Guilty

‘How gallant!’

Julie grimaced, but Laura had the feeling that Jake’s reaction had surprised her daughter. Evidently, he was not going to prove as easy to manipulate as Julie had expected, and, although she was probably nursing her grievances, she had decided to reassess her options before making any reckless moves.

‘Well—if you’re sure,’ Laura murmured now, half wishing Jake had not chosen to champion her. She had no desire to be the cause of any rift between them, and, in all honesty, she would have preferred to keep the kitchen as her sanctuary. But it was too late now, and, ignoring Julie’s still mutinous expression, she shook out the tablecloth.

‘D’you want a drink?’ asked Julie, after a few moments, apparently deciding that sulking was getting her nowhere, and to Laura’s relief Jake accepted the olive branch.

‘Sounds good,’ he said, and when Julie backed into the living-room he followed.

Breathing a somewhat relieved sigh, Laura quickly laid the table with the silver and glassware she had prepared earlier. Then, after rescuing the plates from the warming drawer, she set the casserole dish containing the fish on a cork mat in the middle of the table. The attractive terracotta-coloured casserole looked good amid the cream plates, with their narrow gold edging, and the crystal wine glasses that had been her gift to herself last Christmas.

She had bought some wine, and, although if Mark came for a meal she had him uncork the bottle, this evening she tackled the job herself. It wasn’t as if she was helpless, she thought irritably, removing a tiny speck of cork from the rim. It was only that Julie tended to intimidate her. And that was her own fault, too.

In the event, the meal was a success. The fish tasted as delicious as Laura had hoped, and, whatever Jake and her daughter had said to one another in the living-room, the atmosphere between them was definitely lighter. Evidently, Julie had been appeased, and, although Jake still didn’t respond to her frequent attempts to touch him, he didn’t reject them either. Instead, he spoke equally to both women, encouraging Julie to talk about her recent trip to Scandinavia, and showing an apparently genuine interest in Laura’s teaching.

Although Laura was sure he was only being polite, so far as she was concerned, she was not averse to talking about her job, and only when Julie gave a rather pronounced yawn did she realise she had been lecturing. But it was so rare that she spoke to anyone at any length outside the teaching profession, and Jake’s intelligent observations had inspired her to share her opinions.

When they eventually left the table, Julie asked if she could have a bath. ‘I feel grubby,’ she said, deliberately stretching her arms above her head, so that the perfect lines of her slim figure could be seen to advantage. She wore her hair short these days, and with its smooth curve cupping her head like a burnished cap, and her small breasts thrusting freely against the bronze silk, she was both provocative and beautiful. She cast a mocking smile in Jake’s direction. ‘But you won’t be able to come and wash my back, darling,’ she added lightly. ‘Mum doesn’t approve of that sort of thing, do you, Mum?’

Laura didn’t know how to answer her, but as it happened she didn’t have to. ‘I’ll be too busy helping your mother with the washing-up, anyway,’ Jake returned, causing Laura no small spasm of trepidation. ‘Go ahead. Take your bath, cara. We don’t mind—do we, Laura?’

Laura turned to stare at him then, telling herself it was his attempt to link them together that disturbed her, and not her reaction to her name on his lips. But Jake wasn’t aware of her scrutiny. He was looking at Julie, and for once her daughter seemed nonplussed. Laura guessed she, too, was trying to gauge exactly what Jake was implying by his remarks, and her response revealed her uncertainty.

‘I—well, of course, I’ll help to clear up first—–’ she began but she got no further.

‘It’s not necessary for either of you to help me. Really,’ Laura retorted, her face reddening as she spoke. ‘Honestly. I can manage. Please. I’d rather.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ declared Jake, apparently indifferent to her embarrassment. ‘You’ve been at work all day, while we’ve only had a rather leisurely drive from London. In addition to which, you prepared this very appetising meal, which we’ve all enjoyed. I suggest you go and relax, while we deal with the clearing up.’

Laura looked at Julie now, and she could tell that her daughter didn’t like this turn of events at all. It was so unexpected, for one thing, and, for another, Julie wasn’t used to being treated like a servant in her own home. It did not augur well for the remainder of the weekend, and Laura decided she wasn’t prepared to play pig-in-the-middle any longer.

