Vengeful Bride

CHAPTER TWO

EMMA swung her reading glasses off and laid them carefully on the desk, beside the faded parchment. She rubbed a grubby hand shakily over her face. She was tired, hungry, stiff with sitting for so long. The attic room was cold. It felt like the cold of centuries of unheated stone, and the small Calor-gas fire flickering beside her hadn’t a hope of dispelling it. And yet inside her excitement warmed her, burned like a secret flame…She felt a consuming urgency to continue working. End of daylight spelled end of work, and she was so engrossed she didn’t want to finish yet…

She caught her breath sharply, struck by the complexity of her present situation. Here she was, poring over ancient papers in the dusty, ghost-filled attics of Fleetwood Manor, deciphering letters to Sir George Fleetwood, written over four hundred years ago, back in the sixteenth century. The old iron casks and wooden boxes overflowed with a treasure-trove of historical detail…

And judging from the faded ink and parchment, Sir George’s character bore lamentable similarities to his more recent descendants. Sir Robert, Dominick’s father, could have been an uncanny reincarnation of his reprehensible ancestors. And Dominick…? She shivered a little. Remembering the lazy, speculative gleam in his eyes at their last encounter gave her the distinct impression that family traits lived on in the present generation…

A footstep at the door made her swivel round quickly. She’d expected to see Jamie, Mrs Shields’ grandson. But Dominick Fleetwood stood there. Her stomach lurched alarmingly.

‘Still at it?’ He checked a slim gold watch on his wrist, and tilted a wry smile at her. ‘Isn’t this beyond the call of duty?’

She stood up slowly. She suddenly felt conscious of her appearance. She hadn’t seen Dominick for the entire fortnight she’d been here. He hadn’t come down from London last weekend. Deeply involved in her work, she’d almost forgotten that it was Friday night again, and that there was a possibility he might arrive. Now here he was, darkly devastating in dove-grey suit and charcoal silk tie, radiating aristocratic elegance, and making her feel like an unkempt maid-servant…

‘It’s riveting stuff,’ she confessed, with a short laugh. ‘I just can’t stay away from it!’

‘Letters and bills and inventories and rent arrears, spanning the last five and a half centuries?’ he mocked softly. ‘Worth starving and freezing to death over?’

Emma reached a hand up to smooth her hair. It was caught up in a thick ponytail, with strands escaping around her face, and she knew it must look a mess. Just as she must look a mess. She had pins and needles in her right foot from hooking it around the rungs of the chair for hours on end. She shook it, and stamped on it surreptitiously.

‘I might be in danger of freezing, but certainly not of starving,’ she retorted lightly. ‘Mrs Shields and Jamie keep me supplied with a regular flow of home-made flapjacks and mugs of tea!’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ She felt the cool gaze slide consideringly over her. She stiffened, her embarrassment deepening. In old jeans, a thick, baggy black polo-neck, a strawberry-pink checked shirt worn open as a jacket and clumpy Doc Marten boots she was hardly femme fatale material. But did she want to be? a small voice cautioned. This job, in spite of her muddled bitterness about the Fleetwood family, had proved irresistible.

It was a gem of a job. The kind every historian must surely dream about. Not just for the unique archives, but for the magnificent working environment. She’d felt deeply privileged, having the freedom to explore the old manor, admire the ancient beauty of the place. There was even a fifteenth-century Great Hall, complete with minstrels’ gallery. But the idea of finding Dominick Fleetwood dangerously attractive hadn’t occurred to her. It was a complication she simply hadn’t considered…A sick feeling of panic crept into her stomach.

‘What’s wrong with your foot?’

‘It’s gone to sleep!’ she confessed, with a grimace. ‘I have this habit of twisting it round the chair when I’m sitting for a long time…’

‘I told you I didn’t want a Cinderella, slaving away night and day,’ he rebuked softly. ‘You look as if you haven’t slept since you started two weeks ago!’

‘Thanks a lot!’ Her cheeks felt hot. How dared he make personal remarks about her appearance?

‘You need some exercise,’ he judged coolly. ‘How do you normally keep fit?’

