be earning money, she would be able to keep herself in room and board until the sort of job she really wanted came along, and, best of all, she would be surrounded by all that magnificent beauty at the manor— because it would be beautiful, she could tell just from what she had seen of it from the outside: large, imposing, set on a hill and looking down on the rest of the world with a mixture of grandeur and contempt.

She had been right. She had got the job because, she was told by the head housekeeper, she looked trustworthy and she could start the following morning.

Then she had been shown around the manor, or rather part of it because some of the rooms were closed and besides it was simply too massive to be viewed in the length of time available.

Claire had been awestruck. Her own family home had been a small three-bedroomed cottage, with just enough space for four people and a dog, and even the dog had a tendency to get underfoot now and again. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to actually live somewhere as vast as Frilton Manor.

‘Are there any children?’ she had asked the housekeeper, who had given her a curious look.

‘Children? Of course not. The master lives here on his own. Not that he gets down here that often. His work is in London, you see, and he has a flat there, but when he does come here it has to be in spotless condition. It’s not that he’s a stickler for cleanliness,’ she had hurriedly continued, ‘but I am.’ She looked around her proudly. ‘There’s four of us whose job it is to make sure things keep ticking over, and I do the cooking as well when the master is at home. George, that’s my husband, is responsible for the garden. He employs some local lads to help him. The master trusts us,’ she said, holding her head high, making Claire smile, ‘we’re responsible for who works here and we have to be careful. There’s a lot of valuables in this house. The antiques, the pictures.’ She made a sweeping gesture, and Claire nodded appreciatively.

‘Priceless, I should think,’ she contributed helpfully, but she was really only half listening to what the housekeeper was saying. Her eyes were roaming around the place in open delight, taking in the graceful curves of the staircase which dominated the massive hallway, sweeping up to branch into two long corridors which formed a huge square and off which the bedrooms were located.

And on the walls were a mind-boggling array of paintings, some of them portraits, others landscapes, all original. For an art lover, it was sheer heaven.

There was even a magnificent library, which she had briefly seen, and which had lived up to all her expectations of what a library ought to be like in a grand, old house. Dark, with rich deep colours, and sombre paintings on the walls, and an impressive display of books, most hardbound, but some, she was interested to see, modern classics.

‘Of course priceless!’ the housekeeper said haughtily, making Claire smile again.

They were back in the hallway when the telephone began ringing, and the housekeeper hurried off, leaving her to let herself out. But Claire didn’t immediately. She remained where she was, absorbing the wonderful stateliness of the place, loving the beauty and the stillness of it.

She would telephone her sister this evening and tell her all about her stroke of good fortune, although she knew what her sister would say. Damn dull, working in a great big place like that. It’s not good for you, you need to get out more, mix with young people, not do a cleaning job in a mausoleum.

Jackie had not wanted her to leave London. She was a firm believer in the city life and she had been convinced that with a little more personal guidance Claire would have broken out of her shell and become less introverted. She had said as much, and Claire had listened with a half-smile, not liking to say that the bright lights were not for her. She had found London oppressive and overcrowded and she just couldn’t work herself up to feel enthusiastic about the nightclubs and the wine bars and the never-ending round of social engagements which her sister seemed to delight in. There had to be more to life than a routine job in a claustrophobic city. She had refrained from pointing this out to her sister, though. Jackie would have shaken her head with one of those affectionate, half pitying smiles of hers and immediately told her sister that a job was a nine-to-five routine most of the time, that mother luck rarely visited, that men were just ordinary mortals with ordinary bad habits, so join the reality club and stop living in a dream world.

She was still standing there, daydreaming about the magical mystery tour of the manor which lay in store for her, the daily pleasures of looking at the various paintings and artefacts, when the huge front door swung open and she was confronted by a sight that momentarily took her breath away.

A man, tall, lean and cloaked in black, stood in front of her, silhouetted against the inky blackness of early evening. He looked as though he belonged to another era, a more dangerous, less civilised one, and somewhere, the thought flashed through her head, there should be a white stallion, stamping and snorting in the bitter cold.

Then she blinked and realised that of course it was an Illusion, she was just being silly.

