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She gave an almost angry toss of her head. ‘Well, whatever your reasons for being here, I’m sure someone like you won’t have too much difficulty finding a suitably qualified lab assistant,’ she stated firmly, rising.
‘I’d have insurmountable difficulty,’ Slane told her quietly. ‘I don’t have the contacts Connor has here, and even his are pretty sparse, with him having been in England so long. Besides, you were his second choice. If you pull out the project will have to be scrapped until next year.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ protested Maggie, suddenly feeling horribly trapped.
‘There’s nothing ridiculous about it,’ he replied, with a barely perceptible shrug. ‘The only complicated thing about these tests is the time factor involved—and that happens to be crucial…What exactly did Connor tell you about the project?’
Maggie sat back down on her chair, her head swimming. ‘Nothing much,’ she replied, ‘except that the plant involved was on the verge of extinction and a botanist here had managed to reproduce it. He also mentioned that this plant was alleged to contain some miraculous property or other, though he seemed somewhat sceptical about that and didn’t enlarge on what it was.’
‘His scepticism is in no way misplaced,’ muttered Slane, once again dragging his hands wearily across his face. ‘But, if a minor miracle could be the end result, I guess it has to be worth a try.’
His own undisguised scepticism brought a startled look from Maggie, which in turn elicited a wry smile from her companion—a smile which, innocuous thought it was, sent a surge of unequivocally sexual longing blasting through her.
‘Or don’t you agree?’ he persisted, his smile, as it softened into a coaxing one, wreaking further havoc within her.
‘I…O-of course I agree,’ she stammered, hot colour rushing to her cheeks.
‘But?’
‘But nothing,’ she muttered, part of what Connor had said earlier ringing in her head. ‘I’ll stay.’
‘What—you’ll stay and assist me?’ he asked, his eyes wary.
‘Well, I certainly didn’t mean I was going to keep house for you,’ she snapped, appalled that she hadn’t stopped to think twice before committing herself.
To her complete surprise he slumped forward, burying his face in his arms, convulsed with laughter.
‘You might not find it quite so amusing when I tell you that as from today Mrs Morrison is off on a two-week visit to her sister in Galway.’
He groaned as he raised his head. ‘You may not believe this, but I have spent a number of years fantasising about sampling Mrs Morrison’s cooking again,’ he protested. ‘Hell, I’m almost tempted to pack my bags and go back home,’ he added, with a grin.
‘Except that you haven’t unpacked them yet,’ pointed out Maggie, finding it impossible to keep her face straight, and even more impossible to do anything about the mind-blowing effect he had on her every time he smiled.
‘You can’t wait to be rid of me, can you, Maggie?’ His words were teasing, but there was a deeper element of mockery in his eyes…Or was that simply her imagination?
‘I’ve a nasty feeling you’re going to be the one who can’t wait to get rid of me once you’re faced with exactly how rusty my lab skills are,’ she stated woodenly. ‘But as for Mrs Morrison’s cooking—there’s one of her magnificent concoctions in the oven, just waiting to be heated.’
Laughter burst unchecked from her as he clutched at his heart and rolled his eyes theatrically. There had been so many things about him that had attracted her even before the physical element had engulfed her, she thought with dismay—so why should anything be different now?
She rose to her feet. ‘Why don’t you get your things sorted and have a shower?’ she suggested, her own aplomb still a source of amazement to her. ‘And I’ll get the food under way.’
He rose from the table. ‘Maggie, I…Thanks,’ he muttered disjointedly. He hesitated as though about to say more, then turned and walked from the room.
For several seconds Maggie stood there, immobile in body and mind. When her body at last reactivated itself she switched on the oven, then prepared potatoes and carrots. By the time the potatoes were boiling she had cut the carrots into thin strips…and still her mind had not responded. Great, she told herself numbly, my mind’s packed up on me.
Close to tears, she marched over to the cooker, threw a lump of butter, some sugar and a cupful of chicken stock she’d found in the fridge into a shallow pan and added the carrots. Then she gave a dazed shake of her head. What on earth had possessed her to attempt her mother’s glazed carrots, she asked herself incredulously, when she only had the vaguest idea how to do them?
She slammed the lid onto the pan then walked to the back door, opened it and stepped out into the freezing night air.
A couple of months ago, when autumn had already begun yellowing the leaves on the trees that it would soon strip bare, something had begun stirring in her, she reflected, the thought still peculiarly tinged with detachment. It wasn’t simply that circumstances had forced her into taking decisions regarding her life…it was more that the need burgeoning in her had happened to coincide with a change of circumstance in her working life; the effect—or, rather, the ultimate lack of effect—that Peter’s reappearance had had on her was proof enough of that.
