Sandra Marton - Mistresses - Bound with Gold / Bought with Emeralds

He was playing with words again. She bravely stood her ground as he invaded her personal space. ‘He was very persistent. I couldn’t get rid of him without being rude. What was I supposed to do?’

‘Be rude…be very, very rude…’ His hand came up to cup the side of her throat, his thumb extending under the point of her chin. ‘I don’t like him touching you. I find I really—don’t like it an extraordinary amount…’

She swallowed, feeling the pressure of the ball of his thumb against her larynx and the heavy throb of blood at her pulse-point. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she murmured thickly, her voice vibrating in the cup of his palm. ‘The door is open…anyone could look in.’

‘We’re not doing anything wrong…’

Yet.

The unspoken qualification lingered in the air.

His eyes dropped to her mouth. Her lips parted. His head sank, his breath a hot streak of sensation across her cheek.

‘Say my name…’

‘What?’

He inhaled the scent of her skin. ‘I want to hear you say my name…’

‘Joshua.’ It was a mere sough of wind across her tingling lips.

His head sank further, the pressure on her throat increased and her mouth tilted up like a flower to the brilliant incandescence of the sun, and he groaned.

‘Damn and blast!’ His lips were hard against her forehead for a fleeting instant before his hands were gripping her shoulders, setting her firmly away. ‘No! We’re not going to do this.’ There was a sheen of perspiration on his forehead and upper lip as he stared down into her dazed violet eyes and ground out savagely, ‘You’re a complication I really don’t need right now!’

Stricken, she writhed out of his implacably gentle grip and lifted the shield of her pride. ‘Join the club, buster!’

There was a rustle from the hallway and they looked across just in time to see Carolyn drooping wearily past.

‘Carolyn?’ Joshua was at the door with startling speed.

She halted, her golden eyes curiously blank, not even seeming to register that her fiancé was coming out of another woman’s bedroom. ‘What?’

His voice gentled to a note that caused Regan physical pain. ‘Are you all right?’

‘No, I’m not all right.’ Her pouty mouth turned down sullenly. ‘I’m tired. I’m going to bed.’

‘But not all your guests have left—’

‘God, you sound just like Granny!’ she snapped. Then she put a hand on her flat stomach. ‘I don’t feel very well, OK?’

‘Do you think you’re going to be sick?’

‘Of course I’m not going to be sick!’ Two patches of pink stood out on her cheeks. ‘Tomorrow, when I get up in the morning, that’s when I’ll probably be sick, and I’ll feel rotten for half the day.’ Her eyes glittered with tears, this time genuine, and her voice was shrill. ‘Oh, God, I hate this—it’s all such a ghastly mess! If there were any justice in the world men would have to go through this, too!’

She dashed away down the hall towards her room at the far end, and when Regan would have gone after her she found a strong arm barring her way.

‘No, let her go. She’ll probably throw herself on the bed, have a good cry, and feel the better for it.’

After his tender tone, it seemed awfully callous. ‘But she says she doesn’t feel well.’ She remembered her earlier suspicions. ‘Perhaps she’s had too much to drink—in which case she might need someone there.’

‘She’s not ill and she’s not drunk.’

‘Not ill? But—’ Suddenly it hit her, nearly knocking her to the floor. She clutched at the door handle for balance and stared up at him as her mind made the conscious leap from instinct to understanding. That Empire-line dress and the many-layered look Carolyn had worn to dinner would cover a multitude of sins!

‘My God!’ Her voice cracked. ‘ That’s why you two are in such a rush to get married! Carolyn’s pregnant, isn’t she? Isn’t she? ’

His face was like granite, his voice tight with the effort of control as he lowered his voice. ‘Yes, she’s pregnant, but Hazel doesn’t know about it yet…that’s the way Carolyn wants it. So, for her sake, promise me you’ll keep quiet?’

‘You weren’t courting her, and you didn’t owe her fidelity, but you did go to bed with her—unless you’re going to claim it’s a virgin birth! You heartless, hypocritical, lying, lascivious beast!’

This time when she slammed the door thunderously in his face it stayed shut.

AT ELEVEN o’clock the next morning it was an unpleasant surprise to walk into the dining room and find the lying, lascivious beast laughing and chatting with Hazel and Sir Frank as Alice Beatson served him up a large plate of scrambled eggs and salmon cakes.

‘Good morning, Regan,’ carolled Hazel from her position at the head of the long refectory table. ‘Look who’s dropped in for brunch!’

While Sir Frank grunted and waved his marmaladecovered knife in greeting, Joshua had risen to his feet and rounded the table to pull out the chair squarely opposite his own.

Damning his manners, Regan sat down, giving him a stiff nod.

‘Thank you.’ Now she would have to suffer being directly in his sight-line all through the meal. In a straw-coloured casual linen jacket over an open-necked beige shirt and trousers he looked too damnably attractive for her unsettled state of mind.

‘Good morning, Regan,’ he chided her softly, stooping over her shoulder in the process of pushing in her chair, his open jacket brushing the short sleeve of her cherry-red shift dress.

She clenched her teeth on a smile. ‘Good morning,’ she parroted. She accepted Alice’s offer of freshly squeezed orange juice and a dish of sliced fresh fruit in yogurt and looked around the table.

She had been so preoccupied with her effort not to react to Joshua that she had barely registered anyone else in the room, and now she felt a shock of recognition as she stared into a pair of familiar light brown eyes, gazing at her from across the table over the top of a tall stack of buttermilk pancakes.

He smirked at her surprise. ‘Hi.’

‘Hello, Ryan,’ she blurted. ‘Were you at the party last night? I didn’t see you.’

‘Nah—I have exams starting on Monday, I had to swot.’

In the act of reseating himself beside the youth, Joshua snapped up his head. ‘You two know each other?’

‘Sort of,’ hedged Regan, praying that the sly humour that had entered the young man’s eyes didn’t mean he was going to rat on her for the pleasure of seeing an adult squirm. Today he had his hair slicked back into a neat ponytail and was wearing a brown T-shirt that made him look even more like a beanpole.

‘We ran into each other yesterday and had a bit of a chat, didn’t we, Ryan?’ Her eyes silently begged him to play it casual.

‘So, did you see any more of those birds?’ he said loudly.

Sir Frank frowned. ‘There’s no need to shout, lad, we’re not deaf.’

‘Sorry, but I thought Regan was hard of hearing.’ Ryan’s eyes were owlishly innocent behind his wire glasses.

The wretch! Regan gave him a speaking look which he returned with a pious grin as he stuffed another pancake in his mouth.

‘Why on earth should you think that?’ asked Hazel.

Ryan moved his thin shoulders up and down, pointing to his bulging cheeks to explain why he couldn’t answer.

‘He must have misunderstood something I said,’ Regan supplied hurriedly, ‘We were bird-watching, so we were whispering—’

‘ Bird -watching?’ Joshua’s eyebrows shot up. He looked sceptically at the young man munching innocently at his side. ‘Since when have you taken up such a tame hobby, Ryan? I thought Cyberspace ruled your life. Although I suppose staring at native flora and fauna could be considered an advance on staring at a computer screen all day. At least it gets you out in the fresh air.’