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Penny pulled off her coat and scarf and warmed her cold hands at the rising flames. ‘Do you want a drink? I’m going to have a whisky on the rocks.’
It was a drink she had learned to like with Ryan. He nodded, but made no other comment. While she poured the drinks, he was stroking the curves of a sculpture with one of his strong yet sensitive hands. ‘So you got to sculpt in wood, after all,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re very good. And your style has matured,’ he said.
‘I’ve matured,’ she said.
‘I can see that. You have a lot more to say.’
‘To say?’
‘About yourself. About what you see in the world.’ He accepted the drink she offered him. ‘You’ve become an adult.’
‘How kind of you.’ She didn’t bother raising her glass in a toast, but took a much-needed gulp of the fiery whisky. ‘We’d better sit by the fire. This house is cold and damp.’
There was one sofa, facing the fire. The glow of the flames provided a warm light. She did not switch on any more lights, not wanting him to see how bare the cottage really was, beneath the artistic touches she had lavished on it.
They sat facing each other. The rosy light that gave her smooth, pale face an alabaster glow made his look even more rugged and masculine than usual.
Or perhaps he had lost weight; his straight, Norman nose seemed more pronounced than usual, and there were shadows in the cleft of that masterfully erotic mouth.
‘You look tired,’ she commented.
‘I’ve been in meetings in London all day,’ he replied.
‘Not that kind of tired. A deeper tiredness. Too many parties, perhaps?’
‘Parties?’ he repeated. ‘Since you left me, my life has been nothing but work. Work, and hunting for you.’
‘Well,’ she said with a brittle smile, ‘you obviously have plenty on your mind, Ryan. So, now that you’ve caught me at last, why don’t you go ahead and say it?’
CHAPTER THREE
‘WHERE did you go after you ran from me?’ he asked.
‘I went back west, to Exeter. I had some friends there.’
‘And that’s where you got sick?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did you get encephalitis?’
‘They could never tell me how I caught it. It started with a terrible headache, that horrible last weekend in London. Remember how sick I was?’
‘Yes,’ he said grimly. ‘I remember.’
‘At first I thought I had bad flu. Then I started to vomit on the train. I couldn’t stop. The first doctor I saw didn’t recognise the symptoms, so there was a delay. I went into convulsions. By the time they got me to hospital, I was going into a coma.’
‘Penny, I’m so sorry.’ His face was tight. ‘Why didn’t you call me? I know we were fighting like tigers, but in those circumstances nothing else would have mattered. I would have run to you.’
‘If it’s any consolation, I remember telephoning you from the station. I think the voice-mail service picked up. I probably didn’t say anything.’
‘Oh, Penny. If you’d left one word—’
‘I wasn’t in a fit state to say much,’ she shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘And you say you were unconscious when you had the miscarriage?’ he asked, his eyes intent.
Penny took another gulp of her whisky. ‘Yes.’
‘How long were you in the coma?’
‘A few days. The antibiotics worked. I was very lucky. After a couple of weeks, they discharged me.’
‘And then?’
She shrugged again. ‘Then I got on with the rest of my life.’
‘You didn’t even bother to tell me your pregnancy was over.’
‘I wrote to you,’ she exclaimed. ‘I know I did.’
‘I never received a word.’ His eyes were hard.
Penny shrugged. ‘Maybe it got lost.’
‘You’re sure you wrote to me?’
‘Ryan, I had just recovered from a brain inflammation. I was scarcely in my right mind. The doctors couldn’t even tell me whether I was going to have permanent brain damage or not!’
‘And do you have any brain damage?’ he asked, watching her over the rim of his whisky glass.
‘What do you care?’ she retorted.
‘I care a great deal. So tell me the truth.’
‘I had to take anticonvulsant medication to prevent seizures. For a while.’
His penetrating grey eyes assessed her. ‘For a while?’
‘I didn’t like the side-effects. So I stopped taking it.’
‘The doctors must have been concerned, surely.’
‘I didn’t tell them.’
‘Was that wise?’
‘It was my decision. I felt much better the moment I stopped the medication. And nothing has gone wrong since.’
His gaze stayed on her for a long, assessing moment, then moved from her to the paintings, dimly visible in the firelight. ‘But the experience changed you.’
‘It was a bad experience. And now I don’t want to discuss it any further.’
‘But I need to know everything, Penny.’
‘That’s too bad.’
‘You have to understand,’ he said evenly, ‘that the last words you spoke to me were a threat to abort our child—’
‘Oh, is that it?’ she cut in. ‘You’re still wondering about that? Whether I am an evil, calculating, vicious woman, ready to commit any bloodthirsty act to get back at you.’
‘Of course you aren’t any of those things.’
‘Then why are you so suspicious? Are you so afraid that I’m really a monster?’
‘I know you’re not a monster,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘I wouldn’t love you so much if you were.’
His words made her heart flip over like a hooked fish. ‘Ryan, don’t.’
