For Revenge or Redemption? (17 page)

Alive and animated with wanting, she could feel the restraint in him, the reined-in passion that he was even now controlling as his lips moved over her face, her neck, her breasts, then down and down, tracing an exquisite path across the most changed and maternal features of her body.

He always had been the most incredible lover, she thought through a drugged and sensuous lethargy, but never more impeccable than this!

Her breath caught sharply at the undeniable pleasure as his lips traced over that most secretive part of her, aware of her need for tenderness, yet aware too of her craving for fulfilment.

Under his consummate mouth, Grace felt a fire starting to build, felt the flames of need leaping and licking upwards through the very core of her femininity until they were too hot to contain, finally exploding in a throbbing inferno that left her sobbing with pleasure, and suddenly gasping with the need for him to stop.

She was so unbelievably sensitive; she couldn’t believe how incredibly so as the throes of her orgasm ebbed away. She was too sensitive to be touched any more like that, but she still wanted the one and only thing he could give her—
him.

Damp, flushed and dishevelled, with a choked murmur of desire she reached for him, but he was already drawing away from her, and a groan of bitter disappointment escaped her when she saw him getting up.

He didn’t need her. Not in the way she needed him. Perhaps he had in the beginning, but perhaps he had accepted that that wasn’t enough.

‘You drive me to distraction,’ she heard him whisper, his breathing laboured, but then he left her, and a little later she heard the back door closing downstairs.

Out in the blustery wind, with Truffle at his heels, Seth strode out across the beach, walking off his frustration.

Had it been a mistake, marrying as they had without giving themselves time to get to know each other? He wasn’t sure whether, at the time, he’d really known himself whether it was right for the two of them to try to build a life together. He’d only known that he couldn’t let any child he’d created suffer in the way that he had.

She’d accused him once, he thought, of marrying her for the doors that she could open for him, and he couldn’t deny that in the beginning it had crossed his mind. A sort of added bonus to the knowledge that she was carrying his child. But that was all it had been—a fleeting thought—because he had never needed anything but his own energies and determination to get the things he set his mind on getting. And the one thing he had been determined to get was Grace in his bed on a permanent basis!

But things had backfired on him, things he hadn’t envisaged when he had set out to put a wedding ring on her finger. He almost laughed out loud at the way he had thought how smoothly and easily her capitulation to his irresistible charms could be achieved.

She could be in his bed—if he was ruthless enough to forget all that prevented him from exercising that right. But did he want what he had been determined to have—even if he could, without any risk to Grace or the baby—with a whole heap of pride, suspicion and mistrust cooling their bed?

He clicked his tongue for the dog as a squally shower started to blow in off the sea. He only knew that they couldn’t go on in the way they were going. Things had changed since the day
he had taken her as his bride. Fundamentally changed—for him, at any rate.

After the baby was born, he resolved, gritting his teeth against what he had to do and stepping out against the rain that was already soaking his shirt, he would have to tell her the truth.

N
ADIA
was fussing around her month-old grandson as if she was the first woman who had ever become a grandmother. The twins, too, had each been to see Grace and Seth at the cottage during the first week of their foster nephew’s arrival who, much to their delight had been named Cory—after their father, Seth’s foster father—and Matthew, after Grace’s father.

‘Whatever anyone else does, Seth always has to go one better,’ his younger brother, Alvin—who was as every bit as copper-haired and mischievous as his twin sister—had jested, referring to the fact that little Cory Matthew had arrived on the scene weighing nearly ten pounds. ‘There should be a law against people like him. You could have killed the girl,’ he’d scolded jovially; as everyone had been informed, it hadn’t exactly been an easy labour. But then he’d slapped Seth firmly on the shoulder with an unmistakably proud, ‘Well done, bro.’

‘If ever you need a babysitter, just let me know,’ Alicia had begged eagerly, while her mother had wagged a finger in her direction and warned her about getting broody too soon. ‘OK, I suppose I won’t have much time with my studies,’ she’d relented wistfully. ‘But while Seth and Grace are looking for a family home nearer London, perhaps now and again I might be able to borrow the dog?’

They had all laughed at that, but Grace had been aware of a distinct unease behind Seth’s smile.

Now several weeks on, with the twins having returned to their respective studies, and Cory upstairs in the nursery under the proud supervision of the very capable Nadia, Seth suggested that he and Grace take a drive alone.

‘Cory will be fine,’ he insisted when she started to express concern over leaving the baby. It was, after all, the first time she had been anywhere without her son. ‘Trust me. My mother’s an expert at looking after babies,’ he said reassuringly and then, his tone turning more sombre, added, ‘Grace…we have to talk.’

Something in the way he said that made her stomach muscles clench almost sickeningly. She had known this was coming. She just hadn’t realised that it would be so soon.

He didn’t say anything as he handed her into the car, not until they were on the tree-flanked road where the turning leaves made a flaming canopy over their heads.

‘I think you know why I’ve brought you out, Grace.’

