Sweet Surrender (7 page)

‘It’s a lovely afternoon,’ she said after a while, to break the brooding silence between them.

‘I wish it wasn’t,’ he said morosely. ‘I hoped it would snow. I’d rather you slept in one of the spare rooms than drive back to Stavely late tonight.’

‘It’s not going to be late,’ she informed him. ‘I’m leaving straight after dinner.’

‘My point exactly. And tomorrow you’re leaving for Foychurch—and who knows when I’ll see you again?’

Kate halted, eyeing him challengingly. ‘Alasdair, I just can’t get to grips with this new enthusiasm for my company. It’s years since I even thought about you much, and don’t tell me you’ve thought about me, either. If at all. Because I refuse to believe it.’

He stared down at her sombrely for a moment, then shrugged. ‘All right. If you want the truth, it was only when I came back here that I started thinking of you again. Even before I caught up with Adam. Just being in the house here again brought back that Christmas when you invited me over to supper at Friars Wood. Because you were afraid I’d be lonely. I remembered what a sweet kid you were, and realised that I’d cared about you more than I knew. Suddenly I wanted to know how you were now, what had happened to you since I saw you last. Getting in touch with Adam wasn’t solely about furniture, Kate.’

‘And Adam, it seems, gave you the impression that I’ve been eating my heart out for you all these years! That must have pleased your male ego, Alasdair.’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ he said flatly, as they resumed their walk. ‘You know Adam’s always been protective about you.’

Kate smiled wryly. ‘You don’t know the half of it. He was furious because I invited you over that Christmas. He was convinced you were some hunk lusting after my body.’

Alasdair let out a crack of laughter. ‘Whereas I was about the only male in your vicinity who wasn’t!’

‘Don’t rub it in! I knew that only too well.’ She sighed theatrically. ‘Sad, really, when I was so desperately in love with you.’

‘Were you really, Kate?’ he said softly, and came to a halt to look down at her. ‘So what did I do to turn you against me?’

‘Nothing, Alasdair. You did nothing at all.’ She said it so flatly sudden comprehension gleamed in his eyes.

‘I
see
. You would have preferred me to lust after you like the rest?’

Kate shook her head. ‘No way. I wanted you to be in
love
with me. Lust wasn’t something I knew much about at the time.’

‘But you’ve learned since?’

‘What do you expect? I’m a teacher, not a nun!’

He laughed, and took her hand in his. ‘So if Adam objected to my presence, why was he so friendly when I turned up that Christmas?’

‘Because you were older than either of us, and very obviously not lusting after me at all. He took one look and decided you were one of the good guys.’ Kate smiled at him. ‘But you worried my sisters no end.’

He turned a surprised look on her. ‘How did I manage that?’

‘By being immune to my youthful charms when I was so obviously bowled over by yours. They never discussed it with me, of course,’ she assured him. ‘But I knew they were worried. I think Leo still is.’

Alasdair stopped dead. ‘Why should she be worried?’

‘Leo wants everyone to live happily ever after, like she does with Jonah.’

‘And she obviously thinks there’s no chance of that for you where I’m concerned?’

‘Right.’ Kate shivered suddenly, and Alasdair took her hand.

‘You’re cold. Let’s go inside.’

‘What are you going to cook for me?’ she asked, as they went back into the warm kitchen.

‘Steak and salad do you?’ he asked, taking her jacket.

‘Perfect. What can I do to help?’

‘Just sit there and look decorative while I slave over a hot stove. How about a drink?’ he added.

‘Do you have brandy?’

‘Finest French cognac,’ he assured her.

‘Ginger ale?’

‘That too.’

Kate grinned. ‘Then I’ll have a teaspoon of your cognac in a tall glass of ginger ale.’

When Alasdair came back from the larder with her drink, and a beer for himself, Kate sipped at hers while she watched him switch on the grill and season a pair of steaks.

‘I can make the salad,’ she offered, but he shook his head.

‘Just sit there and talk to me.’ He looked up with a gleam in his eye. ‘You can do the cooking when I come to your doll’s house.’

