That Tender Feeling (6 page)

‘How do you propose to do that?' He wasn't quite back in form, but that suggestive leer was a good try.

‘Now you can stop that nonsense, Heathcliff.'

‘Cliff,' he said.

‘Yes, Cliff.'

Suddenly, she realized she could call him Cliff and think of him by that name, as well. Heathcliff was the man who had terrified her in childhood. Miraculously, over the years, she had become a match for him, but she hadn't realized it till this moment. Seeing the chink in his armor tonight, during his attack, had done this for her. That glimpse of weakness had made him seem more approachable; he was no longer a superhuman being to cringe from in awe and fear. Perhaps more gifted than most—brains, looks, great physical strength and character—but when it got down to basics, he was just an ordinary man, with man's human flaws in his makeup. He was subject to the weaknesses life inflicts on mankind just the same as every other mortal being. He was, and always would be, Cliff to her now.

‘You haven't answered my question,' he said, the touch of mockery in a voice that lacked its usual vigor and sounded as shaky as he looked.

‘Perhaps these will answer it for you,' she said, holding up the pajamas and sheets she'd got out in readiness.

‘Stop fussing. I don't need clean pajamas and a change of sheets.'

‘Of course you do. You are being stupidly stubborn. You will be much more comfortable, I assure you.'

‘You are being impossibly dictatorial. I can't abide a bossy woman.'

He was scowling. He obviously liked to be thought superior to other men, above human weakness and frailties. It didn't please him at all to have his vulnerability exposed like this, but it pleased her enormously. It made a most agreeable change to have the shoe on the other foot, and she was enjoying having him at her mercy.

Giving the sleeve of his offending pajama jacket a tweak, she said: ‘You wriggle out of your 'jamas while I see to the sheets. I promise not to look.'

‘You vixen. I'll get you for this, I swear it.'

‘Of course, if you don't feel capable of undressing yourself, I'll help,' she said, blissfully unperturbed by his threat.

‘Like hell you will.'

‘Tut-tut. What unexpected modesty. You've got nothing underneath that I don't know about.' It was so funny that she was almost hysterical with laughter.

The more amused she got, the less he liked it.

‘If I didn't still feel groggy, I'd call your bluff, you immoral wench.'

If he hadn't looked as if he'd fall over if she as much as breathed on him, there wouldn't have been any bluff to call. She'd have been off like a rabbit out of a trap.

‘I could use a glass of water,' he announced sullenly. ‘My throat's so dry I feel as though I'm spitting feathers.'

‘I'll get you one,' she said, and went to do just that.

She had to go downstairs for a glass. When she returned, he was sitting in the chair wearing the clean pajamas, a ‘There! I hope you're satisfied' glare on his face.

She was filled with compunction for teasing him, because the effort he had expended in getting out of bed and changing had taken its toll. He looked strained again, and he was perspiring freely once more. But it had been so delicious to bait him and bring him to heel. The opportunity might never come her way again. She hoped most fervently that it wouldn't occur again under these conditions, because it smote her heart to see him suffer. On the other hand, once the situation had arisen, she hadn't been able to resist taking advantage of it.

She made up his bed for him with the clean sheets and assisted him back into it. She knew that he must be feeling as whacked as he looked, because he went as docilely as a small boy, not making any attempt to grab her and pull her down onto the bed to scare her in retaliation. Only then she found herself questioning, much to her own confusion, if it would have scared her.

Her cheeks burned as she thought of snuggling up to his hairy chest. He hadn't mustered the energy to do up the buttons on his pajama jacket, which made the fact known to her that he had a hairy chest. It was as black as the hair on his head and curled fiercely. In the situation she envisaged, she didn't think he would be wearing a pajama jacket, or the corresponding pajama bottoms, for that matter. Her skin tingled on the imagined sensation of being layered up sardine-close to him. As Cliff himself had observed previously, she had a vivid imagination, and it colored her thoughts the same rosy hue as her cheeks.

