A Kind Of Madness Part 8

As she pa.s.sed the greenhouses, she saw that all the windows had been opened, and that the beds outside alongside them were filled with a variety of young vegetables, all growing healthily and organically.

Her mother had told her on her last visit that she had been discreetly picking the brains of some of the village's elderly residents, and that she was keeping a note of all the gardening tips they had given her, including a list of the various homemade remedies for various pests and diseases likely to affect their produce.

The paddock was separated from the rest of the small holding by a hawthorn hedge, its greenery now at this time of year liberally sprinkled with wild roses, and as she approached it Elspeth drew a faint sigh of relief. Her calves were aching, and the basket had suddenly grown rather heavy. She had turned her ankles more times than she cared to remember and she was only thankful that it was dry underfoot.

And then she saw the stile, and frowned at it. Surely the last time she had come home there had been a gate here into the paddock?

The stile, although solidly constructed and perfectly safe, was not going to be easy to climb in her straight skirt--at least, not unless she hitched it up quite considerably. For a moment the indignity of having to climb the stile with her skirt somewhere up around the top of her thighs made her stop and bitterly curse herself under her breath.

She was feeling too hot and sticky, and thoroughly unlike her normal self; and certainly,

she was sure, the image she must be presenting must be far from the one of cool elegance she normally showed to the world. A gust of liot wind teased her hair, blowing it on to her face so that she had to put down the basket to push it out of the way.

Still muttering under her breath, this time it was Carter she cursed and not herself. After all, it was his fault that she had come out here like this, that she had walked down that uneven path in these totally unsuitable shoes, that she was feeling so hot and irritable-"Need a hand to get over the stile?"

She was so engrossed in her angry thoughts that she hadn't even heard Carter approach.

With the sun in her eyes, it was difficult to focus on him where he stood at the top of the stile, casually pulling on his s.h.i.+rt, although she could still see where his chest was streaked with sweat and what looked like soil. His hair was ruffled by the same hot wind that had tormented hers, but at least he was properly dressed both for his occupation and habitat. While she. Never could she remember feeling at such a disadvantage to any man. And it was especially galling that it should be with this one that she should be making such an idiot of herself.

Carefully s.h.i.+elding her eyes, she prepared to're S

fuse his offer, looking suspiciously into his face for the amus.e.m.e.nt she knew must be there. After all, in his shoes, she doubted that she would have been able to refrain from having a good laugh at his expense, but to her surprise he was simply watching her with what looked like genuine concern, as though he actually had virtually walked the width of the field simply because he wanted to help her.

As she contemplated this fact, the strangest sensation a.s.sailed her.

Elspeth was not used to men wanting to help her, to cos set and protect her. She had always told herself that those old-fas.h.i.+oned notions of what had once been considered to be good manners went hand in hand with a paternalistic att.i.tude that had kept her s.e.x in emotional and financial chains for far too long, and yet, as Carter finished fastening his s.h.i.+rt and came down towards her, she had an unwanted and rather shocking bleak awareness of the fact that Peter would never in a thousand years have done what Carter was doing. That Peter would have quite casually and calmly left her to struggle on her own without even thinking that she might need the strength to lean on.

Had it been his mother who was crossing the stile, though. Unaware of how huge and shadowed her eyes had become, she stiffened when Carter asked quietly, "Are you all right, Elspeth? It's a hot day, and although I'm delighted that you've decided to come down..."

He was going to make some comment about the unsuitability of her clothes, she knew it, Elspeth thought, her whole body tensing as she prepared to reject whatever it was he was going to say, but instead, apparently oblivious to her tension, he simply went on calmly, "You shouldn't have gone to the trouble of lugging that heavy basket down here."

"I thought you might both like some coffee," she told him gruffly, too grateful to him for not mentioning her clothes to prevaricate.

"That was very thoughtful of you. Here, let me help you over the stile. No, you put the basket down. I'll take care of that."

The heat must have had more of an effect on her than she had realised, Elspeth thought dizzily as she weakly put down the basket and allowed Carter to come so close to her that she could actually smell the hot male scent of his skin.

Such an unexpected and intimate awareness of him as a man--earthy, sweaty, vigorous and somehow or other, in the most startling way, producing a shockingly erotic response within her own body, kept her standing as tense and still as a statue, so stunned by her own response to him that she had no intimation of what he intended to do, until he suddenly swung her up into his arms and advanced towards the stile.

She tried to protest, but the unexpected sensation of being off the ground, of being totally dependent on the physical strength of another human being made her feel so vulnerable that she clung instinctively to him, her protest that there was no need for him to carry her and that she could quite easily walk shockingly smothered against the bare flesh of his throat as he s.h.i.+fted her weight slightly so that he could mount the stile steps.

It seemed he had heard her, though, because he replied casually, "It's easier this way. Saves you having to tussle with that skirt of yours--or even worse, damage one of your ankles."

She stiffly tried to hold herself away from any contact with his body--an almost impossible task, when he was insisting on carrying her in such a way that she seemed to tilt into it in a manner that was quite shockingly intimate.

Her heartbeat seemed to have accelerated to at least one and a half times its normal beat; her chest, she suddenly discovered, seemed to have trouble expanding enough to allow her to breathe normally. She closed her eyes dizzily, telling herself that if she could just blot out the sight of Carter's body, so erotically filling her vision, these unwelcome sensations would no doubt disappear, but immediately she did so Carter stopped moving, causing her to open them again very quickly.

