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‘Does it matter?’ She saw it did to him, but the whole incident had suddenly lost its embarrassment factor—and romantic haze—for her. ‘You were drunk, I was drunk, we both wanted to stick it to my mother. End of story.’
Esme knew she sounded a little crude, but that was better than blushing like a ninny. Anyway, as a version of events, it was close enough.
Jack gave a brief laugh. Out of relief, he suspected. He’d always felt guilty about the way he’d used Arabella’s little sister but it seemed he’d underestimated her.
‘Nothing like telling it how it is,’ he commented at length. ‘Still, you were always the most honest of the bunch… So no hard feelings?’
He approached her, hand outstretched.
Esme stared at this token of—of friendship, reconciliation, what exactly? She shrank from him in obvious distaste.
Unused to this reaction from women, Jack was more puzzled than anything else. She was treating him like a pariah but nothing he remembered in their past relationship warranted that. Sure, she’d been young—too young perhaps—when they’d made love that time, but she’d been willing. Very, as he recalled now.
He dropped his hand away. ‘Isn’t it rather late to treat me as untouchable?’ he drawled with slight overtones of the American accent he’d picked up from years spent in California.
‘Better late than never,’ Esme retorted rather tritely and, almost hemmed into a corner, tried to brush past him.
He caught her bare arm, detaining her. ‘If it’s an apology you want, then you can have one. I was sorry, I am sorry, for the way I treated you.’
He sounded sincere and Esme was slightly disarmed by the fact. Easiest to reply in kind but she couldn’t. Her stomach was clenching and unclenching at the touch of his hand on her skin. She put it down to revulsion and wondered when love had turned to hate. Some time over the last ten years? Or just today, when reality had caught up with her?
‘I don’t want anything from you,’ she stated scornfully, ‘so if you let my arm go, I’ll show you out.’
Jack’s eyes narrowed on her, analytical in their intent. She’d dismissed his apology and discounted their brief liaison as a moment of drunkenness, yet she was so angry her body was shaking with it.
‘Let me go!’ An order this time as she tried to wrest her arm away.
Jack held her fast. ‘Not yet. Explain first.’
‘Explain?’ she echoed.
‘Ten years ago,’ he recalled, ‘we parted on a more intimate note. OK, possibly assisted by some rather potent whisky. In the interim we have had no communication apart from one unanswered letter yet somehow I’ve become beneath contempt in your eyes… Well, call me slow, but I feel I’ve missed something.’
So had Esme. What unanswered letter?
‘Or is it just the old class thing,’ he continued at her silence, ‘and us stable boys are fine for a quick session in the hayloft but not welcome up at the big house?’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ Esme found the voice to protest at this absurdity. She hadn’t been a snob at sixteen and she wasn’t one now.
‘Is it?’ he challenged.
‘Yes!’ she almost spat back. ‘For a start you were never a stable boy. All right, you mucked out occasionally to earn some pocket money but as often as not you got me to do it. Shovelling horse manure was far too menial for Mr Brainbox Doyle.’
‘OK, maybe I wasn’t in the literal sense,’ he conceded, ‘but I was low enough on the social ladder for you to look down your nose.’
‘I didn’t!’ she could claim with angry conviction. ‘In fact, if anything, you condescended to me. Poor, stupid, plain Midge, let’s pat her on the head once in a while, be kind to her—that’s when we’re not treating her as invisible, of course.’
‘I don’t remember it being like that.’
‘You wouldn’t!’
Jack was surprised to find himself now on the defensive. ‘I certainly never suggested you were plain or stupid.’
‘You didn’t have to,’ she accused, ‘it was bloody obvious. And, anyway, maybe I was plain and stupid!’
‘No, you weren’t.’ Jack gave her a concerned look, as if now doubting her stability. ‘You were pretty and funny and—’
‘Don’t!’ Esme cut short this list of her qualities. ‘You’re patting me on the head again and I don’t need it. I’m quite happy with myself and my life now. I am simply pointing out that any reluctance to be pawed by you at this precise moment in time has no connection with the social class into which we were born.’
‘Pawed?’ Clearly oscillating between amusement and annoyance, he lifted her arm by the wrist. ‘This comes under the category of pawing?’
‘I… Don’t change the subject!’ Esme snapped back.
‘I’m afraid I’ve kind of lost it,’ he admitted, ‘but if this is what you consider pawing, you must have one pretty tame private life. Now if I’d done this—’ an arm curved round her waist to draw her closer ‘—or this,’ the other rose so a hand could briefly cup her cheek before turning to gently trail his knuckles down the long, elegant nape of her neck, ‘Then I think you might be justified.’
