Pride & Consequence Omnibus (20 page)

However, as Leo followed the agent back to his office, so that they could complete the paperwork for the rental, it wasn’t so much the new temporary home he had acquired that was occupying his thoughts as the agent’s revelations about Jodi.

Just why was it that everyone seemed to think that Jodi was a paragon of all the virtues? There was no way that he could be wrong about her, was there?

But later on in the day as he drove back to his hotel he was aware of a small and very unwanted niggling doubt that somehow just would not be silenced. Was it realistic for him to believe that so many other people were wrong and that he was right? Common sense told him that it wasn’t!

But nothing changed the fact that Jodi had still, most definitely, been in his bed!

* * *

Jodi forced herself to smile at the group of fathers gathered in a huddle outside the school gates, talking to one another whilst they kept a protective eye on their children.

The factory operated a shift system, which meant that quite a large proportion of the families where both parents worked split the task of delivering and collecting their offspring from school. Fathers for some reason seemed to favour afternoon school runs, and if Jodi hadn’t still been preoccupied with her thoughts of Leo Jefferson she would have stopped for a chat.

As it was, whilst walking past she registered the fact that the men were discussing the possible closure of the factory, and how they intended to make their objections known.

‘We should do something to stop the closure!’ someone protested angrily. ‘We can’t just stand by and lose our jobs, our livelihood.’

‘What we need to do is to stage a demonstration,’ another man was insisting.

A demonstration! Well, Jodi couldn’t blame them for wanting to make their feelings public; she would be tempted to do exactly the same thing if anyone was to threaten to close her beloved school.

A tiny frown creased her forehead. These parents were the very ones who had supported her unstintingly in her determination to keep the school open, and in her fund-raising to make sure that the school retained its adjacent playing field. The very least she could do, surely, was to support them in turn now. And her feelings about Leo Jefferson had nothing to do with it...

Retracing her footsteps, she walked back towards the small group.

‘I couldn’t help overhearing what you were just saying about demonstrating against the closure of the factory,’ she began. ‘If you do—’ she took a deep breath ‘—you can certainly count on my support.’

‘What, publicly?’ one of them challenged her.

‘Publicly!’ Jodi confirmed firmly. As she spoke she had the clearest mental image of Leo Jefferson, watching her with icy-eyed contempt across Mary and Graham’s dinner-table...

* * *

‘Leo... Have you got a moment?’

Halfway across the hotel foyer, Leo stopped as Nigel Marsh came hurrying towards him.

‘Look, I was wondering if we might have a word?’

Leo frowned as he looked at Jodi’s cousin. The younger man looked both slightly uncomfortable and at the same time very determined.

Shooting back the cuff of his jacket, Leo glanced at his watch before telling him crisply, ‘I can give you ten minutes.’

Nigel looked relieved.

‘Thanks. I just wanted to have a word with you about Jodi...my cousin...you met her the other evening.’

He was speaking as though Leo might have forgotten just who Jodi was, Leo recognised, wondering just what Nigel Marsh would say if Leo was to tell him that Jodi was someone he would never be able to forget.

However, Leo had no intention of revealing any such thing. Instead he replied with dry irony, ‘You mean the schoolteacher.’

Nigel gave him a relieved look.

‘Yes. Look, I know she must have come across to you as...as having a bit of a bee in her bonnet about your takeover—’

‘She certainly has plenty of attitude,’ Leo cut in coolly, causing Nigel to check himself. ‘And a very hostile attitude where I’m concerned,’ Leo continued crisply.

‘It isn’t anything personal,’ Nigel denied immediately. ‘It’s just that the school means so much to her. She’s worked damned hard to make it successful, and she’s always been the kind of person who is attracted to lame dogs, lost causes... I remember when we were kids, she was always mothering something or someone. I know she went a little bit over-the-top the other night. But she wasn’t expecting to see you there, and I suppose having hyped herself up to put her case to you at the hotel the night before and then having chickened out...’

He stopped suddenly, looking uncomfortably self-conscious, realising that he had said more than he should, but it was too late; Leo was already demanding sharply, ‘Would you mind explaining that last comment, please?’

Even more uncomfortably Nigel did as he had been requested.

Leo waited until he had finished before asking him incredulously, ‘You’re saying that Jodi, your cousin, planned to approach me in person in my suite so that she could put the school’s position to me and ask me to reconsider closing down the factory?’

