His Untamed Innocent (7 page)

‘You deserved to win,’ he said. ‘You’re bloody good.’

She said, ‘But she fixed the draw, didn’t she, so we’d be in the final together?’

‘Almost certainly,’ Jake agreed.

‘So it was nothing to do with real swimming. But then nothing this weekend is what it seems.’

Least of all the way you kissed me, as if you were staking some claim, telling the world that I was yours, to be taken just as soon as we were alone…

‘No,’ Jake said abruptly. ‘It isn’t. But you must have known that’s how it would be.’ He gave a short sigh. ‘However, it will be over soon, and then it’s back to reality. Comfort yourself with that.’

Comfort, she thought, offering a small, taut smile, was hardly the word she’d have chosen.

As they reached her door, Jake made to hand over the Cristal, but Marin shook her head. ‘No, you keep it—please.’

‘Marin,’ he said quietly, ‘This is one of the truly great champagnes. You won it. It belongs to you.’

She turned away, reaching for the door handle. ‘It’s also very expensive. Even I know that. So it would be wasted on me, because it deserves a big occasion—a great reason to celebrate.’ She looked back at him, smiled. ‘And that’s far more your life than mine.’

She added, ‘A touch of the reality you mentioned.’

Then she went into her room and gently closed the door behind her.

Strange how time dragged when you were counting the hours, thought Marin, taking a reflective sip of her iced orange juice and bitter lemon.

Firstly, the hours until dinner. Then the hours until bedtime. Then the hours between breakfast and the blessed moment when Jake would drive them both back to London and it would all be over at last.

At which time her life would finally be able to resume some semblance of normality. Or so she hoped.

A new job to go to, she thought, and a chance to reassure Wendy Ingram that she was still to be totally relied upon. Plus—and maybe this was most important of all—a much-needed opportunity to get her head together and stop drifting off into the kind of forbidden fantasies she was ashamed to contemplate.

Jake had left for the golf club with Graham immediately after lunch, and she swiftly excused herself from the proposed croquet competition on the grounds that she wanted to go for a walk. No one, she noted with irony, had attempted to dissuade her.

She headed for the village, but most of it seemed to be shut—even the church—so she bought a drink in the village pub, discovered a shaded corner of its garden, found an unused page in her diary and began with a certain gritted determination to write down what she’d need to pack for Essex.

Planning for the future, she told herself, and letting the immediate present take care of itself. That was what she needed to do. And finding somewhere else to live when she returned from Essex was a matter of urgency.

Because she could not go on being Jake’s tenant, even in the short term. She had to distance herself from him totally. Make sure she had no reason even to set eyes on him again until she could be sure he was out of her system for good.

She might even have a man of her own beside her by then. Someone strong, kind, reliable and loving. Not a serial womaniser who used people then dumped them.

Out of Greg’s frying pan, she thought, her throat tightening, into Jake’s fire. Potentially, a far more damaging experience.

Belle-laide,
she thought. Graham had meant it kindly, but it wasn’t the most flattering description.

Oh God, what had Jake been thinking of? she asked herself unhappily. Why hadn’t he picked someone who looked the part, at least? Why on earth had he chosen her?

Because you, said an inconvenient voice in her head, know this weekend is business, not personal, and that he trusts you to take the money and walk away afterwards, without causing him unnecessary aggravation.

Yes, she thought. But only she would ever know that his trust could be misplaced.

Because when she’d been showering before lunch, standing under the torrent of water, she’d allowed her thoughts to drift. To imagine that she wasn’t alone, that she felt the warmth of someone’s breath on the nape of her neck and hands touching her, applying the scented gel to her skin, stroking its fragrance into her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. Caressing her gently.

Jake’s hands…

Then paused, startled and ashamed, as she’d been forced to put out a hand to steady herself against the cubicle’s tiled wall; her legs had suddenly been shaking under her, matching the race of her heart and the fierce, heated trembling that was at the same time building inside her. As her senses shivered in renewed arousal at the remembrance of his kiss, the hard, lithe strength of his body and the warm, clean scent of his skin. Emotions—responses she’d never experienced before or wished to indulge in. Because no other man she’d ever met, however decent and attractive he might be, had offered the least incentive for her to do so.