Kate gave that some thought, not at all sure she wanted her life in Foychurch disrupted by visits from Alasdair Drummond. Or from anyone else, Jack Spencer included. As she’d told Alasdair, the village was a close-knit community, where everyone had accepted her from the first. Consequently she’d always kept her socialising where men were concerned in Stavely, to save complications.

‘I hesitate to cast a blight over the evening,’ she said, with a sigh, ‘but I don’t think visits to Foychurch are a good idea.’

‘That’s obvious,’ he said shortly, and gave her a tablecloth and a handful of silverware. ‘Lay the table while you explain why.’

Kate did her best, but she could see she was making no headway. ‘I prefer to keep my life there separate,’ she finished lamely. ‘It’s easier that way.’

‘Why?’ Alasdair’s tone was caustic. ‘Was a vow of chastity required when you were taken on at the school?’

She laughed. ‘No, of course not.’

‘Then what’s the harm in seeing an old friend like me once in a while? Lord knows it won’t be often once I’m involved in the new job.’ He turned on her suddenly. ‘Why me, anyway? This embargo obviously doesn’t apply to your friend Jack.’

‘The day you saw him he was just bringing flowers to thank me for looking after his niece.’

‘Have you seen him since? Other than today, I mean?’

‘Yes’ she admitted reluctantly.

‘And did he ask to see you again?’

‘Yes.’

Alasdair sliced a cucumber with a speed and violence Kate watched with trepidation. ‘In this idyllic community you like so much, an old friend like me must surely cause less comment than the uncle of one of your pupils? You could be accused of favouritism every time you give his niece a gold star or whatever,’ he pointed out, and rammed the steak under the grill.

‘Oh, all right, Alasdair,’ she said irritably. ‘You’ve made your point.’

‘Then I rest my case. How rare do you like your steak?’

Once they’d sat down Kate set out to defuse the situation by discussing Alasdair’s work again, a subject as dear to his heart as it was fascinating to her. Consequently the meal was more of a success than had seemed possible at one point.

Due to her informed, intelligent questions he expanded at length, then stopped short at last, eyeing her in apology.

‘I tend to get carried away. You’re a very good listener.’

‘I find it fascinating,’ she assured him.

‘Which is why I’ll never understand—’ He stopped, shaking his head. ‘No, I won’t go there again.’

After the meal Alasdair put a match to the logs in the drawing room fireplace.

‘You needn’t have done that,’ said Kate. ‘I can’t stay long.’

‘At least you’ll go home warm.’

‘The heating here is very efficient for such a big house. I wouldn’t have thought you’d need a fire as well.’

‘I told you I like my creature comforts.’ He sat beside her on a sofa he’d pulled nearer the fire, and turned to her with a look which made Kate faintly uneasy. ‘So. If I’m forbidden to visit you in Foychurch, do I have to wait until Easter to see you again?’

Kate gazed into the crackling fire, suddenly feeling rather silly. This was the twenty-first century, she reminded herself. Probably no one in the village had the least interest in her social life. ‘All right. If you want to come to Foychurch you can,’ she said at last. ‘But you’d have to leave at a respectable hour.’

‘To safeguard your reputation?’

‘No,’ she said impatiently. ‘So I can get a good night’s sleep. I get up early during the week.’

Alasdair took her hand. ‘Are you actually saying I can come calling, Miss Dysart?’

She turned on him sharply. ‘I’m actually saying that you can come round one night next week if you like, Alasdair.’

‘But I am not to read anything more than that into it?’

‘There isn’t any more,’ she said flatly.

‘Oh, yes, there is,’ he assured her, and pulled her onto his lap. He looked down into her startled face for a moment, then lowered his head to kiss her, his arms closing round her like a vice.

K
ATE
stiffened in protest, and after a moment Alasdair relaxed his arms a little and moved his mouth away from hers.

‘You said you wouldn’t take up where we left off,’ she accused.

‘I’m not. I’m starting from the beginning again. Only this time,’ he whispered, his breath hot against her cheek, ‘we’re not in a car, on a cold, dark road, but here on my home turf, in warmth and complete privacy—an arrangement I like a lot better.’ His lips grazed her earlobe. ‘I like the feel of you in my arms even more.’

And the hell of it was, thought Kate, that she did, too. She turned her head away. ‘It’s my own fault. Just by coming here.’