‘I…I swim,’ she heard herself saying vaguely, too taken aback by his abrupt interrogation to protest, ‘and sometimes I play tennis. Or jog. But I really don’t…’

‘Have you got a swimming costume with you?’

‘Well, yes, but I really…’

‘Tennis racket?’

‘No! And honestly, I…’ She was reeling under his patronising directness.

‘There’s a place I use when I’m down in this part of the world. I was planning to spend the evening there anyway.’ He shot her a sudden grin which seemed to stop her heartbeat for a few seconds. ‘Stress mounts up in my business. I tend to need a lot of unwinding. Come with me. It’ll do you good.’

‘Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly…’

‘I’m not asking you, Miss Stuart,’ he cut in calmly, ‘I’m telling you. Rules of the job. A fit body produces an alert brain.’

‘Of all the pompous…’ She bit her lip on the outburst, but not before she’d seen the steely flash of amusement in his eyes.

‘Careful, Miss Stuart. What happened to humility?’ The narrowed gaze raked her mercilessly. She began to tingle, from her neck to her knees, where his eyes slid over her.

‘Sorry, sir, she fenced, with mock-deference. Sketching a rough curtsy, she added with overdone meekness, ‘I’ll go and get ready right away! What would you recommend I wear?’

‘Something suitable for dinner.’ He nodded with bleak amusement. ‘We might as well have a meal there later. I’ll see you in my study in half an hour.’

This sounded horribly ominous. But she seemed to have little option. There was a warning note in the cool drawl which brought the colour surging into her face.

‘All right.’ She spoke through clenched teeth, but she wished her heart would stop its dull thudding against her breastbone.

Seething with resentment, she retreated to her bedroom to get ready. In her head she called him every name she could think of, to vent her feelings. Of all the autocratic, arrogant, self-opinionated, overbearing, cranky fitness freaks, he took the honours…Who did he think he was? Being temporary lord of the manor was one thing. Treating her like a half-witted child was quite another…

But the really infuriating thing, she acknowledged truthfully, was that the thought of swimming or playing tennis with Dominick Fleetwood, and then having dinner with him, secretly filled her with such conflicting feelings of dread and excitement that she trembled at the prospect of her own weakness…

Her feelings of hostility were her only protection. It was a good thing she disliked him so intensely. Because in every other respect her relationship with her employer, she reflected impatiently, seemed to be veering hopelessly off course…

The place Dominick frequented when he came down to Fleetwood Manor turned out to be an extremely exclusive country club. Immaculately landscaped grounds spread out, thickly wooded, revealing an outdoor swimming-pool, still under its winter wraps, as well as a big, covered indoor pool, and all-weather tennis courts with brand-new surfaces gleaming emerald beneath efficient floodlighting. She glanced at him apprehensively, as he drove between ranks of Rolls and Bentleys and Mercedes, and swung his forest-green Porsche into a parking place near the entrance.

‘You could have warned me it was like this,’ she said ruefully. ‘I’m hardly in this sort of league…!’

He turned a gaze of genuine surprise on her.

‘This sort of league?’ he echoed calmly. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You must know what I mean!’ She glanced down at the simple, ethnic-style full skirt she wore over a long-sleeved white body. ‘Are we supposed to be having dinner here?’

‘If you’re worried about the way you look,’ he said after a few moments’ cool consideration, ‘there’s no need.’ The smoky blue gaze assessed her clear, make-up-free skin, shiny chestnut hair and the soft curves of her figure beneath the clinging white top as he spoke. His eyes lingered fleetingly on her full breasts, nipples suddenly hard as cherry stones under his gaze. Emma felt her insides fold up in an alarming fashion, almost squeezing the breath from her lungs. Her thighs felt boneless.

‘You look fine.’ The verdict was succinct. He got out, retrieved their sports bags from the boot, and sent her a smile which flipped her heart over as he gestured towards the canopied entrance. In dark blue silk shirt and designer-cut charcoal trousers, he looked lean, broad-shouldered, and overwhelmingly gorgeous. The tug of attraction was so fierce, she found herself gritting her teeth…

It was surprisingly enjoyable, playing tennis on the floodlit outside courts. And somehow, faced with the challenge of holding her own against a player not only vastly more experienced but vastly stronger, she managed to acquit herself quite well. Dominick won, but she actually took a couple of games off him. The tingle of pleasure made her glow all over.

