Passionate Scandal

Her decision to take a ride alone had been met with consternation, but they’d let her go. It wasn’t as if they were concerned for her safety. Madeline had been riding over this part of the countryside since she was old enough to climb on to the back of a horse. It was just that they were hurt by her need to get away from them so soon after her arrival home.

But she could not have taken any more tonight.

Within an hour of arriving she’d begun to feel like an invalid home on convalescence because of the way they all seemed to tiptoe around her, around subjects they’d obviously decided between them were strictly taboo, watching her with guarded if loving eyes. By the time another hour had gone by, she had been straining at the leash to escape. Dinner had been an ordeal, her tension and their uncertainty of her acting against each other to make conversation strained and stilted.

She’d blamed her restlessness on jet-lag when she saw their expressions. And they’d smiled, bright, false, tension-packed smiles. ‘Of course!’ her father had exclaimed—too heartily. ‘A ride is just what you need to make you feel at home again!’ Louise had agreed, while Nina just looked at her with huge eyes.

Madeline’s soft mouth tightened. So, she’d hurt them all, but she couldn’t do a single thing about it just yet. Four years was a long time. They all had adjustments to make—her family more than herself, because she was what she was, and nothing like the girl who had left here four years ago.

They were all exactly the same, though, she told herself heavily. They hadn’t changed at all.

Minty’s hoofs pounded on the frozen ground, and Madeline crouched down low on her back, giving herself up to the sheer exhilaration of the ride as they galloped across the dark countryside. The further she got away from the house, the more relaxed she began to feel, as if the distance weakened the family strings that had been busily trying to wrap themselves around her aching heart.

She didn’t know why she felt this way, only that she did. From the moment she’d stepped out of the car, she’d felt stifled, haunted almost, by memories none of them could even begin to contemplate.

A sharp bend in the river was marked by a thick clump of trees standing big and dark against a navy blue sky. She skirted the wood until she found the old path which led down to the river itself, allowing Minty to pick her own way to what was one of their old haunts: a small clearing among the trees, where the springy turf grew to the edge of the steep riverbank.

She loved this place, she thought with a sigh, sliding down from Minty’s back to stand, simply absorbing the peace and tranquillity of her surroundings. Especially at night, when the river ran dark and silent, and the trees stood like sentinels, big and brooding. Her father had used to call her a creature of the night. ‘An owl,’ he used to say, ‘while Nina is a lark.’

The full moon was blanching the colour out of everything, surrounding her in tones of black and grey, except for the river, where it formed slinky silver patterns on the silent mass as it moved with a ghostly kind of grace.

Letting the bridle fall so that Minty could put down her head to graze, Madeline shoved her hands into the pockets of her old sheepskin coat and sucked in a deep breath of sharp, crisp, clean air then let it out again slowly, feeling little by little the tension leave her body. It wasn’t fair—she knew she was being unfair. They were good, kind, loving people who only wanted the best for her and for her to be happy.

But how could she tell them that she’d forgotten what happiness was? Real happiness at any rate, the kind she had once embraced without really bothering to think about it.

Sighing, she moved towards the edge of the bank where she could hear the water softly lapping the pebbly ground several feet below her.

On the other side of the river, hidden behind another thick clump of trees, the old Courtney place stood dark and intimidating. She could just make out its crooked chimneystacks as the moon slid lazily over them. It was an old Elizabethan thing, let to go over the years until it had gained the reputation of being haunted. Its owner, Major Courtney, had done nothing to refute the claims. He was a recluse, an eccentric straight out of the Victorian era who had guarded his privacy so fiercely that in her mad youth Madeline had loved to torment him by creeping into his overgrown garden just so he would come running out with his shotgun at the ready.

Shocking creature! she scolded herself now, but with a smile which was pure ‘old’ Madeline.

The silence was acting like a balm, soothing away a bleakness she had been struggling with from the moment she had stepped into the house this afternoon. She knew exactly why it was there. Her problem was how to come to terms with it.

She had not expected Dominic’s presence to be so forcefully stamped into everything she rested her eyes upon.

