A Man To Tame - Rachel Lindsay (Roberta Leigh) (18 page)

Kate swallowed hard. When Felicity
had first started to speak she had been sure she was lying, but now it was no
longer possible to doubt her, and this made a lie of everything Joshua had said
yesterday afternoon. Yet why had he said it? Had he been carried away by
gratitude for what she had done for Janey? Was it because he had guessed she
was in love with him and he had wanted to give her some happiness, even though
he had known it to be a deception ? Shame engulfed her
and she was conscious only of a rushing sound in her ears, so that for several
moments Felicity's voice was heard as a meaningless blur. It was only as
Joshua's name was mentioned again that she was able to absorb the words with
any sense.

'Naturally I'll miss living in a
city,' Felicity was saying, ‘but at least I'll feel more secure to have Joshua
living down here. I don't blame him for the way women throw themselves at him.'

‘You're very understanding,' Kate
said huskily.

'One has to be—with Joshua!' A
slender white hand pushed back a heavy fall of dark hair.
‘I
made thee
same play for him myself—-that’s how I know how susceptible he is. I suppose
you think I'm very cynical about him, but it's much better to know a person's
faults, don't you think?'

‘Your question sounds a general
one,' Kate said carefully, ‘but I feel you're particularising,
so I'd rather not answer.'

'How diplomatic
of you!'

'And sensible,' Kate asserted. 'I
see Joshua from a different point of view.'

'He sees you differently too,'
Felicity agreed. ‘You intrigue him because you weren't bowled over by him the
way most women are. And also because you give the impression
of being a career woman only.'

Kate set down her cup abruptly and
stood up. She could take no more of this conversation and had to leave this
warm flower-filled room before she made a complete fool of herself and burst
into tears.

'Is anything wrong?' Felicity asked
in surprise. ‘You've gone awfully pale.'

'It's the fire.' Kate said the
first thing that came into her head. 'I—I was injured in a fire and I still
don't like seeing flames.'

'Oh dear, I am sorry.' Felicity
jumped up and stood in front of the grate as if trying to hide it. 'Let's go
into the kitchen instead.'

‘I’ll feel better if I can continue
my walk,' Kate said. 'I don't get much opportunity for exercise during the
week.'

'I do a lot of swimming in Joshua's
pool,' Felicity replied. 'I was going to swim there this morning, but the rain
stopped me, so I did some preliminary sketches of Janey's head.'

'Is she better, today?' Kate asked.

'She's fine. I'll be starting the
portrait proper tomorrow. I'm hoping to get several sittings done before Joshua
comes back.'

Too work fast' Kate spoke without
thinking, only on getting out.

'I bided my time with Joshua,' Felicity
chuckled. ‘Sol feel I can work a bit faster with his
daughter.' She opened the door. 'Are you sure you want
'tp
continue with
your walk? I can easily drive you home.'

‘I’ll be fine in the open air,'
Kate said, and with a^ slight wave of her hand hurried blindly down the path.

What a fool she had been to let
herself believe Joshua had fallen, in love with her! Why hadn't she seen that
it was only her antagonism towards him which had aroused his desire to flirt
with her and show her that— like most women—she was equally ^susceptible to his
masculine charm? Tears of humiliation coursed down her cheeks. How could he
have had the gall to telephone her this morning and pretend that what had
happened yesterday had been real? Did he believe he could keep his engagement
to Felicity a secret, or hadn't he bothered to think that far ahead?’

She reached the breast of the hill
and paused to catch her breath. The view was beautiful, but she was in no mood
to admire it. All she could think of was ‘her
stupidity. Well, she was not going to be stupid any more; nor would she let
Joshua Howard know she had been taken in by him. She would make it abundantly
clear that she had been flirting with him—playing him at his own game, in fact.
'A game for two,' she thought bitterly. That was something Joshua Howard had
yet to learn.