But one set was definitely enough. Her green tracksuit, the only suitable clothing she’d unearthed for the event, felt too warm. She wished she’d brought white skirt and T-shirt. Dominick had started in a black tracksuit, but discarded the trousers after the first couple of games, revealing white shorts and long, healthily tanned legs, coarsely haired and with impressively honed muscles.

‘You play quite well,’ he complimented her. He met her at the net and wryly observed her pink cheeks and air of triumphant enjoyment. ‘Do you want to play the best of three?’

She shook her head. ‘Are you trying to kill me off? I got to a reasonable standard when I was at school, but I’m so out of practice I’m amazed I managed to win any games at all!’

‘You won them fairly,’ he assured her. ‘All I held back on was my serve.’

‘Just as well!’ The power of Dominick’s returns had been sufficient evidence of the potential velocity of his normal service. She blew upwards to lift the damp strands of her hair from her forehead, and shot him a tentative smile. ‘I’m roasting in this tracksuit. Can we have a swim now?’

‘Indeed we can, Miss Stuart.’ The gleam in the blue eyes was difficult to gauge. But the heat from playing tennis seemed to intensify into another kind of heat as she felt his eyes rake assessingly over her figure beneath the green jersey of the tracksuit.

It took only minutes to swap tracksuit for swimsuit, and the water felt deliciously refreshing as she slid in. She glanced warily round for Dominick. He’d appeared at the deep end, dark and intensely masculine in brief navy swimming trunks. She watched, transfixed, as he paused, then dived cleanly in with an impressive ripple of muscle. Her steady breaststroke seemed rather feeble compared with his several lengths of masterly front crawl. He finally surfaced a few feet in front of her, laughing.

‘Feeling better?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted, trying not to react to the threat of his nearness. ‘Yes, thanks. Much better. I always do when I get around to exercising…’

‘You look better already,’ he assured her. ‘You’ve lost that pinched, tense look, Miss Stuart. It suits you.’

‘Thank you, Mr Fleetwood.’

‘Come on, we’ll finish with a Jacuzzi.’ Swimming easily to the side, he swung himself out on to the tiles, and reached down to catch hold of her arm, pulling her out beside him. The intimate contact was almost too much to bear. Finding herself standing next to him on the side of the pool, clad only in the clinging wet fabric of her black costume, felt as compromising as standing naked with a stranger…

‘You’re shivering,’ he observed, eyeing the goosebumps which had sprung to the surface of her skin. ‘Are you cold again already?’

He was steering her towards the Jacuzzi in the corner of the pool, his fingers warmly confident on her wet skin.

‘No. I’m not cold exactly…it’s…it’s just the contrast…and actually I’ve never been in a Jacuzzi…’ She was babbling nervously, she realised, annoyed with herself.

‘The Jacuzzi is hot.’ He dropped a coin into the slot and gestured into the foaming oval. Hesitating, she stood motionless on the edge as he stepped down into it, sat down and stretched his long, dark body across the width. ‘Come along, Miss Stuart. A new relaxation experience awaits you…’

Could she face joining him in what looked like an unbearably small and intimate space? Dragging air into strained lungs, she forced her wayward emotions under control. She was behaving like a prudish schoolgirl. There were plenty of other people swimming near by. He could be her brother, she reminded herself fiercely. Whatever this stupid shimmer of awareness signified, it certainly couldn’t come to anything. Sheer moral will-power would see to that…And the longer she stood here, with his lidded gaze humorously assessing her hesitation, the longer her body was exposed to that enigmatic male scrutiny…

She put one foot down into the bubbling water. The warmth was bliss after the cool of the swimming-pool. But the steps down were invisible, now that the water was foaming so fiercely. Taking another step in, she missed her footing. With a choked exclamation, she plunged forward. Disappearing under the surface, she burst up again to find herself sprawled ignomini-ously on top of Dominick. The sensation was electrifying.

