Nine
1892 Words
One moment she had been angry, defensive, appalled at the thought that
Liza had openly stated that he had been watching her. That he’d had
field—and her—under observation for God knew how long. The next
she had simply beenaware . Aware that something had changed. That a
new and very different mood seemed to have reached out to enclose
them, folding round her like warm scented smoke that clouded her vision.
Her skin prickled and her breathing snagged, and through the haze that
swirled around her the only thing she could see were the eyes of the man before her. The deep, dark, intent gaze that was focused on her and held
her as if hypnotised, unable to move or look away.
The flashing anger, the cold contempt that had been there just moments
before had evaporated and in its place was something deeper and darker;
something that reached out and took her heart in a cruel hand and
squeezed—and she didn’t know if what she felt was jolting panic or
burning excitement.
‘Or will making it be considered a crime too? Harassment, perhaps? It’s
not poisoned,’ he added with an extra bite of acid when she looked down
at the mug that he still held out to her. ‘Or drugged. I won’t be able to
talk to you if you’re dead or out cold.’
Had that been a smile? She couldn’t quite tell if it had been there or not.
It had barely registered on his mouth, just the tiniest flicker of a curl to
those sensual lips, but she would have sworn that there had been a faint
lightening of the darkness in his eyes, like heavy storm clouds being
touched by the sun, lifting slightly to let a touch of warmth come
through.
‘Do we have something to talk about?’
‘We have plenty to talk about, and you know it.’
‘Like what?’
Reluctantly, she reached out and took the mug of coffee from him.
Reluctant, not because she didn’t want the coffee—the feeling that it
would choke her had ebbed away again—but because she feared the touch of his fingers against hers, the shivering reaction that made her
legs unsteady beneath her. To her relief, he let it go easily so that there
was only the faintest contact before he was reaching for his own cup,
taking a sip from it.
‘Wouldn’t we find this easier if we went somewhere more comfortable—
the sitting room or the conservatory?’
The quiet words set all the tiny hairs at the back of Liza’s neck
tingling in nervous apprehension. This sounded too much like last night
when, he had suggested that she would be more comfortable sitting
down, just before he had announced the news that had taken her dreams,
the future she had believed she had, and smashed them into tiny, jagged
splinters.
‘I don’t think we need comfort,’ she said coldly. ‘In fact, I don’t think
there’s hope of any sort of ease with this. And I’m not going anywhere—
I’m not moving until you tell me what we have to talk about.’
The look he turned on her was resigned rather than annoyed or impatient.
You should know, that look said. You should be well aware of exactly
what’s coming.
And the problem was that she had a coldly sneaking suspicion that she
did know.
‘Your future. We have to discuss what happens now.’
Of course, she should have known. She should have expected it—shehad
expected it—but all the same she felt the sudden realisation of the inevitable like the stab of a knife right to her heart. He owned
Field and everything in it—especially the House. He would
want to live here now, make this place his home, stamp his presence on it
as he had already started to do by taking over Jety’s study after less
than twenty-four hours in the place. And, with him in residence, there
was no place for her.
No home for her here any longer.
‘It’s all right,’ she managed stiffly, through lips that felt as hard and
unfeeling as wood as she struggled to keep them from quivering
revealingly while her fingers tightened on the handle of the mug until her
knuckles showed white. ‘I’ll make this easy for you. I know you want me
out.’
‘I do?’
‘Well, obviously…this is your…your home now—you won’t want me living
here. But if you could just give me a day or so—just long enough to find
somewhere else…’
Her voice failed her, fading away to a croak as she saw him shake his
dark head in adamant rejection of her stumbling request. ‘No.’
‘No? You won’t—not even twenty-four hours?’
Her head was spinning with panic at just the thought. Where would she
go? What would she do? But what else had she expected? After all,
hadn’t she been responsible for making him homeless all those years
before?
What…?’ she began but Edward brought up his free hand in a gesture
that commanded her silence.
‘Whatever you think of me, I’m not so callous that I’d throw you out on
the morning after your father’s funeral…’ He took another swallow of
his coffee, grimacing as he tasted it. ‘I told you, we need to talk about
this, and if you don’t want to sit somewhere else then I do. This coffee is
getting cold fast and I’d like to be able to relax and enjoy it.’