Now, as the memory came back to haunt her, Marin lifted her glass and drank deeply, trying to ease the dryness of her mouth as she felt her skin beginning to burn all over again, and a deep, yearning ache twist in the pit of her stomach. Oh God, she thought, her throat tightening. Why did it have to be Jake Radley-Smith of all people in the world who was making her feel like this?

But she had one shred of comfort. At least Jake didn’t—couldn’t, know the sensations he’d ignited in her hitherto unawakened flesh. She’d managed to conceal the fact that she was still quivering inwardly and give him an impersonal smile when he’d knocked at her door earlier to escort her to lunch.

She could only pray that he’d assume her unguarded response to his kiss that morning was simply role-playing. That she’d been actually doing something to earn the promised money, trying to stop the plan coming off the rails.

He and Graham were still at the golf course when she eventually got back to the house. The croquet tournament was still in full swing, to judge from the laughter intermingled with cries of triumph and despair coming from the lawn, so she was able to escape up to her room unnoticed.

She felt hot, sticky and generally on edge, so she indulged herself with a long, cool bath then anointed herself all over with the achingly expensive scented moisturiser which Lynne had insisted on and, more cautiously, the perfume that matched it. It had a soft, musky fragrance with under-notes of lily and jasmine that were released slowly by the warmth of her skin, and it was far more beguiling and sophisticated than anything she’d possessed before.

Frankly sexy, in fact, she realised uncomfortably as she tried to relax on her bed. An impression that the evening’s designated dress would do nothing to dispel.

Lynne had been right about the colour, she acknowledged ruefully, when later she looked at herself in the mirror after a life and death struggle to get the zip fastened.

The rose-leaf-green taffeta made her creamy skin glow in sensuous contrast, and added sparks of emerald to her hazel eyes. While the stark cut of the
bustier
managed somehow to enhance the slight curves it only just concealed.

My God, Marin thought, caught between laughter and shock. For the first time in my life, I have a cleavage.

She’d thought about swirling her hair up into a topknot, but decided she’d look slightly less naked if she let it hang in a soft and shining swathe round her shoulders. Her high-heeled sandals were simply a couple of green, sequined straps across the instep, and her tiny evening purse matched them.

And once more she was deliberately sparing in her use of cosmetics, merely darkening her long lashes and using a soft, pink lustre on her mouth. She had no wish to look as if she was trying too hard, she thought wryly.

Now it was again time to go downstairs and pretend. Except that the terms of this pretence had suddenly changed, and she was no longer sure exactly whom she was trying to fool.

It might even be—myself, she thought, swallowing.

She took one final look in the mirror, unease warring inside her with something that could easily be the wrong kind of excitement, then walked over to the communicating door.

She’d heard Jake return almost two hours before, and had half-expected a visit from him, but there’d only been silence from his room.

She knocked and was about to call, ‘I’m ready,’ when the door swung abruptly open and he confronted her.

She’d never seen him before in the formal elegance of dinner jacket and black tie, and realised just in time that she was actually gaping at him, her breath catching at his sheer glamour.

Jake looked her over in his turn for a long moment, his face inscrutable. When he spoke, his voice was light, even faintly amused. ‘As well as the raise, I must remember to give Lynne a very large bonus.’

‘She deserves it.’ Marin tried to match his tone, although her pulses were going haywire. ‘I fought her every step of the way.’

His mouth twisted. ‘I can well believe it.’ He let his gaze travel down her again from the wary, dark-fringed eyes to the length of slender leg revealed by the brief bell of her skirt. ‘You look almost as enticing as you did in that towel you wore at our first meeting.’

Her face warmed. ‘Something,’ she said, ‘that I have tried very hard to forget.’

‘Now, there we differ,’ Jake drawled. ‘Because I suspect it will always feature amongst my most cherished memories.’

‘Oh, please.’ Marin lifted her chin. ‘In a week’s time we’ll have problems remembering each other’s names, and you know it.’

‘Perhaps.’ He shrugged. ‘But it would hardly be chivalrous of me to say so.’

‘I wasn’t aware chivalry featured highly on your list of priorities, anyway.’