She had to get away from here, Kate realised, and tried to think of a reason she could
give Joshua for wanting to return to London. Everyone that came to mind sounded
like an excuse and she finally reached the conclusion that it would be better
not to give any reason at all. Let him read into it what he liked. If only
there were different ways in which she could read his behaviour towards her!
But no matter from what angle she looked at it, it all appeared the same: he
bad found her antagonism of him provocative and had decided to show her she was
as susceptible to him as all the other women he knew. The fact that he had
succeeded so quickly must have given him a great deal of satisfaction, she
thought bitterly, and wondered how he had equated it with his conscience. Or
didn't he mind flirting with one woman - while he was making arrangements to
marry another? But then men like Joshua were so used to getting their own way
that they never saw reason to judge themselves. They did what they wanted; they
took what they desired and they rejected what they no longer wished to have. As
Joshua would have rejected her once he had finally achieved her submission.

Lying in bed that night she thought
over all they had said to each other in Janey's room, and hoped against hope
that she had not given herself away. The fact that she had responded to his
kisses was something she could not deny
but it was the way she
behaved to him in the future that would affect his opinion of her. He must
never know how closely she had come to admitting her love for him, even though
she could not deny it from herself.

Pushing back the bedclothes, she
padded over to the window and looked out into the darkness, hoping that the
sight of the moon and the stars twinkling in their infinity of space would make
her appreciate the microcosm on which she lived. Perhaps by diminishing her
world in size she could diminish her emotional need for a man; not just any man
but one in particular. Joshua Howard, with his heavy-lidded glittering dark
eyes and Ms thick black brows that could lift in amusement or scowl in anger
and his strong leonine head covered in glossy black hair lightly frosted with
silver.

'Joshua!' she cried silently, and
rested her burning face against the cool pane.

It
was
a relief when dawn
brought Monday and a working-day that was more than usually full, A new system of air-conditioning had been installed in the
factory and though the warm even temperature was liked, a small percentage of
the men found it increased then-sinus trouble. There was little she could do
for it beyond prescribing antihistamine tablets and she wondered if Joshua ever
counted the cost of all his new innovations and considered it still to be
worthwhile.

At lunch time she avoided the
directors' dining room and went to the canteen, surprised when Dermot joined
her there as she was sipping her coffee.

‘Why didn't you let me know you'd
be eating here?' he grumbled.

'I only decided at the last
minute.'

He grunted and pulled out a chair
beside her. ‘I nearly rang you yesterday and suggested we went for a
spin in the car.'

'What stopped you?'

‘You'd have found an excuse to
refuse me,' he said. ‘When we left Mr Howard on Saturday night you seemed to be
in a trance. What went on between you when you were upstairs?'

‘We made violent love in the
bedroom,' she said with' out expression, and knew a wry amusement as he burst
out laughing.

That would be the day when you
succumbed to violent seduction!'

‘You'd be surprised.'

How right you are.' He went on
grinning. ‘What' about dinner with me tonight—and don't bother dreaming up an
excuse. Make it a plain no, if that's what you'd’ prefer.'

'I intend making it a plain yes,'
she said coolly. ‘But it can't be before eight-thirty. I'm getting quite a full
surgery on Monday evening.'

He gave her a speculative look
which sat oddly on his open countenance. ‘You take your work seriously.'

‘Don't you?'

'It's different for a man.'

‘Why should it be
? My work is as important to me as yours is to you. Don't believe all
that rot about the poet who said that love is woman's whole existence.'

'I bet it would be yours,' he
replied. 'You aren't a dedicated career woman, Kate. '

‘Why use the word dedication ? Men can work at then-jobs with enthusiasm and
still have a wife and family that they love. Why can't women do the same?'

'Because it's the woman who has the
children—and children need their mothers.'

'It's a job that can be shared by
fathers too. More and more young people are doing that today.'

'Only student types,' Dermot
shrugged. 'Can you see Mr Howard doing it?'

The mention of Joshua acted like a
douche of cold water on her, turning the abstract into reality.-'He wouldn't
need to,' she said tonelessly. 'He can afford to pay others to cook for him and
to take care of his children when he has them.'