He’d moved in on her so suddenly, Esme was too startled to react. By the time she did, the brief embrace was over and he’d actually let her go.
She was left with a heart racing like a train and a rage inside her that she could barely contain.
In fact, she didn’t contain it, didn’t even try. She let her hand come up, open-palmed, and slapped him as hard as she could. Slapped him so hard his head jerked backwards and her palm stung.
Esme watched as his cheek reddened, initial exhilaration giving way to horror. She’d never slapped anyone before, never felt the urge to. It was basic and primitive. Like sex.
Like his reaction. Shock quickly followed by retaliation as he grabbed her arms and, pushing them behind her back, trapped her against the kitchen cupboards. Then a hand was thrust in her hair, pulling her head back, leaving her just time to spit out a swear word before he covered her mouth with his.
It was an assault of lips and teeth that robbed her of breath but not the will to fight. She clutched at his jacket, trying to push him off, feeling fury not fear as she recognised this subjugation for what it was.
Only he was stronger and fury was dangerously akin to passion as the kiss went relentlessly on, demanding a response, forcing long-dormant feelings to the surface. There was no exact point when things changed and the hands digging into his chest began to uncurl and flatten and spread upwards to his shoulders. No dividing line between the hateful bruising of his mouth on hers and the sweet, sensual invasion that followed.
All she knew was that what she started off repudiating, she ended up silently begging for, as she slid her hands round his neck and held his mouth to hers, shifting in his arms until she could feel his heart beating against the softness of her breasts, and she moaned aloud as the hand circling her waist slipped lower, half lifting her body to his, already hard with arousal.
When he finally broke off, it was to catch breath and ask, with his deep silent gaze, for what he might merely have taken.
For a moment Esme hovered between madness and sanity, dizzy with desire yet shaken by the very force of it. So easily she could have let herself be swept away but somehow, through fear of drowning, she clawed her way back to the bank.
She didn’t hit him again or play the outraged virgin or even pretend distaste. Half-ashamed, wholly disturbed, she said simply, ‘I can’t. I just can’t. Please leave me alone.’
Quiet words, but shot with desperation, and more effective than any shouting, it seemed.
‘Very well,’ was all he muttered back as, releasing her completely, he pushed a distracted hand through his hair.
No argument. No pleading. She could have seen it as insulting how quickly he retreated, making for the hallway, his footsteps an echo on the marble, then gone, the front door closed quietly behind him.
But she saw nothing because her eyes were filling with tears at the raw, ragged pain from the scarred-over wound he’d reopened.
CHAPTER TWO
ESME didn’t cry for long. It was an indulgence she could not afford. It was now mid-afternoon and soon she would have to go to pick up Harry.
She washed her face in cold water from the kitchen tap, trying to take the heat from it, then put the tonic and ice tray back in the fridge. She pushed the offending gin bottle back in its corner, half wishing she had taken a drink. At least then she could have blamed the alcohol for her pathetic behaviour.
It wasn’t as though she was entirely unprepared for Jack Doyle’s reappearance in her life. In fact, she’d imagined just such a scenario. Only in her version he would have changed, would not be so good-looking or smart or superior to most other men. She would wonder what she’d ever seen in him and be remote and dignified. Gone would be the young girl’s infatuation with an older boy, because she was no longer a young girl.
Reality, of course, had made a mockery of all her imaginings. He hadn’t changed, still maddeningly cool and collected ninety-nine per cent of the time, and frighteningly passionate that other one. And her? Well, it seemed she was still a walk-over even if the puppy love had festered into resentment.
Or maybe it was as he’d implied: her private life was too tame. Could that be the reason? It had been a while—a long while, it seemed—since her last abortive relationship had made celibacy an attractive option.
Yes, that had to be it. Sex-starved after three years of abstinence, she might have kissed any personable man in the same circumstances.
It didn’t say much for her self-restraint but she rather liked it as an explanation. In fact, she almost managed to convince herself of its truth. She would have but for the image of Charles Bell Fox, the nearest thing she currently had to a boyfriend. She’d known him for ever, liked him always and, encouraged by her mother, had even recognised him as good husband material. Yet she had repelled all his gentle overtures.
But then Charles was a gentleman. He’d never kiss her against her will, never force physical intimacy until some base sexual urges kicked in. Perhaps if he had, they might have progressed further than their current careful friendship.
A perverse thought, she shook her head, and, checking that Jack Doyle and his undoubtedly expensive motor had disappeared from the drive, locked and bolted the front door, before keying in the burglar-alarm code on the box above the cellar steps.
She exited smartly via the kitchen to the courtyard, then beyond to the back service road through the woods, passing her current home.
