Wild Entrantress Part 3

'I know where Cornwall is,' he said dryly.

'Oh! Oh, well, then. Why can't we try it now? I'm willing.'

Jared's eyes dropped pointedly to her stomach. 'Are you?'

'Yes, of course.' She sighed, colouring in spite of herself. 'I've told you, it's months and months away. I don't intend doing anything reckless. But I don't want to spoil your-your pleasure.'

'Haven't you done that already?' he countered, and she glared at him.

'Well? Have I?'

His eyes probed hers for a long disturbing moment, and then he thrust open his door and climbed out. 'I'll let you know,' he replied enigmatically.

There were steps down to the beach, and Jared went ahead, glancing round from time to time to a.s.sure himself that she was all right. Catherine couldn't help feeling touched by this involuntary display of concern on her behalf, although she guessed he would have done the same for anybody.

Halfway down, they came in sight of a low beach house, set in the lee of the cliffs and not visible from above. It stood on supports, a couple of feet above the sand, and as they came down the last of the steps Jared said: 'This is mine. I work here sometimes. And it's useful as a retreat!' this last with a meaning glance in her direction.

Catherine tossed back her hair, and walked across the sand, kicking off her sandals and carrying them. She climbed the shallow steps to the shaded veranda and looked in through the sand-dusted windows.

Jared seemed to hesitate, and then he said: The door isn't locked. You can go in, if you want to.'

Catherine looked round at him, could read no hidden menace in his expression, and turned the handle of the door. Inside, there was a faint smell of oil paints and canvas, and looking round the room she could see why. There was a stove in one corner, for heating on cooler days, she presumed, a couple of squashy leather chairs which were worn in places, a low table, cupboards for storing things, and a cooker, sink and refrigerator. But in every available s.p.a.ce there were stacks of canvases, strewn haphazardly around the walls, and propped against an easel which leaned drunkenly against one of the chairs.

She stood just inside the door looking about her, and Jared came to support himself against the jamb, regarding her without evident hostility for once. 'Well?' he said, making it a question.

'Are you appalled at the mess?'

Catherine half turned towards him. 'Why should I be? I expect you work very well here.'

He frowned. 'Why do you say that?'

'I don't know.' She shrugged her slim shoulders. 'It's the disorder, I suppose. I read something once, I don't remember where-in one of those trendy journals, I think-and it said something about order being without inspiration. That creating anything-artistic, in disciplined surroundings, is like mining for diamonds in a velvet-lined box.'

Jared straightened, his lips twisting-mockingly. 'How very apt!

And how perceptive of you to remember it.'

Catherine sighed. 'Sometimes those articles are just rubbis.h.!.+ I just thought that particular one had some merit.'

'Oh, it did.' Jared pa.s.sed her and walked indolently across the room, kicking aside a tube of paint which oozed stickily on to the bare boards. He indicated a divan in one corner, half hidden from her view by other paraphernalia. 'I sleep here sometimes, It's quiet, and I don't mind the sound of the ocean. And, as you say, I enjoy the chaos.'

He looked at her as he spoke, and she felt a curious warning sensation in the pit of her stomach. When he was not using the sharp edge of his sarcasm against her, he was disturbingly attractive, and the girlish feelings he had aroused all those years ago did not seem quite so distant after all.

As though realising that for a few moments he had forgotten his antipathy towards her, he withdrew his gaze from hers and hauled a couple of surfboards out from behind the door. One was bigger than the other, but they were both made of fibre-gla.s.s and very light.

'Arc you sure you want to try this?' he asked, his voice hard and slightly impatient, and she nodded eagerly.

'Of course. Is this one mine?' She indicated the smaller board.

'Hmm, smell that scent of the sea!'

They came down the steps on to the beach and looked towards the ocean. The sun glittered and danced on the water, dazzling the eyes, jewelling the foam to sparkling brilliance. The sun was rising higher, and its heat was making the sand warm beneath their feet.