‘Who are you?’ she asked in a timid voice, nervously clutching her coat around her because the hall was suddenly freezing cold from the outside air.

‘Who,’ the man replied coldly, divesting himself of the black coat to reveal a less startling grey suit, perfectly tailored and, Claire noticed uncomfortably, dramatically emphasising the sort of body that didn’t usually belong to men in suits, ‘might I ask, are you?’

He slung the coat on to the mint-coloured chaise-longue just behind him and turned to face her, staring at her until a deep red flush slowly crawled up her cheeks.

She was not adept at social banter at the best of times, and right now she was feeling horribly uncomfortable and, she suspected, probably looking like a goldfish as well with her mouth half open and her eyes huge and wary.

‘I’m here for the job,’ she stammered in a small voice, and the man clicked his tongue impatiently.

‘Job? What job?’

He began moving off towards one of the many sittingrooms downstairs, expecting her to follow, which she did, even though it struck her that she still didn’t know his name.

‘Cleaner,’ she called from behind him. ‘I saw the advertisement in the newspaper and I applied for the post.’

He turned to face her, his eyes narrowed, and she shrank back. He really was the most alarming man she had ever met. There was something forbidding in the hard set of his features, despite the suggestion of warmth in the curve of his mouth. His hair was dark, almost black, and his eyes were a peculiar shade of green. Not hazel, not blue-green, but pure, undiluted green, and fringed by thick, black lashes.

Those green eyes were roving over her now, taking her in inch by lazy inch, and she felt a spark of anger ignite inside of her. She knew very well that this arrogant man was most probably the so-called master of the house, and she knew that, to him, a cleaner was probably the lowest of the low, but there was no reason why she had to endure the indignity of his stare.

So with a rare attempt at rebellion she stuck her hands on her hips and tried to think of something very cutting to say, master or no master.

‘You don’t look like a cleaner,’ he informed her, moving across to one of the sofas and sitting down.

He didn’t gesture to her to do likewise and she decided that if this was a deliberate ploy then it was a good one, because she felt exposed and nervous standing where she was, like someone forced to appear solo on stage in front of a bank of critics.

‘I do apologise,’ she said neutrally, though from the look of amusement that crossed his face he could read the sarcasm in her voice quite easily.

‘How old are you? Fifteen? Sixteen? Does your mother know that you’re running about applying for jobs when you should be at school?’

That really was the last straw. Mild-mannered she might be, but she suddenly saw red.

‘I am not fifteen,’ she snapped, her face crimson, ‘nor am I sixteen. And my mother is fully aware that I’m running about applying for jobs. In fact, I suspect she sincerely hopes I get one, considering I’m twenty years old and I’ve just finished at art college!’

‘In which case,’ he said smoothly, ‘why are you applying for a job as a cleaner? Are you hoping to bring something creative to the post? Perhaps redesign the dust into artistic swirls?’

Claire clenched her fists by her sides and looked away from him.

Very cool, she thought, very urbane to sit there and confuse me with lazy, sophisticated innuendoes. She hated men like that. Or at least, she thought honestly, she should do. But what she was feeling wasn’t hatred. It was far from that. She felt uncomfortable, exposed, conscious of her womanhood in a way that she never had in her life before. It was a heady, exhilarating, scary feeling, like freefalling from a plane, and in a strange way it was addictive too. She didn’t want him to stop looking at her. She had to force herself to come back down to Planet Earth.

‘I need the money,’ she said bluntly, ‘and I like this house. Manor,’ she corrected hastily. ‘I like beautiful things, and this house—sorry, manor—is full of beautiful objects. I studied art at college, you see. Did I mention that to you? I’ve always loved paintings, sculptures; they’re so much more soothing than all that grit and grime we see around us every day. Don’t you think?’

He was nodding in an abstracted sort of way and she wondered whether she was on the verge of losing his attention. He was probably finding her gauche and earnest, but she wasn’t the sort to play verbal games; she didn’t know how.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, taking refuge in as cool a tone of voice as she could muster, but feeling deflated. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know your name.’

‘Forrester. James Forrester.’ He didn’t stretch out his hand to hers. Instead he joined his fingers under his chin and continued to survey her with the sort of frank appraisal which she decided bordered on rude. ‘And your name is…?’

