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قديم 13-11-07, 11:51 PM   المشاركة رقم: 31
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افتراضي CHAPTER NINE
 

CHAPTER NINE


'I APPRECIATE your advice, Jake.' David thanked his friend gratefully as he stood up. He had spent the morning over at Jake's house discussing with him the pros and cons of a new pension plan he was considering taking out.
"The farm provides us with a reasonably good income, but you never know what the future is going to bring.' David shook his head. 'And with the baby to consider...'
'You and Janey must be looking forward to your holiday,' Jake commented. 'Not long to go now before you're off.'
'Yes, we can't wait. Thanks for agreeing to move into the farmhouse to keep an eye on things whilst we're gone. Luce is capable enough, but neither of us likes the idea of leaving her there on her own. In fact...'

He frowned and paused before saying selfconsciously, 'Janey's a bit worried about her at the moment. She seems to think the two of you might have quarrelled and...well, Luce certainly does seem to have been unusually subdued. I know, of course, that she's worrying about this business of having to see Rory Simons from the bank—she took out an overdraft when she first set up to equip her workshop and, well, to be quite frank...' David shook his head. 'It's like I keep telling her: it's not that she isn't a first-rate mechanic—she is—but men just don't like the idea of a woman tampering with their cars...'
'You mean men don't like the idea of a woman knowing a good deal more about what goes on inside the engine of their cars than they do themselves,' Jake corrected him dryly.

David gave him a wry look and advised him, 'You try telling that to Luce. You know what she's like..it's like a red flag to a bull, and she's off like a firecracker... Or at least normally she would be. As I said, she's been very subdued recently. How are the lessons going, by the way?'
"They aren't,' Jake told him grimly, and then added, 'A mutual decision...'
'So Luce said,' David said.

He and Jake had virtually grown up together but, close though they had always been, there were times when Jake made it uncompromisingly clear that certain areas of his life, certain things, certain subjects were not open for discussion. And, whatever had transpired between him and Luce to provoke their mutual silence, this was obviously one such subject. David knew better than to pursue a lost cause or provoke Jake's ire by continuing to press him.

'Janey said to remind you that you're always welcome to join us for supper,' was what he said instead as Jake accompanied him to the door.
'Thanks,' Jake returned, frowning before he asked abruptly, 'David, Lucianna's business...just how bad are things?'
'Pretty bad,' David told him. 'She's just about managing to keep her head above water but only because she lives rent-free with us. I've offered to help her out but you know what she's like, how stiff-necked and proud she can be... It's like watching a kid trying to cross a flooding river swimming doggy-paddle,' he told Jake feelingly. 'You just ache to jump in and give them a hand, but Luce...
'She lost another customer this week...a woman whose car she's been servicing... Apparently her husband is buying her a new model and the distributors have told her that it will have to be serviced by a nominated garage. It's the same when someone brings a car to her that's been involved in an accident. She can do the work easily enough, and at a highly competitive price, but because she isn't on any of the insurers' lists of accredited garages she doesn't get the work.
'Janey says Luce has reapplied to a couple of the big dealers in the city for an apprenticeship and she's even been talking about looking further afield, moving away.'

'Moving away?' Jake questioned sharply. 'Why would she want to do that? John's due back at the end of this week, isn't he?'
'Yes, he is,' David agreed. 'And to judge from the number of phone calls Luce's received from him these last few days it seems as though we were wrong in thinking that he didn't want her.'
Luckily David was looking away from Jake as he spoke and so didn't notice the spasm of pain that crossed his friend's face.

What the hell was he doing punishing himself like this? Jake asked himself savagely once David had gone. Why didn't he just sell up and move somewhere else—somewhere as far from Lucianna as it was possible for him to get? But you couldn't simply turn your back on two centuries of family history and family tradition just because you couldn't bear the thought of seeing the woman you loved with another man... At least, you didn't if you were a Carlisle, and his great-uncle had passed the house on to Jake because he had trusted Jake to take care of it. But a house, no matter how beautiful, couldn't compensate for not having the woman you loved, had loved, did love, would love.

Would Lucianna remember him when she lay in John's arms? Would she think about how it had felt to be with him, in his bed, her body possessed by his, her womanhood totally responsive to his manhood? Would she?
What was the point in torturing himself with such thoughts? Jake asked himself bitterly. Torturing himself wasn't going to change things... How could it?
God knew, he had had time enough over the years—and to spare—to grow accustomed to the fact that Lucianna didn't love him. But just why in hell did she have to go and give her love, herself, to a man like John who quite plainly neither appreciated nor valued her? And why the hell had he, Jake, ever been moronic enough to agree to help her reveal herself to him as the precious, sensual, loving woman Jake had always known she could be?
Well, he might not have been totally successful in getting her to value herself, or to realise how unworthy of her her vain and weak boyfriend actually was, but there were still other ways in which he could help her, protect her...

He went back to the library and quickly dialled the number of the farm manager he employed, tersely giving him some instructions before hanging up and then dialling the number of his solicitor.
What he was doing could never save Lucianna from suffering any emotional loss but it would certainly help to prevent her from enduring a financial one, even if he had been able to tell from the tone of their voices that both his farm manager and his solicitor quite plainly thought he was crazy.

Tiredly Lucianna pushed her fingers into her hair— hair which increasingly these days she wore soft and loose around her face whenever she was not actually working. And just as automatically and instinctively she found she was wearing make-up and more neatly fitting clothes, but the reasons why she looked so different whenever she caught sight of her own reflection had nothing really to do with her new clothes or even her new awareness of her femininity.
No, the soft blue shadows that gave her eyes their haunting vulnerability owed their existence not to Jake's teachings but to Jake himself.
Hard enough to bear were the daylight hours when she fought valiantly to suppress every thought of him, but even harder were the nights and the longings, the emotions, the love that surfaced through her subconscious in her dreams to bring her wide awake with tears pouring down her face. She dreamed of not having Jake's love or, even worse, of being back in his arms, once again experiencing the ecstatic pleasure of his lovemaking, only this time believing that he actually loved her.

Those were the most cruel dreams of all—more cruel even than the realisation that her hopes of running her own small business successfully and proving to her doubters and detractors that a woman could be just as good a mechanic as a man—indeed better—were never going to become a reality. No longer a dream—it was in truth more of a nightmare, she acknowledged as she stared dispiritedly at the figures in front of her.

In three hours' time her bank manager would be arriving to remind her that it was time for her to start repaying the overdraft facility he had granted her, and he would, of course, want to look at her books and check on the progress of her small business. What progress? Lucianna swallowed grimly. There was no progress. And it wasn't as though she hadn't tried and tried desperately hard to build up her client base. She had, but to no avail. The figures in front of her said it all and she knew already what the bank manager was going to tell her. Her business simply wasn't viable, even with the benefit of rent-free premises and the fact that she made no drawings from the business at all, relying increasingly on her savings and the interest on an inheritance she had shared with her brothers to fund her day-to-day living.

Janey, who had been watching her sympathetically, tried to console her by saying, Try not to worry; I'm sure Rory will understand. After all, you couldn't have done any more than you have done to get more business in...'
'Maybe, but it hasn't been enough. Perhaps Dad's right after all; perhaps I should never...' Lucianna stopped and bit her lip and then shook her head. 'I'd probably have been better off going to university and then getting a more orthodox job...a more feminine job,' she declared bitterly.
'Oh, Luce,' Janey protested gently, but Lucianna wasn't in any mood to be comforted.
'It's no good. Rory Simons is going to tell me that I've wasted my own money and that now I'm wasting the bank's and he's quite right.'
Janey's heart went out to her.
'Perhaps David...' she began.

But Lucianna shook her head immediately and told her fiercely, 'No. If I can't make the business pay by myself—for myself—then I don't want...I don't deserve... It isn't money, a loan, that I need, Janey,' she told her sister-in-law dispiritedly. 'It's work. David was right. Men don't trust a female mechanic.'
'But there are lots of women drivers,' Janey said, but Lucianna shook her head again.
'Women drivers, yes,' she agreed, 'but not women car owners. Not when it comes down to it... Not where it counts.'
'Well, at least John will be home soon,' Janey reminded her warmly, 'and to judge from the number of times he's telephoned recently he's obviously missed you.'
'A case of absence making the heart grow fonder,' Lucianna quipped wryly. If only she could say the same about her own emotions, that it was Jake's absence that made her heart ache, Jake's missing presence that was causing her sleepless nights and an aching heart and body, not John's.

Lucianna glanced at her watch as the bank manager drove into the yard right on time. David had offered to cancel a meeting of his own to give her the support of his presence, but she had shaken her head, for once not taking umbrage, but instead telling him gratefully, 'It's land of you, but no, this is something I have to do myself.'
As David had later remarked to Janey when they were alone, Lucianna had changed dramatically over the last few weeks, and not just in the way she looked and dressed. She had matured.
'Turned from a girl to a woman,' Janey had supplied gently for him.
'Yes,' David had agreed ruefully. 'Very much a woman.'

When Rory Simons stepped out of his car he too was surprised by the physical change in her. Gone were the shabby, oversized dungarees and in their place Lucianna was wearing an immaculately clean, neat-fitting pair of tailored trousers and a soft knitted top—an impulse buy if he had but known. It had been chosen to bolster her confidence and caused her to spend virtually the last of the birthday money she had received from her father and her aunt. 'Lucianna,' he greeted her with a fatherly smile. 'You look well.'

It was a lie, he recognised as he saw her face for the first time. She looked different, unfamiliarly well turned out and certainly unfamiliarly femininely appealing, causing him to realise what an extraordinarily beautiful young woman she actually was—but she most certainly did not look well. In fact...
As he studied her more closely he started to frown. Her face bore all the signs of someone undergoing the kind of crisis he, as a bank manager, was becoming increasingly familiar with. His heart sank. He had come here hoping against hope that her small business had started to turn the corner and might yet prove to be a viable proposition, as much for her sake as the bank's. After all, he had known her and her family for a good many years, but he suspected that his worst fears were about to be realised.

Half an hour later his suspicions were a certainty. Closing the books she had shown him, he sighed.
'Lucianna,' he began, 'I'm very much afraid—' And then he stopped as a car being driven into the yard distracted Lucianna's attention, causing her to stare hungrily through the window, a fixed expression on her face, her body tense.
Curiously he too looked towards the window, and immediately recognised Jake as he emerged from the driver's seat of his car.
He knew, of course, that Jake and David were old and close friends, but Jake wasn't heading for the farmhouse; instead he was walking towards Lucianna's workshop.

