The Perfect Match (7 page)

'Make yourself at home,' Guy invited her. ' I'll go and make some coffee.'

'I'll come with you,' Chrissie told him huskily, giving him a faintly tremulous smile as he extended his hand towards her and drew her down the hallway.

It was so unlike her to be like this, to be so up front and femininely demanding in her intense desire for him. Words, feelings and desires she simply could not contain seemed to have swept aside her normal cau-tion and replaced it with emotions and needs so boldly brilliant that they filled her whole consciousness, blinding in that brilliance, in the same way that Guy's presence seemed to fill the unexpectedly large and well-planned kitchen he was now moving capably about, opening cupboards, removing mugs, filling a kettle.

Whilst he stood with his back to her, reaching up into the cupboard above him for a jar of coffee, Chrissie studied him openly, greedily absorbing the satisfying sight of his body. His shoulders were broad, tapering to a narrow waist, his legs long and lean, topped with neat buttocks. And as she had good cause to know, the flesh beneath his shirt would feel warm and smooth, sheer heaven both to touch and kiss. She was tempted to go over to him, wrap her arms round him, tease his shirt out from his belt and...

'What is it, what's wrong?' Guy asked her with concern, turning round just as the small yearning sound she had been trying to suppress escaped her lips.

'No, nothing,' she managed to tell him, but Guy continued to frown slightly at her as he spooned the coffee into their mugs.

'Coffee's almost ready,' he announced unnecessari-ly as the kettle boiled. But Chrissie's mind was made up. After spending these past few pulse-rate-inflating minutes standing in his kitchen, watching him, absorbing his every movement, wanting him, she knew exactly what she ached for and needed, and it certainly
wasn't
a cup of coffee.

'No...' Chrissie shook her head, caught off guard both by the trembling of her body and the surge of desire that possessed her. 'I...I don't want anything to drink,' she murmured, then admitted honestly,

'I...I just want you.'

'Oh God, what
have
I done to deserve you?' Guy groaned as he took her in his arms and showed her just how thoroughly her feelings, her needs, were returned. 'You don't
know
how much I ache for you right now,' he breathed into her mouth.

'Show me,' Chrissie invited him, shamelessly winding her arms round his neck and pressing her body close to his.

Somewhere on the edge of her consciousness was a vague memory of something she ought to tell him, but so many more pressing needs were demanding her attention, and right now all she could think of was just how good that unmistakable hardness she could feel in his body would be once it was inside hers.

She had never felt so completely overwhelmed by her own physical needs before or by the urge to express and share them. Swiftly she dismissed the unwanted jarring voice that dared to try to spoil the perfection of her new-found love.

The bedroom he took her to upstairs was furnished with the same sturdily constructed antique country furniture she had admired in the sitting room, the cen-trepiece a fine four-poster oak bed.

'I did at one time think of making a career in in-terior design,' Guy confessed when Chrissie commented on how much she liked the clever combination of heavy, natural, masculine-looking fabrics he had used. 'We're sometimes called in as consultants by clients.'

'You chose the decor for the restaurant, didn't you?' Chrissie guessed, recalling that despite her pre-occupation with Guy she had still been aware of the comfortable and easy ambience of the restaurant.

'Yes,' Guy agreed. 'Frances and Roy are planning to extend and add on a conservatory area for summer dining and private parties, and with that in mind I felt that the Mediterranean colours we used in the main eating area would blend best with that kind of exterior and the outside eating area Frances and Roy hope will go with it.

'I spent a couple of years living and working in Italy and I have to confess that they have the art of alfresco dining to perfection.'

'Italy...mmm...I spent several months there myself during my gap year. I loved Florence.'

Her gap year. Guy grimaced inwardly. The idea of a gap year either before or after university had been an unheard-of luxury when he had been that age. He had gone to Italy, driven by a restless urge to experience a different environment from the somewhat enclosed world he had grown up in, but he had had to work his way there—hard, dirty, manual work in the main. He had worked in Italy, too, harvesting pota-toes, working in bars and kitchens, doing anything and everything he could to keep himself solvent.