‘No,’ she said clearly, gathering up the coffee-cups and saucers, and bundling them on to the drainer. ‘Really, Mr—er—I insist. You’re my guests. I invited you here, and I wouldn’t dream of allowing you to do my job.’ She couldn’t quite meet his gaze as she spoke, so she looked at Julie instead. ‘Go along,’ she continued. ‘Have your bath. The water’s nice and hot, and there’s plenty of it.’

‘Are you sure?’

Julie hesitated, looking doubtfully from Jake to her mother and back again, but Laura was adamant. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Heavens, there are only a few plates to wash, when all’s said and done. Hurry up. I’m sure your—er—friend would much prefer your company to mine.’

Julie frowned. It was obvious what she wanted to do, but Jake’s attitude had confused her. Still, her own basic belief, that she was not being selfish by allowing her mother to have her own way, won out, and, giving them both a grateful smile, she departed. Seconds later, Laura heard the sound of her daughter’s footsteps on the stairs, and, breathing a sigh of relief, she moved towards the sink.

‘You’re wrong, you know.’

She had almost forgotten Jake was still there, but now his quiet words caused her to glance round at him. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I said—you’re wrong,’ he responded. He had got up from the table when she had, and now he was leaning against the base unit behind her, his arms folded across his chest, his long legs crossed at the ankle.

‘About Julie?’ Laura turned her back on him again, and proceeded to fill the sink with soapy water. ‘Possibly.’

‘You spoil her,’ he went on. ‘She’s perfectly capable of washing a few dishes.’

‘Maybe.’ Laura didn’t like his assumption that he could discuss Julie with her, as if she were some racalcitrant child. ‘But—I choose to do them myself.’

‘No.’ Jake came to stand beside her as he spoke, and now she was forced to meet his dark gaze. ‘No, you don’t choose to do them yourself. You take the line of least resistance. Which just happens to coincide with what Julie wants to do, no?’

Laura took a deep breath. ‘I don’t think it’s any of your business, Mr—er—Lombardi—–’

‘Jake will do,’ he put in briefly. ‘And so long as Julie and I are together, I consider it is my business.’

Laura gasped. His arrogance was amazing, but at least it served to keep her own unwilling awareness of him at bay. ‘You don’t understand,’ she declared, depositing the newly washed glasses on the drainer. ‘Julie and I don’t see one another very often—–’

‘And whose fault is that?’

‘It’s nobody’s fault.’ But Laura couldn’t help wondering if he knew exactly how infrequently Julie made the journey north. Recently, Laura had had to travel to London if she wanted to see her daughter, and as she could only do so during school holidays, and they often coincided with Julie’s working trips abroad, these occasions were getting fewer.

‘So—you are quite happy with the situation, hmm?’ he enquired, picking up a tea-towel, and beginning to dry a glass.

‘Yes.’

Laura’s response was taut, and she hoped that that would be an end of it. It was bad enough being obliged to entertain him while Julie went to take her bath. A conversation of this kind tended to increase their familiarity with one another, and she would have preferred to keep their relationship on much more formal terms.

She finished the dishes in silence, but she was very much aware of him moving about the small kitchen, and the distinctive scent of his skin drifted irresistibly to her nostrils. It was a combination of the soap he used, some subtle aftershave, and the warmth of his body, and Laura had the feeling it was not something she would easily forget. It was so essentially masculine, and she resented the knowledge that he could influence her without any volition on her part.

As she was putting the dishes away, he spoke again, and as before his words commanded her attention. ‘I guess you’re angry with me now, aren’t you?’ he said, stepping into her path, as she was about to put the plates into the cupboard. It caused her to stop abruptly, to prevent herself from cannoning into him, and she pressed the plates against her chest, like some primitive form of self-protection.

‘I—don’t know what you mean,’ she protested, and although it was scarcely true she thought it sounded convincing enough.

‘Don’t you?’ Jake looked down at her, and, despite the fact that she had always considered herself a tall woman, he was still at least half a foot taller. ‘I think you know very well. You resented my remarks about your daughter. You don’t consider I have any right to criticise the way she treats you.’