As he pushed open the door Lucianna retreated to the other side of the workbench, hoping that the shadows would mask the hot colour burning up painfully over her skin. Just seeing him made her whole body ache with a feverish need so intense that she could feel herself actually starting to shake.
'Sorry I'm late,' Jake began incomprehensibly as he nodded acknowledgement in Rory Simons' direction before unzipping the leather document case he was carrying and removing from it a thick wad of papers. 'I got held up in town by the traffic. I've got all the service contracts here now, Lucianna.
'I'm glad you're here, Rory,' he commented to the bank manager. 'Perhaps you wouldn't mind witnessing Lucianna's signature for us...?'

The service contracts? What service contracts? Lucianna had been about to demand, but her voice deserted her as Jake took half a dozen steps towards her and the ache in her body became a tormented flood of agonising longing. He was dressed formally today in a dark suit, the jacket open over an immaculately white shirt, the tie he was wearing as dark as his suit but with a small design on it that almost exactly matched the colour of his eyes—a tie bought for him, bought for him by a woman, Lucianna guessed jealously—and, as it happened, incorrectly.

'The contract cover for all the estate's farm vehicles, plus Henry Peters' car, and, as we agreed, it runs for five years. During that time, you will be responsible for servicing and maintaining all the estate's machinery and equipment,' Jake continued formally, ignoring both Lucianna's shocked expression and the bank manager's look of pleased relief as though he were totally unaware of the full import of what he had said.

'My own car, of course, will be subject to a separate contract,' he went on. He glanced at his watch. 'I don't want to rush you, but I've got a directors' meeting this afternoon, so if we could get these agreements signed...'
Lucianna couldn't take her eyes off him. What on earth was Jake doing...saying...! He had never discussed with her giving her a service contract to maintain the estate's vehicles, never mind indicated that he intended to have her service the estate manager's and his own car... She shook her head, convinced that she must be dreaming, imagining things, half expecting— and then she closed her eyes totally, convinced that when she opened them again he would have disappeared. Only when she did he hadn't.

'Jake—' she began in a wobbly voice, but before she could ask him what on earth was going on Rory Simons overrode her, demanding eagerly.
'Jake, am I to understand that you're giving Lucianna an exclusive service and maintenance contract for all your estate machinery?' he asked.
'She submitted the best tender,' Jake told him offhandedly, shrugging as he did so. 'And certainly so far as I'm concerned I couldn't find a better mechanic...
'Oh, by the way,' he added casually, 'Lucianna mentioned to me that she's having a bit of a cashflow problem at the moment. I've suggested that one way around the problem could be for me to inject some capital into the business and to guarantee the current bank borrowing.'

From the look on Rory Simons' face Jake might have just offered him the winning numbers on a lottery ticket, Lucianna decided, still in too much of a state of shock herself even to begin to query what Jake was saying.
'Right, Lucianna,' Jake was instructing her now. 'If you could just sign here and then Rory could witness your signature. I might still be able to make it to my meeting on time...just...'

In a complete daze Lucianna found herself taking the pen Jake was holding out to her, weak tears starting to burn behind her eyes as her fingers reacted sensitively to the fact that the pen still held the warmth of Jake's touch, a touch that, almost in another life now, or so it seemed, she had actually felt against her own body, her own flesh, her own most intimate...

Quickly she bent her head so that neither of the two watching men could see the hot flush that burned her skin, but she knew that Jake must have witnessed the way her hand trembled as she signed her name where he had indicated.
She had no idea what was going on, nor why Jake had chosen to pretend to her bank manager that he was giving her what she knew to be a completely fictitious contract, and if she'd had anything about her she would have challenged him right there and then, she told herself. But somehow she simply couldn't find the strength of will to do so... Not because of her business... No, not because of that. It was because of her emotions, her need...her love...that she was afraid to confront him, because she was mortally afraid that simply to stand there and look at him would cause her to break down and tell him how she felt, to beg him.

Rory Simons was signing the papers now, smiling happily as he did so, but Lucianna couldn't share his happiness. Stiffly she stood apart from the two men, watching as Jake gathered up the signed papers and then, with a brief look in her direction, started to stride towards the door.
'Why didn't you tell me that Jake Carlisle was giving you his business?' the bank manager mock scolded her after Jake had gone. Lucianna couldn't say anything. All she could do was shake her head and try to blink away her weak, foolish, yearning tears.

It was only later, as Lucianna turned the whole incident over in her mind and tried despairingly not to linger longingly on her mental image of Jake in his expensive suit, looking very, so very disturbingly male and so hopelessly out of reach, that one possible and very unpalatable explanation for Jake's extraordinary behaviour struck her. Far from being some altruistic and even chivalrous attempt to come to her rescue and save her failing business, as it had originally seemed, could Jake perhaps be thinking that in guaranteeing her debts he was also guaranteeing her silence on the subject of the night of their secret intimacy? He had, after all, made it very plain to her that he wanted it to be kept a secret. The thought that he might actually feel he could buy her off, pay her off like some...like a...made Lucianna feel physically ill. And not just ill but bitterly hurt and bitterly angry as well. Well, she would show him—and she would show him what he could do with his precious contracts as well, she decided.

She would rather starve in a gutter, sacrifice her precious business, and her independence with it, than accept his help and allow him to think... Oh, how could he? How dared he? Did he really find the thought, the memory of what had happened between them so obnoxious that he felt he had to expunge it, destroy it and her by reducing her precious memories to the status of some kind of...? Lucianna swallowed painfully.

She had worked hard to establish her small business and she was loath to lose it, but she couldn't allow Jake to think...to believe what she was now convinced he did think and believe. Purposefully Lucianna removed the list of her current clients from the file she had prepared for the bank manager's visit but as she dialled the first number on the list her hand was shaking very badly.

Two hours later it was done; every single one of her clients had been advised that she was no longer in business. Now all she had left to do was to arrange to withdraw what was left of her savings and cash in
oh her investments in order that she could repay the bank all that she owed them. After that...

Proudly Lucianna squared her shoulders. She would have to find herself a temporary job and then, at the end of the summer, she could re-start her studies, go to university perhaps as a mature student, find herself something to do that was more 'suitable' for a woman.

The view beyond her workshop window blurred and swam as she blinked fiercely to disperse the tears. She had equipped this workshop with such high hopes, such faith and belief not just in herself but also in others, in the surety that they would ultimately accept that she was every bit as good a mechanic as any male. And she was as good. Nothing could change that, just as nothing, apparently, could change the male pride that meant that they could not and would not accept her.

She would have to tell her family, of course— David and Janey first and then her father. And now that David and Janey were expecting a child it might also be a good time for her to look for somewhere else to live. Fresh tears filled her eyes and, before her resolve could break and desert her completely, she picked up the papers Jake had left her and ripped them neatly into four pieces, her fingers trembling very badly as she stuffed them into an envelope, addressed it to him, then sealed it. No doubt he would be able to make his own interpretation of her actions, just as she had of his.

'You're doing what?' David demanded, too stunned to keep the shock out of his voice when Lucianna broke her news to him over supper.
'Not doing...have done,' Lucianna informed him, doggedly refusing to look directly at him as she pretended to be busily eating the food in front of her.
Behind her back, Janey shook her head wamingly at her husband. She too had been shocked by Lucianna's news, but one look at her sister-in-law's white face and set expression had informed her that it would be wiser not to pursue the subject.
'She's obviously very upset about the whole thing,' Janey counselled David later when Lucianna had returned to her workshop, explaining quietly that she had to catalogue her equipment so that she could put it up for sale.
'She's upset...'. David expostulated, pushing his hands into his hair. 'Why on earth didn't she discuss it with us first?'
'Perhaps because she wanted to be allowed to make her own decision and handle things by herself,' Janey told him quietly.
'But that damned workshop meant so much to her; it was her whole life,' David reminded Janey in male confusion. 'I can't believe she'd just give it up like that.'
'Perhaps she's discovered something or someone that means more to her,' Janey suggested, sighing ruefully to herself as he struggled for comprehension. David was a darling and she loved him dearly but when it came to women's emotions, especially his sister's, he did tend to be rather obtuse... Despairingly so at times, she acknowledged five minutes later as David spoke again.
'You mean John's making her give it up?' he asked her, puzzled. 'I know he wasn't keen on her work but...'
'John may have been the catalyst but somehow I doubt that he's the cause.'
Janey responded mystifyingly—at least so far as her husband was concerned. Women! How was a mere man supposed to understand them?
As a result of his afternoon meeting, Jake had to fly to New York later in the day to discuss a takeover bid for one of the companies in which he had a major shareholding. As his plane was crossing the Atlantic, the four quarters of the contracts he had so lovingly and time-consumingly had drawn up and which Lucianna had ripped into so many useless shreds were crossing town on their way to him

 
 

 
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قديم 13-11-07, 11:53 PM   المشاركة رقم: 32
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افتراضي CHAPTER TEN
 

CHAPTER TEN


'I WONDER what's happened to Jake?' David commented curiously to Janey as he replaced the telephone receiver. "That's the third time I've tried him today and got no reply...'
'Oh, didn't I tell you? I bumped into the farm manager in town this morning and he said that Jake had had to fly to New York on business.'

Lucianna's head was bent over the advertisement she was writing, to advertise not just the *******s of her workshop but in addition the ancient racing car she had been lovingly restoring and which Jake had taunted her over what seemed like a lifetime ago now. Her hand started to tremble. When was it going to end? When was she going to stop overreacting to the mere sound of Jake's name?
'Isn't it today you're picking John up from the airport?' Janey asked her.
'Yes, this afternoon,' Lucianna informed her joylessly.

It seemed almost laughable now that she had ever believed herself in love with John. A small frown pleated her forehead. She would have to tell him, of course, that their relationship was over. Not that she could believe that he would be too upset, she decided hardily. After all, he had been happy enough to leave her.

There. Lucianna glowered into the mirror at her prettily made up face and shining hair. In an hour's time she would be picking up John at the airport and she supposed that she might as well make use of the skills she had so recently learned even if the man who was going to be given the benefit of them was no longer the man she wanted... Wanted...ached for, craved, needed...loved... And would go on loving until the day she died. But what was the point in dwelling on the agony and misery of her unwanted feelings? Jake did not love her. In fact Jake wanted her so little, valued her so little that he had been prepared to offer her money to keep her distance from him.

Swiftly she stood up. Her new jeans showed off her tiny waist and long legs and the crisp checked cotton shirt she had knotted at her waist gave her whole appearance a sharp top note of chic casualness—a far cry indeed from the image she had presented three weeks earlier when she had seen John off at the airport. The swift appraising and admiring look the salesgirl had given her when Lucianna had instinctively knotted the checked shirt instead of more plainly tucking it into her jeans had proved just how far she had come, just how much she had learned.

