Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Neil was frowning. ‘There’s no need for that,’ he told her grimly. ‘I’m taking you home.’
Rue turned to him, trying to keep her voice and her eyes cool, desperately conscious of Hannah’s interested concentration on what they were saying.
‘You and Hannah will have things you will want to discuss,’ she told him formally.
Over her head, Hannah and Neil exchanged a mutually understanding look. ‘Oh, no,’ Hannah assured her cheerfully. ‘We can discuss everything I need to talk about when I go to see the house. There isn’t really much point in saying anything until I know exactly what Neil has in mind—and how much he wants to spend,’ she added with a chuckle.
Knowing that she was defeated, Rue gave in.
It was just gone eleven o’clock, and still very hot outside. As they said their goodnights, she felt Neil move close to her side and determinedly moved away from him. Now that the evening was over, she suddenly felt desperately tired. Too tired to reprimand him about the impression he had quite deliberately given Hannah by telling her they had spent the previous evening together; so tired that when the car slid silently out of the drive its comfortable soothing motion encouraged her to lean back in her seat and close her eyes.
She fell asleep as quickly and deeply as a child, causing Neil to glance at her in a mixture of compassion and rueful amusement. As she slept, she turned towards him, frowning slightly in her sleep.
When he eventually reached the cottage he parked outside it and watched her silently. After several minutes he reached towards her and unclipped her seat-belt and then, without disturbing her, went round to the passenger door and opened it, bending into the car and lifting her out as easily as though her weight made no impression on him at all.
She woke briefly once, struggling against the mists of sleep which threatened to hold her prisoner, alarm racing through her veins, but the hands that touched her were so knowing and gentle that her fears eased. Theirs was not the touch she remembered with fear and loathing, and under their soothing hold her panic subsided and she drifted back into sleep.
Neil, who had found her keys, unlocked the door, silenced the ecstatic Horatio and carried her upstairs to her bedroom. He paused in his self-appointed task of removing her dress and looked down at her. Such a very tiny, fragile body and such a fiery, indomitable spirit. He touched her face lightly with his fingers. She would be furious with him in the morning.
He eased the dress away from her body and then paused, looking down at her. Her underwear did little to conceal the soft curves of her body. Heat flared in him and was quickly controlled as he eased her gently beneath the duvet.
Irritated with himself, he went downstairs. He couldn’t remember a time when he had been so aroused merely by the sight of a woman’s body. He had carried her upstairs in all good faith, and self-disgust bit into his composure as he acknowledged how very tempted he had been to reach out and slowly caress those feminine curves.
Back downstairs, he let Horatio out and waited until the dog had ambled round the walled garden and returned to the back door. Having let Horatio in and made sure the locks were secure, he was just about to go round to the front door and slide the keys through the letterbox when instead he pocketed them, a wry smile curling his mouth as he made his way back to his car.
Rue woke up feeling more refreshed than she had felt in a long time. Her body felt lazy and relaxed, sleepy and supine, and somehow oddly different, as though it possessed a secret and sensuous knowledge that was forbidden to her mind. As she stretched out beneath the duvet, she suddenly became aware that she was wearing her bra and briefs.
A frown touched her forehead, and in the predawn light she saw her velvet dress draped carefully over the back of the bedroom chair. A tiny, niggling suspicion began to worm its way into her mind. Why had she gone to bed half-dressed? She frowned and tried to remember what had happened.
She had barely touched her wine over dinner. She had been tired, it was true, very tired, in fact. She could remember how sleepy she had felt in the car on the way back. Suddenly she jerked upright in bed and stared fixedly at the window, as dim and very unwanted memories started to surface. One in particular refused to be subdued.
Someone had been touching her, stroking her skin gently, or so it had seemed. She remembered that she had felt panic and that then the panic had gone when she’d realised the hands on her body were not those of her late husband—but they had been a man’s hands. She knew that irrevocably.
As she sat there, her mind turning slowly, focusing her disjointed thoughts, she realised that it was Neil that had touched her, Neil who had carried her upstairs and undressed her. A tiny betraying tremor ran through her body like fire.
Outside it was almost light. She had work to do. She had no time to waste on thinking about Neil Saxton. Knowing how hard she was going to have to work, she forced herself to eat some breakfast, switching on the radio so that she could listen to the weather forecast while she ate. It was worse than she had expected.
Storms were being forecast for the early evening. At best it would take her two full days to get the flowers picked and safely stored away inside. Even if she worked right through from dawn until dusk, she would still not be able to harvest them all.
Her shoulders sagged slightly and she immediately stiffened her spine, telling herself fiercely how well off she was in comparison to thousands of other women. All right, so she was now facing a crisis, which could result in her losing almost a whole year’s profit if she did not succeed in
rescuing her crop, but sitting here worrying about the financial implications of the forecast storm was not going to help.
Outside the air felt thick with heat and oppression. By the time she and Horatio had walked as far as the first field, her thin T-shirt was clinging clammily to her body, and the sun was still barely over the horizon. At least there was no dew, she acknowledged thankfully. To pick the flowers while damp would mean that they would rot before she had a chance of drying them out. She opened the gate into the field and stood there, surveying the task ahead of her, and then she blinked in disbelief as she saw someone moving determinedly towards her.
‘Neil,’ she said stupidly, ‘what are you doing here?’
Like herself, he was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Like hers, his jeans were old and faded. Like hers, his T-shirt was shrunken with age, clinging firmly to his body. Her mouth went dry as he moved and she saw the unmistakable ripple of muscle beneath the thin fabric.
‘I’ve brought your keys back,’ he told her, watching the colour run up under her skin as she remembered how he had carried her to bed. And then, before she could argue, he added, ‘I thought you might be able to do with some help.’
‘Help?’ She almost stammered the word, as though its meaning was unfamiliar to her, raising bemused eyes to his, as she said painfully, ‘From you? But…’
‘I know what you’re going to say,’ he interrupted her. ‘All right, so I don’t know the first thing about flowers, but if you tell me where to start and what to do…’
He saw the look on her face and added roughly, ‘This is no time for pride, Rue. Surely an extra pair of hands, even my hands, are better than nothing? I heard the forecast this morning,’ he added, seeing the doubt and confusion shadow her eyes. ‘Independence is all very well, but will you really risk losing this,’ his arms swept a curve over the field in front of him, ‘simply because of the way you feel about me?’
She wanted to tell him to go, she ought to tell him to go, but somehow the words stuck in her throat, tears shimmering at the back of her eyes. Why on earth was he doing this? It would surely suit his purpose far more if she were to lose her crop? She couldn’t believe he was actually offering to help her.