'Sooner or later you've got to face the truth.' His lips touched her neck, as gently as a feather gliding over her skin, making her shiver. The kiss drifted slowly down her throat towards her cheek, inflicting pain and pleasure, coming closer and closer to her quivering mouth; insidious, seductive, tormenting. She tried to wriggle free but couldn't; his hands held her prisoner.
Josh was stronger and he had no scruples about using his strength. He wasn't hurting her, she almost wished he was, it would make it easier to bear, make it easier to fight. As it was, she had to force herself to struggle, to free her arms. She was struggling to free her senses, too, from the spell he was weaving around them, but she hoped he didn't know that. She would hate Josh to know he had almost beaten her.
Tensing herself from head to foot, she said furiously, 'Let go! I don't want you touching me, I don't want you kissing me or flirting with me—any of it! You're just like the rest of your family!'
He stiffened, his hands releasing her for a second and t
hen catching hold of her again, gripping her shoulders so tightly that she winced.
'What are you accusing me of now?' he asked with a kind of weary impatience.
'Don't think you fooled me for an instant, not even at the start!' she said, her green eyes full of hate. 'You were very obvious! Once you knew I was engaged, you started chasing me, the way your little sister chased David . . . you're all the same, you Killanes—the grass is always greener on the other side of the wall! You only want what other people have!'
'That's not true,' he said, his face all angles and those dark eyes filled with angry heat, and a sort of surprise, but then he hadn't expected her to work it out, to realise why he had made passes at her even though he knew she was engaged.
'Oh, yes, it is! I suppose you thought I was too dumb to realise what you were doing? Well, I'm not! You didn't take me in, not for a second.'
'Stop talking nonsense!' Josh said, through tight lips.
it isn't nonsense; it's the truth and it's no good denying it! Your mother flirted with my father, but she hasn't married him. You knew I was engaged, but you've flirted with me. Your sister knew David was engaged, but she flirted with him. The only difference was that David fell for it—he took it seriously and she's had to take it seriously, too.
She's run off with him. But how long will it last? Will she get bored with him before they've actually fixed a wedding day?'
'What if she did?' Josh asked, his eyes narrowing on her.
'What if she did?' Prue repeated, staring back with distaste. 'Who cares, is that it? She'll have her fun, and then she'll get bored, she'll walk out on poor David, and she'll come home . . . wagging her tail behind her!' She began to laugh wildly, her eyes wide and glistening with unshed tears, and Josh watched her, his face grim.
'That wasn't what I meant! If she does leave him, will you take him back? That was what I wanted to know!'
Prue hadn't even thought of that, but she thought of it then, eyes shadowed, and knew that she wouldn't, that it was all over between her and David. She never wanted to see him again; he had humiliated her, betrayed her, just as her father had betrayed her mother. It might be David who had jilted her, but it was she who felt the shame and the guilt. She could never look him in the face again.
'Well?' Josh insisted, his eyes fixed on her face, and she pulled herself together and looked coolly at him. He was the very last person in the world she would confide in; she wasn't telling him what she was thinking, he could ask until he was blue in the face.
'Mind your own business,' she said, and got a long, searing stare before Josh turned on his heel and walked out of the kitchen into the garden. If he had slammed the door she might have felt some sort of angry triumph, but he didn't. He closed the door behind him with a quiet finality which left her feeling very cold and tired.
CHAPTER EIGHT
PRUE was too shocked to be capable of thinking clearly. When Josh had gone, she went upstairs like an automaton to pack, before her father got back. She had the hire car; she could be miles away in a few hours, and then she wouldn't have to put up with pity or sympathy from her father, she could leave all this muddle behind.
But she couldn't make up her mind, she switched plans every five minutes as she sat in her bedroom in the farmhouse, her suitcases open and her clothes strewn all over the bed. What should she do?
She must decide!
Think! she told herself angrily. What should I do? Do I stay on here—or leave? And then, if she left Yorkshire, should she go off on that long-planned trip around Europe, visiting all the places she and David had dreamt about and talked about for months, but which she would be seeing all by herself now? Or should she fly straight back to Australia?
She looked at her suitcases, biting her lip. How could she go back to Sydney and her job with her old firm, see her old friends again, after David had walked out on her? It would be humiliating; they might be sympathetic to her face, but some of them would giggle behind her back, or, at the very least, whisper and gossip, seething with curiosity.
She didn't know which she would hate most—the pity or the secret glee.
There was another reason why she was reluctant to go back to Australia. David would probably take Lynsey back to Sydney after they were married. Where else would they go? David's parents were there, and she and David had always planned to go back after their lengthy tour of Europe. It was quite the thing among their friends to see the world and then come home to settle down and start a family; they had never intended to stay in Europe.
She had looked forward to living close to David's parents; she was very fond of them, and that would be another bitter loss to her. She would probably never see them again. When they heard the news, they would be very upset, they would be deeply sorry for her, and angry with David for jilting her. Knowing them, she wouldn't be surprised if they chose to side with her against their own son, and she didn't want that!
She wasn't sure yet how she felt about David himself. She ought to hate him, but she couldn't. She loved David too much to hate him; nothing he did would ever alter that. She couldn't even blame him. In fact, she had a sneaking fellow feeling for him. He was another victim of the Killanes and their insidious glamour; like her father and her mother ... and herself.
The slam of a door downstairs made her sit up; face pale and alert.
Was that her father? She hadn't been expecting him home for ages yet.