Rather to her own surprise she had discovered that she didn't simply possess the flair to assess and judge what kind of clothes suited her best, but that she actually enjoyed doing so as well. But if the admiring glances she collected nowadays whenever she went out boosted her ego they still couldn't do anything to relieve the agonising ache that was her love for Jake.
In a couple of days the local paper would come out, carrying the advertisement for the sale of her equipment. Quickly she went downstairs. Janey was
in the kitchen ironing clothes for her and David's holiday.
'How many suitcases are you taking?' Lucianna teased her as she walked towards the door.

The arrivals hall wasn't particularly busy and Lucianna spotted John before he saw her. However, it wasn't shyness or insecurity that made her hold back as she watched him look around, his gaze searching the hall for her.
Where had those feelings she had thought were so strong gone? They certainly didn't exist any longer— at least not for John. And even odder than their complete disappearance was her sudden awareness of the petulant sulkiness of his expression and the way he focused rather longer than was necessary on the two pretty girls crossing the concourse in front of him. Squaring her shoulders, Lucianna took a step forward.

She recognised the exact second that John spotted her from the almost ludicrous change in his expression. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped and there was no doubt at all from his reaction that not only was he surprised by her metamorphosis but he was also very visibly impressed by it.
'Luce!'
Lucianna grimaced and then stiffened as John reached her and grabbed hold of her, insisting on kissing her with a great deal of public swagger. Like a little boy showing off a new and much coveted toy, she reflected wryly.
'You look wonderful,' he told her as she firmly turned her face to one side so that his kiss landed on her cheek instead of her mouth. 'No need to ask if you've missed me,' he added with a satisfied smile as they walked towards the exit. 'I can see for myself how much trouble you've gone to to look good for me. And you do look good, Lucianna,' he told her. I'll show you how good later.'
'I'm afraid I've got some work to do later, John,' Lucianna said quickly, deftly stepping to one side as he made to place his arm around her.
'Work? You mean you're trying to stick together someone's beat-up old banger,' he commented disparagingly.
'No, that wasn't what I meant,' Lucianna denied. She had forgotten the way John loved to make depreciatory remarks about her work, putting both it and her down, but whereas once they had hurt her now they simply irritated her.
'You haven't said yet that you're pleased I came back from Canada early,' John reminded her.
'You haven't told me yet why you're back ahead of time,' Lucianna parried, and then realised that she had obviously hit a hidden and very raw nerve as John's face suddenly turned brick-red and he turned away from her.
"There was a bit of a problem—a clash of personalities... I don't want to talk about work,' he said, then turned back to smile at her. I'd much rather talk about us... I've been thinking about us a lot whilst I've been away, Luce...missing you a lot..'

Lucianna's heart missed a beat. She had known when she'd agreed to collect John from the airport that sooner or later she was going to have to tell him that their relationship was over, but then she had not expected him to behave as though...as though their relationship had a great deal more meaning for him
than he had ever previously given her cause to believe.
Had she misread the situation before he'd gone away—the growing distance between them and John's increasing tendency to treat her as though he was growing tired of her? Or was she being overly suspicious in thinking that there was more to his sudden interest in her than met the eye?

And then, as she looked away from John, she suddenly froze as, totally unexpectedly, she saw Jake walking across the airport concourse. At her side John's voice was a distant, monotonous blur—just like John himself—her whole attention, yes, her whole being focused on Jake through the waves of anguished longing and pain that rocked through her.
How was it possible to love someone so much and yet at the same time almost hate them for the hurt they had caused you? Abruptly Jake stood still and Lucianna felt as though her heart had stopped beating as he turned his head slowly, searching the concourse for someone. She held her breath and then released it on a sharp, rattling sob as she saw him look directly at her.
Across the distance that separated them she could still see his expression, and his eyes and mouth hardened as he looked at her.
Desperate to salvage something of her pride and self-respect, Lucianna acted entirely on instinct, grabbing hold of John's arm and snuggling up close to him as she smiled at him through her pain.
It seemed almost grotesque now to think that once the immediacy and enthusiasm of John's appreciative response to her gesture would have meant so much to her, whilst now it meant so little.
'Let's get out of here,' she heard John muttering ardently, and through her tears she could just about see Jake turning on his heel and walking contemptuously away as John urged her towards the exit.

'Look, Luce, if you,want to give your business another go, Janey and I...' David began awkwardly the day after John's return, but Lucianna shook her head as she smiled wanly at him.
'Thanks, David, but no... Anyway it's too late,' she told him quietly. 'I've already put the ad in the paper—it comes out tomorrow.
'Hopefully by the time you and Janey get back from holiday the barn will be empty. What's happening about the stock whilst you're away, by the way?' she asked him incuriously.
'There's no need for you to worry about that,' David assured her. "That's all sorted out... You could do with a holiday yourself,' he added. 'Perhaps you and John...?'
Lucianna shook her head. 'John's too busy at work to take any time off at the moment,' she told her brother, not untruthfully, but what she didn't add was that the last thing she wanted was to place herself in a position where she would have to spend time alone in John's company.
'Are you sure you don't want me to drive you to the airport?' she asked David.
'No, it's all right; Janey's booked the taxi.' He glanced at his watch. 'Just think, another twelve hours and we'll be away from all this.'
'Stop trying to make me jealous.' Lucianna smiled, trying to enter into his playful mood and not wanting to spoil his anticipation of then: holiday with her own unhappiness and despair. Tonight John was taking her out for a meal, not that she particularly wanted to go, not in fact that she wanted to see him at all really. Despite the fact that he was full of fulsome praise for the change in her outward appearance, Lucianna sensed that he was at heart no more emotionally involved with her than she was with him.

'Right, that's it,' Janey announced as she came into the kitchen. "The cases are finally packed... Have you got the passports and our tickets ready, David? The taxi will be here soon...'
"They're safe in my jacket pocket,' David assured her. 'I'll go and bring down the cases.'
Half an hour after David and Janey had gone Lucianna went upstate to get ready for her date with John. With a wry smile she removed her new trouser suit from her wardrobe. She had changed immeasurably in countless ways from the girl who had been dragged so reluctantly and defiantly on that shopping trip with Jake. Gently she touched the fabric of the suit. Like a faded rose packed carefully in tissue to protect it from the damaging light of the sun she had stored away her own precious memories, and one of those was the look on Jake's face when he had seen her wearing the silk suit.

As she showered and dressed and put on her makeup Lucianna acknowledged that she was not looking forward to the evening ahead at all.
What amazed her almost more than anything else was what she could possibly have seen in John in the first place. He was, she realised, everything she most disliked in a man—immature, self-centred, wholly lacking in sensitivity or any genuine warmth; nothing whatsoever like...

Shakily she put down the brush she had just picked up to apply her lipstick.
That was an avenue down which her thoughts must not be allowed to go.
She had just slipped on her suit when she heard a car drive into the farmyard. Frowning, she went downstairs to open the door.
John was half an hour too early for their date, but fortunately she was virtually ready. However, as she opened the back door into the yard she realised that it wasn't John who had just driven in but Jake.
'You're too late,' she told him abruptly as he strode towards her. 'David and Janey have already left.'
'It's you I've come to see, not them,' Jake replied bitingly, walking into the kitchen and closing the door behind him, whilst Lucianna retreated to the other side of the kitchen table, watching warily as he reached into his jacket pocket and produced a familiar envelope.
'I found this waiting amongst my post,' he told her tersely. 'Would you like to explain to me, Lucianna, what's going on?' he demanded as he tipped the pieces of the contract onto the table in front of her.
'I should have thought it was self-explanatory,' Lucianna told him proudly, her eyes flashing, emotion giving her voice a mature huskiness as she added, 'I know what you were trying to do, Jake, but it won't work—you can't buy me or... I'm not for sale,' she told him fiercely.
'But your business is,' Jake retorted curtly.
'I've decided to re-train...do something else,' Lucianna informed him.
'You've decided?' Jake challenged her. 'Or did someone else make the decision for you, Lucianna.,:.? John perhaps? You really must love him one hell of a lot,' he said savagely, and then added with what that Lucianna felt like unbelievable cruelty, 'Certainly one hell of a lot more than he does you.'
'You have no right to say that,' she responded fiercely. How dared he question John's feelings for her when his own...when he...?
'No right?' she heard him mutter fiercely, and he strode round the table and totally unexpectedly grabbed hold of her, his fingers biting painfully into the tender flesh of her upper arms as he gave her small shake. 'Lucianna... I...'

'Don't touch me.' Lucianna panicked, almost screaming the words at him, her body reacting with helpless intensity to his touch and his proximity, her aching need for him filling her with a heat, a hunger that caused her to tremble violently and visibly. Half of her ached to close the distance between them and to feel the longed-for sensation of his body close to her own, against her own, within her own, whilst the other half...the other half was gripped by a terrified headlong flight into total panic as she tried to pull away from him and put a safer distance between them!
'Don't touch you?' she heard Jake repeating harshly through gritted teeth. 'I've heard you singing a very different song...'
Instantly Lucianna went completely rigid, her face paper-white, her eyes huge, bruised pools of feminine pride and pain as she asked him piteously, 'How could you? How dare you bring that up now?'
'Oh, I can and I dare,' Jake assured her. 'I can and I dare because...'
He was mesmerising her with his voice and his eyes, Lucianna decided dizzily; he must be, otherwise she would have been fighting to pull free of him instead of simply standing there, mute and bemused, as his hands travelled up over her arms to cup her face and hold it still. He bent over her, his body blocking out the light as he lowered his head towards hers, his mouth unerringly finding hers... His mouth...

Too late Lucianna tried to move, to avoid the descent of his head and the hot, savage pressure of his kiss, because her lips were already clinging helplessly to his, remembering, returning their passionate caresses, trembling, parting, her whole body shuddering in despairing pleasure as she felt the first swift thrust of his tongue inside her mouth.
She wanted him so much. Loved him so badly. She wanted him to pick her up right now and carry her upstairs, lay her on her bed and tell her he loved her whilst he...
Tell her he loved her? But he didn't love her...and he had already made that more than plain to her...

Abruptly Lucianna came to her senses, pushing Jake away as she struggled to suppress the small sob of desolation rising in her throat.
'Just in time,' Jake told her cynically as they both heard the sound of a car pulling into the yard. 'But I can tell you this, Lucianna...'
'No,' Lucianna denied, covering her ears with her hands in a gesture that was almost childish, her voice distraught with pain as she told him, 'I don't want to hear anything you have to say, Jake..,anything...' And then, before he could reply, she opened the kitchen door and hurried into the yard towards John's car.
'What's he doing here?' John asked her as he opened the car door for her, frowning in Jake's direction as he saw Jake standing in the doorway.
'Oh, he came over to see David,' Lucianna fibbed. She had no qualms about leaving Jake in the farmhouse. She knew he had his own key, an arrangement David had made with him years ago, and she knew that despite their own quarrel and the enmity which now existed between them he would be scrupulous about locking the farm door behind him when he left. Fortunately she had instinctively reached for her bag as she'd left the kitchen, so at least she would be able to get back in again.

