He offered her a drink, and when she shook her head in refusal he explained that, while everything was ready, it would take him a few minutes to serve the meal. Rue didn’t really care how long it would take him. With every second that passed she was regretting more and more her folly in ever agreeing to come here. The very last thing she wanted was to sit down and eat with this man, and yet when Neil returned, pushing a heated trolley in front of him, the rich, tempting aroma of the food reminded her how long it had been since she had last eaten.
Meals during the summer were snatched affairs at the best of times, and today, for one reason or another, she had managed to miss out on both lunch and the snack she normally ate around five o’clock.
‘After we’ve eaten I’ll show you the suite of rooms I’m thinking of furnishing for my mother,’ Neil told her as he served their main course.
Their starter had been a delicious concoction of fresh salmon delicately flavoured with herbs, which Rue had found mouthwateringly good. She had complimented him stiffly on it and had burned with inner anger as she sensed his amusement.
She hated the thought that he might be laughing at her, even while she acknowledged that his amusement was probably richly deserved. They had almost finished their main course when he suddenly asked her out of the blue, ‘Tell me a bit more about this husband of yours. Why did you marry him in the first place?’
Rue had just taken a mouthful of wine and she almost choked on it, unable to believe what she was hearing.
‘What exactly is it you want to know?’ she asked him tightly, letting him see her anger. ‘Why he wanted to marry me? Surely that’s self-evident: I was very rich and very stupid.’
‘You were also very young and criminally unprotected,’ Neil cut in drily, adding, ‘Don’t take all the blame for what happened on your shoulders, Rue.’
She was astounded by his arrogance, and the anger and fear she had suppressed so successfully during their meal suddenly resurfaced. She stood up furiously, pushing her plate away from her.
‘You’re wasting your time, Neil,’ she told him boldly. ‘I know exactly why you’ve brought me here on this pretext of wanting my advice.’
He had stood up too, moving away from the table at the same moment as she did, and effectively blocking her exit. The conservatory wasn’t a very large room and the plants that crowded it made it seem even smaller, claustrophobically so, or so it seemed to Rue, her skin suddenly too tight and hot. Panic started to course through her. As he came towards her, she had heard Neil saying grittingly, ‘Do you, now? Well, then, it won’t surprise you if I do this, will it?’ And before she could evade him he had taken hold of her and lowered his mouth to hers, silencing her furious words of protest, smothering them beneath the fierce pressure of his lips.
It was a hard, angry kiss that left her in no doubt as to his contempt and dislike of her. As she fought to break free of him its pressure deepened and, unbelievably, just as panic started to claw at her, the pressure softened and became coaxing rather than punitive, his hands caressing on her skin rather than imprisoning.
Too bemused to break free, Rue stood completely immobile as Neil made a soft sound against her mouth, gathering her even closer. Then, as his lips feathered softly against her own, her sanity abruptly reasserted itself and she pulled away from him, furious with him and furious with herself.
‘I hope you don’t expect me to apologise for that,’ Neil told her as he let her go.
‘How dare you?’ Rue demanded rawly, ignoring his comment. ‘How dare you stand there and say that to me…?’ Unexpectedly, tears welled in her eyes, and she turned away from him, shaking from head to foot. ‘What have I said or done that made you think I would welcome an…an attack like that?’
‘An attack? It wasn’t like that… I was angry, yes…’
‘Angry…’ Rue whirled round and faced him, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. ‘And that anger gave you the right to—force yourself on me, did it? To… Oh, you men are all the same. You think you have the God-given right to punish us…to discipline us by forcing yourselves on us. You brought me here tonight so that you could persuade me to sell you my land, and then, when you realised it wasn’t going to work, you thought you’d use a different means of persuasion. My husband was just like you,’ she flung bitterly at him. ‘He punished me by…’ She broke off suddenly, to stare at him as she caught the expression of angry disgust darkening his eyes.
‘I don’t believe I’m hearing any of this,’ he told her tersely. ‘I kissed you for one reason only, Rue, and that had nothing to do with any pre-planned Machiavellian plot to get you to part with your land. The reason I kissed you was simply because I’ve been wanting to do so ever since I set eyes on you. All right, so it shouldn’t h
ave happened the way it did, and for that I do apologise…but to accuse me of…’ He looked at her and asked quietly, ‘What were you accusing me of, Rue? I think I know, but I’m not sure I can believe what I’m hearing. I think I can understand how you feel about your husband—he obviously gave you a bad time both in bed and out of it—but there must have been other men since who’ve shown you that all men aren’t the same…’ He caught his breath, his eyes narrowing, a dark flush of colour burning shockingly along his cheekbones as he realised the truth. ‘There haven’t been any other men, have there?’ he demanded flatly and very quietly.
If he had made the slightest move towards her, Rue knew she would have turned and fled, but because he stayed where he was, because her emotions were in such a disorientated and thoroughly confused state already, she simply stood and stared at him, unable to deny his words with what they both knew would be a lie.
‘What did he do to you, Rue?’ he asked softly. ‘What in hell did he do to make you feel that every man who touches you wants to hurt you? That is how you feel, isn’t it?’ he persisted.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Rue told him lightly, dragging air into her tormented lungs, her body so weak with shock and anxiety that she could barely stand. ‘I want to go home. Now. I must go home…’ Suddenly she was gabbling meaningless phrases and words, or so it sounded to her own ears, her voice rising high with panic and pain. She half stumbled and half ran towards the door, but Neil got there before her.
‘Let me go,’ she demanded frantically, only to realise that he wasn’t touching her at all, her face burning as she saw the pity and the sympathy in his eyes. But they weren’t real, she told herself; they were just a trap…just a ruse…just part of his plan to get her to sell her land to him.
‘I’m not letting you go like this. All right,’ he told her, ‘I’ll take you home if that’s what you want…but I’m not letting you walk out of here alone in this state. In fact, I’m not sure I ought to let you go at all,’ he added under his breath.
‘You can’t stop me,’ Rue protested feebly, struggling to regain her self-control, and as though he sensed her panic he stayed scrupulously away from her, watching her with eyes that registered every tiny nuance of emotion that crossed her face.
As he looked at her, he was torn between pity and anger. He had sensed her hostility right from the first moment he saw her, but that had not stopped him feeling desire for her.
As he escorted her out to his car she threw at him, ‘It doesn’t matter what you do or say—I’ll never sell my land to you.’
‘Never is one hell of a long time,’ he reminded her as he started the engine and switched on the lights. ‘And when I want something, I don’t give up until I’ve got it.’
CHAPTER FOUR
SEVERAL times during the night Rue woke up disturbed by uneasy dreams which left her feeling anxious and on edge and somehow very alone, despite the comforting noises Horatio made in his sleep. Eventually, at half-past three, knowing she wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep, she got up and went downstairs. Hands clasped around a comforting mug of coffee, she stared out of the window into the greyness of the pre-dawn sky.