‘Of course I have!’
‘Then tell me what the difference is between then and now.’
‘You’re scary, Damien. You’re not like other people. You don’t feel. You’re so...so...cold...’
‘Funny. Cold is not a word that any woman has ever used to describe me...’
Violet felt her heart begin to race and her mouth went dry. ‘I’m not talking about...what you’re like in bed with women...’
‘Would you like to?’
‘No!’
‘Then how would you like me to try and relax you?’
Violet couldn’t detect anything in his voice and yet those words, innocuous as they were, sent a shiver of awareness rippling up and down her spine. She had a vivid, graphic image of him relaxing her, touching her, making her whole body melt until she was nothing more than a rag doll. Was this the real reason why she was so apprehensive? Terrified even? At the back of her mind, was she more scared of just being alone with him than she was of playing a game and acting out a part in a place with which she was unfamiliar? Did her own responses to him, which she constantly tried to squash, frighten her more than he did?
It didn’t seem to matter than he was cold, distant, emotionally absent. On some level, a part of her responded to him in ways that were shocking and unfamiliar.
She could feel the lazy perusal of his eyes on her and she wished she hadn’t embarked on a conversation which now seemed to be unravelling.
‘I’m just nervous,’ she muttered in a valiant struggle to regain her self-composure. ‘I’ll be fine once we get there. I guess.’
‘Try a little harder and you might start to convince me. You get along well with my mother. Is it Dominic?’ The question had to be asked. He hadn’t been in this position for a very long time. He had brought no one to Devon. He had vowed to never again put himself in the position of ever having to witness a negative reaction to his brother. However, this was an unavoidable circumstance and he felt the protective machinery of his defences seal around him like a wall of iron.
‘What are you talking about?’ Violet was genuinely puzzled.
‘Some people feel uncomfortable around the disabled. Is that why you’re so strung out?’ It had taken Annalise to wake him up to that fact, to the truth that there were people who shied away from what they didn’t know or understand, who felt that the disabled were to be laughed at or rigorously avoided. The ripple effect of those reactions were not contained, they always spread outwards to the people who cared. It was good to bring this up now.
‘No!’
‘Sure about that, Violet? Because you know me, you know my mother...the only unknown quantity in the equation is Dominic...’
‘I’m looking forward to meeting your brother, Damien. The only person who makes me feel uncomfortable is you!’ This was the first time she had come near to openly admitting the effect he had on her. She glared at him defensively, feeling at once angry and vulnerable at the admission and collided with eyes that were dark and impenetrable and sent her frayed pulses into overdrive.
All at once and on some deep, unspoken level, Damien could feel the sudden sexual tension in the air. Her words might say one thing but her breathlessness, the way her eyes were huge and fixed on him, the clenching and unclenching of her small fists...a different story.
He smiled, a slow, curving, triumphant smile. Whilst he had privately acknowledged the unexpected appeal she had for him, whilst he had been honest about the charge he got from a woman who was so different in every possible way to the type of women he had become used to, he had pretty much decided that a Hands Off stance was necessary in her case.
But they were going to be together in Devon and, like an expert predator, he could smell the aroma of her unwelcome but decidedly strong sexual attraction towards him. She was as skittish as a kitten and it wasn’t because she was nervous about spending a week in the company of his mother. Nor was she hesitant about his brother. He had detected the sincerity in her voice when he had suggested that she might be.
He took his time looking at her before turning away with a casual shrug and turning the key in the ignition. Her presence next to him for the remainder of the very short drive felt like an aphrodisiac. Potent, heady and very much not in the plan.
The drive up to the grand house was tree-lined, through wrought-iron gates which he could never remember being closed. Having not been to the estate for longer than he liked to think, Damien was struck by the sharp pull of familiarity and by the hazy feelings he always associated with his home life—the sense of responsibility which was always there like a background refrain. Having a disabled brother had meant that any freedom had always been on lease. He had always known that, sooner or later, he would one day have to take up the mantle left behind by his parents. Had he resented that? He certainly didn’t think so, although he did admit to a certain regret that he had failed to extend any input for so long.
Was it any wonder that his mother had been so distraught when she had been diagnosed, that she might leave behind her a family unit that was broken at the seams? He had a lot of ground to cover if he were to convince her otherwise.
‘What an amazing place,’ Violet murmured as the true extent of the sprawling mansion, gloriously lit against the darkness, revealed itself. ‘What was it like growing up here?’
‘My parents only moved in when my grandfather died, and I was a teenager. Before that, we lived in the original cottage my parents first bought together when they were married...’
‘It must have seemed enormous after a cottage...’
‘When you live in a house this size you get used to the space very quickly.’ And he had. He had lost himself in it. He had been able to escape. He wondered whether he had been so successful at escaping that a part of him had never returned. And had his mother indulged that need for escape? Until now? When escape was no longer a luxury to be enjoyed?
Not given to introspection, Damien frowned as he pulled up in the large circular courtyard. The house was lit up like a Christmas tree in the gathering darkness and they had hardly emerged from the car with their cases when the front door was flung open and Anne, the housekeeper who had been with the family since time immemorial, was standing there, waving them inside.
Violet wondered what her role here was to be. Exactly. Sitting by a hospital bed, she had known what to do and the impersonal surroundings had relieved her of the necessity of trying to act the star-struck lover. A few passing touches, delivered by Damien rather than her—more would have seemed inappropriate in a hospital room, where they were subject to unexpected appearances from hospital staff.
But here she was floundering in a place without guidelines as they were ushered into the grandest hall she had ever seen.
The vaulted ceiling seemed as high and as impressive as the ceiling of a cathedral. The fine silk Persian rug in the hall bore the rich sheen of its age. The staircase leading up before splitting in opposite directions was dark and highly polished. It was a country house on a grand scale.
The housekeeper was chatting animatedly as they were led from the hall through a perplexing series of rooms and corridors.
‘Your mother is resting. She’ll be down with Dominic for dinner. Served at seven promptly, with drinks before in the Long Room. You’ve been put in the Blue Room, Mr Damien. George will bring the bags up.’
Looking sideways, Violet was fascinated at Damien’s indifference to his surroundings. He barely looked around him. How on earth could he have said that a person could become accustomed to a house of this size? She had initially been introduced to Anne as his girlfriend and now, as though suddenly remembering that she was trotting along obediently next to him, he slung one arm over her shoulder as the housekeeper headed away from them through one of the multitude of doors, before disappearing into some other part of the vast family mansion.
‘An old retainer,’ he said, dropping his arm and moving towards a side staircase that Violet had failed to notice.
‘It’s a beautiful house.’
‘It’s far too big for just my mother and Dominic, especially considering that the land is no longer farmed.’ He was striding ahead of her, his mind still uncomfortably dwelling on the unexpected train of thought that had assailed him in the car, the unpleasant notion that the grand house through which he was now confidently leading the way had been his excuse to pull away from his brother. He had never given a great deal of thought to his relationship with Dominic. Was he now on some kind of weird guilt trip because of the circumstances? Had he shielded himself from the pain Annalise had inflicted on him when she had rejected his brother by pulling ever further away from Dominic? He should have been far more of a presence here on the estate, especially with his mother getting older.
‘It would be a shame to sell it. I bet it’s been in your family for generations...’ She was barely aware of the bedroom until the door was thrown open and the first thing that accosted her was the sight of a massive four-poster bed on which their suitcases had been neatly placed. While he strode in with assurance, moving to stand and look distractedly through the windows, she hovered uncertainly in the background.