'I'm really looking forward to this evening,' John told her as he drove out of the yard, turning his head to give her a meaningful glance that made her heart sink. 'You mean a lot to me, Luce,' he said warmly, reaching out to take hold of her hand before she could stop him and giving it a damp squeeze. 'An awful lot,' he emphasised in a voice she assumed was meant to sound sincere and sexy but which in fact to her sounded almost exactly the opposite.
As she firmly extracted her hand from his and looked away, she couldn't help wondering how he would react if she reminded him that for someone who claimed to think an awful lot of her he had found it remarkably easy to walk away from her. And she hadn't forgotten all those hurtful criticisms he had made before he had left for Canada, but since she had no wish to provoke a quarrel with him she kept her thoughts to herself, merely saying quietly and with a certain cynicism in her voice, 'I take it, then, that there were no particularly attractive girls at the Canadian office?'

John certainly was out to impress her, Lucianna admitted half an hour later as he pulled into the car park of a particularly prestigious and expensive local restaurant. However, once they were inside she discovered that his actions were not quite as generous as she had initially assumed. She had learned quite early on in their relationship that John had a thrifty streak, and that, it seemed, was something about him which had not changed.
John was not taking her out for a meal a deux as she had initially believed; instead they were joining a party of his colleagues who were celebrating the fiftieth birthday of the senior partner.
'J.J. is paying for everything,' John whispered to her enthusiastically as he slipped his arm around her waist in a proprietorial fashion and urged her forward.
It was odd to think that once—and not so very long ago at that—the looks of disbelief on the faces of John's work colleagues as they stared at her would have rilled her with joy that at last she had proved herself worthy of being with John. Now it meant nothing—just as John himself meant nothing.
She saw the look of hostility that Felicity gave her as she clung to the arm of a much older, overweight, balding man, teetering slightly in her too high heels. Quickly Lucianna looked away.

J.J., whom she had only met previously at the firm's Christmas dinner dance, smiled benevolently at her as John propelled her forward and re-introduced her.
'So you're John's girlfriend. Excellent, excellent,' he commented, giving her a warm smile and John an oddly probing, hard-eyed look. 'John tells us that it will soon be wedding bells,' he added jovially.
Lucianna tried not to let her shock show. 'Wedding bells?' she questioned John abruptly as a waiter ushered them to their places. 'What was he—?'
'Not now,' John told her curtly. 'Hello, Basil,' he greeted the man standing listening to them.
'So how does it feel to be back? Rather a shorter stay in Canada than was originally planned. Still, if I had a fianc6e as pretty as yours waiting at home for me I expect I'd have been eager to get back too...'
'Fiancee?' Lucianna expostulated as soon as he was out of earshot 'John, what's going on? You and I aren't engaged, and—'
'We'll talk about it later,' John interrupted her. 'Just don't say anything, there's a good girl, and I'll explain everything later.'
Lucianna stared at him. Be a good girl...? How dared he adopt that kind of tone, that kind of manner with her...?
'John...' she began wamingly, but he was shaking his head, and since the other guests at either side of them were taking their seats Lucianna acknowledged that she had no option but to wait until they had more privacy to both demand an explanation and to tell him that, far from being his fiance'e, as of this evening their relationship was well and truly over!

The meal dragged on interminably. A small frown creased Lucianna's forehead as she saw how much John was drinking. Sweat beaded his upper lip and his fair complexion looked unhealthily flushed. Suddenly Lucianna could see how he would be in twenty years' time. How on earth had she ever thought him attractive? Automatically she stood up.
'Where are you going?' John demanded.
To the ladies,' Lucianna informed him quietly.
There was only one other girl in the ladies' cloakroom when Lucianna pushed open the door and her heart sank as she saw who it was.
Felicity and her 'boyfriend' were seated almost opposite Lucianna and John and Lucianna had noticed that she too was drinking heavily.
'You think you've got it made, don't you?' she sneered to Lucianna. 'You really think that the reason John's come back ahead of time is because of you. Well, you couldn't be more wrong...' She gave Lucianna a pleased smirk before toying with her already thick lipgloss.
The real reason he's come back...sorry, been sent back...ahead of time is because our John...your John...has been having an affair with the wife of one of the Canadian partners. And he found out about it and John's been sent home in disgrace, although of course it's all been played down. The wife is insisting it was all a mistake and that her husband's got it wrong, and as for John—well, John's claiming that far from getting himself involved with another man's wife he's actually been counting the days until he got home to his own little wife-to-be.
'He doesn't really want to marry you at all...but he knows that unless he toes the line and produces a wife p.d.q. he's going to be out of a job.
'Nothing to say?' she challenged Lucianna dulcetly. 'Well, if you don't believe me why don't you ask John? Not that he'll tell you the truth. John's got quite an eye for our sex on the quiet, you know. The Canadian partner's wife wasn't his first indiscretion. He likes them older and married...it makes them so
much more grateful and so much easier to get rid of when the affair has lost its lustre...
'Oh, dear, have I shocked you?' she cooed with patent insincerity when Lucianna made a small shocked sound. 'But surely you must have been suspicious? After all, before he went away he'd made it pretty obvious that he'd lost interest in you, hadn't he? So you must have wondered what was going on when he came back very much the adoring lover... Not, of course, that the two of you have been lovers, have you? He told me that the night he and I... Whoops! I don't suppose you know about that either, do you?'

Lucianna waited until she had gone before going to the foyer to use the payphone to ring for a taxi, and to ask the receptionist for a small piece of paper so that she could write John a note. She kept it short and succinct, telling him that their relationship, such as it was, was over and adding that she would prefer it if he did not make any attempt to get in touch with her.

Strangely, as she climbed into the taxi and gave the driver the address of the farm, her strongest feeling was one of intense relief, a sense of having escaped— John's affair or affairs meant nothing whatsoever to her, and she was simply quietly thankful that the fact that they had never had an intimate physical relationship meant that she need have no fears for her own health and well-being.

As the taxi turned into the farm lane, she instructed the driver to drop her at the normally seldom used front door instead of driving round into the yard.
John was a part of her life that was now—thankfully—over. She only wished she could say the same about the pain that loving Jake was causing her, but
instinct told her that Jake and her love for him were things that she would never be able to forget or ignore

 
 

 
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قديم 14-11-07, 12:03 AM   المشاركة رقم: 33
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كاتب الموضوع : نيارااا المنتدى : الارشيف
افتراضي CHAPTER ELEVEN
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

JAKE had just stepped out of the shower when he heard the taxi draw up outside the front of the farmhouse. Grabbing a towel, he hurried downstairs, reaching the hallway just as Lucianna was pushing open the front door.
'Jake.' Lucianna whispered his name in shock, fully intending to ask him what on earth he was doing in her home and quite obviously making himself at home, his, body slick and wet from his shower and the towel, which he had wrapped around his hips, leaving little to conceal the fact that...that he was Jake...and she...she was...

But, before she could open her mouth, to her chagrin, and for no reason that she could really think of— unless you counted the fact that she was desperately, despairingly in love with him and just the sight of him made her ache so badly inside with the need to fling herself headlong into his arms and to be held tenderly and lovingly there, whilst he—Lucianna discovered that she had started to cry.

Not delicate, neat, tidy little dewdrops of tears that could easily be sniffed away, either, but huge great tearing sobs that blocked her throat and made her whole body shake with the anguish of what she was feeling.
'What is it? What's wrong? What has he done...? Where the hell is he?' She heard Jake growling with increasing ferocity as he totally unexpectedly fulfilled
at least one part of her fantasy by grabbing hold of her and, if not cradling her tenderly and lovingly, then at least offering her the comfort of his arms and the solid proximity of his body. He demanded, repeated, 'What the hell has he done to you, Lucianna, and where is he?'
'Having dinner at a restaurant,' Lucianna told him in between hiccuping sobs. 'I left him there. He couldn't have driven; he'd had too much to drink.
'He'd told people that we were engaged, that we were going to be married,' Lucianna explained, still sobbing as Jake's arms tightened almost painfully around her. 'But it wasn't true; he didn't want to marry me at all—it was just because he'd had an affair with someone else... He just wanted to use me to protect his job. He didn't love me at all really.'

Now she was crying in earnest, although she had no real idea why, unless it was because Jake was holding her more like a brother than the lover she wanted him to be. She shivered suddenly. Against her cheek she could feel the hard warmth of his shoulder, smell the clean, damp, freshly showered male smell of him, and her body was reacting to it as though she had inhaled the headiest and most intoxicating of drugs. Forget the alcohol, her brain decided dizzily—being close to Jake like this was having a far more dangerous effect on her senses. She wanted to stay close to him like this for ever—no, longer than for ever—for eternity and beyond eternity—but already Jake was starting to move her away, holding her off with one hand whilst he reached out with the other to push open the sitting-room door.
'What you need is a hot drink and the chance to calm down...' Lucianna heard him saying pragmatically.
Suddenly she had had enough. What she needed was most definitely not a hot drink; what she needed, what she wanted...

Later she would swear to herself that if she hadn't been genuinely overwhelmed by a sudden fit of shivers she would never, for one minute, have behaved in the way that she did. For the fit of shivers was genuine and unplanned, and it seized her body with such force that Jake immediately frowned, releasing the open door to take hold of her with both hands as he told her grimly, 'You're in shock. You need—'
'I need you, Jake,' Lucianna heard herself saying to him shakily. 'I need you so much right now that I...'

She wasn't the one who had suggested buying the book that told her how to flirt with a man, she was to tell herself self-righteously later. All she had done was do as she was told, buy it and read it And if she had read that to reach out and touch a man's bare forearm with one's fingertips and, moreover, to draw those same fingertips oh, so gently down the bare skin in a soft stroking motion was a definite and provocative come-on that very few men would be able to resist, then whose fault was that? Not hers.

Whoever had written that book obviously knew what they were talking about, she acknowledged in heady triumph half a dozen seconds later when she had felt the whole of Jake's arm jerk in response to her touch and had heard the soft, stifled groan he had made in his throat.
'Lucianna, I know that John's hurt you and that right now you're—'
'I'm cold,' Jake,' Lucianna told him, overriding him. 'I'm so cold, please hold me,' she begged him piteously.
'What you need is a hot bath and then bed; things will seem much better in the morning, you'll see,' Lucianna heard Jake telling her gruffly.
'Mmm...' Lucianna agreed, snuggling deeper in his arms. 'But you'll have to help me, Jake; I'm just so cold...'

