The Forbidden Innocent (6 page)

But one day, he turned up late for the meal and spent most of it scowling. Ashley watched as he picked up a
decanter and poured himself half a glass of claret and sipped it. He
never
drank at lunchtime!

‘Is something wrong?’ she ventured eventually.

His eyes met hers over the rim of the glass. ‘There’s no riding today.’

‘Oh? Why’s that?’

‘Nero is ill.’

‘Oh, dear—not badly, I hope?’

‘No. Not badly.’ He shook his head slightly impatiently. ‘The vet’s been over to see him—given him an injection and told the stable-girl to make sure he’s kept warm and dry. He’s supposed to rest for the next few days.’

‘Well, that’s all right, then.’ Ashley smiled in what she hoped was a placating manner—because he seemed in a very peculiar mood. ‘He’ll soon be better and then you can start riding him again.’

‘Yes.’ He put the crystal glass down heavily on the table. But it wasn’t all right. It was frustrating. Damn it—
everything
was frustrating. He looked forward to his afternoon exercise, revelling in the sense of freedom and power it gave him as he and the animal thundered over the moorland. And Jack was aware that it was more than a love of all things equine which had recently made his daily ride seem more vital than usual. He knew that he was using the exercise to sublimate the growing hunger he felt for Ashley. A sexual hunger which was as inappropriate as it was forbidden.

His body tense, he stood up, feeling the heavy beat of his heart as he stared down at her. How was it possible
that this artless little thing should have heated his blood and invaded his imagination so that his eyes wanted to drink her in every time she walked into his study? Had he
misjudged
her innocence? Was she perhaps perfectly aware that she was driving him crazy with desire?

Ashley met the ebony glitter of his eyes as he loomed over the debris of their meal, wondering why his face had darkened so that he was looking at her almost
angrily.
‘Never mind,’ she said lightly. ‘If you like, we could carry on working. The story’s just reached an interesting part—but you’ve done more than your usual amount of crossing-outs and alterations and it’s probably best if I checked with you as I went along.’

‘No,’ he said suddenly. ‘You don’t need to do that. I’m fed up with the damned book. You’ve worked hard all morning and you deserve a break. I need the fresh air and so do you. Let’s go for a walk instead.’

‘A walk?’

‘There’s no need to sound so shocked, Ashley,’ he grated. ‘You walk every day after lunch, don’t you?’

‘Well, yes, I do.’ She looked at him doubtfully—suddenly nervous and wanting to throw obstacles in the way, without being really sure why. ‘But I… I don’t walk very quickly.’

‘Then I’ll make allowances for you—and it isn’t some kind of race. Now, go get your coat,’ he said, in the kind of tone which brooked no argument.

Ashley went into the hall and began tying up the laces of her walking shoes. Why on earth did he want to go walking with her? she wondered, her fingers annoyingly
shaky as she pulled a woollen beanie onto her head, before going outside to find him waiting. And why was he in such a filthy temper?

He was standing beneath the oak which dominated the far side of the lawn. It was a mighty specimen—he’d told her himself that it was over a century old, with huge, curved branches which looked like powerful limbs. And yet somehow he was more than a match for the magnificent tree—as if nature had suddenly decided to showcase two examples of her finest handiwork, side by side. Ashley found her lips drying as she looked at him, the heavy thunder of her heart hinting at danger.

‘Where do you want to go?’ he questioned as she approached.

‘I don’t mind,’ she said awkwardly, digging her hands deep into the pockets of her coat. ‘Don’t you have a favourite walk of your own?’

‘Of course I do. But I want to know yours.’

She turned to look up at the smoky grey clouds which were puffing through the sky—suddenly envying that cloud its freedom to float high above the world and all its cares. ‘I think I’d like to go up that hill at the back of the house—right to the very top. You know—the bit where you get the best view of the moors.’

‘I know it very well,’ he said softly.

They set off. The ground was soft and sank beneath their feet and it made the walk seem slightly tougher than usual. Ashley was fit, but unusually she was a little out of breath by the time she reached the top of the incline. Or maybe that was because Jack’s legs were
long—so much longer than hers—so that they seemed to eat up the ground in front of him.