Alasdair shifted her more comfortably on his lap, his hold still firm enough to rid Kate of any ideas about struggling.

‘I would be lying,’ he told her, ‘if I said I didn’t want you. From where you’re sitting it must be obvious.’

Colour rushed to the face he was smoothing against his shoulder.

‘But don’t worry,’ he went on. ‘I won’t do anything about it. Unless you want me to.’

‘I don’t go in for this kind of thing,’ she said flatly.

‘Why not?’

‘It’s never worth it,’ she said with a sigh.

Alasdair laughed softly. ‘It can be, my sweet.’

‘For you, maybe, but not for me.’

‘So at this moment,’ he went on, his tone so clinical he might have been discussing some experiment, ‘despite the pleasure I’m taking in just holding you in my arms, your only instinct is escape?’

Kate wished it was. ‘I won’t say this is unpleasant,’ she agreed, her tone matching his, ‘but if I’d thought it was taken for granted as part of the day’s entertainment I would have driven straight home after lunch.’

‘So that’s it.’ Alasdair’s chuckle vibrated against Kate’s breasts. ‘I’ve got it!’

‘You’ve got what?’

‘Why you’re so prickly these day, Kate Dysart.’ He smiled into her eyes. ‘You loathe being taken for granted. Thinking back, I suppose I did it all the time up at Cambridge. Then I compounded my sins when I turned up in Foychurch like a bad penny, taking it for granted you’d drop everything to spend time with me. And now, as far as you’re concerned, I’m doing it again.’

‘True, as far as it goes,’ she agreed. ‘But it’s not what bothers me most.’

‘So tell me.’

‘I’m suspicious about
why
you’re doing this.’ Kate eyed him narrowly. ‘You never even saw me as a female in the old days, let alone someone you wanted to make love to. So why now all of a sudden? And please don’t say you took one look at me outside school that day and the scales fell from your eyes, because I’m not stupid, Alasdair.’

‘I’ve never thought so before,’ he agreed, ‘but for once in your life you can’t work out the equation. It’s simple. I’m a man, and you’re a
very
desirable woman—’

‘You mean you expect to take me to bed?’

‘I want to. But that’s something I’m
not
taking for granted. Right now I’ll settle for just holding you like this for a while.’

Kate yielded as he clasped her closer, frowning as she thought this over. It was undeniably good to feel close to Alasdair like this. She liked the warmth and strength of him, and it was all just as she’d dreamed it would be, over and over again when she’d fantasised about it in the past. But in those days her fantasies had never gone as far as actually making love with Alasdair. Yet now, long after she’d given up dreaming, he wanted her. So maybe…

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked after a while, his touch so light Kate didn’t know he’d removed the pins from her hair until it came tumbling down.

‘I was thinking that if you did want to take me to bed perhaps it might be a good thing,’ she said thoughtfully, and felt him tense against her.

‘Would you say that again?’ he demanded.

‘I’m sure I don’t have to.’

‘So why do you think it would be a good thing? From my own point of view it’s a ravishing idea, of course, but—’

‘I think it would give me closure.’

‘Closure?’ Alasdair put an ungentle finger under her chin to raise her face to his. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

Kate looked at him defiantly. ‘Meeting you again has revived old ghosts. Maybe going to bed with you would lay them for good.’

Alasdair’s eyes glittered like ice chips. ‘Any time you go to bed with me, Katharine Dysart, you’ll be too occupied to think of laying ghosts.’

‘Ah. I’ve insulted you.’

‘Damn right.’ He took her by the elbows and planted her back in the other corner of the sofa. ‘As an ardour-dampening exercise, that was very effective.’

Kate looked pointedly at his lap. ‘Not entirely.’

He jumped up, and kicked some logs into place in the fire. ‘All right,’ he snapped, his rigid shoulders very expressive. ‘I’ve changed my mind. Maybe you should go home right now.’

‘You’re throwing me out?’

Alasdair turned on her. ‘I thought you were desperate to go?’

‘Not at all. If you remember,’ she reminded him, ‘I was saying it might be a good thing if you made love to me.’

He glared at her. ‘When a woman makes love with me I prefer it to be for the right reasons.’