From her position, cuddled up against his body, Lucianna could feel the groan that shuddered through his chest.
'I know you don't know what you're doing, Luce...or what you're inviting...but...'
Very slowly Lucianna lifted her head from his chest and looked up at him, deliberately moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue.
'What am I inviting, Jake? Tell me...show me...' she whispered provocatively.

Surely it couldn't be the three glasses of wine she had had to drink that was responsible for her extraordinarily out-of-character behaviour? Lucianna questioned herself dizzily as she let her glance drop very slowly and very, very deliberately—another hint she had picked up from that book—from Jake's eyes to his mouth.

It worked. She could actually see the muscles in his face tense, feel the sensual hardening of his body as he tried to pull away from her, and then, with a speed and ferocity that took her off guard, he dragged her back down against his body, cupping her face with one hand whilst he pressed the other to the base of her spine, urging her against his own body as he told her between the fierce, hungry kisses he was pressing against her eager mouth, 'Feel what you're doing to me, Luce... Feel how much I want you.'

Instinctively Lucianna moved closer to him, wrapping her arms tightly around him as she returned his kisses with unashamed intensity, opening her mouth to him and to the sensual probe of his tongue, moaning soft, sweet sounds of pleasure into his mouth as his kiss deepened and his hands roamed her body, stroking, moulding, shaping, caressing.
She cried out in swift, sharp pleasure as his hand cupped her breast, his thumb rubbing demandingly against her already stiff nipple.
'Jake!'
As she breathed his name into his mouth, Lucianna reached impatiently towards the towel he was wearing, but Jake got there first, holding her upper arms as he kissed her with increasing passion and urgency, her own heartbeat starting to race as her body picked up on his arousal and excitement—and shared it as he demanded thickly, 'What is it you want, Lucianna? Who is it you want? Is it me...?'
'Oh, yes, it's you...you I want, Jake,' Lucianna averred frantically, kissing his throat and then his shoulder as she felt herself starting to spin crazily out of control, her emotions, her arousal bringing her flesh out in a betraying rash of goosebumps. She pleaded, 'Take me to bed, Jake...please, please; I want you so much.'
'Nowhere near as much as I want you,' she heard Jake telling her forcefully as he swung her up into his arms, but, to her astonishment, instead of carrying her upstairs, Jake was heading for the front door.
'Jake,' she protested, suddenly apprehensive and afraid that after allowing her to believe he wanted her he was simply going to walk away from her, to abandon her as he had done the last time... The last time... 'Where are you going?' she demanded huskily.
'I'm taking you home,' Jake responded fiercely. 'To my home, to my bed, and once I've got you there I'm...'
As she saw the look in his eyes, Lucianna started to tremble, but not from fear...

Later she would have no clear recollection of the short drive to Jake's house—only of her awareness that it was just as well it was a private lane since all Jake was still wearing was the towel. Jake's home and even Jake's bedroom were already familiar to her, but as he carried her from the front door towards the stairs the sensations, the emotions filling her totally obliterated the fact that Jake's home was a familiar part of her own childhood. Instead...
At the bottom of the stairs Jake set her on her feet and slowly, cupping her face, started to kiss her, gently at first and then with increasing passion until she was writhing frantically against him, calling his name with small sobbing cries of need as she pressed herself closer and closer to him.

Was it Jake or was it her own hands that dragged the buttons of her jacket from the buttonholes? She didn't know, but she knew well enough that it was Jake's hands that caressed her naked breasts, stroking and kneading them as she pushed them eagerly into his caressing palms, and Jake's lips, Jake's mouth that took her to even greater transports of sensual pleasure when they stopped halfway up the stairs and Jake knelt down in front of her. For slowly he started to suckle on first one and then the other taut nipple before very deliberately tracing a line of hot, thrilling kisses down to the waistband of her silk trousers and then below it as he unfastened and let them fall to the floor. His tonguetip circled her belly button, causing her to cling helplessly to his shoulders, torn between wanting to beg him to stop and aching to urge him to go on.

But, even so, despite knowing how much she wanted him and how much she loved him and how aroused he was himself, it was still a shock to hear him tell her gratingly, 'If we don't make it to my bedroom soon, I'm going to have to have you right here and now where we are...'
'On the stairs?' Lucianna blurted out, betraying her innocence as she added, 'But we can't...'
'Oh, yes, we can,' Jake assured her, his teeth gleaming in an almost boyish smile as he flushed and then looked enquiringly at her. 'No, don't ask me to explain, not right now... The way I want you...need you right now is on a bed...on my bed...where we can take our time and I can show you...'
He stopped, frowning as Lucianna gave a small sharp cry, her eyes suddenly going very dark, and his expression was very male as he realised the cause of her audible moan of pleasure was the sight of his naked body.
As Lucianna looked a little self-consciously from him to the towel which lay on the stairs beside him, she asked him, 'When did you...?'
'I didn't...you did,' he told her softly, adding when she shook her head, 'Yes, you did; it was just now when I kissed you right here.' He touched one fingertip to the place just above the line of her briefs where his mouth had only seconds before been caressing her sensitive skin and sending frantic pulses of pleasure darting through her.
'Jake...' Lucianna started to say, and then stopped as she closed her eyes. What she wanted to say, what she ought to be saying, was that they shouldn't be doing this, that she shouldn't be here with him like this, not when... But as she raised her hand she inadvertently brushed her fingertips against his thigh and as she felt the hard, warm sensation of his skin, followed by the flooding sweetness of her own longing for him, she knew those words would never be spoken. Instead she looked up into his eyes and then down at his body, and then, with a low moan, opened her arms to him.

They might not have made love on the stairs as Jake had threatened but it was a pretty close thing. By the time they reached the bed both of them were naked and as he lowered her onto it bending over to kiss first her mouth and then one breast and then her mouth again and then the other, before sliding his hands over her body, cupping her hips and then stroking her thighs and gently easing them apart, Lucianna knew that she didn't want to wait any longer for him.
The book on flirtation hadn't had any helpful hints on how one might best deal with such a situation but in truth Lucianna didn't need any, and if Jake's reaction to the way she touched him and the soft, encouraging sounds of need she made were anything to go by she was managing very well without them.

This time, perhaps because her body already knew the pleasure his would give it, the sensation of having him within her was so overwhelming, so explosive that the shudders of pleasure and completion started to pulse through her right from Jake's first thrust, the intensity and swiftness of her climax leaving her shuddering in his arms. She was so sensitive to him that she could actually feel the hot, thick pulse of his own release within her body, could feel it and, unbelievably, react to it with a softer, gentler echo of her own earlier orgasm, a quick, delicate throb of her body as though it wanted to draw him even closer and deeper within it as she took from him that final, life-giving male pulse of desire.
'John...' Lucianna began sleepily as she cuddled up in Jake's arms, her body and emotions totally exhausted after the events of the evening but still wanting to explain to Jake that she hadn't really been upset to realise that John didn't love her. But her eyes were already closing, her breathing slowing, and suddenly, as sleep claimed her, it was too much of an effort to say anything.
Jake, on the other hand, was suddenly very much awake.
John. She had called him John! As he lay there in the darkness with Lucianna's body nestled so trustingly and lovingly in his arms, he knew with bleak certainty that there was no pain worse than hearing the woman you had just loved calling you by another man's name. The man she really wanted.

Lucianna woke up abruptly, confused at first by her surroundings. And then she remembered. Shivering, she tried to blink back her tears as she realised that once again Jake had left her alone in bed. His bed, though, this time, not hers. Pushing back the bedclothes, she slid her feet to the floor and started to walk towards the half-open bedroom door. There was a light on downstairs and instinctively she made her way down, frowning as she reached the hallway and heard the sound of someone using a computer in Jake's office... Pushing open the door, she walked in, oblivious to the fact that she was completely naked.

Jake was seated at his desk, dressed in a shirt and jeans.
Still frowning, she studied the screen in front of him.
'Jake, what are you doing down here?' she asked him tremulously.
'Working!'
'Working!'
All the emotions she had been fighting to suppress welled up inside her.
'What is it with me...what is it that's wrong with me?' she demanded furiously. 'What is it about me that makes it impossible for a man to love me...? First John and now you... Oh, I don't care about John. I realise now I never loved him really at all...in fact I'm actually glad that he doesn't want me...but you...' Tears rolled down her face and she shook them away impatiently. 'I love you, Jake, but I know you don't love me.

'You've even tried to bribe me, to buy me off so that no one would ever know that you and I... But you didn't need to do that... I would never have told anyone... I suppose you thought that just because you'd...because we'd been lovers...that I'd expect... But I'm not that naive...! do know some things. And I suppose you're down here working now because you didn't want me to think...because you don't want me to think...' She started to correct herself and then stopped as Jake strode out from behind his desk, his face white and an expression in his eyes which...
Nervously Lucianna gulped and swallowed, protesting feebly as he reached her and took hold of her, 'Jake...'

'What do you mean, you love me?' she heard him demanding rawly.
'What do you mean what do I mean?' Lucianna countered tremulously. 'I suppose you don't want me to say it but it's the truth and I'm not going... I love you, Jake, and I'm sorry if you don't want me to...'
'You're sorry! Oh, my God,' he muttered piously under his breath. 'Lucianna, I—' He stopped and took a deep breath, his skin drawn tight across the bones of his face as he shook his head and told her abruptly, 'Come with me...'

Docilely, Lucianna followed him as he guided her out of his study and towards the stairs, walking so fast that she had trouble keeping up with him.
Halfway up the stairs he turned round to wait for her, and as she reached him Lucianna heard him saying helplessly, 'Oh, Luce...Luce...Luce...' And then she was in his arms and he was kissing her as fiercely as though they hadn't kissed in years, decades, centuries, as though they hadn't kissed for a lifetime. And in between his kisses he was telling her that he loved her, that he had always loved her and that he always would love her.
Somewhere along the line Lucianna realised that she and rationality had parted company, but that no longer seemed to matter, not when she had Jake's kisses, Jake's hands, Jake's body...

'Oh, you can do it here on the stairs—you were right,' she managed to gasp as her body responded to the shuddering thrust of Jake's within her.
'The stairs, the kitchen, the table, the floor...anywhere... any where you like, anywhere you want...' Jake moaned sensually to her as he carried her with him to a climax that was a fierce starburst of sensation, the response of her womanhood to his manhood.
'Don't you ever, ever again tell me that I don't love you,' Jake told her thickly ten minutes later as he wrapped her in his arms and carried her back to bed and joined her there, holding her close to his heart as he whispered the words to her.
'But I thought you didn't...you said...' Lucianna began, and then fell silent as he kissed her gently.
He told her softly, 'I've loved you from the day I was old enough to know what love was—when you were too young to even begin to be burdened with such feelings. I've loved you and I've hated myself for it, and sometimes, I admit, I've come close to hating you for it as well.'