‘I know that technically I shouldn’t have encouraged or helped her,’ Nigel acknowledged, ‘and Graham will probably read me the Riot Act if he finds out, but I just couldn’t not do something. If you really knew her you’d understand that.’

Leo did, and he understood a hell of a lot more now too. Like just why Jodi had been in his room. His room, but not his bed! Had she ordered that nauseating alcoholic concoction to give herself some false courage? And then perhaps over-indulged in it? If so...

Nigel was still speaking and he forced himself to listen to what he was saying.

‘Jodi deserves a break. She’s battled so hard for the school. First to improve the teaching standards enough to get in more pupils, and then more recently against Jeremy Driscoll, to prevent him from acquiring the school’s playing field.’

‘I’d heard something about that,’ Leo acknowledged.

‘Jeremy wasn’t at all pleased about the fact that he lost that piece of land. And, as I’ve already warned Jodi, she’s made a dangerous enemy in him. It’s no secret that he isn’t at all well-liked locally.’ Nigel gave a small grimace of distaste. ‘Jodi can’t stand him and I don’t blame her.’

Leo started to frown, silently digesting what he was hearing. Nigel Marsh was the second person to tell him that Jodi didn’t like Jeremy Driscoll.

Which meant...which meant that he had—perhaps—misjudged her on two counts. Yes, but that didn’t explain away her extraordinary sensuality towards him in bed.

If he was to accept everyone else’s opinion, such behaviour was totally out of character. As was his own, Leo was forced to acknowledge.

‘I know that Jodi went a bit too far the other night,’ Nigel was continuing, ‘But in her defence I feel I have to say that she does have a point; without the factory—’

‘Her precious school would be in danger of being closed down,’ Leo interjected for him.

‘We’re a rural area, and it would be very hard to replace so many lost jobs,’ Nigel said. ‘That would mean that for people to find work they would have to move away, and so yes, ultimately the school could potentially be reduced to the position it was in when Jodi took over. But she’s the kind of person who has always been sensitive to the feelings of others, and it is her concern for them that is motivating her far more than any concern she might have for her own career.’

He gave Leo a wry look.

‘As a matter of fact, I happen to know that she’s already been approached by a private school who are willing to pay her very well to go to them, and to include a package of perks that would include free education for her children were she to have any.’

‘She isn’t involved in a relationship with anyone, though, is she?’ Leo couldn’t stop himself from asking.

Fortunately Nigel did not seem to find anything odd in Leo’s sudden question, shaking his head and informing him openly, ‘Oh, no. She’s one very picky lady, is my cousin. Casual relationships are just not her style, and as yet she hasn’t met anyone she wants to become seriously involved with.’

‘A career woman?’ Leo hazarded.

‘Well, she certainly loves her work,’ Nigel conceded, then changed the subject to tell Leo apologetically, ‘Look, I’ve taken up enough of your time. I hope you don’t mind me bending your ear on Jodi’s behalf.’

‘I’m half-Italian,’ Leo responded with a brief shrug. ‘Family loyalty is part of my heritage.’

It was the truth, and if he was honest Leo knew he would have to admit that he admired Nigel Marsh for his spirited defence of his cousin. But their conversation had left Leo with some questions only one person could answer—Jodi herself. But would she answer them? And would it really be wise of him to ask them and to risk becoming more involved with her?

More involved? Just how much more involved was it possible for two people to actually be? Leo wondered ironically.

* * *

Jodi closed her eyes and took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the soft, warm evening air. It was three days since she had last seen Leo Jefferson but he had never been far from her thoughts, even when she should, by rights, have been concentrating on other things. The committee meeting for the school’s sports day, which she had attended two nights ago, for instance, and the impromptu and far less organised meeting she had attended last night to discuss the proposed demonstration outside the factory.

Feelings were running very high indeed with regard to the possible closure and, although Jodi had spoken to Nigel about it, he had not been able to tell her anything.

‘Leo Jefferson has been in London, tied up in various meetings,’ he had explained to her.

What he couldn’t tell her, for professional reasons, was that they had been informed there was a very real possibility that Jeremy Driscoll was going to be investigated with regard to anomalies in the stock records and accounts. It seemed there were considerable discrepancies involved for which no rational explanation had as yet been forthcoming.

Nigel had heard on the grapevine that Jeremy Driscoll was claiming the discrepancies had been caused by employee theft, and it was true that he had made insurance claims for such losses. However, the authorities were by no means convinced by his explanation, and it seemed that Leo Jefferson too was now questioning the validity of the accounts he had been provided with prior to buying the business.