‘Damn him,’ she whispered softly to the night, and huddled deeper into her coat.

‘Another step, and you’ll fall down the bank,’ a quiet voice warned from somewhere behind her.

The moon slid behind a lonely cloud. Blackness engulfed her suddenly, and Madeline let out a strangled cry, her heart leaping to her mouth as she jumped, almost doing exactly what that voice warned against and plunging down the riverbank in sheer fright.

Heart hammering, the breath stripped clean from her body, she spun around, eyes wide and frightened as they searched the inky blackness for a glimpse of a body to go with the voice.

Another horse stood calmly beside Minty. And Madeline realised that she had been so engrossed in her own thoughts that she hadn’t heard the other rider come up. But she could see no one, and a fine chilling thread of alarm began slinking along her spine while she stood there breathless and still, the sudden deathly silence filling her ears, drying her mouth while her eyes flicked anxiously around the dark clearing.

By legend, this was highwayman country. And she could conjure up at least three gruesome tales of ghostly sightings in these parts. She’d always laughed them off before—while secretly wishing she could witness something supernatural. Now, she was rueing that foolish wish.

The horses shifted, bridles jingling as they nudged against each other. Madeline blinked, her eyes stinging with the effort it took to pierce the pitch-blackness.

‘Who’s there?’ she demanded shakily.

‘Who do you think?’ drawled a mocking voice.

It was then, as she caught the lazy mockery, the dark velvet resonance of the voice, that the fear went flying as a new and far more disturbing emotion took over, making her hands clench in her pockets as she saw a movement over to the right of the horses.

A tall figure of a man detached itself from the shadow of a tree, looking more wicked than any highwayman could to Madeline’s agitated mind. She had known him to come upon her like this many times, using shock tactics to heighten her awareness of him. He was that kind of man. A man who thrived on others’ uncertainty.

‘So, the prodigal has returned at last.’

‘Hello, Dom,’ she said, forcing herself to sound cool and unaffected by his sudden presence, even as her nerve-ends scrambled desperately for something she refused to acknowledge. ‘What brings you out here tonight of all nights?’

The moon came out from behind its cloud, and his smile flashed white in his shadowed face. ‘The same thing as you, I should imagine,’ he answered, close enough for her to see the clean taut lines of his handsome face. ‘Hello, Maddie,’ he belatedly responded.

He seemed to loom like the trees, tall and dark, black jeans and a heavy black sweater exaggerating the muscled power of his body. Everything about Dominic Stanton was in general larger than life, she mused acidly. Including his vows of undying love.

Abruptly she turned away from him, a hard pang of pain twisting in her ribs. They had used to meet here often once. It had been their place—among several others along this eerie riverbank. She would always arrive first, the more eager, she bitterly recalled. And he would come out of the darkness to take her in his—

A hand touched her shoulder. She reacted violently, his unexpected touch coinciding so closely with her thoughts that she took a jerky step back, and felt the riverbank tilt dangerously beneath her feet.

‘You stupid fool!’ he growled, fingers digging into her shoulders as he yanked her on to safer ground. ‘What do you think I’m going to do—rape you?’

Rape? A noise left her throat like a hysterical choke. Since when had he had to resort to rape with her? Surely it had been the other way around.

‘Let go of me,’ she insisted, disgusted with herself because even now, after four long years, one look at him and everything she had in her was clamouring in hungry greeting, sending her pulses leaping wildly.

His eyes still looked down at her with that same passionate intensity; his mouth was still firm-lipped and sensual. He still stood eight inches above her, still exuded that same hardcore sexuality that had always driven her mad with wanting—and still had the ability to stir her wayward nature.

She hated him for that. Hated him for making it happen.

His hands left her instantly, and she almost sagged in groaning relief. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said tightly. ‘I want to touch you probably less than you want to feel my touch on you.’

‘W-what are you doing here?’ she demanded, wanting to rub her arms where his fingers had dug in—not because he’d hurt her, but because her flesh was stinging as if she’d just been burned.