Lucianna sat up in bed, her eyes sparking indignantly. 'You've loved me all that time and you've never said anything, never shown me...told me...? You let me think you didn't care, you didn't want me, even made me feel you were trying to pay me to stay out of your life by coming up with that contract to keep the bank at bay...'
As she paused to take a deep breath, Jake interrupted firmly, 'Now hang on; let's take one thing at a time. For a start, when I first realised how I felt about you, you were way, way too young for me to tell you, and if I had...well, legally you might have been able to enter into an adult sexual relationship with me but mentally, emotionally, and in just about every way I could think of, to persuade you to give yourself to me then, to commit yourself to me, would have been as much a crime against you as it would have been against my love.
'I didn't say anything, Luce, quite simply because I loved you enough not to... Now what are those for?' he chided her gently as he saw the quick, emotional tears filling her eyes.

'Oh, Jake, I've been so wrong about you; all those years, all those times when you seemed so aloof and uncaring, when I...'
She bit her lip and stopped, and Jake said rawly, 'When you...? Go on. What were you going to say? Or can I guess? All those times when you treated me as though you loathed the very sight of me?'
'Is that why you decided to...to help me learn how to become a woman?' Lucianna asked him tentatively.
His reply surprised her.
'No,' he told her firmly. 'No, it wasn't...and, whilst we're on the subject, I did not help you learn how to become a woman, you already were a woman...very much a woman...the woman I loved,' he insisted sternly. 'And if other men—another man—didn't have the maturity or intelligence to appreciate that fact then I was damned if I was going to point it out for him.
'No.' He leaned forward, cupping her face, kissing her lingeringly on the mouth and murmuring appreciatively, his hand starting to move towards her breast, until, a little reluctantly, Lucianna reminded him that he hadn't finished his explanation.

'No, I haven't, have I?' he agreed, apparently unable to resist the temptation to drop a teasing ring of kisses around her now quivering nipple before tugging the duvet back around her and telling her, 'And with you looking like that I doubt that I'm ever going to. All right, all right. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. The main reason I decided to pick up what my common sense told me was a challenge I shouldn't go within a million miles of accepting was because of you—for you...
'I hated to see the way you were hurting so badly,' he told her tenderly, 'and I hated as well to see how little others valued you when I knew that if they'd only take the time, look a little closer... Love—real love—has nothing to do with physical attractiveness—at least not for me. It goes deeper, much, much deeper than that. After all, a person's physical appearance is only their outer shell and it's the inner personality, the inner person that really counts.

'No, I wanted to help you to discover the real power of your womanhood, of yourself, for your own sake. If the only gift I could ever allow myself to give you was the gift of your own self-confidence, your belief in yourself as a woman, the sense of self-worth that those idiotic brothers of yours should have—'
He paused and broke off, shaking his head. "There were so many times when you were growing up when—'
'They didn't mean to hurt me,' Lucianna acknowledged ruefully. 'I was just too sensitive...too aware, perhaps, of the way boys of a certain age talked about and reacted to certain things about a girl.'
'You hid away your femininity because you were afraid of the consequences of it,' Jake told her gently. 'I could see that but—'
'If you loved me so much then why did you leave me...reject me after...when...the night...?'
'I felt I'd taken advantage of you, broken my own code of morals, used your vulnerability and need, and your growing awareness of your own sensuality, in a way that went totally against everything I'd promised myself the relationship between us would be. And the worst of it was I knew damn well that given the whole situation over again I still wouldn't have been able to stop my self... to resist...

'Making love with you was like a drug: one taste wasn't anywhere near enough and simply served to whet my appetite for even more. All I could feel was the need within me that previously I'd been able to keep under control only because my body hadn't ever experienced the sweetness of...of you...
'In the morning, I couldn't believe that you and I...that we'd...that I... I never knew it could be like that...that I could want...need...feel...'

Lucianna looked away shyly and then told him huskily, 'In your arms...with you...like that..,it felt...it was all the things I'd ever dreamed making love should be but had felt never could be for me. But what hurt me even more than waking up without you then was when I came to your house the next day just as Felicity was leaving. She'd already been round to see me to try and get your name and address. John was always talking about her and I knew...' She swallowed. 'I felt so jealous, so full of despair and anger and self-loathing."
'You had no need' Jake told her lovingly. 'I'd already made it more than plain to her that I wasn't interested in what she had to offer...in anything she had to offer...'

Very slowly Jake bent his head to kiss her and Lucianna held her breath, her whole body quivering with suppressed longing and expectation, and then, shockingly, he stopped and looked into her eyes.
'I nearly forgot,' he told her sternly. "That contract you sent back to me in so many pieces... I could have wrung your pretty little neck for doing that, after all the trouble I'd been to. What on earth made you think I'd done it to buy you off?' He shook his head. 'I did it because I wanted to help you... You worked so damned hard to get your business going, and you are a good mechanic, a better than good mechanic, Luce—and don't ever let anyone else tell you differently,' he chided her.

'You realise, of course, that our children are bound to turn out to be little geniuses, don't you?' he added, laughing into her eyes at her expression. 'What with my business brain and your mechanical skills, they'll probably end up ruling the world...'
Lucianna gave a small shudder. 'I hope not That's the last thing I'd want for them,' she told him quietly.
'Then what would you want for them?' Jake asked her tenderly as he started to stroke her skin, and then he bent his head to nibble on the delicate cord that began just behind her ear, causing her to quiver visibly and longingly, her eyes closing in mute pleasure.
Finally she whispered unsteadily, 'What I want is for them to be happy and loved...to grow up with confidence, to know that they are worthy of being loved and giving love in return...'
"They will,' Jake promised her softly. 'After all, with our example to follow, how could they do anything else?'
'Jake, it's almost morning,' Lucianna told him as she saw the first signs of light pearling the sky beyond his bedroom window.
'Good... I love looking at you whilst we make love, Lucianna... I love seeing the expression in your eyes and on your face... I love knowing that I'm pleasing you and I love—'
'I love you, Jake,' Lucianna interrupted him huskily. 'I love you so much.'
'Do you? Come here, then, and show me,' Jake challenged her.

Laughing up at him, Lucianna fully discarded the duvet and, proudly glorying in the nudity of her body and Jake's reaction to it and to her, she crossed the small space that divided them and went into his waiting arms

 
 

 
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قديم 14-11-07, 12:11 AM   المشاركة رقم: 34
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معدل التقييم: نيارااا عضو بحاجه الى تحسين وضعه
نقاط التقييم: 43

االدولة
البلدSaudiArabia
 
مدونتي

 

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كاتب الموضوع : نيارااا المنتدى : الارشيف
افتراضي
 

The END

Enjoy it

the next novel is desire 4 revenge

 
 

 
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قديم 14-11-07, 12:56 AM   المشاركة رقم: 35
المعلومات
الكاتب:
اللقب:

البيانات
التسجيل: Jun 2006
العضوية: 7129
المشاركات: 287
الجنس أنثى
معدل التقييم: نيارااا عضو بحاجه الى تحسين وضعه
نقاط التقييم: 43

االدولة
البلدSaudiArabia
 
مدونتي

 

الإتصالات
الحالة:
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وسائل الإتصال:

كاتب الموضوع : نيارااا المنتدى : الارشيف
افتراضي Desire for Revenge
 

Desire for Revenge


This novel is 4 anime girl



CHAPTER ONE



'look David, I think this has gone far enough I. "

"I want you Sarah, and I always get what I want, especially when what I
want happens to be a green-eyed witch with red hair and a body just
made for love, even though something tells me that that body has never
actually experienced the total reality of a man's love."

She felt trapped; half mesmerised by the deliberately soft monotone of
his voice, and not even the fact that they were in her office, within
easy screaming distance of her fellow employees, had the power to make
her feel fully safe. And besides, what sort of executive would she be
if she let one mere man sexually intimidate her to the extent where she
was panicked into reacting like a naive teenager?

Gathering herself together, Sarah took a deep breath and then said as
calmly as she could, "David we've been through all this before. You
might be a valuable asset to the company, but I am not prepared to go
to bed with you just so that you will continue to use Leichner &
Holland as your publishers. And I'm sure that Steven would back me up
in this."

Steven Holland was the owner of Leichner & Holland and it was he who
had been responsible for promoting Sarah a year ago from being
assistant editor to the status of fiction editor, with a special
responsibility for the new avenue of fiction aimed at women, which they
were pursuing. Sarah did not delude herself as to her abilities;

she had been promoted as a result of something which had really been
little more than a lucky fluke. She had been idly reading through a
manuscript which James Richards, the chief fiction editor, had thrown
on one side and had immediately been struck by the emotive way in which
the story had been written. The name of the writer had been unknown to
her, but she still found the novel powerfully compelling.

She had been reading it one lunch hour over her coffee and sandwich
when Steven had passed her on the way to his office. He had questioned
her about what she was reading, and after being amused by her
enthusiasm had said that since she was so enthusiastic about the work
he might as well read it for himself.

Slightly to Sarah's surprise he had been as enthusiastic as she was
herself, and the result was that she was now officially Fiction Editor
(Female) for Leichner & Holland.

Of course her promotion had not been without problems. For one thing
James Richards had objected strenuously to it, and Sarah had heard only
the other day that he had actually now given in his notice. There had
been a lot of talk about who might replace him, but as yet nothing
official.

"I mean it Sarah...1 want you and I mean to have you..."

"But not here I trust, David..." she managed to quip acidly. His
remark about her virginity rankled and worse, made her feel acutely
vulnerable. Sarah was no fool. She recognised very strongly in David
Randal a very basic masculine drive to possess and subjugate the female
sex. The fact that, as he had so correctly guessed, she was still a
virgin made him all the more keen in his pursuit of her.

She watched him get up and leave her office, gnawing anxiously on her
bottom lip. How he felt about the female sex came across very clearly
to her in his books. Sarah did not like them at all. He wrote under a
female pseudonym, and that in her opinion, was the only reason he
managed to get away with some passages that were in effect little more
than a lascivious description of female degradation. She had already
expressed her doubts to Steven about David's latest manuscript, but it
was an undeniable fact that the long historical novels he wrote, sold
well. At the last group meeting of the editors responsible for the
various types of books the firm published, James Richards had bitterly
opposed her suggestion that they ceased publishing David's work. He
had even accused her of wanting to cut David from their lists because
she disliked him personally as a man, which had been a very difficult
accusation to refute without revealing the truth.

Sarah had few illusions about either her own ability or the security of
her position. If she once admitted that she could not handle sexual
harassment from an author she could well soon find herself demoted. It
was ridiculous that at the grand old age of twenty-five she should find
herself in this position, but trying to make it plain to David Randal
that she did not find him in the least attractive was like trying to
build a snowman in the Sahara desert--a complete waste of time and
effort.