No chance of her relaxing, with her future hanging in the balance,
Liza told herself but, as he had already started walking from the
room, she had no option but to follow him. He led her across the hall,
through the big sitting room and out into the huge
conservatory. In contrast to the downpours of the previous day, the
large glass-framed room was flooded with soft sunlight, making the view
from the windows even more spectacular than usual. Wide green lawns
sloped away from the house, down past the shrubberies and away to
where the quiet waters of the lake gleamed in the sunlight. It was
Liza’s favourite view from the house and one she would never tire of.
It was one she was going to miss so badly, she acknowledged with a
painful twist of her heart. When she left field she would probably
never see it again.
‘Do you want to sit down?’
Edward had come to stand behind her; she could almost feel the heat of
his body reaching to hers. That clean lemony scent she had sensed
before tantalised her nostrils and she had to fight against the need to
inhale deeply, take in more of it. ‘I’m fine as I am, thanks.’
With fierce concentration she kept her eyes fixed on the view, staring so
hard that it blurred before her gaze, all the shades of green blending
into each other.
‘And I am not fine talking to your back.’ There was the snap of real anger
in his voice and with a sudden swift movement he came round from behind
her to stand between her and the window, the hard bulk of his body
blocking off the view. ‘I don’t have to do this, Liza. I am trying to be
fair.’
‘Fair—you call it fair when you have taken my home, my…’ Painfully aware
of the way that her voice was rising, becoming too sharp, she hastily
caught her words back, swallowing hard. ‘Look, let’s cut to the chase on
this—start talking straight. When do you want me out?’
‘Who said I did?’
That question was clearly deliberately provocative and she didn’t trouble
to answer it, sparing him only an exasperated glance at the way he was
teasing her.
‘How long have I got?’
‘How long do you need?’ And that was just too much.
‘Will you just stop tormenting me? We both know you don’t mean it—that
you…’
‘Why the hell do you think I don’t mean it?’ Edward slammed his coffee
mug down on to the wide window sill, careless of the way that some of
the brown liquid slopped over the side and on to the worn white paint.
‘What would I have to gain by behaving that way?’
The ringing note of sincerity in his voice shocked her into looking
straight into his eyes, her blue gaze locking with his black. What was
happening here? Was it really possible that he was being kind?
‘I—canstay ?
‘Until you find somewhere to go—somewhere to live.’
‘You really mean that?’ Shock and disbelief meant that she could hardly
get the words out
‘It’s a big house, Princess. A great big house. You could live in one wing
and I could be in another and we probably wouldn’t even see each other
from one week to the next. I reckon I can put up with your presence for
a while at least. Unless…’
‘Unless what? She didn’t know whether it was his use of that derisive nickname,Princess
, or the dark, triumphant, possessive thread through his voice that
caught her on the raw, breathing new life into the flames of anger that
his surprise concession had briefly allowed to die down. But something
stung her, warning her not to be deceived, that it couldn’t possibly be
this easy. This was the Angel she was talking to. The man who had
once vowed that he would make her live to regret the way she had
behaved and who now was back, intent on doing just that.
‘Do you have a job?’ Edward asked abruptly, totally disconcerting her
with the abrupt change of subject, the apparent lack of logic in the
suddennon sequitur .
‘Not as such,’ she stammered, her thoughts scrambled as she tried to
find a reason for his question. ‘I used to work with Jety on the estate—
he was training me to…’
Her voice trembled and died, unable to complete the sentence. The
memory of those years working with her father, learning, planning,
dreaming—dreaming of the day that she could prove herself to Jety,
that she could take over the management of the estate and make as good
a job of it as he had done himself.
As she had believed that he had done, she corrected herself miserably.
‘So what will you use to live on—pay for accommodation? Will your fiancé
provide for you?’
He’d done it again, Liza reproached herself, using the pretext of
putting her own untouched coffee mug down on the window sill too as an
excuse to drag her eyes away from the cold scrutiny of his and to hide the painful lurch of embarrassment in her heart.
How did he manage to do that? How did he seem to be able to take
control of her thoughts, making them focus only on him, only on the here
and now, distracting her totally so that she seemed to lose all power to
think of anything else?
- Writer