‘Claire Harper.’ That said, there didn’t seem much else to say and she hovered indecisively, wondering whether she could find the self-possession to smile blankly, utter a few closing pleasantries and take her leave.

He made her nervous and she wondered whether the housekeeper, Mrs Evans, had been right when she’d said that he was not around very much.

‘Why don’t you sit down,’ he said, ‘you look like a frightened animal about to turn tail and take flight. I won’t eat you.’

Ha ha, Claire thought, smiling weakly, very funny. She would have to get some lessons from her sister on how to deal with men like him. Jackie was far more adept when it came to the fine art of social interaction and savoir-faire. Staring and stammering definitely weren’t top of the league when it came to masterful social interaction.

‘I really can’t,’ she mumbled. ‘I want to get back before it’s too dark.’

‘I don’t think it’s possible to get any darker, do you? How did you get here? I assume you didn’t drive; there’s no car in the courtyard. Did you cycle?’

Claire shook her head. ‘Bus, then I walked the mile or so from the bus stop,’ she confessed, and he stared at her as though the concept of walking was very far removed from his idea of ways and means of getting from A to B.

‘Come on,’ he said, standing up. ‘I’ll run you back in my car.’

She refused, of course, protested, backed away, which only brought a curl of amusement to his lips, but in the end he drove her back to her lodgings in his sleek burgundy convertible Mercedes, and when she hurriedly tripped out of the car, he followed her up to the house, putting her in a position whereby to stand at the door and tell him to go would have seemed impossibly childish.

‘You live here?’ he asked in amazement, looking around the kitchen, and she followed the direction of his gaze.

It was shabby. The linoleum was lifting from the floor, the appliances all looked as though they had seen better times in the Boer war and God only knew when the walls had last had a lick of paint. Judging from the accumulated layers of grime, decades ago. If you think this is bad, she wanted to tell him, you ought to see the bedrooms, but then she had a sudden, disturbing picture of him in her bedroom and launched into a confused apology for the scrappy condition of the kitchen, explaining how difficult it was to get somewhere cheap and presentable to rent when landlords seemed to adhere to the belief that there was no reason to do anything but the very basic with their accommodation when lack of choice would bring tenants anyway.

Her voice trailed off and she stared at him nervously. The other girls were not yet back from work, although they would be shortly, and in her haste to hurry him out of the house before they returned and began asking her a series of questions about him, she took him by the arm to lead him back to the side door.

The jolt of awareness that shot through her at the slight physical contact brought hectic colour to her cheeks and she sprang back, alarmed.

‘Take good care of my house,’ he drawled, watching her face and leaving her with the impression that he was well aware of the effect he had on her. ‘Sorry—manor.’

There was a little silence and she raised her eyes reluctantly to his, and for some reason her head began to spin and her mouth went completely dry. He was so overpowering, with those potent, dark good looks and that air of lazy sex appeal which she could glimpse quite easily now that some of his cold arrogance was no longer in evidence.

Only when he left did she relax, leaning heavily against the door and breathlessly telling herself that Jackie would die laughing if she could see her now.

She would have seen all that crazy self-consciousness and stammering shyness as one hundred per cent predictable. If you’d read fewer books and done more partying as a girl, if Mum and Dad hadn’t treated you like breakable china, if you’d stayed in London and allowed me to sort you out, if, if, if… Jackie would never have understood.

She didn’t understand it herself. In the car, surrounded by darkness, listening to that deep, sery voice as he chatted about Frilton Manor, she had felt as though she was drowning. Confused and nervous, but wonderfully so. As if she was truly alive for the first time in her life. Sleeping Beauty awakened by a magical kiss.

It was another fortnight before she saw him again, but after that they seemed to bump into each other on a regular basis. He was working from home. She gleaned that from Mrs Evans, who also told her that that in itself was highly unusual.

Unusual or not, Claire found that the prospect of him being in the manor made her wake up in the mornings raring to go, although she didn’t question why this should be so. She found herself listening for his footsteps, contriving to be in the same room as he was, always making sure that there was a duster and a can of polish in her hand, of course. She was, she knew, beginning to feed off the illicit thrill of seeing his dark, handsome face, hearing the deep timbre of his voice. She was still looking in the newspapers for jobs, but half-heartedly, because a part of her didn’t want to have to give up her job at Frilton Manor, or else continue at it on weekends only, when he wasn’t guaranteed to be around.

