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angled around the table, and sat cradling the drink he'd poured for her.
Something was coming to life between them, a vital new growth, but not
something known. Not really known, although she could make a fairly
accurate guess. But she had to remember, always remember, that this was a
marriage of convenience. And then a thought passed through her mind,
leaving an annoying foot-print, that maybe her motives had been suspect all
along the line.
Solving her problem had depended on finding a husband her uncle and aunt,
as her guardians, could approve of. But would she have asked Jude to marry
her if he'd been fat and bald with a face like a pug and a mind like a geriatric
slug? It was a question she wouldn't like to be forced to answer.
The sea was blessedly cool, lapping against her feet as she walked slowly
along the water-line, the soft black night hiding her. Not that there would be
anyone about at this time of night to see her. The thought comforted her a
little, and a small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as the breeze
moulded the almost transparent lawn of her nightdress to the shape of her
body.
She hadn't been able to sleep; the night was too hot, her thoughts jumping
this way and that, making her mind ache.
That tension between them, that awareness, had been growing throughout
the long evening, muddling her. And her 'goodnight' to him had been abrupt,
far more terse than usual as she'd left the terrace, making for the solitude of
her room.
But if she'd been looking for safe haven she hadn't found it there, and at last
she'd slipped down to the beach, noticing the light coming from his room
and wondering if he, too, found it impossible to sleep, if he found this
marriage, entered into so coolly and objectively, had strange and rather
terrifying facets that were only now beginning to reveal themselves.
She had never been drawn to the idea of marriage, the total commitment of
love. Love was something she'd learned to do without since she'd lost her
parents. Her mind, she supposed, was closed to the concept of it. She had
imagined, for a brief span, that she was in love with Robert Fenton and
that had turned out to be an all- time disaster. And she'd emerged from the
short period of infatuation recognising that what she'd felt had been a natural
reaction to the years of dedicated study, the absence of close family love, the
absence of fun and frivolity in her life. It had been a necessary, if unpleasant,
part of growing up.
But if she had been looking for love, for a man she could respect, share the
rest of her life with, then Jude could have been everything she could want in
a man. He had a brilliant mind, was even-tempered well, mostly and he
was strong, yet capable of tenderness, of deep humanity. He also respected
her as an equal, and that counted for much for more than the sum of his
undoubted sex appeal, his wealth and position.
Yes, had she been looking for such a man, for love... A small wave, but
higher than the rest, took her unawares, wetting her to her knees, and she
stumbled, almost fell, then righted herself and turned and saw him a mere
two yards away. Everything inside her seemed to stop, just for a moment,
before racing on, the blood thudding through her veins, her heart pattering a
demented tattoo.
'Jude--' Her voice was thick, his name dragged from her on a sighing breath
that faltered hopelessly, because she had known in that instant when time
had stood still for her, when her breath, her very heartbeat, had hung
suspended, that she loved this man, had probably been falling in love with
him since she'd first set eyes on him. It was almost laughably simple! It had
certainly been inevitable.
Moonlight, slow and silver, touched his face, stroked his magnificent body
with tender moulding fingers, stopping the breath in her throat.
Naked, save for brief dark swimming shorts, he looked pagan the
dominant male to her feminine fragility and he said her name, like a
question, his shadowed eyes, bereft now of their startlingly vivid colour in
this ghostly light, raking her, lingering hungrily on the shape of her, on the
aching softness of feminine curves only lightly and tantalisingly concealed
beneath gossamer fabric.
'I couldn't sleep.* He moved closer, close enough to touch, and her skin
turned to flame with the nearness of his almost naked body as he cupped her
face in his hands, his eyes searching hers, revealing the depth of his own
wanting.
His body shook with it. She could feel the fine tremors that ran over the taut,
glistening skin so near to her own, feel the control as he released her, his
fingers feathering lightly down the length of her throat before they fell away,
clenched into fists now, revealingly, though she knew she was not supposed
to know the effort it had cost him to restrain himself from touching her more
intimately.
'I'll walk you back.' His voice was kind, but there was a roughness in it, just
below the surface, that told her he wanted her, as she wanted him. 'Perhaps a
hot drink might help? Me, too probably more than the swim I'd decided to
take before I saw you along the shore.*
He could have been a father, soothing a wakeful child for all the emotion he
allowed himself to show. But Cleo knew better, and she wasn't afraid, not
now, because she had at last admitted to herself the fact that she must have
unconsciously known for months. She loved him, and that was why her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]