LITMIR.BIZ

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and the room was a conglomeration of Japanese jade and Indian ivory, and hand-painted Chinese silk. Their oriental delicacy made Carne’s presence more of an intrusion somehow, and his height and lean, but muscular, body seemed to fill the space with disruptive virility. Standing there in close-fitting jeans and a collarless body shirt, he was an affront to the ordered tenor of the room, and most particularly an affront to Lesley’s carefully controlled existence.

      She barely glanced at him, yet in those few seconds she registered everything about him. He hadn’t changed, she thought bitterly. He was still as imperturbably arrogant as ever, caring little for people or places, showing a fine contempt for the things she had always held most dear. In spite of a degree in biochemistry, when his father died Carne had been quite prepared to give up a promising scientific career to take over the farm that had been in their family for generations, but Lesley, when she learned this, had been horrified. It had been one of the many arguments she had had with Carne’s mother, yet hardly a conclusive factor in her final decision to leave him. She knew deep inside her that there had been much more to it than that, an accumulation of so many things that clutching at his lack of ambition was like clutching at a straw in the wind. They had been incompatible, she decided, choosing the most hackneyed word to describe the breakdown of their relationship.

      Now, looking at her mother, who had risen rather nervously from her chair, she exclaimed: ‘Exactly what must I be told, Mother? What is it that I wouldn’t understand?’

      By ignoring Carne, she hoped she was making plain her resentment at finding him here, but it was he who spoke as her mother struggled to find words.

      ‘Listening at keyholes again, Lesley?’ he taunted, and she could not argue with that.

      ‘You’re home early, dear.’

      Her mother had clearly chosen to avoid a direct answer, but Lesley refused to be put off by Carne’s attempt to disarm her.

      ‘Why is Carne here?’ she demanded, returning to the attack, and she sensed rather than saw the look Mrs Matthews exchanged with her husband. There was a pregnant pause, then he spoke again.

      ‘Your mother has angina,’ he told her flatly, despite her mother’s cry of protest. ‘A heart condition that’s not improved by the company of a boisterous small boy!’

      Lesley’s legs felt suddenly weak, and she sought the back of her mother’s chair for support. ‘Angina?’ she echoed stupidly. Then: ‘But why wasn’t I told?’

      ‘I imagine because your mother hoped you would notice she wasn’t well,’ Carne remarked cuttingly. ‘It’s one thing to shout about independence, and quite another to expect someone else to help you to accomplish it!’

      Lesley stared at him indignantly, hating him for his calm pragmatism. His returning stare had all the emotion of a hawk poised above its prey, and she guessed he felt no sympathy for her feelings of outrage and betrayal. How could her mother have confided in him? In the one man who in all Lesley’s life had been capable of making her feel mean and selfish, and spoiled out of all measure.

      ‘Why have you come here?’ she demanded again now, and this time her mother chose to answer.

      ‘I asked him to,’ she spoke fretfully. ‘Oh, Lesley, don’t be angry. I had to confide in someone.’

      It was incredibly difficult for Lesley not to show how upset she really was. ‘Why not me?’ she exclaimed, with feeling. ‘Why not me?’

      ‘I believe your mother thought that if she could persuade you to let Jeremy spend his holidays at Raventhorpe, it wouldn’t be necessary to worry you,’ put in Carne dryly. ‘But I gather that hasn’t met with any success.’

      Lesley refused to answer that. Instead, she concentrated her attention on her mother. ‘Look,’ she said carefully, ‘I’ve—I’ve managed to make some—arrangements for the holidays—–’

      ‘What sort of arrangements?’

      It was Carne who asked the question, pushing back the dark chestnut hair from his forehead, unwillingly drawing her attention to the fact that when he lifted his arm, his shirt separated from his pants and exposed a welt of brown midriff. Carne’s skin had always been brown, but as he often worked in the open air with only a pair of cotton pants to protect his lower limbs, his chest and shoulders and the width of his back were bronzed and supple. In spite of all the bitterness that had gone before, she could still remember the feel of that smooth skin beneath her fingers and her nails digging into the strong muscles when they made love …

      Dragging her eyes away from him, she forced herself to look only at her mother. ‘I—I spoke to Lance today,’ she began, and felt a certain squalid satisfaction as she sensed Carne’s stiffening. ‘He—he’s quite willing for me to take Jeremy to the office with me. He can read or use his cray—–’

      ‘No.’

      Carne’s rejection was low, but succinct, and Lesley was forced to acknowledge it. ‘I don’t think it’s anything to do with you.’

      ‘Which shows how wrong you can be,’ he retorted smoothly.

      ‘Oh, please …’ Mrs Matthews sought her chair again. ‘I never intended this to degenerate into an argument. I know how you feel about Jeremy, Lesley, never doubt that. But Carne was the right person to turn to, can’t you see? He is the boy’s father!’

      Lesley’s eyes sparkled dangerously in Carne’s direction for a moment, before she said: ‘That’s meant a lot to him in recent years, hasn’t it. Or has he been seeing Jeremy behind my back, too?’

      ‘Lesley!’ Carne’s voice was grim, and briefly she felt ashamed.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she said stiffly, addressing her mother. ‘But you know as well as I do how often Carne has troubled to see Jeremy since I left Ravensdale—–’

      ‘You little bitch!’ In a stride, Carne had covered the distance between them and was gripping her upper arms with fingers that dug cruelly into her flesh. ‘You little bitch!’ he repeated, less emotively, his gaze raking her shakily resentful features. ‘You know as well as I do why I stopped seeing him. You’d confused him enough as it was. A father who appeared at weekends and holidays is no father at all to a toddler barely out of his nappies, and you know it.’

      ‘That—that’s your excuse, is it?’ she got out jerkily, and his brown eyes darkened to appear almost black, filling the area around the dilated pupils with ominous obscurity.

      ‘Yes, that’s my excuse,’ he agreed savagely. ‘How do you salve your conscience, I wonder?’

      Lesley tore herself away from him, rubbing her bruised arms with fingers that trembled. ‘You always were a bully, weren’t you, Carne?’ she countered, but it was a defensive reaction, born of the desire to escape the physical awareness she had always had of him, an awareness heightened by the heated scent of his body and the raw sensuality of the man himself. It was an unconscious trait, but it was there, and she knew she was not the only woman to be aware of it.

      Mrs Matthews was looking distinctly distressed now, and ignoring Lesley Carne turned to her. ‘Do you want me to go?’ he asked gently, but Lesley’s muffled ‘Yes’ was overridden by her mother’s hurried denial.

      ‘Lesley had to know sooner or later,’ she said, and pointed to the cigar box on the mantelpiece. ‘Please—could I have one of those? I really need it.’

      Lesley stood by feeling childishly sulky and admonished as Carne lit her mother’s cheroot, but she couldn’t deny the fluttery feelings in the pit of her stomach. She wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t run the Mini into the back of the other car that morning, if she hadn’t got out of work early and come home and surprised them. When would her mother have mentioned Carne’s visit? When would she have revealed that her heart could not stand the demands put upon it by a child of Jeremy’s age and temperament? When would she have disclosed that she was actually negotiating arrangements without even consulting her daughter!

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