A lot of girls her age had already taken a man as their lover. Even in her immaturity she had gotten around to thinking what it would be like. Special, because she couldn't picture herself flitting from man to man like a bee going from flower to flower in search of nectar. Her body awakening to the topmost pinnacle of sensual delight, the ultimate physical pleasure. The man in her dreams had always had a virile body in peak condition but no face. Until now.

It was very strange, but she had never thought about what it would be like to go to bed with Jarvis. That had been something in the future that her mind had delicately drawn a blanket over. It came to her positively and clearly that she had never loved Jarvis. If she'd loved her ex-fiancé, the warmth and generosity of her heart wouldn't have been able to deny him the fuller relationship he had wanted. And there was something else that struck her as odd. She had always assumed as a matter of course that her heart would need to be awakened before she could give her body to a man. She didn't love Cliff. How could she? She had always held firm to the belief that love wasn't instantaneous, say, like lightning. It evolved slowly from tender beginnings. It was impossible for her to be in love so quickly. All her preconceived notions couldn't topple in one fell swoop. So, without any redeeming excuse, she felt deep humiliation and shame that she had just ‘raped' Cliff in her thoughts.

He had dropped off to sleep again. She fastened the buttons on his pajama jacket, tucked the sheets back under his chin again and then, succumbing to dangerous impulse, bent down and brushed her lips across his forehead. He stirred, an unintelligible murmur escaping his lips, but he didn't waken. Her heart was beating so wildly that it seemed as though it were trying to bang its way out of her rib cage. There was a lump in her throat the size of an ostrich egg, and her legs were so shaky it was a miracle that they supported her as she tiptoed out of his room.

The next morning, she woke to the realization that she had a whopping great bruise along the curve of her cheek where Cliff had struck her when he had lashed out with his hand while she was sponging his face. Her first awareness was a painful stiffness. When she looked in the mirror, she saw it in all its discolored glory. She tried a bit of repair work, but makeup wouldn't disguise it, and it shone through regardless.

‘Good heavens!' Cliff gasped when he saw it. ‘A fraction higher on the cheekbone and you would have had a humdinger of a black eye. How did you come by that?'

‘You should ask,' she said weakly.

‘You mean I gave you that?' he inquired, aghast.

She shrugged it off. ‘I bruise easily. It was my own fault. I didn't get out of the way quickly enough.'

Actually, it wasn't the only battle scar she carried. In the struggle to cool his fevered brow, her shoulder had also gotten it. They were seated across from one another at the breakfast table, and that bruise was discreetly hidden beneath her sweater, so she had no need to let on about that.

He leaned across, and with unbelievable gentleness his fingers ‘whispered' over the bruise on her face in the manner of a caress. ‘I'm sorry.' A cynical but
tender
haunting of a smile came to his mouth. ‘Believe me, when ladies creep into my bedroom at dead of night, that isn't the kind of treatment they can expect. On the other hand, don't believe me. Test my reactions for yourself by creeping in again tonight.'

She crunched a corner of toast between her teeth. It supplied a handy excuse for her not to speak straightaway because she didn't trust her voice.

‘No, thank you. Anyway, last night my being here was a forced decision. By the time I found out that you were in residence, it was too late to seek other accommodation for myself. I don't suppose I'll be here tonight.' Was there a plea, a hint of wistfulness in her voice?

‘Oh? Where will you be?'

‘I haven't given it much thought as yet. The Gillybeck Arms, I suppose. I ought to stay in the area to get the mess sorted out about the repairs being done on the wrong cottage.'

‘You don't have to stay in the area if you don't want to. Any sorting out to be done, I can do. In any case, there is a perfectly simple solution to the problem. I will recompense you to the amount of the costs incurred in putting Holly Cottage in order. This will enable you to get Hawthorn Cottage done up.'

‘That's very generous of you. You could, if you were so minded, make the firm, or whoever is responsible for the error, pay up.'

‘I hope you're not suggesting that I would be contemptuous enough to seek personal gain from someone else's misfortune?' he inquired in frosty affront.

‘Of course not. Sorry.'