Catherine bent her head to unzip her jeans and Jared gave her an angry look. 'What are you doing?'

She looked up in surprise. 'I don't normally go swimming in my jeans,' she answered innocently.

He expelled his breath noisily. 'You can change in the beach house.'

'I don't have to change.' She wriggled the jeans down over her hips, revealing the narrow band of the bikini. 'I came prepared.'

She smiled. 'Didn't you?'

Jared said a word which she wouldn't have liked to repeat, and unfastened his own jeans and slid them down his legs His swimming trunks were black and came beautifully low on his lean hips. Catherine couldn't help admiring the powerful muscles so displayed, but he obviously disliked her eyes upon him.

Picking up a surfboard, he strode away down the beach, and she stood there folding her jeans and watching him.

He carried the surfboard into the waves until the water was up to his waist, then he straddled the board before stretching his length upon it, paddling out towards the line of the reef with steady progression.

Catherine was hardly aware that she had bent and picked up the untidy pile that was his jeans, or that as he approached the turning point, she pressed them closely to her chest, watching for the surf to catch him with such intensity that her eyes ached from the glare.

He had turned. He was kneeling on the board now, coasting down the inside of the crest which threatened to engulf him. Her heart leapt into her throat as the board was lifted high on the swell, and then he was on his feet, balancing himself with an expertise she couldn't help but envy, driving diagonally in towards the sh.o.r.eline at what seemed an incredible speed. If he should lose his balance, if he should fall. . .

She closed her eyes and when she opened them again, he had disappeared. She took several involuntary steps forward, her heart hammering so loudly it seemed audible. Then she saw the surfboard tossed carelessly by the waves, and her heart seemed to stop beating altogether. She ran towards the water's edge, blinking as shafts of green brilliance obscured her vision. The sun was reacting on her unguarded eyes, making them water just when she wanted to see clearly.

She moved her head from side to side, searching for a glimpse of him, and then gulping with relief when he appeared some distance to her left, thrown upon the sand like the surfboard beside him. She ran eagerly towards him, still clutching his jeans, but he was getting to his feet and his expression was not encouraging.

'What the h.e.l.l are you doing?' he demanded, and she blinked at him bewilderingly. 'What's the matter? Why are you looking at me like that? And what are you doing with my pants?'

He tugged the offending jeans out of her grasp, and she stood there before him, still wearing her smock, still too shocked to say much at all.

'I-I-you disappeared. I thought-I thought-'

'You thought I'd drowned?'

'Well, I-I wasn't sure. . .'

Jared tossed his jeans on to the sand, and Catherine noticed inconsequently that they had landed in the same heap as before. 'I dived off the board, before it reached shallow water,' he told her impatiently. 'I'm sorry if you were alarmed, but I didn't know you were watching me.'

Catherine was gradually recovering her composure, and resentment gave her a welcome barrier against the feelings she had just experienced. 'I'm sure you knew perfectly well that I was watching you,' she retorted, aware as she did so that she was not sure of any such thing.

Jared sighed. 'Why? Why aren't you in the water yourself?'

'I'm no expert. You must know you are.'

'Thank you.' His tone was sardonic. 'So why were you so concerned?'

She stared up at him angrily. Without the platform soles she was used to, he was several inches taller than she was, a new experience for her because she was a tall girl. 'I really don't know!' she told him feelingly, and marched away along the beach.

Her desire to swim had left her. Her eyes still ached from the glare of the water, and an awful empty feeling was making itself felt in the region below her rib-cage. After all, she had not eaten since yesterday afternoon, and men only two of the diminutive sandwiches. She sat down on the sand beside the other surfboard, drawing up her legs and wrapping her arms around them, resting her chin on her knees.

She was hardly aware of him coming to join her, until his weight disturbed the sand beside her, and she permitted herself the knowledge that he was standing beside her.

'I'm sorry if you were upset,' he said quietly, and ridiculously, his apology moved her to tears.

