Casualty Of Passion

Kelly was quite certain that she was in love with him. But it was more than just the completely overwhelming physical attraction she had been aware of from the very beginning, because he gave her a great sense of her own worth for her intellect, as well as a woman.

Thoughts of him disturbed her nights, and she tossed restlessly as she relived how his amazing grey eyes would darken with passion every time he took her into his arms. She suspected that she would willingly have gone to bed with him, except that he behaved with a restraint which she found admirable, given that even with her total inexperience she recognised just how much he wanted her.

And then came that last evening.

First there was dinner, cooked as usual by Mary, and then someone had laughingly suggested charades. So they all filed into the room which was known as the red library, but after a time Randall took her by the hand and led her quietly from the room. She didn’t know whether anyone noticed that they had left, and, aware that she was leaving the following day, she no longer cared. Silently she went up the staircase with him, her heart beating like a wild thing when he led her straight to her bedroom and closed the door quietly behind them.

He stared at her for a long, long moment. ‘I’m going to miss you, Kelly,’ he said softly. ‘Very, very much.’

She could have drowned in the intensity of that silver-grey stare. ‘Are you?’ she whispered.

‘More than you could ever imagine.’ He took her into his arms, his face dark and unreadable, the light from the moon emphasising the aristocratic cheekbones, the sculptured perfection of his mouth. He bent his face so that it was very close to hers. ‘And I want to see you again—you know that, don’t you?’

Kelly nodded silently, shaken by the fervour in his voice, which matched some spark deep in her soul. She wound her arms around his neck, and her body seemed to melt into the hard sinews of his, her unspoken surrender apparent in the kiss she returned so sweetly.

He gave a low moan as he ran his hands through the thick, silken texture of her hair, then let them fall to her waist, to gather her in even closer, so that they were moulded together and she never wanted to let him go. Never, never, never.

Her breasts tingled as he stroked them over the cotton of the simple white dress she wore, and she gave a little sigh, her eyes closing as she felt the warm river of desire flood her veins with sweet potency.

Still kissing her, he slid the zip of her dress down and she let her arms drop to her sides so that it glided down over her hips and pooled on the ground around her feet. He raised his head then, his eyes narrowed as they studied her. Her breasts were so small that she wore no bra, and she was clad only in the smallest pair of bikini briefs, her body silvered by the pale light of the moon, the thick waves of her hair tumbling down over her small, high breasts. Suffused with love and longing for him, Kelly felt exultant as she saw the expression on his face as his gaze slowly covered every inch of her, filled with an elemental and very feminine fire as she revelled in the power of her body, that she could inspire that look of ardour on his face.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ he told her. His voice sounded unsteady, almost slurred with desire, as he started to unbutton his shirt, letting it fall to the ground as carelessly as her dress had done.

‘So are you,’ she whispered, and she heard him give a low laugh as his hand moved to the belt of his trousers.

Kelly felt shy at her first sight of his arousal, almost dazed and daunted by her ability to do that to him, but her shyness evaporated as he slid her tiny bikini pants down over her thighs, then, naked, pulled her down on to the bed with him and began to kiss her over and over again.

It felt so good. It felt so right. She was drowning in delight, each touch and each kiss making the pleasure escalate until she could hardly bear it any more, almost going out of her mind when his hand moved over the flatness of her belly, to teasingly stroke tiny provocative circles there. She began to move restlessly, and he gave another low laugh as his hand slid down between her thighs to tantalise her even further so that she made an instinctive little pleading sound at the back of her throat.

‘Do you want me?’ he whispered huskily.

‘Oh, yes,’ she shuddered ecstatically as he stroked her skilfully.

‘Really want me?’

‘Yes!’ Oh, God, yes—more than she had ever wanted anything in her entire life.

He moved to lie on top of her. She was ready for him, gloriously and deliriously ready for him; ripe and hot and moist. She pressed her lips to his shoulders, eager for him to fill her, thrilling as he gently parted her legs, when a stark and elemental fear pierced through the mists of her desire with frightening clarity, as the dreaded phrase of her childhood came back to mock at her.

‘That girl’s in trouble.’

In trouble ...

Kelly remembered Jo Grant at school, only fifteen, but now prematurely aged as she pushed the pram up the hill every morning.

‘Randall,’ she whispered urgently.

He lifted his head from her breast, his voice thick with passion. ‘What?’

‘You won’t—’

‘Oh, I most certainly will, my darling,’ he murmured.

‘—make me pregnant, will you?’

The silence which filled the room was brittle, electric. She felt him tense, heard him stifle some profanity, before he rolled off her, and, with his back to her, the broad set of his shoulders forbidding and stiff with some kind of unbearable tension, began to pull his clothes on.

Kelly was filled with hurt and confusion. She had meant ... had meant ... that they should ...

‘Randall?’ she whispered tentatively, and when he turned, in the act of wincing as he struggled to zip up his trousers, she almost recoiled from the look of frustration on his face, which quickly gave way to one of bored disdain.

‘You certainly pick your moments,’ he drawled cuttingly. ‘Couldn’t you have said something earlier?’

‘Well, what about you?’ Outraged and indignant, she sat up, her hair tumbling to conceal her breasts, and she saw a nerve begin to work in his cheek. ‘You didn’t seem inclined to discuss it either. Don’t you think that you have some responsibility too?’ she demanded.