She glanced at his magnificent figure, casually attired, as she was, in jeans and a light sweater. Looking quickly away again, stalling for time, she said lightly, ‘For a drive. Why else?’ Her heart, though, was beating wildly and her mouth felt dry.

‘Because I think you know as well as I do that things haven’t exactly worked out in the way we’d hoped. And that things can’t go on in the way they have been.’

‘No.’ It was a brave attempt to be as practical and realistic as he was.

‘Then at least that’s half the battle sorted.’

Numbly she uttered, ‘I hadn’t realised we were fighting a battle.’

He sent her a dubious glance before returning his attention to the road again.

‘A cold war—and that’s far, far worse.’ Deftly he turned the wheel, braking into a bend, before putting his foot down to bring them swiftly yet safely back onto a straight course again. ‘I’m sure you’ll agree that it isn’t a very sound basis on which to build a marriage.’

Achingly she turned away, pulling down the visor to counteract the dappled sunlight that was playing on the windscreen. He’d been different over the past few weeks—no less attentive, yet somehow more distant, preoccupied—although through the long, hard hours when she had been giving birth to his son he hadn’t left her side.

‘Your family thinks we’re very happy. What are you going to tell them?’

‘This doesn’t concern them.’ He brought the car up the steep hill, flicked on the indicator and started slowing down, eventually pulling up on the high area of scrubland where he had parked that day back in the spring when he had first brought her here. ‘This is something that only concerns you and me.’

She noticed how the passengers in the car that had been following them glanced back at the Aston Martin as they passed, admiring its low, sleek lines.

‘I thought it would be enough,’ he stated heavily, turning off the ignition. Something in his voice and the way he sat back on his seat almost with an air of resigned acceptance seemed to squeeze her heart like it was in a vice. ‘I thought that expecting and having a child, planning for its future, would be enough to build a relationship on—help us grow together. But it isn’t enough, is it, Grace?’

What was he saying? That he wanted out now? It hurt too much even to consider that possibility.

‘It doesn’t seem to have been, no.’ She lifted her chin in defence against the pain, the emotion, that was threatening to overwhelm her. She had to contain it. Stay strong. But how
could she when her whole world felt as if it was being torn apart?

‘I’m sorry.’ His glance took in the rigidity of her pale, tense features, his apology only for the way he was making her feel. ‘But I think it’s time that one of us, at least, started telling the truth.’

So this was it, the moment she had been dreading, when he explained what it was that had robbed him from her bed. That had taken him away from her—mentally as well as physically—more and more often over the past couple of months, even if he thought she wasn’t aware of it. Oh, he had done it discreetly; she had to hand him that. But every woman knew when her husband’s attentions were being claimed by something—or someone—else, eventually.

‘Who is she?’ She couldn’t stop herself asking the question, even though she couldn’t bear to know the answer and, noticing the line that deepened between the darkening steel of his eyes; she persisted with, ‘Who is it, Seth?’

His face was ravaged by some dark emotion she couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

‘Seth, please…’ It was an agonised whisper. ‘I’ve a right to know.’

Seth’s breath seemed to shudder through his lungs. ‘I suppose you do,’ he said in a low voice. Then, surprisingly, he caught her hand, turning it over and studying it intently, as though he were trying to memorise every last detail of its slender, trembling structure.

She didn’t trust any man. How could she, he thought, after the experiences she had suffered in the past? She hadn’t exactly been ecstatic about getting pregnant and finding herself married to him in the first place, and there had been very little to commend the other men in her life: Paul Harringdale. Lance Culverwell. Her father. So what chance had he imagined there could possibly be for him where the others had failed?

‘I suppose,’ he said, his voice hesitant, as though he were picking his words carefully. ‘I suppose you could say that she’s a very special lady.’

Grace closed her eyes. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, let him see the torture he was putting her through. ‘And you’re saying you want out of our marriage—is that it?’

His face was slashed with harsh lines. ‘Is that what you want me to say? What you’ve wanted all along?’

She didn’t answer. How could he say that?

‘I’m well aware that you felt bullied into marrying me. So why did you, Grace?’

‘You know why.’

‘Tell me. I want to hear you say it.’

She saw his gaze drop to her throat, to the way it worked nervously as she uttered with a painfully disguised version of the truth, ‘Because of Cory.’

He nodded, but his face was an inscrutable mask. ‘And that’s all?’

What did he want her to say? What was he trying to do—wring the truth out of her until there was nothing left? No dignity? No pride? No self-respect?

‘No, it isn’t, you bastard!’ Her chin jerked upwards as she turned away from him. No way was she going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. ‘So, now you know.’ She was fumbling in her bag for a tissue, but couldn’t find one, and when he held out a folded white handkerchief she snatched it from him and blew her nose. ‘So, what’s she like?’ Sightlessly, her eyes were fixed on the boats and waterside apartments way off in the distance. ‘This
special
lady.’ She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

When he didn’t answer immediately she sent a guarded look in his direction. Those steely eyes were such dark pools of emotion she felt as though she were drowning in their fathomless depths.

Finally he said, ‘Simple. Honest. Uncomplicated.’