'It doesn't matter,' she mumbled into her knees, but he must have discerned the break in her voice, and he uttered an expletive before coming down on his haunches beside her.

He remained there silently for several seconds just looking at her, and eventually she felt compelled to look at him. He was very close, his skin still damp with sea water, smelling slightly of the salt. There was hair on his arms and legs, fine dark hair, the ends bleached golden by the sun. She knew the strongest impulse to put out her hand and stroke the taut muscles of his thigh, to feel that smooth brown skin beneath her fingers. She didn't seem capable of lifting her eyes, and with another exclamation he got to his feet.

'Do you want to swim?' he demanded roughly, and she dug her chin into her knees before replying.

Then, brus.h.i.+ng a careless hand across her cheeks, she got to her feet, shaking her head. 'No.' She bent to pick up her jeans. 'But don't let me stop you.'

'No, I won't do that,' he muttered bitterly, and without another word began to pull his pants on over his wet trunks.

- Catherine bit her lip. 'Oughtn't you to take those off?' she asked, and his eyes bored coldly into hers.

'I suppose you'd like to help me!' he remarked harshly, and although her colour deepened, she didn't flinch from the challenge.

'If you'd like me to,' she countered steadily, and he uttered a sound of disgust.

'It would be no novelty to you, I suppose!'

'It never was-a novelty, I mean,' she murmured, and then concluded by despising herself as he strode angrily away.

It was, amazingly, barely nine o'clock when they arrived back at the house. Jared parked the car on the sweep of drive before the now open front doors, and leaving Catherine to fend for herself, walked grimly indoors. But when she followed him a few moments later, she found he had encountered his stepmother in the hall, and she was gently reproving him for disappearing so early in the day. This morning Elizabeth Royal was dressed in a cream silk s.h.i.+rt and well-cut riding breeches, narrow black boots completing a picture of diminutive elegance. Jared had apparently not yet told her that he had not been alone, and when Catherine appeared, Elizabeth's eyes widened in arrant disbelief.

Catherine found herself waiting for the inevitable comment about her condition, but it didn't come. Instead, Elizabeth ignored her, turning to her stepson and saying: 'I don't understand, Jared. I thought you had been to the beach.'

'I have.' Jared's eyes had the coldness of marble in their depths when they encountered Catherine's. 'She-Miss Fulton, that is-came with me.'

It seemed ridiculous that he should go on calling her Miss Fulton when their exchanges were so much less than polite. Elizabeth seemed to think nothing of it, and yet she had addressed their guest as Catherine. But then perhaps she preferred that they remain formal with one another, thought Catherine, with a return of her cynicism of the afternoon before.

Now Elizabeth was forced to acknowledge the girl's presence, and again Catherine waited for the expected denunciation. But Elizabeth merely gave her the faintest of smiles, and said rather stiffly: 'How fortunate you were not to get your hair wet.' She looked at her stepson and stretched up her hand to touch the virile darkness of his. 'Yours is soaking, darling.'

Catherine found her nails were digging rather painfully into her palms. 'I-I didn't swim, Mrs Royal.' Impossible to call her Elizabeth at this moment. 'I just-watched Jared.'

Jared turned away to the stairs. 'Excuse me.'

'What about your breakfast?' His stepmother's voice followed him plaintively.

Jared paused and looked down. 'I'l get something later. Have Susie make me some coffee. I'm not particularly hungry.'

Elizabeth's lips tightened as he disappeared through a door off the gallery, and it was with an obvious effort that she forced herself to be civil to their guest.

'Are you hungry, Catherine? Of course, you must be.' Catherine stiffened, and then relaxed once more as her hostess went on: 'You didn't have any dinner last evening.'

Following Elizabeth across the hall, and into a small, sunlit morning room, where a circular table was laid with a white cloth, Catherine apologised. 'I must have been tireder than I imagined. I had a bath, and I don't remember much after that.'