‘Very interesting,’ he murmured teasingly, ‘but would you mind keeping to your own side?’ As he spoke, she felt strong hands capture her around her waist. She was lifted clear of his body. But not before the sensitive swell of her breasts had made firm contact with the coarse muscle of his chest and abdomen. And not before the slender length of her thighs had become embarrassingly entangled with the rough length of his legs.

‘Sorry…’ She was crimson. She could feel the acute embarrassment staining her cheeks and her neck.

‘Don’t be, I enjoyed it.’ A gleam of laughter lurked in his eyes, but his expression was deadpan as he observed her crumbled composure without compunction. ‘Miss Stuart,’ he added, on a huskier, taunting drawl, ‘would you just relax. Club rules are very strict on sexual antics in the Jacuzzi. I’m not about to rip your costume off and have my wicked way with you, whatever you might imagine.’

The sardonic humour flayed her bruised ego. His amusement was palpable. He was finding her excruciatingly funny, she realised furiously.

Slowly, she turned large grey eyes on him, all her buried resentment swirling to the surface, unbidden.

‘I’m obviously providing tonight’s entertainment,’ she said stiffly. ‘Was that why you insisted I come out with you this evening? Because you wanted some comic relief from your gruelling two weeks in court?’

His eyelids masked his expression as he watched her flushed face.

‘What a touchy young lady you are,’ he mused softly. ‘And where did you get such a low opinion of yourself?’

‘It’s not myself I have the low opinion of…’ The retort burst out, and she trailed off, aghast. Dominick’s expression had altered slightly. The lazy amusement had changed to a cooler, more dissecting curiosity. The shrewd barrister-like penetration was back in his eyes.

‘Let’s get this straight—you’re implying that you have a low opinion of me?’

‘I…’ Hopeless, she realised miserably. Even disregarding his cool arrogance at the suggestion that he could be less than perfect, how she’d ever imagined she could hide her mixed feelings, keep past resentments hidden, she’d never know…

‘Well? What have I done to incur your disapproval, Miss Stuart?’

‘Nothing…really, nothing…’ Apart from being unbearably conceited, domineering, and sadistically mocking, she screamed silently. Just as she imagined his father must have been…

Overcome with panic, she stood up, and tried to wade out of the surging water. He stood up too, and steadied her as she wobbled. His warm hands on her shoulders sent shock-waves of pure, unmistakable sexual desire streaking through her nerve-ends. Choked and breathless, she made it on to the firm surface, and retrieved her towel. The big white bath-sheet had come from the manor house, and she wrapped its fluffy length around herself like a shield.

Dominick had followed her out.

‘I’m going to have a hot shower,’ he said casually, looping his own towel round his neck and switching subjects, to her relief. ‘I recommend you do the same. I’ll meet you in the bar in about half an hour.’

‘Yes. Fine…’

‘Oh, and just to satisfy my curiosity,’ he murmured ruthlessly, catching her by the fold of her towel, where she’d fastened it tightly across her breasts, ‘I’d like to try this…’

Without warning, he dropped his head and kissed her, hungrily, shockingly, on her lips. The combination of the kiss, warm, masculine and demanding, and the contact of his knuckles against the soft swell of her cleavage was terrifyingly intense. Rigid with denial, she stood like a statue, outwardly frozen. Inside, some hidden reactor went into fatal meltdown. The taste of him, the scent of his body, the teasing exploration of his tongue inside her mouth, everything conspired to demolish her defences.

It took every ounce of horrified awareness to push him away. She faced him for a fraught moment, trembling all over. The blue gaze was unrepentantly amused. Her own grey gaze was wide with fury.

‘Please don’t try it again!’ she managed unsteadily. ‘Or you’ll be looking for a new archivist…’

Spinning angrily away, she made for the changing-rooms. Almost blindly, she stumbled to find her soap-bag, and then dived beneath the wonderfully hot showers, shampooing her hair and soaping her whole body.

She felt as if she’d somehow stepped into an impossible nightmare. She’d thought she could handle this complex situation. Now she realised it was going to be much, much harder than she’d imagined. This physical attraction to Dominick was disastrous. It was more than disastrous. It was…it was unthinkable…

She closed her eyes and let the shampoo run down her face, trying to free her mind from its turmoil. She felt hot inside. Hot, and bewildered, and full of self-disgust…If Dominick was her half-brother, that was bad enough. It made him scandalously out of bounds, in all normal societies…But a sense of bitter disloyalty was also stabbing through her. Behind her closed eyelids, it was images of her father that taunted her, in the months before he died.