She was about to leave one evening when he appeared from the direction of the library, which doubled as his office, and called out to her. She found herself immediately smiling at him, appreciatively taking in the casual green cords and thick off-white jumper. He could wear anything, she had decided, and still look unbearably, terrifyingly handsome.

He looked at her with that lazy amusement which she knew she had glimpsed in his eyes occasionally, and which always made her tremble with awareness, and then surprised her by asking her to join him for a drink.

‘Or some coffee,’ he said, ‘if you don’t drink.’

‘Oh, I do!’ she lied, blushing. ‘I’d love a…’ she thought quickly about it’… gin and tonic.’

It was after six and already pitch black outside with the threat of snow hanging in the air, and she knew that she should leave before the threat became reality, but the temptation to linger in his company was too irresistible.

She followed him into his study, where a carved mahogany bar blended comfortably with the rest of the furniture, and looked around her guilelessly while he poured her a drink.

It was a shame, she thought, that he had caught her like this at the end of the day, when she was looking a little worse for wear, but at least she was wearing her best-fitting pair of jeans and a navy blue baggy cotton jumper which she knew was flattering with her shade of eyes and dark hair.

He handed her the drink and gestured for her to sit down, while he perched on the edge of the desk, looking down at her from what seemed a great height.

She was beginning to feel nervous and jumpy, which always seemed to be the case whenever she got too close to him, when he broke the silence by asking her whether she had found a job as yet.

Claire looked at him, startled.

‘No,’ she stammered, frowning, ‘I haven’t. I’m sorry. They’re terribly difficult to find, or at least the right ones are. Why do you ask? Do you want to get rid of me?’ She hoped, as she stared at him, that she didn’t look too pleading, but the thought of never seeing him again made her feel slightly sick.

He gave her a long, careful look. ‘Of course not. I just imagined that working here can’t exactly be riveting for a girl of your age. Not on a full-time basis, at any rate. It’s a beautiful house, full of beautiful things, but the job isn’t exactly the height of intellectual stimulation, is it? And I gather from the little I’ve seen of you that you’re not an unintelligent girl.’

She wished that he would stop calling her a girl. She was a woman, not a ten-year-old in a gingham dress with her hair in pigtails. She was twenty years old, wasn’t she? She had been to college, hadn’t she? And she was sitting here now with a glass of gin and tonic in her hand, and that was a very adult drink indeed. She took a mouthful of it and tried to control the grimace of distaste from crossing her features.

‘I enjoy working here,’ she murmured evasively, carefully putting the glass on the table next to her and then sitting on her hands because they were showing a tendency to tremble.

‘Why?’

‘Why?’ She looked at him blankly. ‘Because…’ Her voice trailed off while she tried to think of some logical reason to explain why a college graduate qualified to do a completely different job should be content with a cleaning job at Frilton Manor, however splendid a house it was.

‘Because…?’ he prompted, throwing his head back to swallow from his glass.

She watched him, fascinated by the strong, brown column of his throat, the long fingers, the forearm finely sprinkled with dark hair. She was still staring at him when his eyes met hers and she started guiltily.

‘Because,’ she said, trying to remember the question.

‘Because, perhaps, it’s a challenge?’ he drawled. ‘Come on, Claire, be honest with me. Is there some other reason for your working here?’ His green eyes were sharp on her face. ‘You seem honest enough, but who knows? Perhaps there’s a boyfriend lurking on the sidelines somewhere, and the two of you are simply biding your time until you decide which bits of silver you’re going to lift.’

She jumped to her feet angrily, her cheeks flaming red.

‘How can you even think such a thing?’ she asked fiercely. ‘I wouldn’t…I couldn’t…there’s no boyfriend lurking on the sidelines! I wouldn’t dream of…’ His implications were so staggering that she was finding it difficult to articulate, and she grabbed the glass from the table, swallowing the remainder of the drink in one long gulp. There was a rush of blood to her head and for a minute she thought that she was going to faint but she gritted her teeth together and looked at him straight in the eye.

