Elizabeth Oldfield - Dark Victory

Lawson moved his shoulders in a leisurely shrug. ‘I was taught never to contradict a lady—even when she’s lying through her teeth. But what are you doing here?’ he went on, not missing a beat. ‘How come you’re wandering through the woods alone before breakfast, wearing a revealing top,

and’ dark eyes dipped momentarily down to her

hips in the elasticated shorts ‘—no knickers?’

Cheska forced herself to meet his steady gaze with an equally steady one of her own. He might just have got the better of her, but he would not be allowed to do so again. Whatever he said, whatever he did, she refused to be fazed. She would let him know that the gauche, biddable girl of so long ago had become a sophisticated and self-assured young woman.

‘It was hot,’ she declared, tossing back her mane of long brown hair in a couldn’t-care-less gesture.

‘And you don’t wear knickers when it’s hot?’ The corner of his mouth tweaked. ‘Now that’s intriguing.”

Cheska jabbed a hand up the rolling lawn to where the windows of the house reflected the pale yellow of the morning sun. She had absolutely no wish to continue this discussion about her underwear—or lack of it.

I’m here because Hatchford Manor is my home,’ she said.

‘Your home?’ There was a long moment of silence before Lawson next spoke. ‘But I understood that Rupert Finch, the owner, lived there alone. Apart from a housekeeper and her husband.’

‘He does, most of the time—but I arrived back yesterday. Rupert is my brother.’

Lawson seemed to recoil in shock. ‘Brother?’ he repeated.

Cheska cast him a puzzled glance. She had never seen him thrown before, but his voice had been filled with horror and his tense expression made it plain that he was now working his way through all manner of difficulties and doubts. Yet why should the relationship be of any possible concern, pose any possible problem, to him?

‘But he’s Finch and you’re Rider,’ Lawson protested, raking back the strands of black hair which fell over his forehead. ‘Besides, the guy’s in his early fifties whereas you can only be…twenty-five?’

‘Twenty-six,’ Cheska amended. ‘To be accurate, Rupert’s my stepbrother, hence our different names and the gap in ages, but we’re close and I always think of him as my brother.

‘So you’re not blood relations, he said, with what could be recognised as blatant relief.

She shook her head. ‘His father married my mother. He married her late in life after his first wife, Rupert’s mother, died. And my mother was a widow,’ she explained.

‘When we were talking last week, he did make a reference to a “Cheska”,’ Lawson recalled, frowning, ‘but I thought he said you were abroad.’

‘I was, until yesterday. However, I quit my job unexpectedly—’ a shadow crossed her face ‘—and—’

‘You were working abroad?’ he cut in.

‘What did you think I was doing, holidaying at length in glitzy abandon?’ Cheska demanded. ‘Cruising the Caribbean or living it up at a house party on the Côte d’Azur?’

‘Something like that’ His eyes flickered over her. ‘After all, you have a deep tan which couldn’t have been acquired overnight, so’

‘Although I may have tended to swan around once, I now work hard for my living,’ she informed him curtly.

‘But you’re no longer a model?’

‘No, I stopped modelling shortly after we last met. To continue, I quit my job and—’

‘You got fed up with it?’ Lawson suggested.

Cheska’s lips compressed. His question appeared to imply that she was both capricious and fickle.

‘On the contrary, I was deeply interested in what I was doing and I would’ve stayed, but there were—’ she hesitated ‘—problems. However, they were not of my making. Difficult though you may find this to believe, even “wilful little brats” grow up some time,’ she said, tersely recalling a phrase which he had once used to describe her.

Brown eyes locked on to hers. ‘Grow up into what—wilful big ones?’

She glared, so incensed by the insult which hung palpably in the air that she itched to slap his lean face. Slap it hard. Slap it ringingly. But, once again, Lawson Giordano had read what was in her mind.

‘Try it, and you’ll find yourself back in the water,’ he warned.

‘The speed of my departure meant I was only able to phone Rupert at the last minute,’ Cheska said, tautly resuming her recital, ‘so when he collected me from Heathrow late last night he’d had less than twenty-four hours’ notice of my return.’ She gave him a cold, unsmiling look. ‘And what is the reason for your presence?’

‘I’m doing preparatory work before I start filming.’

Her forehead crinkled. ‘You’re filming here, at Hatchford Manor?’

‘I am,’ Lawson said, bending to retrieve the binoculars, the camera and his notebook from the long grass. He straightened. ‘I came yesterday and everyone else rolls up on Monday.’

Cheska’s thoughts shattered. She had been looking forward to some peace and quiet in which to unwind and recover from the episode abroad, but there would be no quiet if a commercial was being made on the doorstep, and no peace of mind so long as the tall Italian remained in her vicinity. None.

‘Rupert never said,’ she objected, a mite pugnaciously.

‘If you only arrived back late last night, I dare say he didn’t have time to get around to it.’

‘I guess not,’ Cheska muttered.

Her stepbrother had not had much opportunity to tell her, never mind the time, she acknowledged ruefully. Yesterday evening, she had chattered nonstop about what had been happening in her life, while the fond bachelor had indulgently listened. As usual. Cheska frowned. Though she had not told him everything.

“The idea of filming offends you?’ Lawson enquired, noticing her frown.

‘No, but ’

‘Your stepbrother’s signature on the dotted line means the arrangement is incontrovertible,’ he rasped, ‘so if you should be toying with the idea of trying to talk him out of it you’re wasting your time.’

‘Am I? Well, let me tell you that if I did try to talk him out of it I’d manage it,’ Cheska retorted. ‘Rupert is prone to seeing things my way.’

‘In which case, I’d sue for breach of contract. However, I’d advise you to remember that what I expect, I get.’ His dark eyes were unblinking beneath straight black brows. ‘Am I making myself clear?’

‘Crystal,’ she snapped.

He hooked his binoculars and camera over a broad shoulder and gestured up the lawn. ‘Then let’s go.”

One of the things Lawson Giordano had got five years ago had been her, Cheska thought bitterly, as she tramped beside him. In his bed. Though he had not wanted her, in the lusting, besotted, longing-to-possess-her sense. Far from it. As, just now, he had kissed her for a reason, so he had made love to her then for a cold-blooded, selfish and deliberate reason. Cheska’s footsteps quickened. She had forbidden herself from thinking about that long-ago night, and how the touch of his hands, his mouth, his tongue had driven her wild, and she refused to think about it now. It was too demeaning, too embarrassing. Of course, then she had been young and gullible, whereas these days she was mature, alert and—

‘Yipes’ Cheska squeaked, as her foot skidded out from under her.

Abruptly finding herself on the verge of performing the splits, she made an instinctive grab for Lawson’s arm. He stumbled, swore, and for a moment also seemed about to fall. Then he recovered his balance and held her upright.

‘Are you accident-prone?’ he demanded, his fingers biting into the flesh of her bare arms, ‘or is doing pratfalls every five minutes your way of pepping up a slow day?’