‘But even if you were a monster,’ he went on, ‘I would still love you. Helplessly and completely. I can’t help loving you, you see. I was born to do it. When you love like that, it’s probably not important to know anything about the one you love. It doesn’t matter anyway, as you’ve just said. But somehow, I can’t help wanting to find out.’
Her hands were trembling as she drained the whisky. ‘Then I shall take great pleasure in keeping that knowledge from you,’ she said in a shaky voice. ‘You can just keep wondering whether I’m a liar and maybe worse.’
He had not touched the whisky with his lips yet. Now he tossed the contents of his glass into the fire with a flick of his wrist. The whisky flared into hot green and blue flames, while the ice cubes hissed and evaporated on the embers.
‘Do you know what it’s like to love someone, Penny?’ he asked. ‘I thought you did, but I must have been wrong.’
She had flinched at the blazing whisky in the hearth. The coloured flames died down now, with a hot reek of vaporised alcohol. ‘You were wrong,’ she said.
‘It’s a pity. So you don’t know what it’s like to desire another person with such intensity that their body becomes a whole world to you. A world whose landscape you live in, whose tastes and smells you yearn for, every waking minute. A world you can never forget, no matter how much time passes, no matter how much distance comes between, no matter how many sad things happen.’
The firelight was dancing in his eyes, and her gaze was drawn inexorably to his as he went on, his voice husky and low.
‘And you don’t know what it’s like to ache for another person’s tenderness—and not to find it. To look for a face you love so much it hurts—and not see it. To yearn for a voice that you can no longer hear.’
‘That’s not love,’ she said unsteadily. ‘That’s obsession.’
‘Then I’m obsessed,’ he said. ‘What’s the difference?’
‘Obsession is more dangerous,’ she replied.
He shook his dark head. ‘Only to me. Not to you.’
‘You’re dangerous to me, Ryan. That’s why I had to get away from you.’
‘You were too young to understand then,’ he replied. He reached out and drew his fingertips slowly down her cheek. His touch was like velvet, but she shuddered in reaction. ‘Now you’ve matured. You’ve been through tragedy and danger. You have grown into yourself. We’re ready for each other now.’
‘You’re mistaken!’
His warm hand cupped the back of her neck and drew her face to his gently. Penny felt everything she had achieved over the last year start to sink into treacherous quicksand as her mouth approached his. She felt his breath on her lips, and closed her eyes.
‘Ryan, I don’t want this!’
‘I think you do.’ His mouth closed over hers.
For a moment it was as though she were drowning. And then her mind was flooded by passionate memories. They had been lovers once, such wonderful lovers.
It had been so long.
Desire rose in her with a force that could not be denied. She locked her arms around his strong neck and kissed him back, her body arching to his.
After a moment, the two of them slid to the floor in front of the fire, still locked in their embrace. The heat of the flames licked at them, igniting them still further. Ryan pulled at her blouse and Penny heard buttons snap off with the urgency of his need.
Still kissing, whispering one another’s names, they undressed each other with clumsy haste. When she was naked, he pushed her onto her back and stared down at her with devouring eyes.
The blaze of the fire made tiger-stripes across his magnificent naked chest. He was like a great cat, brooding over her, and like a cat he touched her skin with his nose and drew her scent deep into his nostrils.
‘You always smell so wonderful. Your skin is like rose petals.’
‘A rose with thorns.’ But though she uttered the warning, she was responding to him. This was insanity, worse than madness, because she was colluding with her own downfall.
He stroked the curving softness of her belly. She shuddered at his sensual caress. ‘You will always be mine, Penny,’ he whispered. ‘Nobody else’s. Mine alone.’
He kissed her nipples gently. The silky disks ruckled in his mouth, their hard tips pushing against his tongue with unabashed desire. He sucked the eager peaks, one after another, and Penny whimpered his name softly.
He gazed down at her, his eyes heavy with desire. ‘I’ve missed you so much. I thought I had lost you forever!’
Her naked body was like alabaster in the firelight. Her hips were fuller than her narrow waist would have implied, and he stroked the curves with the fingers of an artist touching an exquisite vessel.
‘Your hips were made for love, my darling,’ he whispered. ‘For bearing children. I’m so sorry you lost our child.’
‘How could you think I would throw away my baby?’ she demanded, raising herself on her elbow. ‘How can you say you love me, if you think that?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘This morning I felt as though you had stabbed a dagger into my heart.’
She felt the scalding tears slide down her cheeks. They splashed onto her nipples, shining wet on her skin. ‘Why did you come?’
For an answer, he sealed her mouth with his own. It was a kiss as hot as her tears, filled with passion and desire. His hands caressed her naked body, moulding the tender curves of her breasts hungrily, sliding down between her thighs to cup the nest of soft curls there.
She responded with a rush of desire that overwhelmed her.
‘Have you been with anyone else since you left me?’ he asked her, looking into her eyes.
‘No,’ she confessed. ‘Have you?’
