With an abrupt turn, he walked away from the bed toward the barricaded door to the hall. Alanna stared, feeling a sudden overpowering need to have his arms around her and the warmth of his body next to hers.
"Rolt," she called weakly after him.
He halted, turning at an angle. "What is it, Alanna?" His voice was curt and unyielding.
A bitterness rose in her throat. For the second time, she had nearly let physical attraction override her self-respect and pride. She hated Rolt.
"Go to hell!" she breathed with sobbing fury.
The line of his mouth curved in a cold smile. "Only with you, my wife." He easily pushed the dresser to its proper position, then walked back to unlock and open the door. There he paused, slicing another look in her direction. "It won't be necessary to erect your little barricade every night. I wouldn't want your attractive figure to become muscle-bound."
As the door closed behind him, Alanna pressed the knuckles of her fist against her mouth and rolled onto her side. The bedcovers were damp where they had lain on top of them. She was filled with the humiliating truth of whose will was stronger. She would have surrendered just now if Rolt had persisted another few seconds. She mustn't let herself fall in love with him, she thought desperately.
Fall in love with him! The phrase was a lightning bolt that jolted her upright. That was ridiculous! How could she even consider such a possibility? Just because funny things happened inside her whenever Rolt came near or touched her, it didn't mean she was falling in love with him, did it? But doubt crept in.
Quickly Alanna reminded herself of the unscrupulous methods Ro
lt had used to trap her into this marriage, She couldn't possibly love a man who would so coldly ignore his brother's feelings. She mustn't, she insisted with wild frenzy.
The aroma of frying bacon greeted her when she finally came down the stairs. The plague of doubts and fears had been pushed to the back of her mind. Yet, as she entered the kitchen, she eyed Rolt warily, half afraid he would guess the crazy ambivalence of her feelings toward him and take advantage of it.
He was standing in front of the stove, his back to her, tall and broad-shouldered, lean-hipped and muscled. Alanna's skin tingled with the remembering feeling of being molded against his hard frame. She trembled, not wanting to be aware of him. She wanted to flee the room, and would have if Rolt hadn't chosen that moment to glance over his shoulder.
"How do you like your eggs?" There was absolutely nothing in his expression to indicate that the tumultuous scene in her room had ever taken place.
"Over easy." Alanna tried to match his composure.
He cracked two eggs over the skillet and dropped the contents in the sizzling butter in the pan, discarding the shells. "Breakfast is about ready. There's orange juice in the refrigerator. The glasses are already on the table."
Taking the pitcher of juice from the refrigerator, Alanna set it on the small breakfast table in the kitchen. The place settings were already there for two people. She had expected a cold war to exist between them. If not that, then she had thought Rolt would regard her with barbed looks and mocking gibes.
But not this. He was almost companionable—aloof, yes, but still companionable. It made him more dangerous to her hastily reconstructed defenses than before.
THE HONEYMOON WEEKEND passed in that same vaguely congenial atmosphere. They swam, boated, lazed in the sun, and walked in the woods. Rolt's invitations were always accompanied by a silent "You're welcome to come if you like or stay if you don't." They didn't talk much or laugh. They were two strangers doing things together simply because there was no one else to do them with.
Yet Alanna found herself identifying days by the times Rolt had touched her. When they had gone boating, he had lifted her from the dock to the boat, and out again on their return. Swimming, he had helped her up the ladder. Walking through the woods, he had occasionally held her hand to steady her over rough ground. The times he had smoothed suntan lotion on her shoulders and back were the hardest to forget. The contact had never lasted long, but Alanna was disturbingly conscious of his touch.
At any time, she knew that the slightest indication from her would have changed the impersonal contact to a caress. The knowledge pulsed below the surface each time they were together.
Early Monday morning, she was awakened by a knock on her door. Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she sat up, hugging the covers about her.
"Yes?" she said thickly.
The door opened and Rolt stood, outside. He was impeccably dressed in a suit of a pale tan check, and Alanna thought fleetingly of how well he wore the garb of civilization. Fathomless indigo eyes examined the sleep-tossed curls of her tawny hair and the hazy vulnerability of her expression.
"I'm on my way to the office," Rolt told her impassively. "I'll be home around eleven-thirty for lunch. It will be expected that the first few weeks I lunch with you whenever it's possible."
"Of course," she nodded.
"I'll see you then," he said shortly, and loft. A few minutes later she heard the sound of the car pulling out of the drive.
Three times during that week he came home for lunch. Twice Alanna went into town to visit her parents, mentioning Rolt's name as often as she thought a new bride should. The weekend was almost a repeat of the first, with the exception that on Saturday night they were invited to a dinner with a business associate and friend of Rolt's. It wasn't difficult to pretend to be the adoring wife, especially when Rolt was acting out the complementing role.
It seemed to Alanna, as she smoothed suntan lotion on her legs, that admitting that she could fall in love with Rolt made it more likely that she would. She fought against the prospect, constantly reminding herself what a despicable character he was. But it was difficult to keep summoning the old hatreds when he offered no new fuel to keep the fire burning. If he had forced himself on her, taken her against her will, she would have had fresh cause to detest him.
As it was—she sighed and poured more lotion into her palm. As it was, it was becoming impossible to live under the same roof with a man as virile and compelling as Rolt and remain immune. It wasn't natural for a man and a woman to live together and separately. This falsely platonic relationship couldn't last. She had seen the look in his eyes sometimes when he watched her. He wanted her—that hadn't changed.
Initially her goal had been to make Rolt's life miserable. Now she was concentrating all her efforts on not being caught in her own trap. Her chances of succeeding were growing dismally smaller each day, and she felt frustrated and helpless.