Laura took a deep breath. ‘All right,’ she said, deciding there was no point in lying to him. It wasn’t as if she wanted them to be friends, after all. If Julie married him, the greater the distance there was between them the better. ‘I don’t think anyone who doesn’t have a child of their own can make any real assessment on how a parent ought, or ought not, to behave.’

‘Ah.’ Jake inclined his head, and Laura was intensely conscious of how she must appear to him. The Aran sweater was not flattering, and she was sure her face must be shining like a beacon. ‘But I do have a daughter. Not as old as yours,’ he conceded, after a moment. ‘She’s only eight years old. But a handful, none the less.’

Laura swallowed. ‘You—have a daughter?’

He could apparently tell what she was thinking, for his lean lips parted. ‘But no wife,’ he assured her gently. ‘Isabella—that was her name—she died when our daughter was only a few months old.’

‘Oh.’ Laura’s tongue appeared to moisten her lips. ‘I—I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

‘How could you?’ Jake responded. ‘Until tonight, we had never even met.’

‘No.’

But Laura was embarrassed nevertheless. Julie should have told her, she thought impatiently. If she knew. But, of course, she must. She had the feeling it was not something Jake would try to hide.

She half stepped forward, eager to get past him now, and put the plates away, so that she could escape to the living-room. The kitchen was too small, too confining, and that awful panicky feeling she had felt in the hall earlier was attacking her nerves again. He was too close; too familiar. He might not be aware of it, but she most definitely was.

But Jake moved as she did, probably with the same thought in mind, she guessed later, and unfortunately he chose the same direction as Laura, so that they collided.

The shock jarred her, but her first instincts were to protect the plates. She clutched them to her, instead of trying to save herself, and it was left to Jake to prevent her, and her burden, from ending up on the floor. Almost instinctively, his hands grasped the yielding flesh of her upper arms, and for a brief moment she was forced to lean against him.

Afterwards, she realised that the incident couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds. It was one of those accidents that in retrospect seemed totally avoidable. Only it hadn’t happened that way. Almost as if she was moving in slow motion, Laura was compelled into Jake’s arms, and for a short, but disruptive period she was close against his lean frame.

And, during those nerve-racking seconds, when the world seemed to falter around her, her body came alive to every nerve and emotion she possessed. Her skin felt raw; sensitised; as if someone had peeled away the top layer, and left her weak and open to attack. She had never experienced such a shattering explosion of feeling, and her mind reeled beneath its implications.

She jerked away from him, of course, more violently than she should have done, and one of the plates went flying. But it wasn’t the sound of the china splintering on the tiles that first made her face burn, and then robbed it of all colour. It was the fact that the ball of Jake’s hand brushed her breast as she rebounded, and in the sudden narrowing of his eyes she saw a reflection of her own awareness.

CHAPTER THREE

LAURA slept badly, and it wasn’t just the unfamiliar experience of sharing her bed with her daughter. She was hot and restless, and although she longed for it to be morning, she was not looking forward to the day ahead.

Of course, it didn’t help that Julie had appropriated at least two-thirds of the space, and every time Laura moved she was in fear of waking her. Indeed, there were times during the night when Laura half wished she had not been so adamant about the sleeping arrangements. If Julie had been sharing Jake’s bed, she would not have been so conscious of him, occupying the room on the other side of the dividing wall.

As it was, her senses persistently taunted her with that awareness, and images of Jake’s dark, muscled body, relaxed against the cream poplin sheets, were a constant aggravation. It was pathetic, she thought, disgusted by her thoughts. Apart from anything else, he was Julie’s boyfriend, her property—if a man like Jake Lombardi could ever be regarded as any woman’s possession. Somehow she sensed he was unlikely to let that happen. Nevertheless, whatever label she put on it, he was the man her daughter intended to marry, and any attraction she felt towards him was both loathsome and pitiful. For heaven’s sake, she chided herself, he was probably ten years younger than she was, and, even if Julie hadn’t been involved, he simply wasn’t the type of man she attracted.