‘It was merely a passing thought,’ he said, shrugging, ‘and I’m surprised you can’t understand my line of questioning. Why would a beautiful girl like you be willing to spend pretty much all day here,’ he gestured around him, ‘when there are far more exciting things happening in the big bad world outside?’

‘I am not a girl!’ she heard herself say in a loud voice, ‘I’m a woman!’ Had he called her beautiful? He had!

There was a long silence, during which she could hear her heart thumping in her chest, even if he couldn’t. She hardly dared breathe and she had the funny feeling that he was looking at her in a completely different way. Or was it just the gin and tonic going to her head? Two glasses of cider and she felt tipsy. Perhaps after one gin and tonic she was beginning to hallucinate.

‘Yes, I suppose you are,’ he said blandly.

‘But not like the sort of women that you’re accustomed to, is that it? Is that what you’re implying?’

‘I didn’t think that I was implying anything.’

‘You haven’t answered my question. Not the first bit of it, anyway.’ These were not at all the things she wanted to say, she realised, but for some reason they were spilling out of her mouth of their own accord and the brain seemed to have very little say in the matter.

Standing up as she was, she was on an eye-to-eye level with him. He was within touching distance, she thought.

‘All right,’ he said as though the matter was really of no great importance to him anyway, ‘if you really want to know, no, you’re nothing like the sort of women that I’m accustomed to. In fact, I can’t recall meeting anyone like you in a very long time. Are you usually so forthright?’

‘I don’t believe in playing games with people.’

‘We shouldn’t be having this conversation,’ he said heavily, and it was on the tip of her tongue to ask him why not when it struck her precisely why not.

Here they were, alone, in a semi-lit room which carried its own seductive atmosphere of intimacy, having a conversation about what was basically sex. It was a dangerous situation, but it was also an exciting one, one in which Claire had never before found herself.

Her emotional life, at the age of twenty, was as pristine as the driven snow. She had had boyfriends, that was inevitable, but they had all been passing interests, not one of them serious enough to make her lose any sleep.

‘I only wanted to find out a bit more about you,’ she said weakly.

‘About which aspect of my life in particular?’ he asked with a return to his normal dry tone of voice, although something in his manner wasn’t as relaxed as she knew he was trying to appear.

She looked at him vaguely and he said, raising his eyebrows in an amused question, ‘The sexual aspect?’

‘Sexual aspect?’ The frankness of the question horrified and excited her at the same time. Was this how the upper echelons communicated all the time? It wasn’t as if she didn’t know about sex, but it was the thought of him in a sexual situation that addled her. It wasn’t just that beneath those clothes it was easy to discern a physically powerful body. It was much more than that. It was his personality, the combination of ruthlessness and sensuality that made for such a heady mix.

She was certainly feeling very heady now. Doubtless the drink had something to do with it, but, she had to admit in all honesty, not really a great deal.

There was a thick silence, and then she said recklessly, ‘All right, yes, I can’t deny that I’m curious about the sexual aspect of your life. Have you slept with lots of women?’

‘What do you think?’

Claire stated at him nervously. ‘I don’t know. I suppose you have. I mean, you’re…’

‘What?’ he asked softly, and she bit down on her lower lip, wishing now that the conversation had never got started.

‘Attractive, I guess.’ Now that it was out, now that she had admitted that she was attracted to him, she began to feel considerably braver. Two months ago she would have run a mile at the thought of this type of conversation. She had always tended to shy away from anything that was provocative or blatant. It was a trait which her parents thought was charming, but which she personally considered an anachronism in this day and age when sexual liberation was so commonplace that it wasn’t even discussed.

Right now, though, her emotions were calling the tune and her mouth just seemed to be dancing to its music, uttering things that she would never have imagined herself saying to a man in a million years.

‘In fact, I’m very attracted to you,’ she said boldly.

He was staring at her and the intensity of his gaze brought a rush of colour to her cheeks.

‘That’s very flattering,’ he murmured, raking his fingers through his hair, ‘but you’d be better off confining your infatuations to someone nearer your age.’

‘Does that mean that you don’t find me attractive?’

‘You’re putting words into my mouth.’