It sounded like the echo of something one of them had said a long time ago, but she was too miserable to work out where or when it had been.

‘In fact,’ he breathed, his tone so velvety-soft that it seemed to brush across her senses, ‘I think I can safely say that she’s almost as beautiful as you are.’

She couldn’t believe he was saying this! Or that she was allowing him to touch her as his fingers strayed across her cheek, tracing the shamefully wet path of her tears.

Even now his touch was unbearably arousing, the scent of his aftershave lotion that still clung to his fingers so achingly dear to her that she could so easily have succumbed to all that he was doing to her, and cried out that she didn’t care if he had a thousand mistresses as long as he didn’t tear her and their marriage apart like this.

‘I really think you should meet her.’

Meet her!

Hurting more than she could believe it was possible to hurt, she pulled back angrily from the dangerous seduction of his touch.

‘What the hell are you talking about? What is it you want, Seth—my approval? Or is it my total humiliation you want?’

Quietly, he said, ‘It was never my intention to make you this unhappy.’ His face was marked with an almost painful intensity. ‘I want you to believe that. But I also want you to trust me when I say that what I’m asking of you now is for the best.’ His words seemed to tremble from somewhere deep down inside him.

Was that how much he loved her, this woman who was so special to him? At that moment Grace knew a jealousy so fierce that it seemed to consume her.

On a bitter sob, she said, ‘Why? To salve your conscience? Haven’t you done enough to me already?’

He remained silent for a moment while a nerve started to pulse in that angular jaw.

‘I know it might not feel like it to you right at this minute,’ he responded at length, taking his keys out of the ignition. ‘But anything you think I’ve done, my love, has all been in your own mind.’

Like expecting her to meet the woman he really loved? Like flaunting his mistress in the way he had flaunted his money, his influence and his power?

A flame of colour surged into her cheeks as bitterly she threw back, ‘You set out to destroy me from the beginning. Wasn’t that your intention all along?’

His lashes came down as though he were blotting out some truth he didn’t want to deal with. But then, exhaling heavily, he admitted, ‘In the beginning—yes, I am ashamed to say that I wanted to see you eating humble pie. But then Cory came on the scene—’

‘And suddenly your little game of revenge wasn’t quite so funny, was it?’

‘No,’ he murmured, his dark features serious. Contrite, she would have said, if she hadn’t felt him incapable of such an emotion. ‘It wasn’t funny at all.’

Pain corrugated her forehead as she stared out of the passenger window at the red, gold and amber trees that sloped steeply down the hillside, obscuring the tiny bay below.

She’d always known that for him, where she was concerned, all they had going for them was sex. He’d been as driven as she was by the passion that gripped them whenever they came together. But somewhere along the way, while she had fallen deeply and impossibly in love with him, he had met someone else and finally decided that what he had with Grace wasn’t enough.

‘Come on’ she heard him say gently through her darkening despair. ‘This isn’t doing either of us any good. I think we should take a walk.’

She didn’t want to. She didn’t have the will or the energy to move, and wouldn’t have if he hadn’t come round to her side and urged her out of the car.

‘Why can’t we just go home?’ she uttered bleakly, wondering how her legs were going to support her when there was nothing inside her but emptiness.

‘Because we both need some fresh air,’ he insisted, his hand firm, strong and warm around hers as he tugged her after him down the wooded hillside.

The trees grew thickly in places, and Seth pulled back a branch that encroached over the path so that it wouldn’t swing back in her face, his manner caring, at odds with everything that was happening between them. The crisp, dry leaves that had already fallen rustled under their feet, and were still falling—like yesterday’s dreams, Grace thought almost unbearably—even as they made their way shorewards.

And suddenly the trees ended and they were stepping out onto the beach, which was protected by a promontory of low rocks immediately to the right of them.

‘There,’ Seth said softly. ‘The lady I want you to meet.’ As he spoke it dawned on Grace that they had skirted the headland on their way down through the woods and were standing on the spot where she had come across him on that fateful day all those years before. ‘There she is.’

But the beach was deserted, save for a gull that took off with a shriek of protest as their shoes scrunched across the shingle. And the dinghy, on its trailer, just as before.

The sun struck bronze from her gleaming cedar hull and her orange sail was folded neatly against her mast.

It could have been the same sailboat that Seth had been so proud of and which she had practically scoffed at as a spoilt
teenager, Grace realised, amazed. Yet she knew it wasn’t the same one. This one was new, a replica, lovingly built down to the last detail. But it was the name, painstakingly painted with the same degree of care and loving commitment in gold scripted lettering on the side, that drew the gasp from her lips:

LORELEI

The sea nymph he had likened her to all those years ago!

‘She lured me to my fate the day she stumbled upon me on this very beach,’ Seth was saying. ‘Which was to love her—regardless. Without mercy. Unconditionally. Without any reprieve.’

She couldn’t take in what he was saying, nor was she able to speak. Her voice, like her heart, was clogged with so much emotion: shock. Disbelief. Bewilderment.