Anne Mather - The Longest Pleasure

Helen stared at her without moving. ‘Paget,’ she said uneasily. ‘Paget, is something wrong?’ She shook her head. ‘Surely, you don’t believe I didn’t want to come to the funeral?’

‘Of course not.’ But Miss Paget’s denial was just a little too vehement. She pulled the shawl she was wearing closer about her shoulders and forced a faint smile. ‘Look, I must go and tell Mrs Pride you’re here. We’ll have plenty of time for talking later.’

Her retreat was slow and evidently painful, but it was a retreat just the same, and Helen felt a hollowing in her stomach. She stared after the old lady, unwillingly aware that what Rafe had said was true. Until now, she had been unable to believe that Paget had sent that awful telegram. But now she did. They had spoken together like strangers!

‘Do you want these in your room?’

Helen jumped violently at the unexpected sound of Rafe’s voice, and her vocal chords shook a little as she conceded that she did. ‘It—it’s along here,’ she said, avoiding his eyes as she led him to a room at the end of the hall. ‘Or—or do you know that, too?’ she added, a trace of bitterness invading her tones. ‘You seem to know everything else.’

She opened the door, and Rafe shouldered his way past her, carrying the cases into the room and dumping them unceremoniously in the middle of the faded Aubusson carpet. Then he straightened and regarded her without hostility.

‘I did try to warn you,’ he said, and when she could no longer sustain that cool green gaze, he cast a speculative glance about the apartment.

Seen through his eyes, it must look very old and very worn, thought Helen reluctantly, noticing the evidence of moth in the heavy damask curtains, and the bare patches in a carpet which had once been richly patterned. There was even a faintly sour smell of mildew in the air, as if the clumsy iron radiator, grunting in the corner, was having little success in banishing the damp atmosphere.

‘I suppose your apartment in London is the exact opposite of this place,’ Rafe remarked carelessly, and Helen stiffened.

‘It’s modern, if that’s what you mean,’ she agreed, holding meaningfully on to the door handle. ‘Thank you for——’

‘But I bet it lacks character,’ Rafe continued, pushing up the leather jacket and sliding his hands into the pockets of his trousers. ‘Doesn’t it?’

Unwillingly, his leisurely action had drawn her attention to the powerful width of his thighs, outlined beneath the fine woollen material. He had strong legs, long and muscular, and when he flexed his hands in his pockets, the cloth was stretched tautly across his flat stomach. His movements were not intentionally suggestive. She doubted he was even aware of her watching him. His muscled frame was entirely male; she would have had to have been blind to be unconscious of that fact. But what disturbed her was her awareness of the lean powerful body beneath the tight-fitting trousers, and she was shockingly reminded of how once she had thought of little else.

The memory stunned and sickened her. Dear God, she thought, why had she thought of that now? Ever since that terrible day, when Rafe had followed her from the barn and taken his revenge upon her, she had built a barrier between herself and any strong sexual emotion. Oh, she was not a virgin—her relationship with Adam had seen to that. And he had been flattered that she had, as he put it, saved herself for him. But the truth was her instincts in that direction had been strangled on that August afternoon when she was fifteen, and it had been a simple matter to keep her other boy-friends at bay when she herself had felt no compunction to change things.

And now, after all these years, to find her pulse-rate quickening and a feeling of moist heat flooding her thighs, she was filled with revulsion. She had only to remember what he had been doing to Sandra in the barn to rekindle the loathsome images that had haunted her for years. But those images didn’t help her here. She despised him, she told herself fiercely. He was an animal! And if her body had betrayed her, it was a measure of the fear he still provoked.

‘Doesn’t it?’

Rafe’s lazily provoking voice aroused her from the blackness of her thoughts, and she saw him looking at her a little strangely as she pushed the door back and forth on its hinges. ‘Wh—what?’

‘Your apartment,’ he jeered softly. ‘I was suggesting it had no character. But then, character doesn’t mean much to you, does it!’

Helen stared at him angrily, and then stepped stiffly aside. ‘Will you please go?’ she ordered coldly. ‘I’d like to have some time alone before Miss Paget comes back.’

‘Before you go to see the old lady?’ prompted Rafe, reminding her of the unwelcome duty ahead of her, and Helen’s lips tightened.

‘I shall pay my respects to Lady Elizabeth in my own time, Mr Fleming,’ she retorted, using the formal mode of address deliberately. ‘Now, if you don’t mind …’

Rafe lifted his shoulders in an indifferent gesture, and then strolled carelessly out of the room. Helen closed the door behind him with a satisfying thud. Then, resting her shoulders against the panels, she took several steadying gulps of air. She had to get a hold on herself, she thought furiously. If Rafe Fleming could disconcert her that easily, what chance did she have of establishing her authority here? She had to remember who she was, and who he was, and if she could only survive until the funeral was over, her problems would resolve themselves. No one, not even Rafe Fleming, could force her to keep him on her payroll. If, as she feared, judging by the deterioration of this room, the house had to be sold, he could take his chances with the new owners. She would not stoop to blackening his character, even though it was what he deserved. But it was unlikely he would find another employer as trusting as her grandmother.

Reassured by this assessment, Helen left the door to walk to the windows. Already her presence in the room was causing a film of condensation to form, and after casting a regretful look at the snow, she turned to survey her domain. She hoped the bed was aired. Lady Elizabeth had had no liking for modern springing, and all the beds had feather mattresses. They could be cosy on cold winter nights, Helen remembered, when their downy softness closed around you. But they could also be very uncomfortable if the mattress hadn’t been shaken and the feathers lumped together beneath your weight.

The room itself was much as it had been when she first came to live with her grandmother. A carved fireplace, seldom used now, and screened by a tall earthenware vase, occupied a prominent position on one wall. The windows took up a second wall, and the door into the adjoining dressing room and bathroom opened from the third. The bed, a square four-poster, stood against the wall backing on to the hall outside, its faded pink tester and embroidered satin coverlet matching the carpet and curtains. There were several pictures on the walls: old oil paintings, most of them; hung there in the days when it was considered unfashionable to waste any inch of space.

Now, realising she was just wasting time, Helen bent and lifted one of her suitcases, putting it on the carved oak chest conveniently placed at the foot of the bed. It was the chest where she used to keep her toys, and she wondered if her grandmother had kept all her old dolls. But there would be time enough later to find out. Particularly if she was forced to consider selling the house and everything in it.

Helen was in the bathroom when she heard someone come into the bedroom and, expecting it was Miss Paget, she came to the dressing room door. But it was not her old nurse who was standing in the middle of the room, holding a tray of tea. It was a young woman, probably about her own age, whose cool blonde features wore an expression of impatience. She was of medium height, perhaps a little heavier than Helen, but not much. However, she was wearing a striped nylon overall over a skirt and blouse, and Helen was obliged to assume that she was another employee.