But for almost the past three years she might just as well have been asleep for all the living she had done, she concluded bitterly, then took a step back towards the doorway as the wind suddenly changed direction and sent rain whipping against her. She drew a hand down her face, uncertain whether the wetness it encountered was from the rain, her own tears or a mixture of both.
And now what? she asked herself bleakly. She had tried to deny the past out of existence for almost three years, and it hadn’t worked. OK, so she had to face it, but how was the question, when the man who comprised such a large part of it had either forgotten her or was deliberately not facing it himself…And the answer wasn’t exactly leaping out at her.
‘Hey—Maggie!’
She jumped, startled not just by his voice but also by his tone of open censure. She stepped inside and was about to pull the door closed behind her when the acrid smell of burning hit her.
‘Don’t, for God’s sake, close that door,’ ordered Slane irritably as he strode across the kitchen and slung the pan containing the carrots into the sink. ‘And it might have been an idea to turn the darned things off before you started trying to clear the air,’ he muttered, leaning forward and throwing open the window above the sink.
‘I’m sorry, I thought I had turned them off,’ lied Maggie, automatically avoiding the truth and all its accompanying complications…As usual, she noted bitterly as she watched him stride back to the cooker, his tall figure, now clad in jeans and a large sweatshirt, oozing casual elegance. ‘It’s all right, I’ll see to the potatoes,’ she said as he lifted the lid from the pan.
‘There isn’t much in the way of potato left for you to see to,’ he informed her baldly, stepping out of her way as she approached.
Her cheeks burning with mortification, Maggie took the pan to the sink and resignedly watched most of the potatoes disappear down it when she drained them. She returned to the cooker, her eyes studiously avoiding the tall figure now engrossed in laying the table, turned up the heat in an attempt to dry out the mush in the pan, added a lump of butter to it and attacked the lot with the potato masher.
The silence ringing in her ears like pealing bells, she transferred the potatoes to a heated bowl, relieved to find that they were now of a consistency that required a spoon, instead of simply being poured.
By the time she had everything on the table she was feeling light-headed, wobbly-legged and not in the least like facing food, despite the tempting aroma emanating from the casserole…and even less like sharing a meal with the man seated opposite her, who had amusement plastered all over his face as he leaned over and began serving.
‘Did you know Marjorie?’ he startled her by asking.
She shook her head, the Prof’s words about this being a double ordeal for him filling her mind just as they had in the moments before she had recklessly said she would stay. ‘I wish I had. Connor’s told me so much about her—she sounds a very special person.’
‘Oh, Marjorie was special all right,’ he said, his eyes momentarily clouding. ‘In a funny way you reminded me of her just now.’ He glanced up at her with an apologetic grin. ‘Though, to be fair to you, had it been Marjorie in charge of these carrots the house would have been burned to a cinder.’
Maggie felt herself relax slightly; she even managed a smile. ‘I do seem to remember Connor mentioning something about Mrs Morrison trying to ban her from the kitchen soon after they were married. But, I promise you, that was a first for me.’
‘So how did you meet Connor?’ he asked. ‘I notice you sometimes refer to him as “the Prof”, but I’d have thought you were too young to be one of his students.’
‘Actually, I was one of his students in my final year in London,’ she replied, her minding skidding away from other thoughts about that particular year. ‘I was lucky; I was a member of one of his last groups before he retired fully.’
‘Well, now I am impressed,’ murmured Slane, his eyes widening in mock awe. ‘So you made it into one of those crème de la crème groups he now and then indulged himself in before finally sliding into what he inaccurately refers to as “full retirement”.’
‘I know exactly what you mean,’ said Maggie. ‘He’ll never really retire—that’s the way he is.’
‘Are you trying to change the subject?’ asked Slane, a lazy grin softening any trace of harshness from his features. ‘You know, your being one of Connor’s chosen few really does set you apart from the mob. I guess any errors made in these tests we’re about to do won’t be down to you.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on that,’ she muttered, and gave her full attention to her food, appalled by the burning, meltingly erotic sensation now churning inside her.
Shock could do terrible things, she told herself edgily, not certain that the monumental one to which she had been subjected hadn’t destroyed her mental capacities altogether.
‘I guess I should be filling you in about the tests—not that there’s much to tell,’ he said after a while. ‘But I’m not sure I could get my head round it right now.’ He glanced over at Maggie as he spoke, and for one brief moment she was certain that she saw a flash of mocking recognition in those heavy-lidded eyes; then they drooped in unmistakable exhaustion and her certainty yet again evaporated.
‘That’s understandable,’ she said, rising to clear the dishes. ‘You’ve had a lot to contend with today, we’ll leave it until tomorrow.’ Even before the words were fully out she sensed that they were a mistake. ‘There’s fruit if you’d like some,’ she added hastily as the ambiguity of her words belatedly hit her. ‘I’ll make some coffee.’