She was just a middle-aged school-teacher, who had wasted any chance of happiness she might have had by getting herself pregnant, when she should have been old enough to know better. And since then, she had never felt the need for a serious relationship. Over the years, there had been one or two men who had attempted to push a casual association into something more, but Laura had always repelled invaders. Only Mark had stayed the course, and that was primarily because he made no demands on her. She had actually begun to believe that, whatever sexual urges she had once possessed, they were now extinct, and it was disturbing, to say the least, to consider that she might have been wrong.

And what was she basing this conclusion on? she asked herself contemptuously. It wasn’t as if anything momentous had happened to shatter her illusions. How stupid she was to read anything into Jake’s almost knocking her over, and preventing it. It was what anyone would have done in the same circumstances, man or woman, and she was fooling herself if she thought his brief awareness of her had been sexual.

But he had grabbed her, she argued doggedly. He had propelled her into his arms. It didn’t matter that on his part it had been a purely impersonal reaction. She could still feel the grip of his fingers, and the taut corded muscles of his legs…

God! She turned on to her back and gazed blindly up at the ceiling. How old was she? Thirty-eight? She was reacting like a sixteen-year-old. But then, she thought bitterly, her sexual development had been arrested around that age, so what else could she expect?

She was glad Julie had known nothing about it. By the time her daughter came down from her bath, clean, and sweetly smelling of rosebuds, her slender form wrapped in a revealing silk kimono, Laura had swept the floor, and restored the kitchen—and herself—to comparative order. That disruptive moment with Jake might never have been, and she was able to excuse herself on the pretext of being tired, without revealing any of the turmoil that was churning inside her. She left them sharing the sofa in the living-room, where Jake had been sitting since she had insisted on clearing up the broken china herself.

She got up at six o’clock. She had been wide awake since five, and only the knowledge that she would have no excuse for being up any earlier had prevented her from going downstairs as soon as it was light. But six o’clock seemed reasonably acceptable, and as the others hadn’t come to bed until some time after midnight Laura doubted she would disturb anyone.

Drawing the blind in the kitchen, she saw it was a much brighter morning. The sun was sparkling like diamonds on the wet grass, and the birds were setting up a noisy chatter in the trees that formed a barrier between her garden and the lane that led to Grainger’s farm.

The cottage was the second of two that stood at the end of the village, the other being occupied by an elderly widow and her daughter. Laura knew that people thought she was a widow, too, and she had never bothered to correct them. In a place as small as Burnfoot, it was better not to be too non-conformist, and, while being a one-parent family was no novelty these days, people might look differently on someone of Laura’s generation.

After putting the kettle on to boil, she opened the back door and stepped out into the garden. It was fresh, but not chilly, and she pushed her hands into the pockets of her dressing-gown and inhaled the clean air. The bulbs she had planted the previous autumn were beginning to flower, and the bell-shaped heads of purple hyacinths and crimson tulips were thrusting their way between the clumps of wild daffodils. The garden was starting to regain the colour it had lost over the winter months, and Laura guessed that sooner or later she would have to clear the dead leaves, and dispose of the weeds.

It was a prospect she generally looked forward to, but this morning it was hard to summon any enthusiasm for anything. She felt depressed, and out of tune with herself, and, hearing one of Ted Grainger’s heifers bellowing in the top field, she thought the animal epitomised her own sense of frustration. But frustration about what? she asked herself crossly. What did she have to be frustrated about?

The kettle was beginning to boil. She could hear it. It was a comforting sound, and, abandoning her introspection, she turned back towards the house. And that was when she saw him, standing indolently in the open doorway, watching her.

He was dressed—that was the first thing she noticed about him. He was wearing the same black jeans he had been wearing the night before, but he wasn’t wearing a shirt this morning; just a V-necked cream cashmere sweater, that revealed the brown skin of his throat, and a faint trace of dark body hair in the inverted apex of the triangle. Unlike herself, she was sure, he looked relaxed and rested, although his eyes were faintly shadowed, as if he hadn’t slept long enough.

And why not? she thought irritably. She had still been awake when Julie had come to bed, even if she had pretended otherwise, and by her reckoning he could not have had more than five hours. Hardly enough for someone who had driven almost three hundred miles the day before, in heavy traffic, with goodness knew what hangover from the night before that.