‘To see you, what else?’ He moved back a step to thrust his own hands out of sight in the tight pockets of his jeans. ‘Four years is a long time not to set eyes on the woman who made a public spectacle of me.’

She had made a public spectacle of him? Madeline almost laughed out loud. ‘As I remember it,’ she smiled bitterly, ‘it was the other way around.’

‘Not from where I was standing, it wasn’t,’ he grunted. ‘Humiliated by a spoiled if beautiful black-haired brat who has never given a care for anyone but herself!’

‘Thank you,’ she drawled. ‘It’s so nice to know how fondly my then fiancé thought of me.’

‘As nice as it was for me to find out what a faithless fiancée you were to me?’

Madeline visibly flinched, guilt and shame four years in the nurturing holding the breath congealed inside her lungs. And she had to look away from him, unable to defend herself against that ruthless thrust. There was just too much truth in it.

Silence fell hard and tight between them, and they stood stiffly in the moonlit clearing, neither seeming to know what to say next to hurt the other. It was amazing how the antipathy was still there throbbing like a war drum between them. It should have dulled a little by now, at least withered into a mutual dislike maybe, but it hadn’t. And this meeting could be happening the night after the country club ball for the way they were reacting to one another, and the intervening years might as well as not have gone by.

The moon hung like a silver lantern above their heads, etching out each harshly handsome line of his smooth lean face: the silky black bars of his eyebrows, almost touching as he glowered down at her; his eyes glinting at her from beneath those dark thick lashes; his slender nose, long and arrogant, just like the man. And his mouth, she noted lastly. Just a thin taut line of contempt which even then could not disguise its in-built sensuality.

‘Four years,’ Dominic muttered suddenly. ‘And you still look the same bewitching child. Still more beautiful than any woman ought to be.’

Something inside her twisted in pained yearning, and she went to turn away from him, only to find her arms caught once again in his bruising grip. ‘Not yet,’ he bit out. ‘You’re not going to escape again just yet. Tell me, Madeline...’ He pushed his angry face closer to her own so that she could see the bitterness burning in his eyes, feel it pulsing right through him. ‘Did you do it just to punish me? Or was it that you simply did not care?’

‘Your desire to know comes four years too late,’ she threw back, lifting her chin to let her cool gaze clash with his angry one.

He looked ready to shake her out of her coolness, and certainly his fingers tightened their grip on her arms. Then he suddenly seemed to think better of it. ‘You’re right,’ he agreed. ‘Four years is a long time to await an answer which really does not interest me. But what does interest me, Madeline,’ he persisted harshly, ‘is whether Boston and those damned four years have managed to make a woman out of the wilful child I thought I loved!’

She should have expected it, Madeline realised a moment later. She should have read it in the sudden flash of those coldly burning eyes, seen it in the tension of his hard mouth just before it landed punishingly on top of her own. But she hadn’t, too shaken by her own disturbing reactions accurately to interpret his, and his warm breath rasped against her cold mouth as he went from the verbal attack to the physical in one swift angry movement.

Stunned into total stillness, she just stood in front of him, his fingers biting into her arms through the padded warmth of her sheepskin coat as he held her tight against him. And the angry pressure of his mouth crushed her lips back against her teeth, forcing them apart and drawing memories from her that she would far rather have left banished to the dark recesses of her mind.

And as each lonely sense began to stir inside her, awakening to the only source ever to bring them to life, she began to fight, fight like hell for release—aware of his angry passion, of her own reaching up to match it, and wanting neither.

Never again! she told herself desperately as she strained frantically away from him. Never again!

‘Home half a day,’ he muttered, lifting his head to glare at her through eyes shot silver with a strange mixture of rage and anguish. ‘And already I can’t—’

The words died, choked off by a thickened throat as his mouth came back to hers. He lifted a hand to bury his fingers in the silken softness of her hair, drawing her head back, forcing her face up to his own. His other arm was like steel around her waist, clamping her to him, and the helpless groan he gave against her mouth wrenched an answering one from herself.

