LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

of the day—smiling for endless photographs, standing beside Jeremy at the entrance to the huge marquee that had been erected in the garden of his house, greeting an endless line of guests, most of whom she had never even seen before. She sensed that they were all looking down their noses at her, convinced that Jeremy had married beneath him; she was grateful to Saskia for being there, conspicuously loyal, telling everyone that they had been at school together.

      Then there was the lavish wedding-breakfast, and the speeches, and then everything was swiftly cleared away so that the guests could dance to the music of a local band. As the afternoon wore on into evening Maddy began to develop a splitting headache; the marquee was hot and stuffy, and she was desperate for a breath of fresh air. Jeremy was dancing with one of his aunts, and no one noticed as she slipped quietly away.

      The gardens of Hadley Park were beautiful—a little neglected in places, with trails of bright blue periwinkle growing wild among the flowerbeds, and honeysuckle scrambling all along the broken stone parapet that ran around the terrace at the back of the house, its sweet fragrance filling the air. The sky had turned a soft dark blue, streaked with high magenta clouds as the sun sank below the horizon.

      Wandering into a secluded corner, she found a wooden pergola, covered with climbing roses. There was a rustic seat inside and she sat down wearily, closing her eyes. Her mind was a turmoil of confusion; had she been wrong to marry Jeremy? She had genuinely believed she was in love with him, and yet…Maybe she had let herself be swept up by his ebullient personality, feeling for the first time in her life that she was on the inside of one of those charmed circles she had always envied—and maybe she had mistaken gratitude for love…

      A sound close by brought her eyes sharply open—as Leo stepped into the pergola. Startled, she jumped to her feet—and gave a little cry of horror as the puffed sleeve of her dress caught on a stray rose-thorn. “Oh…damn and blast it!” she muttered fiercely under her breath, twisting around as she tried to free herself.

      “Hold still,” he advised in that dry, sardonic tone. “If you keep pulling at it like that you’ll rip it.”

      Her heart gave an uncomfortable thud and began to race rapidly as he leaned close to her and carefully disentangled the delicate silk from the thorn. “Th—thank you,” she managed, hoping he wouldn’t notice the slight tremor in her voice. “I…just came out for a few minutes—I couldn’t breathe in there.”

      “I wondered what you were doing out here all by yourself,” he remarked. “Beginning to pall already, is it?”

      She glanced up at him in surprise, taken aback by the hard glint in those agate eyes. “I’m sorry?” she queried, frowning.

      “I wonder if you will be?” he mused, deliberately misunderstanding. “Unfortunately I’m inclined to think it’s my impetuous young cousin who’ll be the one to be sorry. You know what they say—’Marry in haste, repent at leisure’. And you certainly married in haste.”

      She glared up at him in indignant fury. “Yes, we did,” she retorted defensively. “But so what? Jeremy loves me.”

      “Oh, I’ve no doubt of that,” Leo drawled, an inflexion of mocking cynicism in his voice. “He’s written to me more in the past two months than he ever has in his life—every letter singing your praises. But I’m left in some doubt about you.” His eyes flickered down over her in icy contempt. “Some of my more naive relatives seem to think you’ve trapped him into matrimony by getting pregnant, but I think they’ve underestimated your subtlety.”

      “I…I don’t know what you mean,” she protested, bewildered.

      “Don’t you?” His smile was hard, not reaching his eyes. “Strange—I’m sure you’re a very clever girl. Clever enough to know that getting pregnant would have been exceedingly risky—besotted as he is, there’d be no guarantee that Jeremy would do the decent thing. So you played an even more old-fashioned trick; and very effectively, too—particularly with someone like Jeremy, who is regrettably not very good at being patient when he wants something. I just hope you feel the prize is worth the effort.”

      “Of course I do!” Anger lent her voice a note of conviction it might otherwise have lacked. “I…love Jeremy—very much.”

      He lifted one dark eyebrow a fraction of an inch—but it spoke volumes. “Well, there’s some reassurance in that, I suppose,” he conceded coolly. “Though whether it will stand the test of time—and harsh reality—remains to be seen.”

      “Why shouldn’t it?” she demanded, her voice ragged.

      He lifted his wide shoulders in a cynical shrug. “Well, for one thing there’s the matter of Jerry’s income. No doubt he’s given you the impression that there are money-trees growing here in the garden, but I’m afraid you’ll find that the true picture isn’t quite so rosy. Oh, there’ll be more than enough to keep you in a reasonable degree of comfort, given a little practical economy. Unfortunately he’s far too young to have any sense of responsibility.”

      “Maybe that’s the way you see it,” she countered caustically. “But you could be wrong, you know—maybe he’s got more sense than you give him credit for.”

      “Maybe,” he conceded. “But I wouldn’t put it to the test too quickly, if I were you.” Those hard eyes slid down quite deliberately over the beaded bodice of her dress to note the slenderness of her waist, his meaning insolently plain. “Let him have his fun for a few years first.”

      Maddy glared up at him, her hand positively itching to slap that arrogant face. “That’s none of your business!” she protested hotly.

      “Perhaps not,” he acknowledged, an unmistakable note of warning in his voice. “But I’m strangely fond of my young cousin—I wouldn’t like to see him hurt.”

      She felt her cheeks flame scarlet. “What makes you think I’d hurt him?” she demanded, her voice taut with agitation. “I told you—I love him.”

      “Do you?” The chill in his eyes made her shiver. “I wonder? I can’t help feeling that if you were really that much in love with him, you wouldn’t have been able to hold out quite so easily—you’d have gone to bed with him.”

      This time she really did slap him—or at least she tried. But he was too quick for her, catching her wrist in a vice-like grip. Her eyes filled with tears of pain as his steely fingers dug into her dedicate skin. “Let me go,” she pleaded, all too acutely aware of the quivering response that was generating inside her; being so close to him, breathing the subtle musky scent of his skin, was affecting her in a way that she didn’t know how to control.

      Those agate eyes were gazing down into hers, the amber lights in their depths seeming to mesmerise her. “Because you’re not quite the ice-princess you pretend to be, are you?” he taunted. “On the surface it’s all frosty dignity, but underneath the fires are burning—I can feel their heat.”

      “No,” she protested, desperately trying to twist free of him. “You’re wrong…”

      “Am I?” he challenged, drawing her closer against him, his arm sliding around her slender waist. “Then you won’t let me kiss you, will you?”

      She caught her breath on a small gasp of shock, putting up her hand against his chest—but any intention she might have had to push him away melted as she felt the warmth of hard muscle beneath his white silk shirt. He laughed in mocking contempt as he recognised her lack of resistance.

      “Now you’re showing yourself in your true colours,” he taunted, his head bending over hers.

      His mouth was firm and sensuous, inciting her to respond, and her lips parted tremblingly as with unhurried ease his languorous tongue sought the soft inner sweetness, plundering in a deliberately flagrant exploration of all the deep, secret corners within. She closed her eyes, her head tipping back into the crook of his arm, melting in a honeyed tide of submissiveness, drugged by the musky male scent of his skin. She had been aching for this from the moment she had first set eyes

Скачать книгу