Laura was immediately conscious of her own state of undress, and of the fact that she hadn’t even brushed her hair since she’d come downstairs. It was still a tumbled mass about her shoulders, with knotted strands of nut-brown silk sticking out in all directions.

Laura’s hand went automatically to her hair, and then, as if realising it was too late to do anything about it now, she clutched the neckline of her robe, and walked towards him. Pasting a polite smile on her face, she strove to hide the resentment she felt at his unwarranted intrusion, and, reaching the step, she said lightly, ‘Good morning. You’re an early riser.’

‘So are you,’ Jake countered, moving aside to let her into the house. ‘Couldn’t you sleep?’

Laura went to take the tea caddy out of the cupboard, and dropped three bags into the pot before answering him. The steady infusion of the water sent up a revitalising aroma from the leaves, and Laura breathed deeply, as she considered how to reply.

‘I—er—I’m always up fairly early,’ she said at last, putting the lid on the teapot, and having no further reason to avoid his gaze. ‘Um—would you like a cup of tea? Or would you rather have coffee? I can easily make a pot, if that’s what you’d prefer.’

‘Whatever you’re having,’ he said, closing the back door, and leaning back against it. ‘I’m—what do you say?—easy.’

Laura’s lips twitched. ‘Milk, or lemon?’

‘You choose,’ he essayed flatly. ‘Tea is tea, whatever way you drink it.’

‘I doubt if the connoisseurs would agree with you,’ declared Laura, setting out three cups and saucers. ‘Tea used to be regarded as quite a ritual. It still is, in other parts of the world. China, for instance.’

‘Really?’

He didn’t sound as if it interested him greatly, and she guessed her line in small talk was not what he was used to. He evidently enjoyed the kind of sexual innuendo Julie employed to such effect. But Laura wasn’t experienced in innuendo, sexual or otherwise, and, aware of how she had monopolised the conversation at dinner the previous evening, she knew she had to guard against being boring.

Then, remembering her hair, she started towards the door. That was something that couldn’t wait any longer, and she paused, uncertainly, when he asked, ‘Where are you going?’

‘I—won’t be a minute,’ she answered, loath to admit exactly where she was headed. ‘Um—help yourself; and Julie, too, if you want.’

‘I’ll wait,’ he said, leaving the door, to pull out a chair from the table, and straddle it with his long legs. ‘OK.’

Laura hesitated a little bemusedly, and then nodded. ‘Of—of course.’

Brushing her hair entailed going upstairs again, and as she stood at the bathroom mirror, tugging the bristles through the tangled strands, she felt a helpless sense of inevitability. The last thing she had expected was that she would have to face another one-to-one encounter with Jake so soon. Her assessment of the day ahead had already gone badly awry, and she hoped the rest of the weekend was not going to prove as traumatic.

There were men’s toiletries on the glass shelf above the handbasin, she saw, with an unwelcome twinge of trepidation. No doubt they were responsible for the spicy smell of cologne that lingered in the atmosphere, the unfamiliar scents of sandalwood and cedar. There was a razor, too. Not some sophisticated electrical gadget, as she would have expected, but a common-or-garden sword-edge, with throwaway blades. The man was a contradiction, she thought, frowning, hardly aware that she was running her fingers over a dark green bottle of aftershaving lotion. He was rich, and sophisticated; he wore handmade shirts, and Armani jackets, and he drove a Lamborghini. All aspects of the lifestyle to which he was accustomed. And yet, he had seemed genuinely pleased with the simple meal she had served the night before, and he had dried the dishes afterwards, as if it was a perfectly natural thing for him to do.

She realised suddenly that she was wasting time. It was at least five minutes since she had come upstairs, and, apart from anything else, the tea would be getting cold.

The hairpins she usually used to keep her hair in place were in the bedroom, and although she wouldn’t have minded waking Julie, it was going to take too much time. Instead, she found the elastic headband in the pocket of her dressing-gown that she sometimes used when she was pottering about the garden, and, sliding it up over her forehead, she decided that would have to do.

Going downstairs again was harder, but she steeled herself to behave naturally. After all, so far as Jake was concerned, she was just Julie’s mother: a little eccentric, perhaps, and obviously nervous with strangers.