‘The repairs here needed doing. In getting them executed, someone has done me a favor.'

‘They haven't done me much of a favor. I shall create merry hell.'

‘What would that achieve? The person or persons responsible would undoubtedly get the chop. Is that what you want?'

Bristling at his taunt as indignantly as he had to hers, then rising to even greater heights of anger when she realized that his remark—unlike hers, which had been more in the way of a conjectural thought—was intended as a deliberate insult, she said, ‘I hope you're not suggesting that I would be vindictive enough to want to get anyone fired, even though it was an act of gross incompetence.'

His dark, enigmatic eyes narrowed on the green flecks animating hers. ‘Did you know that your eyes change color when you're angry?'

‘I did,' she replied caustically. ‘I wouldn't have thought you would know. Anger seems to have been the only emotion I've shown in your presence, so my eyes should have been green all the time.'

‘Anger?' The suave, taunting smile that looped his mouth lassoed her breath; contriving, and almost managing, to steal it completely away. ‘If that's what you really think, that all you've shown is anger, then all I can say is that you're not very good at self-analysis,' he said, at the same time flicking a hand across his forehead. It could have been to put a stray hair back in place, but it uncomfortably traced the spot where she had deposited that silly, impulsive kiss on tucking him in the night before. There was a devilish quirk running rampant across his features that marred the action too precisely for it to be coincidence.

‘Aren't we deviating from the point?' Although valiantly attempting to taint her tone with cynicism, she revealed, in her sigh, her inability to get it as sharply honed as she would have wished.

The look he sent her had subtly seductive undertones that seemed to tug at her stomach muscles, drawing them in so much that once again her breathing was impaired. She really must take herself in hand. It was silly to let him affect her in that way.

‘Yes, I believe we are,' he drawled. ‘To return to the issue in question, and particularly to your suggestion of booking in at the Gillybeck Arms, I wouldn't if I were you. The bedrooms are immediately over the restaurant and public bar. Very noisy. Not a tranquil atmosphere at all. You'd hate it.'

Ros's small nod acknowledged that he was right.

‘So let us consider the alternative. We have already agreed that I am here in the cottage by right of family ownership. Is that correct?'

‘Yes,' she admitted.

‘But the new chimney stack, the electrical wiring, new damp course, fitted kitchen, et cetera, et cetera, are yours. Why don't we settle for a compromise?'

‘What sort of compromise?'

‘Why don't we both stay here?'

‘Mm,' she contemplated doubtfully.

‘Unless that strikes you not so much as a compromise as a compromising situation?' She didn't much care for his play on words or his persuasiveness, for that matter, as he continued smoothly, ‘Joking aside, you've always been most welcome here. My grandmother would never forgive me if I turned you out. It's not as if we are newly acquainted. The obviousness of sharing the cottage could also be described as a necessity that has been forced upon us. Perhaps your reluctance stems from last night's unfortunate happening. I'm sorry that my malaria attack frightened you. I didn't really need night nursing, so you don't have to worry on that count. I would have been perfectly all right to sweat it out on my own and will be all right in the event of it happening again. Cotton wool stuffed in your ears should do the trick.'

‘I wasn't frightened. Not knowing what was happening to you made me feel inadequate. It's not that.'

‘In that case, it may be that now that you have someone on hand to look after your interests—I would, you know; I would never hear the last of it from my grandmother if I didn't rise valiantly to that duty—you feel inclined to go back home. Perhaps you left things hanging fire there to be here? Work? A special man?'

She ought to have lied and said that was it. Now that she had someone reliable to leave in charge of her affairs, she could get back to the pressing needs that awaited her in both her business and personal life. Instead, she fingered her ringless engagement finger. It was a subconscious gesture she wasn't aware of until his eyes caught the action; it spoke volumes and made it so that she couldn't lie.

‘There's no special man.'

‘Not anymore, you mean?'

‘Yes, that's what I mean. I can do my work anywhere. And I haven't a home to go to. When I burn my boats, I truly burn 'em.'