‘Panting with lust for your body, rather than engaged in an experiment?’

‘Exactly. So if your only aim is research, Madame Curie, choose someone else. Your friend Jack, for instance.’

‘You’re missing the point,’ she said impatiently. ‘It has to be you.’

Alasdair stared at her in frowning silence for a while. ‘Explain,’ he said at last.

‘Seeing you again made me wonder if you’re the reason why I find close relationships with men so tricky.’ She gazed up at him coaxingly. ‘So perhaps if we did make love I could just get it out of my system and—’

‘Stop right there,’ he ordered, his face like thunder. ‘Are you seriously asking me to make love to you to set your libido free for other men? What the hell do you think I am?’

‘My friend? A close, valued friend?’ She got up and
went to him, sliding her arms round his waist. ‘You wanted me a few minutes ago,’ she muttered into his chest, and moved closer, triumphant when she felt him harden against her. ‘I think you still do.’

He gave a smothered exclamation and pushed her away. ‘Stop it, Kate. If you want to play games find someone else.’

She turned away to hide sudden, unexpected tears. ‘Alasdair, I’m sorry,’ she said thickly. ‘It was a stupid idea. If you’ll get my coat I’ll go home.’

He turned her round and found her eyes were wet. ‘Kate—don’t, please. Come and sit down again.’ he drew her down beside him on the sofa and put his arm round her, frowning when she stiffened.

‘Change of heart?’ he asked, his cheek against her hair.

‘No. Embarrassment,’ she said gruffly.

‘About what?’

‘Suggesting something so idiotic.’

Alasdair was quiet for some time. At last he turned her face up to his. ‘I know this is a long shot, but tell me the truth. If we did make love, Kate, would it be the first time for you? Is this why you’re choosing me for the experiment?’

‘No.’

‘Then what’s the problem?’

‘Me. I’m the problem.’

‘Tell me about it.’ He ran caressing fingers through the long, silken strands of hair. ‘Because if some idiot’s said you’re frigid—’

‘Not frigid, exactly.’ A quiver of laughter ran through her. ‘But for your ears only, Alasdair, part of me sort of stands apart during the process, amazed I’m doing something so ridiculous.’

He grinned involuntarily, then sobered. ‘And are you saying this is down to me?’

‘In the most peripheral of ways, I suppose it is.’ Kate removed herself from Alasdair’s sheltering arm and sat in the corner of the sofa, facing him. She secured her hair back behind her ears, hesitated, then took in a deep breath.

‘You really want to know what happened to me before you left Cambridge to take on the world?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘You know damn well I do. So talk.’

She turned her head to stare into the fire. ‘Once upon a time, as they say, you never even noticed that I was crazy about you, or if you did you never took it seriously.’

And for the best part of two years Kate had managed to live with her unrequited passion, trying to be content with the few odd hours she spent in Alasdair’s company, firmly repelling all other male interest, and, unlike most of her peers, working too hard to leave much time for play. Then her world had fallen apart. The unthinkable had happened. Alasdair Drummond had acquired a woman in his life. And it had been obvious to Kate, and to everyone else in their vicinity, that the relationship had become sizzlingly physical from the moment Lisa Bryant moved into Alasdair’s orbit.

‘Lisa,’ he said blankly. ‘Good Lord, I’d forgotten about her.’

Kate sniffed. ‘I wish I had. Her brother was on my course. She came to visit Jon one day, he took her to the pub, and you were there. With me. But you forgot I existed once the luscious Lisa arrived. Nor was yours the only tongue hanging out. But it was the only one she fancied.’

‘She was quite a girl,’ he said reminiscently. ‘No brain, but a shape to tempt a saint.’

‘And I hated her guts!’

Alasdair frowned. ‘But it didn’t mean anything. It was just a fling, Kate, for both of us.’

‘Some fling. You spent most of it in bed, according to Jon.’

‘But surely Lisa wasn’t the reason you locked yourself away like that?’

‘No. But from a scientific point of view she was the catalyst.’ Kate sighed. ‘And this is where it gets really pathetic. I had a brainwave. I decided it was time you woke up to the fact that I was a woman, too. So I set out to make you jealous.’