‘Just the coffee will be fine,’ he said, his handsome face drawn with exhaustion as he leaned back in his chair, his eyes barely focusing as they followed her movements. ‘So, I’ve had a lot to contend with today, have I?’ he enquired.
It was the steely note in his tone that made Maggie freeze with apprehension.
‘It was just that Connor mentioned you hadn’t been back here since his wife died,’ she stated woodenly.
‘And that’s all?’ The note of challenge was undisguised.
Maggie switched on the kettle, playing for time as she fought to control the anger suddenly blazing within her. Perhaps he was only asking if that was all Connor had mentioned…perhaps not. Mortifying in the extreme though the idea was that he might have mentally erased the passion they had once shared, the idea that he was simply playing cat-and-mouse with her made her blood boil.
Unable to contain herself, she spun round to confront him. His head was tilted back and his eyes were closed. It wasn’t the expression of weariness on his face that shrivelled the anger in her, but the anguish with which it was interlaced.
‘He said that you loved her very much,’ she stated quietly, turning away from his pain to attend to the coffee. And Connor had also mentioned his father’s death, she reflected unhappily, feeling the ghosts of what had once been a scarcely bearable anguish stir within her.
It had been six long years since her own beloved father had died, and despite the healing process of time there were still moments when she could be taken unawares and become engulfed by a suffocating sense of loss. The expression she had witnessed on Slane Fitzpatrick’s face was one with which she could not help but empathise.
‘Yes, I loved Marjorie,’ he said, straightening as she brought the coffee to the table. ‘It would have been difficult not to,’ he added, his eyes clouding over.
She had no idea what connection his coming to Ireland could have with his father, but Maggie felt certain that it wasn’t Marjorie alone occupying his bleak thoughts. Because she could think of nothing she could trust herself to say, she picked up her cup and slowly drank from it. When it was empty she rose to her feet.
‘I’ve a couple of letters I have to write,’ she said, walking over to the dishwasher and starting to stack it, ‘so I’ll just get this cleared—’
‘Leave those; I’ll see to them—you’ve waited on me enough as it is.’
‘Of course I haven’t been waiting on you,’ protested Maggie, closing the dishwasher and turning. ‘You look all in—in fact, you don’t look as though you’ll last much longer.’
His eyes met hers, another of those lazy, disturbingly disruptive grins sauntering across his lips. ‘You get off to your letters, Maggie, and don’t be deceived by appearances,’ he murmured. ‘This guy has reserves of stamina you’d never believe.’
His words poleaxed her and it was left to that other, miraculously detached Maggie to take over, mouthing a polite goodnight and urging her leaden limbs from the room.
It was only when she had closed her bedroom door behind her that her real self re-emerged and her violently trembling body sagged against the wall. There was no way that his remark could have been an innocent coincidence…It couldn’t simply be her imagination that he had just reminded her of the stamina which had enabled him to make love to her time after time that night long ago…or could it?
‘This is impossible,’ he had groaned at one stage during that passion-filled night, when insatiable hunger had flamed between them yet again. ‘What have you done to me?’
And, even though she had been sexually innocent until that same night, she had instinctively known that what was happening between her and the beautiful stranger was an impossibility.
She gave a dazed shake of her head as she straightened her still violently trembling body and then stumbled towards the bed.
That night she had needed the magic of something impossible to heal her vicious wounds…but the cure had come close to destroying her.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_332c2a04-fea1-5dbc-8d23-05b210415e6f)
WHEN she first awoke Maggie lay immobile, willing herself back to sleep, convinced that it was still the middle of the night. When her body failed to respond she checked the time and gave a disbelieving groan. As far as she was concerned, five-thirty in the morning was practically the middle of the night.
She hadn’t even had to contend with the horrors of the day before seeping slowly back into her waking mind; she had woken with those horrors fully intact And oddly enough it had been memories of her father that had filled her thoughts during the long hours in which sleep had eluded her. But other memories began stirring within her now—ones so long buried away and ruthlessly ignored that now there could be no holding them back.
His ice maiden…That was what Peter had so often called her—with what she had mistakenly read as teasing affection—and her lack of any real feelings of physical desire for him had always troubled her during those months when she had believed herself to be in love with him.
Yet, even without such feelings ever having been aroused in her, she had instinctively known that within her lay a capacity for passion that would one day overwhelm her. Crazy though it seemed to her now, she had actually managed to convince herself that, given time, it would be Peter who would eventually find the key to unlock those untapped passions…
But it had been, quite literally, a tall, dark stranger who had produced that elusive key, effortlessly unleashing in her what the man she had once believed she loved had imagined could be forced from her.