His mouth twisted mockingly. ‘I’m probably capable of it, if the situation demands.’ He paused. ‘Now, shall we go downstairs—face the lions in the arena one more time?’

She thought—But there are far worse things than lions…

Aloud, she said sedately, ‘Let them do their worst.’

And walked beside him in silence down to the drawing room.

Chapter Seven

I
T PROBABLY WASN’T
the worst evening she’d ever spent, Marin thought detachedly, but it was high on the list.

Diana had rounded up all the local grandees for the dinner, including the Chief Constable, but Marin gathered that other people had been invited later for dancing, and that a disco run by the doctor’s student son had been set up in the large conservatory at the rear of the house.

In the dining room, she’d found herself next to Chaz Stratton, who confined himself to telling her that she wouldn’t have found the croquet contest quite so easy, and that Diana had won.

Marin murmured politely, thinking how much she’d like to take his vichyssoise and upend it into his lap.

On her other side was the local Member of Parliament, a thin, greyish man who clearly preferred monologues conducted by himself to conversation, so she was required to do little but listen and try not to let her glance stray too obviously or wistfully to where Jake was sitting, being animatedly entertained by a very attractive brunette.

It occurred to her that this was what it must be like to be Jake’s girlfriend in reality. To be another Adela Mason, always wondering if every other woman in the room was a potential rival, and if so how to deal with it. Or to accept, like the unknown Celia Forrest, that Jake did not play for keeps and walk away before the inevitable happened.

And found she was putting down her dessert spoon, her appetite for floating island pudding suddenly replaced by a tight knot of unhappiness in her chest.

Finding herself overtaken by the startling and appalling realisation that no amount of money could ever make up for the kind of wretchedness that was going to be waiting for her once the weekend was over.

Oh God, she thought, swallowing. How can I have allowed this to happen to me? And let it get to this stage?

It wasn’t just her first confrontation with actual sexual temptation, or finding herself in close proximity to a diabolically attractive and experienced man. If that was so, she might have found some means of dealing with it.

But it was no longer as simple as that. In some devastating way, her heart and her head had somehow become involved too, so that her often-repeated mantra. ‘All over soon’—was no longer reassurance but a cry of pain.

And the knowledge of that scared her half to death.

She was suddenly, startlingly aware, without even glancing in his direction, that Jake was no longer looking at his companion but at her. Knew, too, that if she met his gaze she might not have the sophistication to hide her inner tumult from his perception.

Keeping her eyes fixed resolutely on the table, she thought—I shall have to be so careful. So desperately careful.

It was a relief when the meal ended and the other guests started to arrive.

Marin’s plan was to get lost once more in the general melee, and maybe beat a strategic retreat back to her room, only to realise she was no longer wearing her usual protective camouflage, and that the younger crowd who’d now joined the party were homing in on her and sweeping her along to where the music was already playing.

It was a while since she’d been dancing, but she soon discovered that her natural grace and rhythm had not deserted her. And if the frankly appreciative comments about her appearance from her various partners were a little embarrassing, they were also gratifying. Especially when Diana had greeted her earlier with the kind of look usually accorded to an earwig lurking in a salad.

She’d imagined that the party would divide, with Graham and his older guests remaining in the drawing room, but she was entirely wrong. The beat of the music seemed to act like a magnet for everyone.

She caught a glimpse of Jake partnering his brunette, and deliberately turned to take him out of her line of vision.

He’s doing the right thing, she told herself defensively. She’s glamorous and sophisticated—all the things I’m not—and no one in the world would be the least bit surprised if he moved on to her. Even Diana Halsay would have to believe it, and admit defeat.

I just didn’t expect it to happen like this, or so soon. But I have no grounds for complaint. All I can do is put up and shut up, because that’s what I’m being paid for.

In the meantime, the music was a shield for her to hide behind, and if her smile felt as if it had been nailed on, and her brain ached with the effort of being pleasant to all these strangers and forcing herself to flirt back, she was the only one who knew it.

Until, inevitably, the amateur DJ decided to change the mood and the music softened and slowed into dreaminess, encouraging the gyrating couples to move closer, even to touch.

And suddenly Jake was beside her.

He said softly, ‘I think this is our dance,’ and made to take her in his arms.