Overhead, as Jodi climbed the narrow footpath that led to one of her favourite places, Ashton House—the beautiful Georgian manor house set in its own grounds outside the village—she could hear a blackbird trilling.

It had been agreed at last night’s meeting that the workforce would start the demonstration tomorrow morning. Jodi was planning to join the demonstrators after school had finished for the day. As a student she had done her fair share of demonstrating, for both human- and animal-rights groups, and then, as now, as she had firmly explained to the committee, she was vehemently opposed to any kind of violence being used.

‘I think we’re all agreed on that point,’ one of the mothers of Jodi’s pupils had confirmed. ‘I just wish it didn’t have to come to this. We’ve tried to initiate talks with this Leo Jefferson, but he says that he doesn’t consider it appropriate to meet with us at the moment.’

Leo!

Jodi closed her eyes and released her breath on a sigh.

She might not have seen him for three days, but that did not mean... Hastily she opened her eyes. She wasn’t going to think about those dreams she kept on having night after night, or what they might mean. Dreams in which she was back in his hotel suite...his bed...his arms. They were just dreams, that was all. They didn’t mean that she wanted a repetition of what had happened between them. The fact that she had woken up last night just in time to hear herself moaning his name meant nothing at all...and neither did the shockingly physical ache that seemed to be constantly tormenting her body whenever she forgot to control it.

And as for those shockingly savage kisses she kept dreaming about... Well, those just had to be a product of her own fevered imagination, didn’t they?

CHAPTER FIVE

L
EO
FROWNED
AS
he heard the sound of someone walking along the footpath that skirted round the boundary to Ashton House. He had moved in officially that morning, having organised a cleaning team to go through the house ahead of him. He was now exploring the garden and coming to the conclusion that it was going to take a dedicated team of gardeners to restore it to anything like its former glory.

He had spent the last few days in London, locked in a variety of meetings concerning both his acquisition of the factories and their future. And now it seemed the authorities wanted to open enquiries into the financial workings of the Frampton factory, in particular whilst it had been under Jeremy Driscoll’s management.

If he did decide to keep the factory going he would first of all need to make a decision about what to do with the other sites.

One of them housed the oldest factory, with an out-of-date production line and a depleted workforce, and was a natural choice to be closed down.

Of the other three...if he opted to keep Frampton in production he would have to either sell off the factory adjacent to the motorway system or change its usage to that of a distribution unit.

If he did that... Leo tensed as the walker drew level with the gate in his walled garden that gave on to the path, and he had a clear view of her.

Jodi Marsh!

Jodi saw Leo at exactly the same time as he saw her. The sight of him froze her in her tracks. What was Leo Jefferson doing in the garden of Ashton House? Her house. The house she had secretly wanted from the first minute she had seen it!

Before she could gather herself together and hurry past he was opening the gate and coming towards her. He stood in front of her, blocking her path.

‘I’d like to talk to you,’ she heard him telling her coolly.

Jodi glared at him, praying that he couldn’t hear the furious, racing thud of her heart or guess just what kind of effect he was having on her.

‘Well, I certainly would not like to talk to you,’ she retaliated.

Liar. Liar! her conscience tormented her silently. And you don’t just want to talk to him either...

Horrified that he might somehow sense what she was feeling, Jodi tried to walk away, but he had already masterfully taken hold of her arm, and as she battled against the dizzying sensation of his touch somehow or other she found that she was being gently but firmly propelled through the gate and into the garden beyond.

She had been in the garden before—at the invitation of the old lady who had lived there who, like Leo, had happened to see her on the path one day.

She had ached then with sadness to see its neglect, and longed to be the one to restore both it and the house to their former glory. Of course that was an impossible dream. Jodi dreaded to imagine just how much money it would take to restore such a large house and so overgrown a garden. Far too much for her, but not, it seemed, too much for Leo Jefferson.

‘Will you please stop manhandling me?’ she demanded angrily as Leo closed the gate, and then her face burned a deep, betraying pink as she saw the way he was looking at her.

If he dared to say one word about anything she might have said to him under the influence of alcohol and desire she would... But to her relief he simply looked at her for several heart-stopping seconds before asking her quietly, ‘What were you doing in my suite?’

Jodi gaped at him. It took her several precious moments to recover from the directness of his question, but finally she did so, rallying admirably to remind him firmly, ‘Well, according to you, I was there because...’ She stopped as he started to shake his head.