She even suspected that he found her dislike of him a challenge. It
was her virginity that attracted him the most, Sarah thought wryly, as
she sat back in her chair. Without that she would simply be another
passably attractive woman. How had he guessed? Perhaps it had
something to do with the way she always recoiled from him whenever he
came anywhere near her. She had disliked him even when she had had
little to do with him, but now. She had heard it said that an
experienced man could always tell when a woman was unawakened. Until
now she had never really believed it.

She picked up her pen and toyed absently with it. The simplest answer
would be for her to leave and find another job . but where would she
find one as congenial as this? And one that paid as much. With her
promotion had come a very useful pay rise. And very timely it had
been, too, with Gran suddenly too feeble to look after herself, and
Jane worrying herself sick about how she was going to cope with
triplets under five, a husband, a rambling, half-modernised country
vicarage, an assortment of pets, and Gran as well.

Especially when the doctor had told them that because of the delusions
she sometimes experienced, Gran needed to be watched for most of the
time.

The extra money she was earning, plus the sale of Gran's small house,
plus what Jane's husband, Ralph, could provide had meant that they were
able to pay for Gran to stay in a really good residential home close
enough to the Gloucestershire village where Jane and her family lived,
for Jane to be able to visit once a week, and for Gran to join in all
the family events. If she had to go back to working merely as a
secretary--even in a really good job--she would not be able to make her
contribution any more.

Tears blurred her eyes for a moment and she brushed them away
impatiently. She so desperately wanted to do all she could to help
Jane and Ralph. They had done so much for her. Jane had been
twenty-one and newly engaged when their parents had been killed in a
road accident; Sarah had been fourteen.

Ralph had not hesitated. Although he had just been on the point of
leaving the firm he worked for and setting up in business on his own,
he had said instantly that he and Jane would marry, and that Sarah
would make her home with them.

Right through university Ralph had supported her, and it was only in
this last year that he had realised his dream of starting up his own
computer software business. Ralph was the complete antithesis of a man
like David Randal. He was a devoted husband, a caring father.
hardworking, good humoured. He had done so much for her. helping out
now with the expense of caring for Gran was the least she could do.

So what was the answer? Sarah didn't really know.

"You look pensive... Problems?"

She looked up and smiled at the pretty, curly haired brunette standing
in the doorway.

Rachel had taken over from her as assistant editor, having been
Steven's secretary previously, and Sarah liked her very much.

"Not really," Sarah lied.

"Does Steven want me for something?"

"Not as far as I know. It's lunch time and we have a date..
remember?"

Lunch time already? Sarah sighed. How long had she been sitting there
worrying about David?

"I see you've had a visit from one of our least favourite authors this
morning," Rachel commented, when Sarah got up to join her.

"Is he giving you problems?"

"No more than usual." She pulled a wry face.

"You know what he's like."

"Yeah! Personally I can't stand those aggressively sexual types. I
don't know how his poor wife puts up with him. He's always got some
woman going on the side, although they don't normally last long."

They reached the lift and stopped talking as they got into it and
descended to the ground floor.

"Heard the news about who's going to take over from James Richards?"

Rachel asked as they stepped out into the gusty March wind.

"It's now official."

"No. I haven't heard a thing."

"Well, it's official now," Rachel told her as they sat down in the
small wine bar they patronised every Friday lunch time.

"Our new Editor in Chief is going to be no less than the great Joshua
Howard, himself."

"Joshua Howard!" Sarah was impressed. There could be few people in
the journalistic or publishing world who would not be at the mention of
his name. Although only in his early thirties he had a formidable
reputation in the media world.

From being a foreign correspondent with The Times he had gone on to
write several stunningly successful 'faction' novels based on some of
the events he had covered during his years as a reporter.

To Sarah's knowledge at least one of them had been made into a film,
and in view of all this it struck her as rather odd that such a famous
and surely wealthy man should be ******* to take a job as editor with
such a small, albeit prestigious, firm as Leichner & Holland.

"Of course, he isn't coming is as editor," Rachel confided.

"I know you know that the firm's been having a few financial problems
recently--the new Cartwright novel bombed for one thing, and the legal
department is still trying to get back that advance we paid to Wayne
Johnson."

Sarah did know. The loss of the massive advance paid to Wayne Johnson
the pop singer who had begun his meteoric career in the early sixties,
had been a bitter blow to the firm. After over twelve months when the
pop singer had still not produced a single chapter of his life story
Steven had decided to try to get their advance back. That had been six
months ago, and he was still not having success.

Steven had explained much of this to her when he had promoted her,
telling her that he hoped a line of literature aimed specifically at
the female end of the market might improve their fortunes, but new
lines took time to develop and time, it seemed from what Rachel was
telling her now, was something the firm simply did not have.

"Theoretically Joshua is just coming in as Editor in Chief," she
confided to Sarah, 'but in reality he's investing pretty heavily in the
firm. Steven's still the owner and major shareholder of course;

the Leichner line has pretty well died out, and neither of Steven's
daughters want to come into the business, so I suspect that he intends
grooming Joshua to take over from him when he eventually retires. You
know that Joshua brought his first manuscript to Steven before he
became well known? "

"Yes, I do."

There could be few publishers as morally altruistic as her boss, Sarah
reflected, recalling what he had told her, because he had recognised
the book as a winner from the very first, but he had also known that
his small publishing enterprise did not have the resources to promote
the book as it needed to be promoted to ensure the worldwide success it
deserved, and so he had recommended that Joshua try another publishing
house, and had given the manuscript his own written commendation as
well as giving Joshua an introduction to the American firm which had
eventually published his work.

It was rather heartwarming to think that his kindness and generosity
was now being repaid by Joshua Howard, and without having met him,
Sarah felt herself warm to him.

"What's he like?" she asked Rachel curiously, "I've never seen him."

In response Rachel rolled her eyes heavenwards and sighed.

"Fantastic ... and his smile is just so sexy that it made my bones
melt."

She saw Sarah's disbelieving expression, and grinned.

"Okay, don't believe me, but just wait until you've seen him. Tall,
dark, handsome... Believe me he's got the lot and a body that " Okay,
okay! I think I get the picture. But does Brian know that you She
broke off as Rachel grimaced and then grinned. Brian was Rachel's
fiance, a pleasant, tow-haired young man with a steady placid nature
that nicely balanced Rachel's more extrovert, dizzy personality.

"Seriously, his personality seems to be just as good as his looks,"
Rachel told her.

"He's no James Richards, but I don't think he's the type to suffer
fools gladly either. He doesn't seem to hold any sexist views, but I
don't see him as the type to make any special allowances for us
females, just because we are females if you know what I mean..."

With a sinking heart Sarah reflected that she did. Steven, for
instance, if she told him about the problems she was having with David
Randal, would sympathise with her and try to find some way of
alleviating the problem, but to turn to Steven meant going over the
head of the Senior Editor, which simply was not done. She had not gone
to James Richards for help or advice because she knew he would only
gloat over her dilemma, and she had been hoping that the new person,
whoever that might be, might be someone more understanding.

The trouble was that the whole problem was fraught with embarrassment
and difficulty. To explain it in full meant explaining her own
virginal state, which was something she was extremely reluctant to do.
The easiest answer would be to get rid of her virginity, she reflected
rather wryly, but at the moment that was easier said than done, since
she had no current male friend. There had been opportunities at
university, but she had found the work there so taxing and strenuous,
and she had been so determined to repay Jane and Ralph for the
financial support they were giving her, by getting a first-class
degree, that there had been no time for boyfriends.

Afterwards there had been the initial struggle to get work; followed by
the realisation that her degree did not really equip her for any
particular job, meaning that she had had to work at night to get her
secretarial qualifications. All in all there had been scant time for
romantic involvements.

Despite her inexperience, Sarah was no fool. She knew quite well that
it was the lure of her virginity as much as anything that attracted
David to her. Without that. She also suspected it would not be much
longer before he stopped asking and started demanding. She half
suspected he would even go to the length of actually threatening her.

He had hinted as much once or twice already. Even though she
personally did not like the work he produced, it did earn money--money
which the firm obviously badly needed at the present time. Once David
started threatening to take his work elsewhere unless she gave in to
him, what was she going to do? And Sarah knew it was only a matter of
time before he did make that threat. She had already seriously damaged
his ego, she knew that; and he was small-minded enough to want to make
her pay for that.

"You're shivering ... are you all right?"

Rachel's anxious query brought her back to reality.

"It's this icy wind," she fibbed.

"London seems so cold at the moment."

"Mmm... Spring's just round the corner, although you'd never guess it.
Doing anything interesting this weekend?"

"I'm going down to my sister's. We're all going to a fancy dress
ball--a local charity " do", and rather grand..." She pulled a slight
face and Rachel laughed.

"You don't sound very enthusiastic. What are you going as?"

"I don't know. Jane's organising our costumes."

In point of fact she wasn't particularly looking forward to the ball,
but Jane had told her that the invitation had come from someone very
influential locally, who was also a possible client for Ralph's
business, and she had asked Sarah to support her and go with them.

"I'm scared out of my wits, that I might do the wrong thing," she had
confided over the 'phone, 'and I need my clever little sister by my
side to give me confidence. "

In the face of that, there was little that Sarah could do other than
agree to go, but she wasn't looking forward to it.

For the rest of the afternoon she was quite busy. Steven made his
announcement about James Richards' successor at half past four, and
Sarah was slightly surprised to learn that Joshua Howard was actually
coming into the office on Monday before he was due to begin working
there. It seemed that James had demanded to be released from the usual
notice period.

Sarah left the office at just gone five. Her suitcase was already
packed and all she had, to do was to get back to her small flat, shower
and change, and then take a taxi to the station.

Ralph would pick her up in Gloucester. It was a routine which had been
perfected over the eighteen months Sarah had worked for Leichner &
Holland, and one which was now comfortably familiar.

By the time she arrived the triplets would be in bed, asleep, but they
would be the first thing in the morning to wake her up--three
boisterous and lovable four-year-olds whom Sarah secretly adored.

The three children--two boys and a girl--had been conceived by her
sister after only a few months on a fertility drug when she had reached
her early thirties with no sign of the child she and Ralph so
desperately wanted. Jane had been over the moon, not at all fazed by
the information that her doctor suspected that she was carrying more
than one child, although up until the last moment no one had guessed
the anticipated twins would be triplets. Her sister had a blissfully
secure and happy life but no one could deserve it more than Jane. She
and Ralph had both been so marvelous to her when Mum and Dad had been
killed.