She told herself it was the unfamiliar vulnerability of her position that caused that odd ripple of sensation to s.h.i.+ver cares singly down her spine as she found herself looking directly into the watchful depths of his eyes.

"Are you all right?"

The words seemed to rumble from somewhere deep in his chest, so that she felt as well as heard them. Amber eyes should look cool and aloof, not--not warm. and--and concerned, she decided muzzily as she dragged her gaze away from them and tried to focus on something safer, but Carter had s.h.i.+fted her weight slightly and his forearm blocked her view.

Odd how she had never realised before how very virile a man's arms could be. Carter's w&re wired with hard muscle, covered in firm, tanned flesh and dark hair which shone silkily in the hot sun. As she stared at him, wondering why on earth her mouth had gone so dry, and why she should suddenly suffer a deeply embarra.s.sing and totally unthinkable compulsion to reach out and run her forefinger lightly down the hard curve of that forearm, the hairs on it suddenly lifted, just as though she had actually given in to that compulsion and caressed him, just as though he had looked into her mind and seen laid bare there the confusion and shame of what she was feeling.

Shock made her turn her head as though in rejection of what she was thinking, her gaze momentarily locking with his. He was, she saw, looking at her sternly, a tiny frown quilting his forehead, his mouth suddenly hard with tension.

"You don't feel faint or anything, do you?" he asked her abruptly.

She had been so convinced he had known exactly what kind of effect he was having on her that it was several seconds before she realised he had totally misinterpreted her reactions. When she did, she seized gratefully on the excuse he had unwittingly offered her and said, "No... No, I'm fine. If anyone's feeling faint it ought to be you.

There was really no need to carry me over the stile, Carter, I was perfectly capable of climbing it for myself. In fact, to be honest with you I would have preferred to be allowed to do so. The days are gone when women found it flattering to be treated as helpless pieces of china," she added for good measure, her voice almost tart, as he completed his task and swung her carefully to the floor.

Not for the world did she want to admit to herself how much she missed the warm contact of his flesh against hers; and she certainly did not miss that odd breathless sensation that had swept through her . nor that idiotic awareness of him as a man, that unseemly desire to actually reach out and touch him. What on earth could have possessed her?

Flus.h.i.+ng guiltily as she remembered unwillingly all that she had felt, she bent her head and made a pretence of dusting down her suit.

She was behaving ridiculously. She had never reacted like that to the sight of Peter's arms. Reluctantly, she was forced to admit that poor Peter physically was nowhere near in Carter's cla.s.s. His body, while not precisely puny, was quite obviously that of a man who worked with his brain rather than his body. Peter burned in the sun, and for that reason never exposed himself to it. From what she could remember of the odd times she had seen him wearing a short-sleeved s.h.i.+rt, his arms were pale, almost hairless. Certainly they 1 ad never aroused in her the shockingly indecorous sensations that she had experienced just now--thank goodness. One thing she did know was that Peter would have been as horrified as she was herself if they had done so. Her reaction to Carter had been so. so primitive, so. so shockingly intense, so.

so out of character, she thought help essly, as she waited for him to retrieve the basket and rejoin her.

When he did so he was looking rather grim, she noticed, and, forcing herself to remember exactly why she had come out here, she told herself that he was no doubt surprised and not very pleased to see her.

She saw that John was using a rotavator to break up the soil, and while she watched, desperately focusing on the other man in an attempt to appear totally oblivious to Carter's presence, she forced herself to concentrate on the reality of what he was doing here.

No doubt that small piece of pseudo-gentlemanly by-play over the stile had simply been a means of getting under her guard, of putting her off the scent, and she--poor fool--had reacted to it as though she were sixteen years old and never been held in a man's arms before--never been kissed.

Kissed. Suddenly, traitorously, her thoughts rioted out of control, as she wondered what it would have been like if Carter had kissed her;

if, when he had looked into her eyes then when he'd been standing on the stile, instead of looking away he had lowered his mouth to hers.

She discovered that her mouth had gone dry at the thought, that a nervy tension was gripping her stomach, and that inexplicably her lips were tingling slightly. She ran her tongue over them in nervous exploration as though she was terrified that, by some osmosis, she would discover an alien male taste clinging to them.

"Look, are you sure you're all right? This sun is very hot."

Instead of being grateful that he had mistaken her reactions, Elspeth discovered that she was actually quite cross.

"I'm perfectly fine," she snapped back at him.

"And as for the heat, this is my home, Carter. I might live in London now, but I've spent all my growing years here in Ches.h.i.+re--under the heat of its sun," she added sarcastically, and then before he could say anything she asked, "What is John doing?"

"He's preparing the ground for sowing. Your mother wants to try producing more soft fruits; one of the restaurants she supplies specialises in a range of soft fruit desserts and they're very interested in anything she can grow here organically. We're having trouble with the rotavator though. We could do with one with a bit more power."

As he spoke, almost as though it had heard him, the machine suddenly coughed and spluttered to a halt.

"Excuse me. I'd better go over and give John a hand."

Watching as he broke into an easy spring, Elspeth blinked once or twice in the strong sunlight. She did feel rather light-headed, she discovered--perhaps that was the reason she had reacted so oddly to him. Much as she hated to admit that he might have been right, that the sun might be too strong for her, it was a relief to discover that there might after all be a perfectly mundane reason for her odd reaction to him.

After all, one read about people going mad when they were exposed to too much strong sun.