‘That’s just the trouble, Kelly,’ he said, in a bitter, flat and angry voice. ‘I wasn’t doing any thinking at all.’

And without another word he slammed his way out of the room, leaving Kelly to spend the most miserable night of her life.

The next morning she had risen early, hoping to get away before anyone else was up, and yet trying to suppress the foolish and humiliating little hope that he would still want to see her. She quickly packed her few belongings into the suitcase and went silently down the stairs.

Mary was placing a pile of newspapers on a tray, and looked up, her eyes hardening with disapproval when she saw Kelly.

‘Will you be wanting breakfast, miss?’ she asked grudgingly.

Kelly shook her head. ‘No, thank you. I—I’d like to get away just as soon as possible. Will you please—’ she swallowed. She must be courteous; she still had her pride ‘—thank Randall for his hospitality?’

‘Yes, miss. Though I don’t know when I shall be seeing him next.’

‘I’m sorry? But he’ll be down for breakfast before he goes back, surely?’

‘Oh, no, miss.’

Kelly’s heart started thundering with the implication behind the cook’s triumphant statement.

‘Just that Lord Rousay’s already gone back to London. Left here at dawn, he did. Driving that car of his as though the devil himself was chasing him.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Kelly, in a small, empty little voice, as the fairy-tale disintegrated.

And she had never set eyes on him again.

CHAPTER THREE

UNTIL now.

Kelly stared at Randall, her features schooled into the coolly indifferent look she had perfected over the years because that passionate and impetuous creature who had offered herself so willingly to Randall Seton had gone forever.

‘You’ve gone very pale—you look as though you could use a drink,’ he observed. ‘Let me buy you one.’

Kelly almost exploded with rage. Did he imagine—did he have the termerity to imagine—that he could simply walk into her life nine years on and calmly ask her for a drink, and that she, panting eagerly, would accept? ‘No, thank you,’ she answered, her voice iced with pure frost.

He was blocking her path. ‘Kelly—this is crazy. We need to talk.’

She frowned, looking perplexed. ‘Do we? I can’t think why.’

‘Because we go back a long way. Don’t we?’ He smiled, so sure of its effect, so sure that the grin which creased his handsome features would have her eating out of his hand.

‘Hardly,’ she murmured. ‘We were little more than acquaintances a long time ago. Let me see—it must be eight years, surely—or was it seven? I can hardly remember.’

‘Nine,’ he gritted, and then a wry and reluctant look of amusement spread over his features. ‘OK, Kelly—you’ve made your point with stunning effect, but I still want to talk to you, and I don’t particularly want to do it in this draughty corridor. Not when I can think of so many more attractive venues.’

‘I’m sure you can,’ she bit out crisply. ‘But the fact remains that I really can’t be bothered talking to you. I’ve had a busy day and I’m very tired. What I want is a bath and an early night. Now have you got that, Randall—or would you like me to spell it out in words of one syllable for you?’

He carried his assurance like a badge, and Kelly realised with a gleeful feeling that he was finding it very difficult to cope with her refusal. She would lay a bet that he had never had to cope with rejection in his charmed life. A look of frustration crossed over his face, to be quickly replaced by one of narrow-eyed perception, and Kelly wondered whether she had gone just a bit overboard on her hostility towards him.

Because he wasn’t stupid. Far from it. He could probably put two and two together and come up with another theory of relativity. If she carried on sniping quite so vehemently, might he not guess that he had broken her heart, hurt her so much that she had vowed never to let a man get so close to her again?

She sighed. Indifference was a far better shield to hide behind than anger. Anger symbolised emotion, and she had buried emotion a long time ago. She glanced down at the slim gold watch on her wrist.

‘Sorry.’ She stifled a yawn, and gave him a polite little smile. ‘I’m just very tired, that’s all.’

‘Then you need a drink,’ he said firmly. ‘Where would you like to go? There’s a bar in the mess, isn’t there?’

Kelly bit her lip. That was the last thing she wanted, to be seen with him in the doctors’ mess. Hospitals were a hot-bed of gossip, and word would be bound to get back to Warren if she was seen out with the hospital’s newest and most eligible bachelor.

‘Yes, there is,’ she answered grudgingly. But since the alternative would be to offer him a drink in her room, and she certainly was not going to do that, there seemed to be nothing to do except give in gracefully. ‘OK,’ she shrugged. ‘But just a quick drink.’

He knew the way to the mess. They walked in silence along the echoing floors, and Kelly was reminded of just how tall he was, and how striking, since every nurse they passed looked him up and down with blatant appreciation.

The doctors’ mess was a largish room, built on the lines of a pub, though the prices were subsidised. It was only half filled, with small groups of doctors, and the occasional table of nurses. Kelly’s heart sank as she spotted Staff Nurse Higgs chewing at a cherry on a stick, the movement frozen when she spotted Randall, her blue eyes widening, and then a frown knitting her arched brows together as her gaze alighted on Kelly by his side. I might as well have taken a full-page advertisement out, thought Kelly on a sigh, as she followed Randall over to an unoccupied table.

‘What would you like?’ he asked.

‘Any kind of juice, thanks. ‘

He raised his eyebrows. ‘You don’t drink?’

‘Of course I do, but only in the right company,’ she replied sweetly, and his mouth twisted in anger as he turned away from her and made his way to the bar.

He returned, carrying two tall tumblers of pineapple juice and a saucer of black olives.

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