Her journey went smoothly. She found Ralph waiting for her when the
train pulled in, his burly form instantly recognisable. He looked more
like a farmer than a computer expert, Sarah reflected, returning his
warm hug with enthusiasm.

"How is everyone?" she asked as they walked through the darkness to
his waiting Range Rover.

"Fine. All dying to see you. Jane's been in a bit of a tizz this last
week about the ball. She's managed to hire costumes for all of us and
I've told her there's nothing to worry about."

"I expect she's worried because she knows how important this contract
is to you," Sarah suggested, as she fastened her seat-belt.

"Mmm ... I'm seeing Tom Merryweather tomorrow morning. I'm hoping he
might give me a decision then. If he does, we'll push the boat out in
style tomorrow night."

They chatted in a casual fashion as Ralph drove along the familiar
roads. Sarah had been brought up in this part of the world and knew it
well. She also felt a deep sense of inner peace when she returned here
and often wished it was possible for her to stay, but she had her
living to earn, and at twenty-five she was far too young, or so Jane
claimed, to settle for the stagnation of a country life.

Sarah was not deceived. Jane clucked as anxiously over her lack of men
friends as any mother hen, and Sarah knew that her sister was longing
for the day she came home with a fiance on her arm.

Her sister didn't wait for them to go inside to greet them. She came
runing out of the house the moment the Range Rover turned into the
Vicarage's overgrown drive. Ralph and Jane had only recently moved
into their present house. Renovating and furnishing it was going to be
a labour of love for both of them, and when they had finished Sarah
knew they would have a home they could be justly proud of. At the
moment, though, all was chaos. Ralph was doing most of the minor work
himself, and since this took time, the back garden seemed constantly to
resemble a builder's yard.

The Vicarage was early eighteenth century and had a substantial garden.
There was even a small paddock for ponies for the children later if
they required them.

"Come on inside, you must be shattered after the journey," Jane
commanded, hugging Sarah quickly as she got out of the Range Rover.

"Oh, yes indeed," Sarah grinned.

"It took all of two hours or so and at my time of life..."

"Oh, you know what I mean... Come on I've just made some fresh coffee.
It seems ages since we last saw you. I want to hear everything that's
been going on."

"Well, if you two are going to gossip, I'm off to my study," Ralph
announced as he carried Sarah's cases into the large shabby hall.

"I'll take these up first for you, Sarah. You're in your usual
room."

"But this time you'll have your own bathroom," Jane told her with a
grin.

"Ralph finished converting that old dressing room off your bedroom last
week. It looks fantastic." She raised herself on tiptoe to kiss her
husband's cheek, and watching them Sarah was conscious of a small
piercing sensation of aloneness. What was wrong with her?

She had never envied her sister her marital happiness before, why
should she start doing so now? "

"Come on sit down and tell me what's making you look so miserable,"
Jane commanded, when they were installed in the large, homely
kitchen.

Modernising the kitchen had been Ralph's first priority when they moved
in and he had done a marvelous job on it, Sarah reflected, studying the
smooth richness of the dark oak kitchen cupboards with their antiqued
tile work tops From the original beams, which he had uncovered and
retained, hung a various assortment of herbs and set into one wall was
Jane's pride and joy-an ancient black-leaded fireplace complete with
bread oven. On the wall in which the fireplace was set Ralph had

exposed the original brick 3 work, and an assortment of brass pans now
decorated it--all original antiques that Jane had cleverly found in
local shops. A large, well scrubbed and very old table took pride of
place in the centre of the room, and it was on this that Jane placed
their mugs of coffee as she pulled out chairs for them both, and passed
a plate of home-made biscuits in Sarah's direction.

"I've tried a new recipe," she commented, sugar free so they're much
better for the kids. "

"Speaking of which..."

"Oh, no you don't! I know when the subject's being changed. What's
wrong, Sarah?" she asked dropping her bantering tone and looking
seriously at her sister.

"Something is I know that much. Come on.. give..-."

Jane was much more to her than a mere sister, Sarah reflected as she
slowly sipped her coffee. She had virtually brought her up from the
age of fourteen, succouring her all through those difficult teenage
years. It had been Jane who had listened to and answered all her
questions about life and sex. Jane who had seen her through all her
teenage traumas. She had never hidden anything from her sister, and it
was impossible to do so now.

"Problems at work," she said tersely.

"One of my writers is pushing me to have sex with him."

"And the problem is that you don't want to... or that you do?" Jane
asked frankly.

"I don't..." Sarah gave a tiny betraying shudder.

"But he's putting a lot of pressure on me, and I suspect it won't be
long before he actually threatens me. I can't turn to Steven for
help--that would mean admitting that I can't handle the responsibility
that goes with my job."

"Mmm ... I don't know about that."

"The thing is this writer has guessed that I'm still a virgin, and
that's why he's so determined to get me into bed."

"Mmm ... the old story of the male ego. Well, there is one simple
solution."

"Rid myself of said virginity," Sarah said lightly.

"That had already occurred to me but it's not quite as easy as that, is
it? After all, I can hardly go up to the first passably attractive
male I see and say " would you mind making love to me? ", can I?"

"No," Jane laughed, agreeing with her.

"Is he married?" she asked.

"Very much so. I feel dreadfully sorry forA his poor wife. He really
is a loathsome specimen. The sort that makes your flesh creep. Oh,
he's attractive enough I suppose in his way ... but there's just
something about him..."

"Mmm. I know what you mean, and I can understand your dilemma. Want
me to look round for a suitable specimen of manhood for you?" she
teased, bringing a lighter note to their conversation as Sarah grinned
and replied threateningly, "Just you try!"

They went on to talk about their grandmother, who Jane told her had
settled in extremely well at the home.

"I thought we might go and see her tomorrow afternoon. I've got to go
into town to collect our costumes." She made a wry face.

"I'm dreading this damned ball. It's the local social event of the
year, you realise and we're extremely privileged to be invited."

"I can tell that by your excitement," Sarah responded solemnly,
amusement dancing in her eyes.

"What are we going as?"

Jane smiled at her.

"Wait until you see our costumes. The do's being held at Merton Place,
and since it was built at the height of the Georgian era, I've gone for
very traditional Georgian outfits for all three of us. I had to go to
Stratford to get them, I'll have you know--nowhere in Gloucester
stocked anything that would do. They're theatrical costumes and very,
very ornate. They're being sent by express delivery to the local
station tonight, that's why we've got to go to town to pick them up
tomorrow."

"I can't wait to see Ralph dressed up as a Georgian dandy..." Sarah
commented.

Jane gave a wicked giggle.

"I'm going to make him powder his hair but he doesn't know it yet! If
it wasn't for the fact that we're being invited by one of Ralph's most
important clients, I might be looking forward to it a little bit
more."

"You'll enjoy it when we're there," Sarah consoled her sister and then,
changing the subject, invited, "Now tell me about my niece and
nephews... " Come on. Auntie Sarah, wake up. "

Stubby fingers touched her eyelids, giggles erupting somewhere in the
direction of her left ear. Someone was trying to tickle her ribs, and
entering into the spirit of the game, she pretended she was still
asleep, waiting until her three tormentors had given up trying to wake
her before suddenly sitting up and grasping the nearest cuddly bundle
and subjecting its ribs to the same torment so recently inflicted on
her own.

The bundle in question just happened to be her niece, her helpless
giggles and shrieks almost splitting Sarah's ears. The two boys, of
course, had to join in the game, the three children only Subdued when
Jane marched into the bedroom carrying a mug of tea which she placed
beside Sarah, at the same time, sternly telling her trio of offspring
to take themselves off to their own rooms and get dressed.

"Little horrors, " she commented balefully when the triplets had
finally departed, but Sarah wasn't deceived.

"And don't you just love them," she agreed with a grin.

"Does it show that much? I suppose having had to wait so long for
them...1 must admit I'd just about given up hope." She sighed and
shook her head.


"Still there are some days when I do genuinely wonder why I ever
bothered, and Louise is worse than the two boys put together. She can
twist them and her father round her little finger."

She sat down on the edge of Sarah's bed and said.

"What do you fancy doing this morning? I've done all the food
shopping. The Vicar's wife is going to take charge of the kids
tonight. Ralph will look after them while we're out this afternoon."

"Well, since I'm feeling rather lazy this morning, how about my taking
my niece and nephews for a short walk?"

"Great idea, if you're sure you don't mind," Jane enthused.

"It will give me time to whip round with the vacuum before lunch. But
be warned, don't let them persuade you to take them into the village,
or you'll end up in the post office buying them sweets.

"Oh, by the way, Haughton House has been sold," she added idly.

"I'm not sure who to ... but I thought you'd like to know. You've
always had a thing about the old place, haven't you?"

It was true, Sarah reflected half an hour later as she set off with a
nephew firmly attached to either hand and her niece clinging firmly to
the hand of one of her brothers. She had always been drawn to the
beautiful Elizabethan manor house just outside the village.

It had been empty now for several months since the death of the last
owner, and Sarah turned automatically in the direction of the footpath
that led from the river, through a small wood, and then into the
private grounds that went with the house.

At the boundary wall which separated the public footpath from the
private, Sarah paused. The trees were not yet in full leaf and so she
was able to see the house from where she stood. The sharp March
sunlight turned the ancient brickwork to rose-gold, glinting here and
there on mullioned windows. Apart from a couple of what appeared to be
tradesmen's vans parked outside, there were no signs of activity.

Sighing faintly she responded to Jeremy's impatient tug on her left
hand, and knew that as she obediently turned away from the house and
back in the direction from which they had come that she had just said
goodbye to a childhood dream.

As a teenager she had often come to this spot. There was a venerable
oak tree several yards away, conveniently growing just by the boundary
wall and in earlier years she had often hidden in its leafy branches
simply daydreaming away a lazy summer's afternoon, imagining that she
owned the house. In those far off days she had played many roles as
chat elaine of the house;

sometimes an Elizabethan maid of honour, hidden away down here from the
Queen's wrath because she had caught the eye of one of her handsome
courtiers; sometimes a secret Jacobite supporter, recklessly hiding one
of the doomed Prince Charlie's wounded supporters; sometimes a
be-muslined Regency girl waiting in trepidation to hand over her
childhood home to the distant cousin who had inherited it from her
father-whatever the setting for her daydreams might have been, they had
always had the same conclusion; the male playing opposite her leading
role as chat elaine inevitably fell in love with her and they lived
happily ever after with the house as their home.

Sarah grimaced faintly. How long ago those days seemed now.

"Look, Auntie Sarah!" Paul tugged importantly on her right hand,
speaking in a hushed whisper.

"There's a rabbit."

Sure enough he was right, and all four of them paused for a second to
admire the attractive little creature before he caught their scent and
bolted for cover.

 
 

 
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