She knew that he would have stood up and walked away, probably out of the room if not out of the house, but she was standing directly in front of him, blocking an easy exit.

‘I’m not attracted to boys nearer my age. They’re immature. They don’t do anything for me.’ She was breathing quickly now and the palms of her hands were damp with perspiration.

‘You don’t know what you’re saying,’ he said roughly. ‘That’s the drink talking.’

‘No, it’s not!’ She took the smallest of steps towards him and rested her hand against his neck, brushing it with her thumb.

His eyes darkened and she was pleased to see that he wasn’t in total control either.

Does that mean that he’s attracted to me? she wondered. He hadn’t said otherwise, had he? And he had invited her to have a drink with him. That hadn’t been necessary, had it? So what did that add up to? she wondered feverishly.

There seemed only one way to find out. With one impulsive movement she pressed her mouth against his, parting her lips to allow her questing tongue entry into his mouth, and with a groan he began kissing her, really kissing her.

It was like being lifted off her feet and transported into a completely new dimension. He raised his hands to cup her face, pulling her towards him, devouring her with a savagery which made her blood boil.

When he slipped his hand underneath her jumper to caress her breast through the shirt, she had an insane desire to rip her clothes off so that she could feel flesh against flesh. Her nipples were hard and aching and she begged in a high, pleading voice,

‘Make love to me. I want you. I need you, I love you.’

She was so consumed by the ferocity of her own wanting that it took a few seconds to realise that he had frozen. She opened her eyes and looked at him in bewilderment.

‘What is it?’ she asked, reluctant to let go of the mood but knowing that she had no choice.

‘What the hell do you think?’ he grated, literally lifting her off her feet to move her aside. ‘I think it’s time that you left.’

‘Why? What have I done?’

‘There’s no room in my life for an infatuated child,’ he bit out grimly, and her eyes filled with tears. ‘This is all my fault. I’m completely to blame,’ he continued. ‘I’m just glad that I came to my senses before I ended up doing something that I would have lived to regret.’ He stood up and said dispassionately, ‘You can stay in here a couple of minutes, enough time to come to your senses, and then I suggest you leave.’

‘But you don’t understand! I love you!’

‘You don’t know the meaning of the word,’ he rasped harshly. ‘And in view of what’s happened here tonight, I think it might be a good idea if you didn’t return.’

‘No!’

She stared at him in mute silence and finally he said with a heavy sigh, ‘All right. You can stay, but keep out of my way. I shall be here for the next week and I don’t want to… Let’s just say that I’m only a man.’ He gave her a harsh, impatient look, then he was gone and she was left standing alone in the study and wondering what she would do now.

CHAPTER THREE

SHE couldn’t leave. Thinking back about it, and God knew she had thought about it all a million times over the past few months, she could see that she should have done. She should have nipped her growing love for him in the bud, and then she might have been able to retreat from the relationship with her dignity and emotional stability relatively intact.

But she stayed, and for a while things settled down into an uneasy pattern. James was hardly around, and when he was she knew that he was avoiding her. The few times they bumped into each other, he was scrupulously polite to her, and she in turn tried to hide the lovesick longing in her eyes.

She still hadn’t breathed a word of what was happening to either her parents, who would have been appalled by the whole thing, or to Jackie, who would have laughed and insisted that it was all a girlish crush, the result of having led such a retiring, introverted life as far as the opposite sex were concerned.

Then, the unthinkable happened. She went for an interview at a small but fast-expanding local advertising firm who were looking for someone to work in their creative department.

‘I expect you won’t have to give any notice at this cleaning job that you’re doing,’ her prospective boss said, reading through her application form and tapping his fingers on the desk as though he had more pressing things to do and really wanted the interview to conclude as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Claire looked at the downbent head miserably. She had already been shown around the company, met some of the people she would be working with, if she managed to land the job, and had been introduced to some of the types of work that she would be expected to do, and it was all exactly what she had had in mind when she had first moved to Reading from London.

So there was no way that she could blow her chances away by trying to juggle Frilton Manor and the job, and there was also no way that she could maintain any sort of part-time work at the Manor in the evenings because Tony, now looking at her impatiently and waiting for her answer, had told her from the start that overtime was unpaid and expected when the situation demanded, take it or leave it.