Elizabeth's smile was a shade easier. 'No. Well, never mind. It's always best to get over jet lag at the earliest opportunity. And we quite understood. Jared sent one of the servants to make sure you were all right.'

'You're very kind.' But what else had Jared told her?

'Not at all. We want you to feel that this is your home-for the next six months anyway.' Catherine had to smile: at the way this was hastily tacked on, limiting their generosity. 'We-Jared and I, that is-want you to relax here.'

Catherine wasn't quite sure that she liked the coupling of their names. While it was physically obvious that Elizabeth could not be a lot older than her stepson, culturally speaking they should be poles apart. Elizabeth had been married for twelve years to a man at least twenty years her senior, while Jared had never experienced the total commitment of such a relations.h.i.+p. And yet Elizabeth spoke as if they were equals, sharing a common interest.

Susie appeared, and Elizabeth told Catherine to order whatever she liked. She had already eaten, she said, but she joined her guest for coffee, and remained with her while she ate fresh fruit and cereal, rolls and apricot conserve. Catherine would nave preferred to be alone. She needed time to a.s.similate her position here. But Elizabeth had evidently decided to apprise her of the normal running of the household.

'We breed racehorses,' she said. 'Did Jared mention it to you?'

Catherine shook her head. 'We have quite a successful record.'

She waved a careless hand towards the windows. 'You must have seen the horses in the paddock.'

Catherine put a slice of honey-sweet peach into her mouth and nodded, wiping her sticky fingers on her table napkin. 'I did see the horses, yes. But I didn't realise...' She shrugged. 'I thought Jared-painted.'

Elizabeth gave a light, patronising laugh. 'Oh, my dear, he does.

And very successfully, too. But the horses-they were his father's pride and joy.'

'I see.'

'When James-that was Jared's father's name'-Catherine noticed she did not say my husband, 'when James died, I took over the stables. We have a very efficient manager, an Irishman by the name of Patrick Donovan, and I like to think that we've continued to maintain the high standard Royal horses have always been noted for.'

Catherine smiled. There was little she could say which would not sound like a cliche. She liked horses. She had ridden frequently when she was a child. But it was some years now since she had mounted any animal. . .unless you could count a camel on a visit with her father to Saudi Arabia!

'Do you ride, Catherine?'

It was a reasonable question, but Catherine realised it had other implications. Was it the kind of question Elizabeth would ask a girl she thought to be pregnant? Or was it perhaps a catch question, intended to draw from her guest the information she had thrown so carelessly at her stepson?

Deciding there was no point in burning her bridges until she had crossed them, Catherine chose the easy way out. 'I have done,'

she conceded. 'But not for years,'

'Then we must find you a mount,' exclaimed Elizabeth, pouring herself more coffee. 'It's the only way to explore the island. We must find you an escort, too. I'm giving a little dinner party tomorrow evening, and I shall invite one or two young men I know who will be enchanted to meet you.'

'Really, that's not necessary.' Catherine made a deprecatory gesture. 'You don't have to entertain me, Mrs Royal.'

'Elizabeth. And I know that, my dear. But- well, I hope you won't take this amiss, but I don't want you making a'-the word nuisance hovered on the tip of her tongue, Catherine could almost see it!-'making things-difficult for Jared.' She hastened on before her guest could intervene. 'This morning, for instance.

Jared goes down to the beach most mornings. It's his--sabbatical time, do you know what I mean? The time when he- when he thinks'-she spread her hands extravagantly-'when he-recharges his batteries, as it were. His work is so demanding. You must appreciate that. He needs time to be alone. No one ever intrudes!'

'I'm sorry.' There didn't seem much else to say. And she could hardly deny being aware of his extreme reluctance to take her!

'I'm sure you meant no harm, my dear.' Elizabeth could afford to be generous now her point had been well and truly made. 'But you'll learn that in this household, we all make allowances for the-how shall I put it?-artistic temperament?'

Catherine finished her breakfast without enjoyment, but Elizabeth, having delivered her little speech, began to excuse herself to go about her own duties.