‘I don’t want you to tell me what I believed you were doing there, Jodi, I want to hear your version of events.’

Her version. Now he had surprised her. Stubbornly she looked away from him.

‘It doesn’t matter now, does it?’ she challenged him.

‘Doesn’t it? According to your cousin, you were there to ask me to reconsider closing down the factory.’

Flustered, Jodi looked at him before demanding worriedly, ‘You’ve been speaking to Nigel?’

Leo could tell that he had caught her off guard.

‘I told him right from the start that it was a crazy idea, but he wouldn’t listen.’ Barely pausing for breath, she continued, ‘I thought at first he meant that I should talk to you in the hotel foyer, but then he told me that he’d managed to borrow a key card.’

‘And so you went up to the suite to wait for me and whilst you were there you ordered yourself a drink,’ Leo supplied helpfully.

Jodi stared at him.

‘No,’ she denied vehemently, so vehemently that Leo knew immediately she was speaking the truth. Shaking her head, she told him angrily, ‘I would never have ordered a drink without paying for it. No, I asked Nigel to arrange it for me. Nigel thought he’d ordered a soft drink, not—’ She stopped abruptly, clamping her lips together and glowering at Leo.

‘I can’t see what possible relevance any of this has now,’ she began, but Leo was determined to establish exactly what had happened—and why!

‘So whilst you were waiting for me you drank the fruit punch, which was alcoholic, and then...’

Jodi had had enough.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she told him fiercely, ‘and you can’t make me.’

‘You went to bed with me,’ Leo reminded her softly. ‘And from what I’ve learned about you, Jodi Marsh, that is something—’

‘It was nothing,’ Jodi denied sharply. ‘And, anyway, you were the one who went to bed with me. I was already there, asleep.’

‘In my bed...and you—’ Leo stopped abruptly. This wasn’t getting them anywhere and it wasn’t what he wanted to say.

‘Look,’ he told her quietly, ‘it seems that I misjudged the situation...made an error about the reasons for you being there,’ he corrected himself. ‘And, that being the case, I really think that we should discuss—’

‘There isn’t anything I want or need to discuss with you,’ Jodi jumped in tensely.

The fact that he might have mistaken her reason for being in his suite, and even the fact that he was prepared to acknowledge as much, made no difference to what she had done or how she felt about it.

‘What happened just isn’t important enough to warrant discussing,’ she added, determined to bring their conversation to an end, but to her consternation Leo was refusing to let the subject drop.

‘Maybe not to you, but I happen to feel rather differently,’ he said curtly. ‘It is not, let me tell you, my habit to indulge in casual sex with a succession of unknown partners.’

Casual sex! Jodi had to struggle to prevent herself from physically cringing. Was there to be no end to the humiliation her behaviour was forcing her to suffer?

Before she could stop herself she was retorting passionately, ‘For your information, I have not had a succession of partners, and in fact...’

Abruptly she fell silent, her face flushing. No, she must not tell him that! If she did he was bound to start asking even more questions than he already had, and there was absolutely no way she was going to tell him about that idiotic foolishness she had experienced when she had first seen him in the hotel foyer.

No doubt some might claim that she had fallen in love with him at first sight, and that was why...but she, Jodi, was made of sterner and far more realistic stuff. She was a modern-thinking woman and would not contemplate such nonsense!

* * *

What was it about her that infuriated him to the point where he itched to take hold of her and make her listen to him? Leo wondered distractedly, unable to stop himself from focusing on her mouth and remembering how hot and sweet it had tasted. He wanted to kiss her again now, right here. But she was already turning back towards the gate, and a sudden surge of common sense warned him against the folly of going after her and begging her to stay when it so plainly wasn’t what she wanted. But she had wanted him that night. She had wanted him and he had wanted her right back. And for him the problem was that he still did.

‘Jodi?’ he began, making a last attempt to talk to her, but, as he had already known she would, she shook her head.

‘No, I...’

She barely had time to give a disbelieving and indignant gasp before she was dragged unceremoniously and ruthlessly into Leo’s arms, and held there tightly.

Against his ardent seeking mouth she tried to make a protest, but it was smothered immediately by the hot passion of his kiss...dizzying her, bemusing her, confusing her, so that somehow instead of repudiating him she was actually moving closer, reaching out to him...

Somewhere deep in her brain a warning bell started to ring, but Jodi ignored it, Leo was kissing her and there was no way she wanted anything, least of all some silly old warning bell, to come between her and the sheer intensity and excitement, the total bliss, of feeling his mouth moving possessively and passionately against her own.