And now her knight, in his tarnished armour, lay sleeping just a few doors away from her, she reminded herself bitterly, and with apparently no recollection of their shared night, let alone any understanding of the powers his body still held over hers.
With a stifled cry of protest she sat up, shaking her head violently. She didn’t want to be a freak! What she wanted was to be able to experience in the arms of a man she loved the same rapture she had known in those of Slane Fitzpatrick. Yet, in the almost three years that had passed, she hadn’t found a man she could love, and those forbidden fires had remained dormant within her…until Slane’s lazy grin had put a torch to them.
She leapt from the bed, threw on her dressing gown and stumbled down the stairs. It was just as she was entering the kitchen that the aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted to her.
‘Would you care for some coffee?’ asked Slane, glancing up from what he was doing. Clad in a dark velour robe, a shadowy blue-blackness on his unshaven face, he looked drawn and tired and unspeakably attractive. ‘I’ve just fixed it,’ he added, getting out more crockery before Maggie had a chance to respond.
‘Thanks,’ she muttered, sagging down onto a chair. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might be up, she thought fuzzily, then decided that that was no wonder, considering what an ungodly hour it was. ‘I’m surprised you’re up,’ she added. ‘I thought you’d be catching up on sleep.’
‘So did I,’ he murmured wryly, passing her a large cup of black coffee, ‘but my body refused to play ball.’ He sat down opposite her, his eyes flickering with amusement over her somewhat dishevelled figure. ‘It’s good to have company, though. I guess you must be one of those people Connor refers to as “larks”—up with the birdies and bright as a button.’
‘Ha, ha,’ muttered Maggie, then took a swig of coffee and nearly choked. ‘God, it’s like treacle!’ she exclaimed with spontaneous candour. ‘I thought you said you only took it twice as strong as Connor.’
‘Stay put—I’ll get the milk,’ he laughed as she made to rise.
When he handed it to her Maggie filled her cup to the brim, and still it looked undrinkably black. She toyed with the idea of making herself some tea, then decided that there was a good chance that the coffee would blast her head clear.
‘I seem to remember Connor saying something about you being the person he got in to run that London shop, Body and Soul, after Marjorie died,’ Slane said, out of the blue.
‘He didn’t get me to run it,’ said Maggie, more than a little thrown. ‘In fact, even when his wife was alive I believe it was never a question of anyone running Body and Soul—they all mucked in together, and with great success. Obviously Connor could hardly step in—even apart from all his other commitments he wouldn’t have had a clue how the company functioned.’
‘Oh, I see-you had?’
‘No, I hadn’t,’ snapped Maggie, now angry. Just who the hell did he think he was, cross-examining her like this? ‘I’d just finished my degree and was still at a loose end. I’m sure it can’t be difficult for you to imagine how shattered the people were who had worked with her and loved her for so many years. All Connor asked me to do was lend a hand, so I did.’
‘What—for two years?’ he enquired with undisguised scepticism.
Shaken by how close she was to losing her temper, Maggie rose and went over to the bread bin. Battling to keep a grip on herself, she cut a couple of slices and put them in the toaster. He did remember, though clearly he wasn’t about to admit it, she told herself angrily, and this snide baiting of her he was indulging in made it plain just how negative and hostile he felt about it all.
‘Amazing though it may seem to a high-powered tycoon such as yourself,’ she heard herself saying, and had swung round to face him before she realised what she was doing, ‘there actually are businesses that operate with everyone happily mucking in and, believe it or not, manage to thrive.
‘Body and Soul might only be a natural pharmacy, but they none the less needed someone with the relevant scientific knowledge, so I suppose in that respect I was taking over from Connor’s wife.’
He was sitting at the table, his chin propped on his hands, gazing at her as though drinking in her every word.
‘My, you sound almost defensive, Maggie,’ he drawled. ‘I was just being sociable and trying to show some interest.’
‘I’m sure you were,’ she retorted from between clenched teeth as she turned back to the toaster. ‘Would you like some of this toast, or what?’
‘I’ll have a rummage through the icebox to see if I can reproduce one of Mrs Morrisons’s famous fry-ups.’
‘There’s only bacon and eggs. If you want that I can cook it for you.’
‘So can I,’ he said, the faint tinge of mockery in his tone setting Maggie’s teeth on edge. ‘I’ll even cook you some too, to prove what a sociable guy I am.’
‘That’s quite all right—I’ll do it,’ she said. The last thing she needed was to be standing around with nothing to occupy her. ‘You must be tired—what with your body clock being all askew,’ she added, just to make sure that he got the message that her cooking him breakfast was not to be the norm. ‘Would you like tomatoes with it?’
‘I’d love tomatoes with it,’ he replied, further irritating her with his mocking stress on her English pronunciation. ‘Do you enjoy cooking, Maggie?’