Without her having to say, he already knew that Chrissie came from a very different background from his own; that she had grown up in a typical, comfortably affluent upper-middle-class household, where her father had no doubt been in one of the professions and her mother, if she had worked at all, had done voluntary work for a pet charity. Chrissie herself had probably gone to a private school.

He had sensed her reluctance to discuss her background and wondered if it was because she had guessed how very different it was from his own. Class differences in this modern age were supposed to be a thing of the past, dead and gone, but of course they were not.

His own parents, whilst thrifty and hard-working, had had a lifestyle a world away from that enjoyed by the upper middle classes.

His father had joined the navy after leaving school—there was a tradition in the Cooke family of its young men joining the armed services—and then after he had met and married Guy's mother, he had taken over the tenure of one of the town's public houses—another family tradition.

It had been the restlessness inherited from his Gypsy forebear that had spawned Guy's youthful travel bug. The years spent travelling and working on the continent had broadened his horizons, but there was a part of him that was aware that despite his financial success, or maybe even because of it, there was still a certain section of the town's population who treated him slightly warily.

'Tell me more about this antiques fair you're organising,' Chrissie commanded him sleepily as she snuggled deeper into his arms, her body relaxed and sated from their lovemaking.

'There isn't much to tell,' Guy protested, only half-truthfully.

As Jenny had remarked only the previous week, it had been an achievement in itself for him to have persuaded Lord Astlegh to agree to their using Fitzburgh Place as the venue for the fair, and of course it was that venue that attracted the very high quality of participators in the event.

Guy had been meticulous, too, in ensuring that only high-quality food outlets and caterers would be allowed to participate. The orchestra from a local music school had been engaged to play, along with a string quartet; traditional jugglers and other street acts in period costume would add a touch of liveliness and vibrant colour to the scene.

There had been a good deal of press interest both locally and nationally in the three-day event, which was to commence with a champagne reception hosted by the Lord Lieutenant of the county and held in the house itself.

'Organising the security for it must have been a real nightmare,' Chrissie commented as she snuggled even deeper into his arms and remembered the problems her mother had had in getting adequate insurance and security cover for one of her charity events.

'It certainly was,' Guy agreed dryly.

He had lost count of the number of meetings he had had with the patient police inspector whose responsibility the event had become, and then there had been the additional headache of hiring security staff and even acquiring portable alarms.

'We can't provide for every eventuality,' he told Chrissie, 'and ultimately it's the responsibility of every participator to check the terms of their own insurance coverage and organise their own security if they feel it's necessary. One of our biggest headaches, in fact, has been getting the permission of insurers to hold the event.'

'I suppose Lord Astlegh must own a considerable amount of valuable antiques himself,' Chrissie commented.

'A very considerable amount,' Guy agreed. 'As well as an exceptionally fine art collection and a good deal of very rare porcelain.'

Chrissie, who had often helped her mother organise her charity events, smiled sympathetically as she leaned over to kiss him and then promptly forgot about the Antiques Fair and everything else as he kissed her back and proved to her own astonishment that she wasn't quite as sleepy as she had thought after all.

'Mmm...' Chrissie moved languorously against the teasingly explorative hand stroking her body.

'Wake up, sleepyhead,' Guy instructed her. 'It's gone nine o'clock in the morning.'

'What...?' Chrissie opened her eyes in disbelief. 'It can't be,' she protested.

'See for yourself,' Guy told her with a smile, showing her his watch. 'Nine o'clock,' he repeated, 'and you've been snoring your head off.'

'Snoring?' Chrissie repeated indignantly as she sat up in bed, her indignation giving way to laughter as she realised that Guy was teasing her.