It felt strange to be out alone with him in the great outdoors like this—but it only added to the confused swirl of her thoughts. It made her feel as if they were a
couple.
As if she had been born to walk with a man like Jack Marchant—enjoying the comfortable ease of their shared silence and seeing his dark, craggy profile etched against the stark landscape. Yet they were only here because his horse was sick—because Jack had asked her on a whim. No point reading any more into it than that.

He stopped when they reached the highest point—and Ashley stood beside him—acknowledging with guilty pleasure how tiny he made her feel. And how fragile. Her limbs seemed so slight when compared with his—because even his thick coat couldn’t disguise the dormant strength which lay beneath.

Oh, why was she thinking this way—risking making herself a laughing stock—an illegitimate orphan from the wrong sides of the track, nurturing a passion for a man who was way out of her reach?

With an effort, she forced her attention away from his profile to stare at the scene in front of her. From here you could see Blackwood Manor as well as the rugged beauty of the moorland beyond. It was always a stunning view—but it was harsh and uncompromising, too. Had this craggy landscape helped make him the man he was? A man about whom she still knew very little, she realised—despite their forced proximity.

‘Have you always lived here?’ she questioned.

There was silence for a moment, and then he shrugged.

‘Until I went away to school. Then university. And then the army, of course.’

‘The army must have been very tough.’ Embarrassed now, she shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry—that sounds like a stupid platitude. Of course it was tough. I just. just never realised how much until I starting reading your book.’

‘It’s a novel, Ashley,’ he said gently.

‘I know it is.’ The words came out in a rush, before she could stop them. ‘But that bit… the bit where the officer is out in the desert and gets out of the car and when he turns back, he… he…’ Her sentence faded but she knew that his powerful description was vividly in both their minds. The flash of a bomb. Bright light and a sickening sound. And through the dull muffle of temporary deafness—the senses returning just when you didn’t want them to. Smelling the burning of flesh and hearing the gasps of the dying—and the sight of carnage all around you. ‘He’s… he’s you, isn’t he?’

His mouth hardened. ‘Why, Ashley? Is it relevant?’

She heard the sudden harshness in his voice and wished she could have bitten back her words. ‘Not—not really, I guess.’

‘My past is irrelevant,’ he growled. ‘Everyone’s is. This moment is all that any of us ever have. Understand? That there’s no point looking back and remembering.
We can’t change anything we’ve done—we just have to live with it.’

‘Yes,’ she answered quietly—because that was something she
did
understand. Because wouldn’t she go crazy if she allowed herself to remember all the hard times of her childhood? ‘I guess you’re right.’

How calm her voice sounded, he thought. It was like balm poured onto his troubled spirit. He looked down into her face and suddenly his heart turned over. ‘Do you realise that your features look perfect against this winter landscape?’ he questioned suddenly. ‘Your skin pale as snow—and your hair the colour of the bare earth.’

Ashley started as she searched his face for signs of mockery, but she could find none—only a kind of dark intensity about him which made him look so
alive.
As if in that snapshot moment he found her the single most alluring person in the world. And she wasn’t imagining it—she definitely wasn’t—because the tension was so palpable that she could have reached out and touched it.

For one snatched second, she allowed herself the forbidden fantasy she’d entertained over and over again. Of Jack pulling her into his arms and crushing her against his hard and powerful body. For hadn’t she played out that scene countless times in her head as she lay in bed every night listening to his footsteps? Of him lowering his dark, rugged face to kiss her. Those black eyes gleaming some evocative message before his sensual lips came down to cover hers.

With a fierce determination, she forced the image from her mind. He was her
boss
and she needed this job. Needed it badly enough not to risk jeopardising it with
anything.

‘We’d… we’d better get back,’ she stammered, and yet her legs felt as if they were rooted to the spot and she’d never be able to move again.

‘Why?’

She raised her eyes up to his. ‘Because—’

‘Because of this?’ Without warning, he pulled her into his arms, expelling a shuddering breath as he felt that first collision with her soft body. ‘This damned thing between us which won’t seem to go away?’

‘Jack!’

‘Jack, what?’ he taunted.

