‘Hardly,’ Sapphire told him crisply, ‘I’m no masochist, Blake; nor am I a naive seventeen-year-old any longer.’
‘No,’ he agreed bitterly, and for a moment Sapphire wondered at the deeply intense timbre of his voice and the drawn expression tensing his face, before dismissing her impressions as false ones and berating herself for allowing her imagination to work overtime. Blake had no reason to feel bitter—unlike her.
As she let herself into the kitchen she was struck by the fact that despite, or perhaps because of its gleaming appearance the room seemed oddly sterile; not like a home at all. The mellow wooden cabinets which should have imparted a warm glow, looked too much like a glossy, cold advertisement; there were no warm, baking smells to tantalise or tempt. Blake’s aunt had made her own bread, she remembered with unexpected nostalgia, and she remembered this kitchen best filled with its warmly fragrant scent. Of course if the smell of freshly baked bread was all it took to bring the place alive, she was more than capable of supplying that herself. Her culinary efforts so much despised by Blake’s aunt had improved rapidly in the security of her own small home. Alan often asked her to cook for important clients and among their circle of friends she had quite a reputation as a first-rate hostess. Alan approved of her domestic talents; Alan! Her body tensed. What was he going to say when he heard about all this? She could well lose him. Why was she not more concerned at the prospect; after all she had been planning to marry him? Pushing aside the thought she opened the kitchen door and stepped into the square parquet-floored hall.
On the plate rack encircling the hall were the plates she remembered from the early days of her marriage, the smooth cream walls otherwise clean and bare. The parquet floor glistened in the bright March sunshine, but the table was empty of its customary bowl of flowers and she found she missed their bright splash of colour. Whatever her other faults Blake’s aunt had been a first rate housewife, and she had obviously learned something from her Sapphire thought wryly, noticing the thin film of dust beginning to form on the hall table. The rich reds and blues of the traditional stair carpet carried her eye upwards. The house had six bedrooms and two bathrooms; a more than adequate supply for two people. Did Blake still occupy the master bedroom? It had been redecorated especially for them before their marriage she remembered, in soft peaches and blues that Blake had told her he had chosen with her eyes in mind. Her mouth curled into a sardonic smile. And to think she had been fool enough to believe him. The door handle turned easily under her fingers, but she stood still once it was opened. Everything was just as she remembered it; everything was clean and neat, but the room gave the impression of being unused.
‘Re-living old memories?’ Blake’s voice was harshly discordant making her whirl round in shock.
She said the first thing that came into her mind. ‘It doesn’t look used.’
‘It isn’t.’ His voice was still harsh, his eyes fiercely golden as they all but pinned her where she stood. ‘Let’s face it,’ he added cynically, ‘the memories it holds aren’t precisely those I want to take to bed with me every night. I sleep in my old room, but you can have this one if you wish.’
His old room. Unwillingly her eyes were drawn along the corridor to the room she knew he meant. She had only been in it once. She had come with a message from her father and finding the kitchen empty and hearing Blake’s voice had hurried upstairs. He had emerged from his room just as she reached it, a towel wrapped round lean hips, his body still damp from his shower. She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him, she remembered sardonically; and neither had she been able to speak. Blake had drawn her inside the room closing the door. ‘What is it little girl,’ he had asked tauntingly, ‘haven’t you ever seen a man before?’ She had turned to flee but he had caught her, kissing her with what she had interpreted as fierce passion but which in reality could only have been play-acting …
‘Sapphire, are you all right?’ His voice dragged her back to the present.
‘Fine,’ she told him in a clipped voice. ‘I might as well use this room. The woman who comes up from the village, when …’
‘Three days a week, if you feel you need her more then arrange it. Don’t worry,’ he added sardonically, watching her, ‘I don’t expect you to soil your ladylike hands with housework, or cooking.’ If anything his mouth curled even more cynically. ‘I have too much respect for my stomach for that. I came up to tell you that I’ve brought your cases in. Once the vet’s been, I’ve got to go out and check one of the fences, some of the sheep were found on the road …’
He disappeared, leaving Sapphire standing by the open door, her face still scarlet from his insults about her cooking. So he thought she was still the same useless, timid child he had first married, did he? Well, she would show him.
Returning upstairs, Sapphire quickly changed into her jeans and an old tee-shirt. A thorough inspection of the kitchen cupboards revealed the fact that they were surprisingly well stocked and within an hour of Blake’s exit she had a large bowl of dough rising in the warmth of the upstairs airing cupboard—a trick she had learned in her London flat which lacked the large warming compartment of the old-fashioned stove at home.
She heard the vet arrive while she was making the pastry for Beef Wellington, but continued with her self-imposed task. Blake would soon discover that she was not the timid child she had once been, and she wouldn’t have been human, she told herself, if she didn’t take pleasure from imagining his surprise at the discovery.
She had half-expected Blake to bring the vet in for a cup of tea after he had inspected that mare—it was a cold day, and she was sure the older man would have welcomed a warming drink, but instead when they emerged from the barn Blake walked with him to his Range Rover. The two men stood talking for a few minutes and then the vet climbed into his vehicle and Blake turned back towards the stable, disappearing inside.
Sapphire had just put her loaves in the oven when the ‘phone rang. Wiping her floury hands on a towel she picked up the receiver, recognising Miranda’s slightly shrill voice the moment she heard it.
‘Is Blake there?’ the other woman demanded imperiously. ‘I want to speak to him—urgently.’
‘He’s in the barn at the moment,’ Sapphire responded coolly, suppressing the urge to slam the receiver down. ‘If you’d like to hold on for a moment I’ll go and get him.’
The interior of the barn, so dark after the bright sunlit afternoon was temporarily blinding. Sapphire was peripherally aware of the familiar barn sounds; the mare shuffling restlessly in her stall, the scent of hay, the rustling sound it made. As her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom she stepped forward calling Blake’s name.
‘Up here,’ he called back, making her start tensely and peer upwards into the dimness of the upper hayloft.
‘There’s a ‘phone call for you,’ S
apphire told him curtly, not wanting to think she had come looking for him on her own account. ‘Miranda.’
‘I’ll have to ring her back.’ Blake was frowning as he turned back into the interior of the loft, and although she knew she was being foolish Sapphire couldn’t quite control the sudden leap of her senses as she caught a glimpse of the tawny skin of his chest where his shirt had come unfastened. Enough, she berated herself, as she walked blindly towards the door. ‘You don’t even like the man—you loathe him, so how can you possibly … feel desire for him?’ Somehow the words insinuated themselves into her mind and wouldn’t go away, making her face up to the truth. Blake still had the power to disturb her; still held a sexual appeal for her, which although it had nothing to do with love, or indeed any genuine worthwhile emotion, did, nonetheless, hold a dangerously potent allure.
Deep in thought Sapphire recoiled with pain as she cannoned into one of the posts supporting the upper floor, the intensity of the unexpected pain almost robbing her of breath as she stumbled backwards.
She was aware of sounds behind her, of Blake’s peremptory command and then the firm strength of his arm supporting her against his body as she slowly crumpled.
‘Sapphire, are you all right?’
His voice was a roughly urgent mutter somewhere above her left ear; the heat of his body against her back drowning out her earlier pain and replacing it with a dangerous languor that reinforced every one of her earlier thoughts.
‘Sapphire?’
This time the urgency in Blake’s voice compelled her to make some response. ‘I’m fine,’ she told him shakily, ‘it was just the shock … It took my breath away.’
‘I know the feeling.’ She could feel the reverberations of his words rumbling in his chest, but the dry tone in which they were uttered made her lift her head and turn round the better to study his face.