For a moment she looked at him almost dazedly as an anguished voice inside her head began whispering, ‘I can’t do this—I can’t let him hold me as if I’m the one he truly wants to be near. I can’t slow-dance with him and feel his lips against my hair, my face; I couldn’t bear it. It’s a pretence too far…’

She stepped back, forcing another smile, even managing to make it rueful this time. ‘Jake, I’m really sorry, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to excuse me. I’m—all partied out and falling asleep on my feet, so I’ve decided to call it a night.’

There was an odd silence, then Jake said courteously, ‘Yes, darling, of course. I quite understand. I’ll try not to disturb you when I come up.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That would be—kind.’ She looked around her, smiled again rather waveringly, said a general goodnight and tried not to make it too obvious that she was in flight.

She was breathless when she reached her room. Breathless, and suddenly close to tears. Fiercely, she fought them back as she closed the door, leaning back against its panels.

‘Get a grip,’ she adjured herself harshly, and aloud. ‘If this is how you are after forty-eight hours with him, what the hell would you be like after a week? This is sheer self-preservation you’re doing here.’

Someone had been up as usual to turn down her bed, light the lamp on the night table and draw the curtains. Her window had been left open, and the folds of chintz were stirring in the slight breeze, which also brought all too clearly the sweet, seductive sound of the music below.

Something she definitely didn’t need, she thought, crossing the room and pulling the casement shut with a sharp jerk, trying hard at the same time not to wonder if Jake had returned to his brunette.

That, she told herself, is not your business. And you’d be better occupied concentrating on that unfinished list of stuff for Essex than indulging in useless and damaging speculation.

But first, she decided, slipping off her sandals and flexing her toes, she would get undressed and into bed. Not that she was tired. Not yet.

Restless, she thought. Edgy. That’s me. But a night’s sleep will get me back on track.

She took one last look in the mirror to say a faintly regretful goodbye to the flushed, dishevelled stranger in the sexy dress, then reached round to undo her zip. Only to discover, after several minutes of determined tugging, that it was refusing to move as much as a millimetre.

Marin, remembering the difficulties of fastening it when she was dressing, gave a silent groan.

Think, she told herself robustly. Use some logic. If you can twist the dress round somehow so the zip’s at the front, you’ll at least be able to see what the problem is and have a chance of dealing with it.

But this soon proved to be wishful thinking. The tight
bustier
clung to her as if it was a second skin and refused to budge in any other direction.

She said aloud, ‘Oh, this is ludicrous.’ The dress might have transformed her for a couple of hours, but she had no wish to spend the rest of the night in it. Or, for choice, even another five minutes.

Taking a deep breath, she tried the zip again, holding the edge of the dress firmly with her other hand, pleading silently as she tried to coax the little metal tongue downwards. But all to no avail.

She wanted very badly to jump up and down screaming, but restrained herself. Losing one’s temper with inanimate objects was a waste of time. She needed patience and perseverance instead.

Or someone to help. Well, one person, and he wasn’t there. He hadn’t followed her upstairs tonight, she thought, her throat tightening. She was on her own.

Half an hour later, her arms aching, she gave up the fight. She walked over to the bed and lay down on top of it, first carefully smoothing the taffeta skirt to avoid undue creasing. Then she switched off her lamp and resolutely closed her eyes.

She was almost dozing when she heard the sound of a door shutting. She sat up, staring at the thin thread of light visible from the next room, then slid off the bed, trod barefoot across the carpet and knocked.

There was a brief pause, then the door opened and Jake confronted her. She realised she must have heard him returning from the bathroom, because he was wearing a towelling robe and his hair was damp, indicating that in spite of the lateness of the hour he’d taken a shower.

He looked her over, unsmiling. ‘You gave the impression downstairs that you were worn out,’ he said. ‘So why aren’t you in bed and fast asleep?’

She lifted her chin. ‘Because I can’t get my dress off. The zip’s stuck.’

Jake shrugged, his mouth hard. ‘Then ring the bell for Mrs Martin. Get her to bring some scissors and cut you out of it.’