The kiss went on and on, nothing kind or loving in the cruel assault, but slowly she felt her control slipping away from her, felt her senses begin to hum with a need to respond. And suddenly they were kissing frenziedly, straining against each other, lost in the turmoil which had always been an exciting part of their relationship four years ago. When Dominic had allowed it to happen, that was, which wasn’t often.

Reality came crashing back with the memory, and she dragged her mouth away from his, her own bitterness aimed entirely at herself because once again she had fallen for his easy passion—a passion she knew from experience he could switch on and off like a tap.

‘It’s funny how we should both end up on this particular spot by the river tonight of all nights,’ he murmured against the heated smoothness of her cheek. ‘I seem to still possess that special antenna where you’re concerned, Madeline. I think I knew the moment you stepped back on to British soil. What does that admission do to your quaking heart, I wonder?’ he taunted silkily. ‘Does it make it beat all the faster?’

The flat of his hand suddenly came out to press firmly against the heaving mound of her breast where her heart was racing madly beneath the thick padding of her sheepskin coat. And she gasped.

‘Stop it,’ she hissed, trying to push him away. ‘Stop it, Dominic—please!’

‘Why?’ he taunted. ‘You love it! You always did!’

His mouth crushed down on to hers again with one last angry kiss, then suddenly she was free, standing dazed and swaying in front of him as he pushed himself away from her as violently as he had taken hold.

‘The next plane to Boston leaves in the morning,’ she heard him say quite coldly. ‘If you aren’t on it, Madeline, I shall take it that you’re prepared to stay and fight this time, instead of running away like the coward I never thought you to be.’

Then he was gone, striding away and leaping on to his horse before she had a chance to absorb the full meaning of his words.

The dull throb of galloping hoofs kept time with the thud of her pounding heart as she remained standing there, staring blankly at the spot he had last been standing in, her confused mind half wondering if she had imagined the whole incredible scene!

God knew, she’d dreamed of confrontations similar to this one often enough in the last four years—struggled with the same emotions clamouring inside her now. But never had she thought of Dominic being the one throwing out ultimatums. It had always been the other way around, she the injured one and he the one to grovel and plead.

Was she going to run away again?

The idea certainly appealed to her as she forced her quivering body to move. Meeting him unexpectedly like this had shaken her to the very core. And the knowledge that she was no more invulnerable to him now than she had been four years ago frightened her into seriously considering going back to Boston before he could really manage to hurt her.

Revenge, she realised grimly as she climbed on to Minty’s back. Dominic had just warned her that he was out for revenge, for what he called her humiliation of him.

Surely he had to see that he’d already had his revenge on her? In her mind they were quits. And this angry meeting should never have taken place.

‘Damn you, Dominic Stanton,’ she whispered into the icy darkness, her heart aching in so many different ways. ‘Damn you to hell.’

* * *

Damn him, she was still cursing him over an hour later as she restlessly paced her bedroom floor, her hands dug into the pockets of her blue satin robe.

Louise had showed her usual good taste in the refurbishment of her rooms, she acknowledged on a defiant snub to her troubled thoughts. Gone were the hearts and flowers, and soft toning blues and greys had replaced childish pinks, with the occasional splash of deep violet in acknowledgement of her own love of passionate colours. The walls were plain-painted instead of pattern-papered, the furnishings either replaced or re-covered to reflect the more mature woman, yet the touch of femininity was here, in the dozens of lace-edged satin cushions scattered about the place. Her old single bed had been replaced by a grand-looking double one with a beautiful silver-grey satin quilt thrown over it, appliquéd in blue and lilac silks. The carpet was grey and thick beneath her bare feet, the drapes the palest blue with tie-backs to match the bedcover.

Madeline sat down on her dressing stool, absently picking up her brush to stroke it through the tangled mass of recently wind-blown hair. She looked tired; dark smudges were spoiling the soft skin around her eyes. Her body felt heavy with fatigue, yet her limbs refused to stay still, twitching and forcing her to keep moving when she really wanted to flop into a blissfully deep sleep.

