Second Time Loving

‘I really do feel I’ve trespassed on your time and hospitality far too long,’ she told him coolly, adopting her most businesslike manner and trying not to feel acutely conscious of the fact that all she was wearing was one of his shirts. ‘And the doctor agrees with me that I am now well enough to manage on my own.’

Was there just a suspicion of a betraying tremor in her voice as she spoke this small fib? Was she tilting her chin just a little too much as though defying him to argue with her, and, when he didn’t, when he simply continued to regard her thoughtfully, was that really a tiny thread of disappointment that tangled with her relief, increasing her anxiety to escape to the security and privacy of Tom’s cottage?

‘If you’re sure you can manage,’he said at last.

‘Yes. Yes, I am,’ and then, aware that it might seem as though she was not aware of all that he had done for her, she added quickly, ‘I’m very grateful to you of course, and if there’s anything I can do to repay you…’

The smile he gave her almost seemed to mock her as though he knew exactly how desperate she was to escape from him.

‘I still don’t even know your name,’ she told him fretfully, hating the way she felt at such a disadvantage. Now that she was fully conscious again, she was acutely aware of her unmade-up face and tousled hair, her borrowed and unconventional nightshirt, while he stood watching her armoured in the secure protection of his jeans and shirt. Now when it was the last thing she wanted to do, she had a series of illuminating and embarrassing mental memories of hazy moments of consciousness when she had called out for help, and he had been there, his hands holding her, soothing her, his movements calm and sure as though he had known instinctively what to do.

No nurse however professional could have cared for her so conscientiously. She was overwhelmingly grateful to him, and at the same time she was intensely self-conscious and embarrassed about the intimacies which had passed between them; intimacies which, even if she had been only half conscious at the time and in no fit state to do anything other than submit thankfully to his care, had remained uncomfortably sharply etched in her memory.

She remembered after one particularly gruelling bout of sickness how he had stripped off her clothes, and gently sponged her skin, almost seeming to know how intensely she longed to feel the clean coolness of fresh water on her body washing away the smell and heat of her nausea.

Looking at him now, it seemed impossible that he had shown such care, such…such tenderness. She felt her face grow hot with guilt and anger. What was the matter with her? He had simply done what he had felt necessary. In this part of the world neighbours helped one another, the doctor had told her that. There was no reason for her to feel so intensely aware of him—so intensely aware of him in fact that it was as though her flesh had somehow memorised the touch of his hands to such an extent that it now—

She swallowed hard, reining in her runaway thoughts, and almost blurted out, ‘I can’t stay here any longer.’

She saw the way his eyebrows drew together, and bit her lip. What on earth was the matter with her? She was behaving like a fool. Like a woman suddenly terrified of intimacy with a man for whom she felt a dangerous sexual awareness, and there was nothing like that about this situation.

There had been nothing remotely sexual in the way he had helped her. There was nothing in his manner now to indicate any degree of sexual awareness of her as a woman. No, the awareness was all on her side, she acknowledged bitterly. And yet why should she be aware of him? He wasn’t good-looking in the fairhaired, smooth way which Giles had been. He was too rugged, too roughly hewn, too powerfully male to have that kind of appeal. And even if there was nothing outwardly aggressively sexual about him, she had an instinctive knowledge that he was the kind of man that women would find strongly sexual. Not the kind of man who appealed to her at all. She had always avoided that particular type, finding them slightly intimidating, and they had normally avoided her, obviously realising that she was not the intensely sexually responsive type.

It was her relationship with Giles that had left her so vulnerable, so bruised and so lacking in self-worth that she had become acutely conscious of this man as a man. When he took a step towards her she found she was actually trembling. He saw it and frowned.

‘You’re still too weak to get up yet,’ he told her curtly. ‘You’ll stay here tonight and then in the morning, if you’re feeling up to it, we’ll see about getting you moved into the other cottage.’

She ought to have objected, to have told him that she was the one making the decisions, that it was her right to make them, that she was an adult woman and had no intentions of allowing him to dictate to her in any way, but she was still trembling inside, still desperately conscious of the fact that she wished he would move away from her.

‘I came up to see if you could manage some home-made broth,’ he told her, changing the subject.

Home-made broth. She stared at him as though he read her mind; he gave her a brief smile and told her, ‘No, I haven’t made it myself. The farmer’s wife gave it to me when I went to get the milk and eggs. She’d heard that you weren’t well.’

‘The farm—is it far?’ Angelica asked him.

‘Not really; a couple of miles, that’s all. I walk over every other day or so.’

A couple of miles. She swallowed hard. In London the furthest she ever walked was a hundred yards or so. The thought of walking a couple of miles in her present condition made her all too glad that she had her car. And then, without meaning to do so, she glanced automatically at Daniel’s lame leg.