He stared, astonished. ‘Who with?’

Her chin lifted. ‘Since you never even noticed, his identity hardly matters.’

Alasdair’s eyes hardened. ‘What happened?’

‘Once you were distracted by the luscious Lisa one of my more persistent followers moved in on me, so I seized my chance. He was a charmer—clever to. I liked him a lot. Otherwise,’ she assured him, ‘even to make you jealous I couldn’t have done it.’

‘Done what?’ said Alasdair with foreboding.

‘For the best part of a week, hoping you would notice and burn with jealousy, I led my Romeo on shamelessly.’ Kate gave a bitter laugh. ‘And the end result was disaster.’

Hardly able to believe his good fortune, the young man had armed himself with champagne when Kate invited him back to her room. And in sore need of Dutch courage Kate had let him fill her glass too often, so that when he’d begun to make love to her she’d been in too fuzzy a state to keep him at arm’s length.

‘In no time at all we were on my bed,’ she went on. ‘Odd the things one remembers. His hands were shaking, and he was sweating, and suddenly things really got out of hand.’

‘He raped you?’ said Alasdair through clenched teeth.

Kate looked at him consideringly. ‘If you mean that I wasn’t willing to go that far, then I suppose technically you could say he did. And because I wasn’t—well—fired up for it in the way he was, it was a painful, humiliating experience that gave the poor lad no satisfaction at all.’

Alasdair glared at her, incensed. ‘He raped you and you can call him a poor lad?’

‘I led him on, remember. He had every right to think I was willing. And, to be fair, he had no idea it was my first time. Though ultimately he was left in no doubt.’ She bit her lip, feeling her face grow hot. ‘At the time it was quite ghastly for both of us, but looking back I can see the funny side of it now.’

‘I fail to see the joke,’ snapped Alasdair.

‘It wasn’t much of a joke at the time,’ Kate admitted. ‘Nor is it easy to describe. Politely, anyway. The thing is, Alasdair, I was never a sporty type, in school or out of it. So when my Romeo finally got to first base with me, he came up against a barrier other girls lose simply by playing ballgames or riding horses, if they even had much of one in the first place. Mine was very firmly in place, alas. And, no matter how much I resisted, my would-be lover, who was in quite a state by this time, was determined to succeed. By the time I felt something tear inside at last I was exhausted and hysterical, and it was all over for him in a flash. And when I shoved him away at last poor Romeo was utterly appalled.’ Kate pulled a face, unable to look at Alasdair.

‘
Why?
’

She drew a deep breath, and shrugged ruefully. ‘I don’t have to draw pictures, surely, Alasdair. Let’s just say my virginity was proved beyond all possible doubt, to Romeo’s horror. Mine, too.’

There was silence between them for a while.

‘And that’s why you locked yourself away?’ Alasdair said at last.

She nodded. ‘The only one who knew what happened was Romeo. I stayed immured in my room for the rest of term, other than lectures and exams. And the odd dash to the shops.’

He stared at her in disbelief. ‘And you depended on this idiot never to tell anyone?’

Kate smiled crookedly. ‘I told him that if he said he’d scored with me I’d broadcast every last gory detail.’

Alasdair swore under his breath. ‘He must have kept his word, whoever he was, because I never had the least idea. I wish to God I had. I was hellish worried about you.’

‘Is that why you contacted me so often after you left?’

‘In some ways. But I would have done anyway.’ His hand tightened on hers. ‘I was very fond of you, Kate.’

Kate scowled. ‘So why were you so utterly horrible to me when you came to Friars Wood that last time?’

‘You’d changed out of all recognition. Instead of the sweet little kid I’d been so fond of I found a cold, hostile young stranger, nothing like the Kate I’d known before. I felt so guilty, sure that I was to blame in some way for the change. Which it seems I was, indirectly,’ he added heavily.

‘It wasn’t your fault, Alasdair,’ she assured him, ‘only mine for being such a fool.’

‘Adam said you were in Italy for most of that summer afterwards. Why did you stay away so long?’

She looked away. ‘I thought you might have worked that one out already.’

Silence fell, and lengthened until the sudden crash of falling logs broke the spell. Alasdair got up to see to the fire, then turned to look down at her.