‘At this time of night?’ Marin stared at him. ‘When we’re supposed to be lovers on terms of total intimacy? Wouldn’t you be the one I’d naturally turn to first? The only one?’ She shook her head. ‘Unless, of course, you want to confirm to Diana that there really is nothing between us. Because that’s what she’ll think when she hears about it—and it will probably be served up with her morning tea.’

She paused. ‘Besides, I don’t want it simply—hacked off me. Do you know what it cost?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not that important.’

‘Well, it is to me. It’s far too beautiful a dress to damage.’
And for the first time in my life I felt beautiful, wearing it. And desirable.

She added, her voice uneven, ‘Couldn’t you at least try to free the zip for me before the whole thing has to be ruined?’

‘Slight problem there,’ he said curtly. ‘It would mean I’d have to touch you.’

‘That doesn’t matter…’

‘It bloody well mattered when I wanted to dance with you a while ago,’ he retorted. ‘Or did you think I wouldn’t know?’

Her throat tightened. She made herself shrug lightly. ‘You seemed to be having such a good time, I was merely trying to be tactful.’

His brows rose. ‘You mean, the lovely Vanessa?’ he asked sardonically. ‘Divorced, available and a last-minute addition to the guest list, as she artlessly revealed over the soup? Who’d arrived by taxi but was
so
hoping for a lift home? That Vanessa?’

He gave an impatient sigh. ‘For God’s sake, Marin, it was Diana trying to set me up. Couldn’t you see that? God help me, I was sending out Mayday signals to you from the middle of dinner, but you were clearly too busy to notice, so I was stuck with her.’

‘Not many men would have found her company a hardship,’ she said defiantly.

‘I’m sure that’s true,’ Jake agreed politely. ‘She was certainly easy on the eye, and eager to please. Unfortunately, she was also drenched in my least favourite scent. I was still reeking of it when I came upstairs, which is why I took a shower.’ He paused. ‘In case you were wondering.’

‘I wasn’t,’ Marin said. It was her turn to hesitate. ‘But why would Mrs Halsay do such a thing?’

He shrugged again. ‘I presume in order to demonstrate to her husband that I’m still an unreliable, womanising bastard not safe to be allowed near any good-looking woman,’ he returned caustically. ‘And your sudden retired—hurt departure wouldn’t have helped matters, either,’ he added with a touch of grimness. ‘You’d certainly get the sympathy vote from a lot of people.’

‘I wasn’t looking for that.’ She gestured helplessly. ‘I don’t expect you to understand, but I’d just had enough.’

His mouth tightened. ‘I know the feeling.’ He paused. ‘Now turn round and I’ll see what I can do with that zip.’ As she obeyed, he added curtly, ‘I suggest you breathe in very deeply. And keep still.’

Easier said than done, she thought, when her whole being seemed to be shivering, anticipating the first brush of his hand against her skin. But maybe by dint of tensing every muscle and holding her breath at the same time she might be able to hide the deep inner trembling she could neither deny nor control—at least for a moment or two.

She felt his warm breath stir the soft tendrils of hair on the nape of her neck as he hooked his fingers into the back of her dress, easing it carefully away from her body.

He gave a quiet whistle. ‘You seem to have caught half the lining,’ he commented. ‘Maybe we should admit defeat and send for those scissors.’ He waited for a moment, then added. ‘Unless you really want me to try.’

She said, dry-mouthed, ‘Yes.’ And then, ‘Please.’

Realising for the first time, as she did so, exactly what she was inviting. And knowing with mingled shame and excitement that she would not change a thing.

It was sheer torment, she soon realised, to stand there feeling his cool fingers moving against her naked spine.

Although, admittedly, there was nothing remotely sexual in his touch. He was simply doing what he’d been asked, no more.

But the aching, quivering sensations inside her that seemed to be spreading to every nerve-ending she possessed told her that it was enough. Even—too much.

Hidden in the folds of her skirt, her hands were curling into fists, the nails scoring the soft palms as she fought to maintain the semblance of outward control.

Jake said, ‘Let’s see…’ Then, ‘Ah,’ on a note of quiet triumph as the zip moved down a little.

He added, ‘Can you hold your breath for me once more?’

She said, ‘No problem.’

Nor was it, she thought, because it gave her the perfect excuse to be breathless afterwards, for her voice to sound husky.