‘The exercise is good for it,’ he told her curtly, so obviously following her train of thought that she flushed with guilt and embarrassment.

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised. ‘I was just—’

‘You were wondering how I managed to walk that far,’ Daniel supplied carelessly for her. ‘It wasn’t easy at first, but it’s like everything else: something you eventually get used to. It helps to strengthen the damaged muscles—or so they tell me.’

Was that bitterness she could hear underlying the harsh words? She wondered what had caused his lameness. Had he been injured in an accident? She found herself shivering at the thought and then was angry with herself for being so concerned. What business was it of hers what had happened to him?

‘Well?’ Daniel prompted, while she battled with her wayward emotions, and stared at him in confusion. ‘The broth,’ he reminded her. ‘Would you like some? Mrs Davies has sent some of her home-made bread as well. I’ve got an Aga here in the kitchen and I’ve been trying my hand at baking some, but I must add as yet I haven’t had any success.’

He’d been trying his hand at baking bread. Angelica gulped as she stared at him.

‘We have some bad storms on this coast,’ he told her wryly. ‘It’s possible to be cut off here, even from the farm, for days at a time. Self-sufficiency here isn’t an affectation, it’s a necessity, and if the power goes off—which it can do—the Aga is the only source of heat.

‘Your friend would be as well to get one installed in his place, especially if he intends to use it during the winter.’

‘I’ll tell him,’Angelica responded. ‘And, yes, I would like some broth please.’

‘Good. In that case, I think we’ll get you downstairs, and just see how strong you do feel once you’re on your feet.’

At the same moment as Angelica swung her feet to the floor, he walked towards her, closing the gap between them and picking her up before she could draw breath to protest.

His shirt rode up to reveal the pale slenderness of her thighs, and, although she knew he had carried her like this on a dozen or more previous occasions, now that she was fully conscious she was acutely aware of the intimacy of his hold, of the strength and the heat radiating from his flesh where it touched her, of the way she had to lean against him so that her head was tucked into his shoulder, her breast pushing softly against his chest, one arm underneath her as he supported her, the other holding her tightly, so that she had no alternative but to lock her own arms around his neck even while she protested.

‘Please—I can walk.’

‘You mean you think you can,’ he derided her. ‘The last thing we need now is you collapsing and falling downstairs. Let’s see how you go on when you’re downstairs before we get too adventurous, shall we?’

He really was the limit, Angelica decided wrathfully. Telling her what she could and could not do. Laying down the law, when she was perfectly capable of making her own decisions. If it weren’t for the fact that she owed him so much, she would have told him in no uncertain terms that no one dictated to her, that no man was allowed to dominate her life…Not any more. She had learned the dangers of becoming too dependent on a man the hard way, and it was a lesson she intended to keep firmly to the forefront of her mind.

The cottage’s stairs were very narrow and Angelica found she was instinctively holding her breath, her arms tightening as Daniel carried her down them.

‘It’s all right,’ he assured her. ‘I won’t drop you. If I haven’t dropped you yet, I don’t think you need worry that I’m going to do so now.’

For some reason his words, which she suspected were intended to be reassuring, conjured up such images of intimacy within her too imaginative brain that she found herself trying desperately to arch her body away from him. His heartbeat was faintly erratic as though he was in fact finding her heavier than he pretended.

He might have carried her like this before, but then she had been in no state to register such things as the powerful contraction of his muscles, the warmth of his breath against her skin, the heat of his body, the scent of it stimulating her senses in a way she had never known before, not even with Giles.

To her anguished chagrin, she could actually feel her body reacting to his proximity in a way that made her desperately anxious to be out of his arms.

What was the matter with her? After Giles, she had told herself that never, ever again would she allow herself to be emotionally and sexually involved with a man. It was too dangerous—too painful.

Giles had made her all too acutely aware of how dangerous it was to allow herself to love. She was lucky she had discovered the truth about him before she had committed herself too deeply. As it was she had been hurt, but thankfully not fatally, and with hindsight she could see that her pride had been more bruised than her heart.

Even so it had been a salutary lesson, and one which had made sharply clear to her the dangers of allowing the vulnerable feminine need within her to take control of her life.

‘There,’ Daniel told her when they reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘I told you you’d be quite safe.’

Quite safe. Odd how the words caused a tiny pulse to jump in her throat and her heart to thud warningly.

‘If you don’t mind, we’ll eat in the kitchen. I tend to live in there.’

He nudged open the door with his foot and carried her into the warm, food-scented room, placing her carefully into a comfortable Windsor chair next to the Aga.

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