Intended originally for an unmarried gamekeeper, and built in the late 1890s, it wasn’t a pretty cottage, the stone roughly hewn and with ramshackle outhouses tacked on. But Esme had done her best to improve the outside with a bright terracotta masonry paint and bold blue doors and an array of pots and baskets of flowers to distract from the random ugliness of the house. She doubted Jack Doyle would have recognised it as his old home.
She slipped inside for a moment to collect a denim jacket and change her heels to flats. Transformed instantly from fashionable woman-about-town to young practical mother, she didn’t bother locking her door as she set off along a short cut through the wood to the rear gates of the estate.
She glanced at her watch, and, though on time, she quickened her pace. It was always an anxiety—that one day the bus would arrive early and deposit Harry alone at the side of the road.
The high wrought-iron gates were locked, so she used the door in the wall, its key hidden behind loose stonework. She emerged onto the verge of the main road and only then did she observe the car parked on the far side.
It was a sleek dark green auto, built on racing lines; she didn’t recognise the make or number and, with the inside obscured by tinted glass, it was impossible to see the driver. But she knew all the same. Who else would be sitting opposite the rear gates to Highfield when there was nothing else of interest on this back road?
He had to have spotted her, too, so no point in scuttling back inside. It would smack of panic and fear, and, besides, the bus was due to arrive. She could only stand there and pray he would tire of staring at two rusting locked gates and a six-foot-high stone wall.
Under her breath she muttered the word, ‘Go,’ over and over, as if she could will him to leave, and believed the spell had worked when she heard his engine start up.
She cheered too early, however, as he pulled out onto the road and executed a 180-degree turn to bring his car alongside her.
The driver’s window slid silently downwards and Esme wasn’t certain if she would prefer it to be him or a total stranger lurking for nefarious purposes.
She opted for the total stranger at about the same second as Jack Doyle offered her one of his slightly crooked smiles.
‘Waiting for someone?’ he enquired.
A ‘no’ formed on her lips but thankfully she never got round to uttering it. Because why else would she possibly be here, standing at the roadside?
She limited herself to a nod.
‘Not very reliable, are they,’ he suggested, ‘leaving you out here on your own? Anyone could come along.’
Fake concern? Had to be.
It prompted Esme to retaliate with a dry, ‘They already have.’
A jibe he ignored as he ran on, ‘I’ll give you a lift to wherever you’re going.’
She was surprised into a passing polite, ‘No, thanks.’
‘All right, suit yourself.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll just hang around until he comes.’
‘No, you mustn’t!’ Esme didn’t have to feign horror at the idea.
He looked at her curiously. ‘Jealous type?’
He had the wrong idea, totally, but Esme didn’t disabuse him. The important thing was for him to be gone by the time the bus arrived.
‘Yes, yes, he is,’ she agreed. ‘I mean really. He’ll be here any second and if he sees you…’
Esme glanced fearfully down the road and left him to fill in the rest.
He did so with darkening brow. ‘Is that why you were so upset when I kissed you?’
Esme nodded. It was too good an excuse to waste. In fact, a little embellishment wouldn’t go amiss.
‘He’s very possessive. Doesn’t like me even speaking to other men. So please, Jack, just go.’ She trained appealing blue eyes on him.
Jack saw traces of the old Esme and was torn. He suddenly felt responsible for her, certain that any man so possessive had to be bad news. But then what right had he to interfere? He had been away too long.
‘Please,’ Esme repeated with genuine urgency as she heard the bus in the distance.
‘Yes, all right.’ He remained a moment longer, holding her anxious gaze, then, putting the car into gear, roared off along the highway.
If Esme felt guilty, she also felt justified as the bus came into view, passing Jack going in the opposite direction. Talk about close calls.
‘What’s wrong?’ Harry asked as she practically pulled him off the bus and hustled him through the door in the wall.
‘Nothing.’ She just didn’t trust Jack not to change his mind and return.
Because that was something else she remembered about him. How protective he’d been at times, looking out for her when she’d been hurt, physically and emotionally. Her hero until he’d proved otherwise.
‘So how was school?’ She tried to sound normal to Harry and it came out forced.
Her son frowned before shrugging. ‘The same.’
‘And those boys?’ This time genuine worry.
He pulled a face.
Esme interpreted that as bad. ‘Look, if you’ll let me go into school—’
‘No,’ Harry cut across her, ‘you mustn’t, Mum. You’ll just make it worse.’
Perhaps he was right. Esme could see his point. Having your mother go wading in on your behalf to complain about Dwayne and Dean, the twins from hell—or at least the roughest housing estate in Southbury—wasn’t going to do his street cred much good, but she felt so helpless.