Threateningly she reached for her pillow but before she could aim it at him, Guy started to wrestle it from her. Only somehow or other it was her naked body his hands were touching and her own laughter died as she recognised the look in Guy's eyes and felt herself responding to it.

In the end, it was gone eleven o'clock before they finally set off for Fitzburgh Place, calling
en route
at Charlie's house so that Chrissie could change her clothes.

'Lord Astlegh is very good about allowing both the house and the grounds to be used for a variety of local functions,' Guy told Chrissie as she made him stop his car so she could take a longer look at the spectacular vista revealed by a sharp turn in the drive leading to the house.

'Aarlston-Becker held a particularly spectacular masquerade ball here not so long ago,' Guy added, smiling at her awed excitement.

They both surveyed the man-made canal that bisected the grounds to the front of the house and the ornamental lake complete with island and 'Greek'

temple that lay beyond it.

'The original design for the grounds dates from the time of Charles II,' Guy explained, 'with certain modifications incorporated during the reign of William and Mary, hence the Dutch influence. Fortunately, when the fashion for Capability Brown's

"natural vistas" was at its height, the then-incumbent of the house was more dedicated to the gaming tables than redesigning his gardens and so they remained untouched.'

'They're beautiful,' Chrissie acknowledged, then asked, 'Where exactly will the fair be held?'

'To the rear of the house, in the mews area round the original stable yard, which is separated from the house and which Lord Astlegh has had converted into a series of workshops that are let to local craftspeople at very low rents. He also provides them with access to business advice, which ranges from help in preparing their books and accounts to guidance on the best market products.'

'He sounds very philanthropic,' Chrissie commented.

'Well, yes, he is,' Guy agreed. 'But it's a move that several big landowners are following, adopting a trend originally started by the likes of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.'

They were back in the car now, but instead of head-ing towards the main house, Guy took a narrow drive that angled out to the rear of the property and steered through a pair of stout wooden doors set in a high brick wall and into the cobbled stable yard that lay behind it. As Guy brought the car to a halt, Chrissie caught her breath.

What she assumed had originally been stables had been converted into small, double-storey units, each with its own window and smartly painted dark green door flanked by Versailles planters filled with an artistic profusion of summer bedding plants.

Several other cars were already parked in the large enclosed area, and as she studied her surroundings Chrissie could see how well it would adapt to a traditional market-place environment, right down to the smartly painted pump she noticed in the middle of the yard.

'The barn at the end there will be cleared out to house some of the exhibitors,' Guy was telling her as he indicated the large building forming one side of the rectangular area, 'while various empty units are going to be converted to shops selling a variety of traditional items. Stalls will be erected in the yard itself and the original tack rooms and the space above them will house a traditional market-place restaurant and bar.'

'It's going to be wonderful,' Chrissie enthused, genuinely impressed. 'The organisation must be causing you quite a few headaches, though,' she added.

'Just a few,' Guy agreed ruefully before bending his head to whisper to her, 'but I think I've discovered the perfect cure for them.'

Chrissie laughed.

'A headache is supposed to put you off sex,' she reproved him. 'Not—'

'What you and I have is a long, long way from mere sex,' Guy interrupted her seriously. 'A long, long way.'

The look he gave her made Chrissie feel weak at the knees.

Whilst Guy had his meeting with the estate manager, Chrissie elected to go for a walk in the grounds. The Greek temple on its small island in the middle of the lake would make a very romantic venue for a wedding, she decided dreamily as she sat cross-legged on a grassy knoll overlooking the lake. So much had happened in such a very short space of time that she was still half-inclined to feel she ought to pinch herself just to make sure that she was fully awake. It was now totally impossible for her to contemplate a life for herself that did not include Guy—her relationship with him, and the love they shared, as the focal point of that life.

'This is Chrissie,' he had said, introducing her to his sister last night, and then he had looked at her in a way that showed more clearly than any verbal explanation ever could just how he really felt about her.

'I think your sister guessed about us,' Chrissie had told him later when they were in bed.