‘Well?’ he asked. He had a high, slightly effeminate voice and was good looking in a very blond, vaguely limpid way. He was her idea of what Adonis must have looked like. She had a suspicion that he probably never travelled without a comb in the breast pocket of his jacket and was addicted to looking at himself in mirrors. But she knew that all that concealed a fairly sharp brain because she had seen some examples of his work and they were brilliant.

‘Yes. I mean no. I mean,’ she said, gathering her thoughts together with effort, ‘I won’t have to give any notice. Perhaps a couple of days or so.’

‘Good.’ He looked at his watch and issued her with his first smile since she had arrived two hours ago. ‘In that case, you can start next Monday. Eight-thirty sharp. Sandra will take care of you until you find your feet, and Personnel will send you your contract through the post later today. You should have it by tomorrow, or day after latest.’

Claire’s mouth sagged open.

‘I can see you’re thrilled,’ Tony said smugly. ‘I needn’t tell you that you were one of thirty who applied for the job. We had a much bigger response than we had expected.’ He stood up and she followed suit hurriedly. ‘I must dash now,’ he said, moving or rather gliding towards the door and opening it for her. ‘Meetings call.’

She was still in a daze by the time she made it to Frilton Manor and she spent the remainder of the day viciously dusting and cleaning. She was wiping the row of books in the study when the door opened and she turned around to see James standing framed in the doorway, looking at her as though she had taken leave of her senses.

They stared at each other in silence for a while then he moved towards the desk and said drily,

‘You look murderous. I didn’t think that dusting a few books could do that to anyone.’ He began pressing buttons on the small computer on the desk, with his back to her, and she wondered whether he had forgotten about her being there at all.

‘I’ve got a job,’ she informed him bluntly, and he stopped what he was doing and turned around to face her.

It was obvious that he had just come from work, from the looks of it to continue working from the study. His jacket had been discarded, and the sleeves of his shirt were carelessly rolled back to the elbows, but he was still wearing his suit trousers, and his tie, deep burgundy silk, which had been tugged down so that the top button of his shirt could be undone. Did he know how devastatingly sexy he looked, standing there, watching her with those disconcerting green eyes?

‘Congratulations,’ he said politely. ‘Well done. Where is it?’

She told him, taking a masochistic delight in dwelling on the attractive package that had been offered her, even though she knew that her voice sounded far removed from enthusiastic.

‘I suppose you’re relieved,’ she finished, looking at him defiantly.

‘Why should I be?’

‘Because,’ Claire continued relentlessly, ‘you won’t have to dodge my childish infatuation with you any longer.’ What did she have to lose by saying all this? she asked herself fiercely. It made her feel good getting it all off her chest, anyway.

‘Your childish infatuation was very flattering to an old man like myself,’ he said with a grim smile. ‘For the first time I began to understand why some older men can’t resist the lure of a much younger woman.’

Ah. He had called her a woman. That felt good. She stood with her hands behind her back and lifted her chin.

‘You act as though you’re a hundred. How old are you?’

‘Do you have to be so outspoken?’ he asked with the ghost of a smile.

‘You know it’s the way I am,’ Claire said very coolly, considering her throat felt like sandpaper.

‘I’m thirty-four.’

‘Is that all?’

‘You mean I look older?’ He laughed. ‘Watch it, I might start getting a complex.’

This was the first time since their uneasy pact of silence that they were speaking to each other without reservation, and she felt herself relax and open up. He was the only man she had ever met who could do that to her, make her feel confident enough to speak her mind without thinking too much about the consequences.

‘I mean,’ she explained, ‘that’s awfully young to own all this.’ She made a broad sweeping gesture. ‘Did you inherit it?’

‘Not exactly. Would you like a drink? Anything but gin and tonic.’

Claire shook her head, blushing at the glint that flitted through his eyes when he said that.

He turned and poured himself a drink from the bar and continued talking. ‘My uncle owned all this, and I suppose I had always loved the place ever since I had been a child. I expect I would have inherited it in due course—he was childless—but eight years ago he ran into some financial problems, coincidentally at a time when business was booming for me and I bought him out.’ He faced her and she could see pride in his expression when he looked around the room.

‘Where does he live now?’

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