As long as she could remember, she’d been told that the Fleetwood family had wrecked her parents’ lives. That Sir Robert Fleetwood, Dominick’s father, was to blame for everything that had gone so tragically wrong in her parents’ marriage. And yet now here she was, being taken out by Dominick Fleetwood tonight. And as well as hating him for his cool arrogance and despising him for who he was she was feeling these powerful, overwhelming, swelling bursts of excitement when she was with him…

She rubbed her fingers furiously through her wet hair, rinsing out the last of the bubbles. With her eyelids squeezed shut, she felt as if she was going mad. How could she have been so stupid as to go for this job, knowing what her father had told her about the Fleetwood males?

Emerging from the shower, she wrapped herself in her towel and went to sit on the wooden bench, while she fought to make sense of her feelings…

She was angry with Dominick tonight. But it wasn’t because of anything his father had done to her mother years ago. It wasn’t because he was a Fleetwood. She was angry with him because he made her feel vulnerable, and gauche. And she was angry with him because that physical contact in the Jacuzzi and that taunting kiss had made her quiver inside with a melting clench of desire she’d never felt before…She had to search for the evidence to prove her father’s version of the past. That was the most urgent task she had to undertake. The irony was that before meeting Dominick she’d have found a degree of vengeful satisfaction in proving that Sir Robert was her real father. Now she was so confused, she had no idea what she wanted to find out any more…

‘Have you chosen?’

She glanced up from the menu to find him lazily observing her. They were having pre-dinner drinks at the bar, seated on stools. She took a shaky sip of her dry Martini, and tried to decide what she wanted to eat.

‘Not…not quite.’ She couldn’t even concentrate on the menu. The elaborate black script on cream vellum danced and blurred in front of her eyes.

She was too aware of him, she acknowledged bleakly. He seemed far too close for comfort, even sitting a foot away on an adjacent bar stool. He smelled faintly of some expensive sandalwood aftershave. He looked very large, very male and very intimidating. Very dangerous. She felt as if her breath was restricted in her chest.

‘You’re very…quiet, Miss Stuart,’ he commented idly after another silence had elongated. ‘Are you always so tense? Or are you frightened of me?’

She looked up from the menu warily.

‘Of course I’m not frightened of you.’ She hoped she sounded convincing to him, because she didn’t to herself.

‘Aren’t you?’ The taunting blue gaze examined her face, observing the changes of expression. She felt her temper beginning to fray.

‘We hardly know each other. And we…we’re hardly on the same social circuit! I’m just an employee! Do you expect me to chatter away like an old friend?’ She’d meant to snap the words with cool precision, but instead they came out shakily, even defensively.

Beneath the soft white jersey of her clinging body, she felt her skin beginning to heat nervously. Dominick’s amused gaze slid to her throat, and flicked lower, to the revealing scoop-necked design of her bodice, where the swell of her breasts was clearly visible. Quelling her agitation, she lifted her hand to finger the small silver locket at her neck. There was a picture of her mother inside it. Dad had given it to her, just before he died…

‘I was intrigued by the idea that you hold a low opinion of me, Miss Stuart.’

You would be, she thought ruefully, having such a high opinion of yourself…

‘I hardly know you,’ she heard herself repeating woodenly. ‘What possible reason could I have for feeling that way?’

‘That’s what interests me…’ His eyes were lidded, difficult to read. Calmly changing the subject, he added, ‘If you’re feeling indecisive, I recommend the scallops in white wine sauce followed by the pheasant in Madeira. Or are you vegetarian?’

‘No…’ She swallowed her pride, gave up on the menu. After toying briefly with the idea of refusing his suggestion, she nodded stiffly. ‘That sounds fine.’

‘Good…’ An almost undiscernible flick of his hand brought the head waiter and the wine waiter hurrying to his side. Her heart still pumping much faster than it should, she listened as he calmly gave their order, chose a Muscadet and a Médoc to complement each course, then turned his attention back to focus on her with that unsettling intensity.