All she could see was the sudden flintiness of his eyes—and the cold glint of pain at their depths. And she thought to herself,
Surely a man shouldn’t look like this just before he kisses you?

‘Jack, we mustn’t,’ she whispered.

‘Oh, but we must,’ he negated harshly, compelled by something far stronger than reason or the sudden frantic clamour of his conscience. ‘Because I think I’m going to go crazy unless we do.’

Some instinct told her to pull away from him but she couldn’t. Because by then it was too late. By then he was moulding her even closer, so that she could feel the contours of his hard body against hers. Cupping her face between his hands, he stared down at her—his face
a dark mask, looking for all the world like a man who had just seen a tortured image of his own future.

And then—just like all her forbidden fantasies—Jack Marchant bent his head and began to kiss her.

J
ACK’S
lips crushed down on Ashley’s, his kiss deep and passionate as his tongue probed deep inside her mouth. He groaned as he kissed her, making a sound of such helpless pleasure that Ashley made an answering moan of her own. She felt her hands grope blindly for his shoulders—as if she might slide to the ground without his support.

Her blood sang and her heart pounded. How shockingly intimate that felt. Jack’s tongue inside her mouth. Jack pressing her against his body. Jack pressing his hips into hers with blatant desire. Her fingers bit into his heavy coat as she clutched onto him—and now his kiss became even more fervent.

He plundered her mouth without restraint, like a man who had tasted food after a long period of starvation. His hands moved to her hair, his fingers impatiently weaving through the carefully positioned pins, so that several strands began to tumble down around her face. She could feel the mad quickening of her heart and the strange, honeyed sensation which was making her
body seem hot and tender and tight and restless—all at the same time. Like a coiled spring which was slowly beginning to unfurl.

He pulled her even nearer, so that the physique she had secretly admired from afar was now moulded firmly against her. And despite the clothing he wore she was acutely aware of his rampant masculinity—of the growing need at the very cradle of his body. It should have been daunting, and on one level it was—and yet on another it felt as if her entire life had been spent waiting for this moment.

‘Ashley!’ He whispered into her mouth and she gave an instinctive little mew of pleasure in response. She could feel the warmth of his breath mingling with hers and smell his masculine scent invading her nostrils.

‘J-Jack,’ she breathed—and then said it again, as if to reassure herself that she wasn’t dreaming. ‘Jack.’

‘Yes,’ he said unsteadily. ‘Yes.’

Reaching down, he began to unbutton her coat, slipping his hand inside to cup one breast over her sweater, and Ashley jerked with shock and pleasure at the unexpected intimacy. Beneath the cheap wool, she felt her flesh swell and become acutely sensitive beneath his seeking fingers. And then he moved his hand, sliding it underneath the sweater to alight on her bra itself.

His fingers had now encountered a painfully tight nipple and were rubbing at it deliciously through the lace of her bra and Ashley found her senses clamouring to have him remove the obstruction. To have his whole hand cup the exquisitely aching mound. She could feel
her nipple pushing painfully against the lace—as if her bra had suddenly become several sizes too small.

‘Jack,’ she moaned.

‘You like that, don’t you?’ he whispered.

‘Oh, yes. Yes.’ She’d never felt like this before—never had a man touch her like this before. For several seconds she allowed the strange, sweet sensation to wash over her and felt the rush of desire which was spiralling up inside her. She registered her sudden urgent need for something more and allowed herself to wriggle restlessly in his arms.

‘Please,’ she heard herself whisper, as if someone had planted the word inside her mouth. ‘Please keep doing that.’

‘My pleasure,’ he ground out.

No. It was her pleasure.
Hers.
She’d never thought that her body could feel like this. As if it were on fire—and only Jack could extinguish that fire. She met the urgent thrust of his hips with an instinctive one of her own—until reality hit her like a ton of bricks dropped from a great height and smashed into her thoughts.

She was standing on a bleak and barren moor, letting her boss make love to her!

Her breath coming in ragged little gasps, she tore herself out of his arms and stared up at his face—where another shock awaited her. For this was Jack Marchant as she had never seen him before, his features all dark and saturnine—looking like the devil himself. This was no longer her proud and aristocratic boss, she realised,
but a sexually aroused stranger she didn’t really recognise.