She was experienced enough in the side-effects of long-distance travel to know it was going to take her several days to adjust. But it wasn’t jet-lag bothering her tonight, she admitted heavily to herself. It was Dominic.

He hadn’t changed, not one small inch of him, inside or out. He was still big and lean and powerfully attractive. He still possessed that strong sexual allure about him that had always drawn her to him.

Could still kiss like the devil.

Her body responded, curling up into a tight tingling coil then springing open to spray those tingles all over her, and she sucked in a sharp breath, half impatience, half desperation.

It would have been better if Dominic had never seen her as anything but his sister’s best friend; then he would not have become the bitter man she had met down by the river tonight, and she would not be suffering the same old calamity of emotions he had always managed to stir inside her from that first moment he had looked at her and seen Madeline the woman and not the aggravating child.

She had scampered in and out of his life for years before that, seeing him as nothing more than Vicky’s big brother whose ten-year age difference placed him on a different plane from that which she had existed on. He had been one of them—the grown-up set she so loved to torment. And Vicky had loved to watch her do it because she herself was so in awe of her big brother that she didn’t dare antagonise him as Maddie had no qualms about doing.

Then the change had come. Circumstances had meant that she and Dominic hadn’t seen each other for almost two years, Dom because he was busy at his father’s bank, travelling the world as high-stepping financiers did, and she because she was busy studying for exams or commuting more often to Boston. And they had just seemed to miss—like ships in the night, she thought now with bitter wryness.

It was during the month of her eighteenth birthday that they met for the first time as adults. It was one of those long, lazy June days when the sun blazed down from an unblemished sky and the air lay so hot and still that she and Vicky had decided to laze around the Stanton swimming-pool for the afternoon.

Madeline’s skin already glowed with the rich golden tan from a recent Florida holiday with her family—her American family, that was—her mother, Lincoln, her second husband, and his two teenage children from his first marriage. She enjoyed being with them all for the month she spent there, but, as always, was glad to come home to Lambourn, and had been back only a few days when she donned her black and white striped one-piece swimsuit which showed more flesh than it hid and made Vicky green with envy for her luscious tan.

‘That figure of yours should be censored,’ her friend complained, eyeing the way the fashionable suit moulded Madeline’s slender frame from the firm fullness of her breasts to the high cutaway sides which made an open statement about the long sleek length of her legs.

‘Pocket Venuses bring out the male instinct to protect,’ she answered soothingly, studying Vicky’s demure little frame with her own brand of envy. Next to Vicky—and Nina, come to that—Madeline had always felt a bit like an Amazon. She had what Louise called an exotic figure. It didn’t inure her much to the softly rounded curves she had, but, never the type to chew on her lip in yearning for what she saw as too much of everything, she accepted her lot and got on with life in her usual happy-go-lucky way.

She had just got up from her padded lounger and executed a neat dive into the pool, and was swimming lazily up and down when another splash alerted her to the fact that she was no longer alone in the pool. She expected to see Vicky’s streaky brown head emerge beside her, and was therefore surprised when the dark, attractive features of Dominic grinned white-toothed at her instead, water streaming down his tanned body, muscles rippling everywhere, cording his strong neck where it met broad shoulders.

‘Now, what have we here?’ he murmured silkily, his warm grey eyes glinting with mischief. ‘A real live water nymph in our pool? Does she cast wicked spells, I wonder?’

For all Madeline had been the one to torment Dominic over the years, he wasn’t averse to giving her a taste of her own medicine when in the mood—and he was clearly in the mood that day.

‘Wicked ones,’ she grinned, surprised to feel so pleased to see him. ‘So watch it,’ she warned, wagging a lazy finger his way. ‘Or I may decide to turn you into a frog. And then what would all the lovely Lambourn ladies do without the rakish Dominic Stanton to send their poor hearts all a-flutter?’

He grinned and so did she—then with her usual impulsiveness she turned a somersault and dived beneath the water, grabbing at his foot as she went so that she could trail him down with her, watching the disconcertment on his face as he tried to tug his captured foot free, air bubbles escaping all around them.