‘Mmm...’

Leo could feel the heavy, crazy thud of his heartbeat as Jodi suddenly dropped her defensive attitude and became so soft, so pliable, so bewitchingly and adorably warm in his arms that he was sorely tempted to pick her up and carry her straight to his bed.

But a bird calling overhead suddenly brought Jodi to her senses; white-faced and shaking, she pulled away from him. How on earth could she have allowed that to happen? Her mouth stung slightly and she had to resist the temptation to run her tongue-tip over it—to comfort it because it was missing the touch of Leo’s? She ached from head to foot and she had started to tremble. Shocked to her heart by her lack of self-control, she cried out to him in a low tortured voice, ‘Don’t you ever touch me again...ever!’

And then she was gone, turning on her heel to flee in wretchedness, her heart throbbing with pain and self-contempt, refusing to stop as she heard Leo calling after her.

* * *

Jodi was still trembling when she reached the security of her own home. She had heard a rumour in the village that Ashton House had a tenant, but it had never occurred to her that it might be Leo Jefferson. Nigel had warned her that Leo had said that the negotiations over which of the factories he intended to close were likely to be protracted, but why did he have to move here to Frampton?

She felt as though there wasn’t a single aspect of her life he hadn’t now somehow penetrated and invaded.

Or a single aspect of herself?

Hurriedly she walked into her small kitchen and started to prepare her supper. Nigel had rung earlier and suggested they have dinner together, but Jodi had told him she was too busy, worried that if she saw him she might inadvertently betray the plans for the demonstration the following day.

Not that they were doing anything illegal, but she knew that Nigel would not entirely approve of her involvement in what was going to happen and would try his best to dissuade her.

She loved her cousin very much, they were in many ways as close as if they had been brother and sister, and she knew how shocked he would be if he was to learn how she had behaved with Leo Jefferson. She felt ashamed herself...but what was making her feel even worse were the dreadful dreams she kept having in which she relived what had happened—and enjoyed it.

Swallowing hard, Jodi tried to concentrate on what she was doing, but somehow she had lost her appetite. For food, that was. Standing in the garden earlier with Leo, there had been a moment when she had looked up at him, at his mouth, and she had never felt so hungry in her life...

* * *

Leo woke up with a start, wondering where he was at first, in the unfamiliarity of his new bedroom at Ashton House. He had been dreaming about Jodi and not for the first time. Reaching for the bedside lamp, he switched it on. The house had been repainted prior to being let and the smell of fresh paint still hung faintly on the air. Leo got out of bed and padded over to the window, pushing back the curtains to stare into the moonlit garden.

In his sleep he had remembered something about Jodi that disturbed him. Something he had not previously properly registered, but something that, knowing what he did now, made perfect sense!

Was it merely his imagination or had there really been a certain something about Jodi’s body that might mean he had in fact been her first lover?

No, it was absurd that he should think any such thing. Totally absurd. She had been so uninhibited, so passionate...

But what if he was right? What if, in addition to having unwittingly drunk the alcoholic concoction supplied by her cousin and fallen asleep, she had been totally inexperienced?

Leo swallowed hard, aware of how very difficult he was finding it to use the word ‘virgin’, even in the privacy of his own thoughts.

But surely if that had been the case she would have said something.

Such as what? he derided himself.
Oh, by the way, before I went to bed with you I was a virgin.

No, that would not be her style at all. She was far too independent, had far too much pride.

But if she had been a virgin...

At no point in the proceedings had she suggested that they should be thinking in terms of having safe sex, and he had certainly not been prepared either emotionally or practically to take on that responsibility, which meant...

There was no way Leo could sleep now. So far as Jodi’s sexual health was concerned, and his own, if he was right and she had been a virgin, he knew he need have no worries, but when it came to the risk of an unplanned pregnancy—that was a very different matter. And one surely that must be concerning Jodi herself.

He would very definitely have to talk to her now, and insist that she give him the answers to his questions.

Closing his eyes, he forced himself to recall every single second of the hours they had spent together—not that there was really any force involved, after all, his body and his senses had done precious little else other than relive the event ever since it had happened. But this time it was different, this time he was looking for clues, signs that he might have previously missed.

There had been that sweetly wonderful closeness between them in their most intimate moments, the feeling of her body being tightly wrapped around him. But she had said nothing. Given no indication that... What in hell’s name had she been doing? he wondered, suddenly as angry for her as though she were his personal responsibility.