'He'll need to pay staff too. I
can't see Felicity nursing a baby.'

So Dermot also knew that the
marriage was imminent, ft seemed that everyone knew it except herself. Yet she
had to be sure. 'What makes you think he has marriage in mind? He might prefer
to go on playing the field.'

'Not any more. He let something
slip the other day.

We were talking about Janey and
whether it might be better for her health if she went to school in Switzerland,
and he said it might also be better for his marriage if she did.'

Kate swallowed hard, knowing Joshua
would only send Janey away from home if he wished to bring Felicity into it.
She pushed away her cup and rose.

'About tonight,’ Dermot said. 'I'll
pick you up at eight-thirty, then.'

She nodded and forced a smile.
Things were going to get considerably worse before they got better, for even if
she told Joshua as soon as he got back from New York that she wished to leave, she
would still have to remain here until he found a replacement, and this could
take' several weeks. She might even still be here when he married Felicity.
Muttering that she had to fill in some forms and catch the afternoon post with
them, she half ran from the room, only slowing her pace as she entered the
canteen proper and several of the men greeted her warmly. Under normal
circumstances she would have been delighted by this, seeing it as a sign of the
rapport she had established with so many of them. Now it was no longer
important; all that counted was how quickly she could leave Llanduff and put
Joshua out of her life.

It was while she was waiting for
Dermot to collect her that evening that the telephone rang and some blind
instinct told her it was Joshua.

‘Would you answer the telephone for
me?' she called to her housekeeper, 'and if it's from America, please say I've
gone out with Mr Kane.'

For a split second Mrs Pugh stared
at her, then as the phone rang again she answered it.
Kate's instinct had been right It was a call from
Washington and, after briefly relating what Kate had told her, Mrs Pugh
replaced the receiver.

‘I
think you'd better take all the telephone calls for the
next few days,' Kate said shakily. 'I—I don't want to talk to Mr Howard.'

The arrival of Dermot absolved
her-from finding a reason for what Mrs Pugh obviously considered most
extraordinary behaviour, but when she learned that Kate was returning to London
she would form her own deductions. Meanwhile Dermot was waiting to entertain
her, and she must smile and talk and pretend that inside she was not shattered
into pieces.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Joshua called once more from
America, but hearing for the second time that Kate was not available, he did
not call again. She knew from Dermot that his return home had been delayed and
saw his absence as a reprieve, -knowing that the longer she did not see him the
more chance she had of coming to terms with her love for Mm, and also of being
able to hide it.

But on Friday when she walked
across the car park and saw the silver grey Porsche, her heart leapt into her
throat. Entering the building she was so on edge that she had the feeling
Joshua was going to appear at every door she passed, and it was all she could
do not to break into a run to try and reach the safety of her surgery more
quickly.

She was donning her white jacket ‘when
Nurse Evans came in Jo say that Joshua wished to see her, and knowing that the
longer she put off obeying his summons the worse it would be, she smoothed her
hair and went up to the top floor. She was shaking inside, but the starched
crackle of her jacket helped stiffen her pride, making her remember her medical
degree and that she was different from all the other women Joshua had flirted
with. To begin with it had been a difference he had deplored; now it made him
want to prove that she was as vulnerable to Mm as all the other women he knew.
'But I have to make Mm believe that he's totally misread me,' she told herself.
That's the only way I can save my pride.’

Joshua was sitting in the big black
leather chair behind his vast teak desk as she came into his
office,
and
he jumped up at once and came round the side of it, hands outstretched. 'Oh, Kate, how I've missed you!’ His voice was deep and
quite unlike the sharp incisive one she had expected. He went to take her in his
arms, but she quickly sat down in a chair and gave him a flashing smile.

‘Did you have a good trip, Joshua?'

'A busy one.' He flung her a puzzled glance but remained leaning against
the edge of Ms desk, arms slack at his sides. 'Did you
miss me, Kate?'