They were less than two miles from Aysgarth when he stopped the car, pulling it off the empty road. Rebecca stared at him in perplexity and demanded uncertainly, ‘Why have you stopped?’
The look he gave her was derisory and slightly bitter. ‘We’re supposed to be engaged, remember.’
She still didn’t understand. ‘So?’
Frazer pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to her.
‘So I think it would be a good idea if you wiped off your lipstick. Rory won’t be in bed yet, even if Maud is.’
As the significance of what he was saying struck her, she went red and then white, pushing the handkerchief back at him and saying fiercely, ‘We’re not teenagers, Frazer, and surely long past the age of making love in cars. And even if you had supposedly stopped the car to…to kiss me, it would be perfectly natural for me to have re-applied my lipstick. Besides,’ she added almost pleadingly, ‘it will stain your handkerchief and the stain probably won’t come out.’
‘Re-applied your lipstick?’ He turned in his seat to look at her, a hard, disturbing look that made her pulses race frantically. ‘That hardly suggests a passionate relationship, does it?’
Her heart was beginning to thud hurriedly.
‘You want Rory to believe that…’
‘I want Rory to know the moment he sets eyes on you that there’s only one thing on both our minds, and that one thing is how quickly we can be alone to resume the lovemaking our very deep and passionate love for one another has made us unable to control. I want him to look at you and know that you’ll be spending the night in my bed, in my arms—and that it won’t be for the first time.’
Her small gasp of shock made him smile coldly at her.
‘You think it impossible for us to be so convincing? Have you forgotten, then, so quickly, that no matter what you and I might feel about one another as human beings, on a physical level the sexual chemistry between us—’
‘No!’ Rebecca denied sharply, not letting him finish. Her face and body felt hot with chagrin and dread. She ought to have known that he would have recognised her responsiveness to him, and, even if he could casually dismiss his own sexual arousal, knowing the truth she could not listen with equanimity to what he was saying.
‘No?’ Frazer turned the word into a soft threat that made her nerve-endings jangle. ‘Are you asking for proof?’
Proof? Proof was the last thing she wanted. Rebecca turned her head to tell him so and found herself mesmerised by the heart-shaking proximity of his body.
‘Besides,’ he told her dulcetly, ‘this will probably be far more effective, and it will save my handkerchief.’
She tried to move away and found she couldn’t…couldn’t do anything other than sit there almost stupefied as he lowered his head and brushed his mouth slowly across her own.
It wasn’t what she had been expecting; it wasn’t the brief businesslike press of his mouth against her own, a disciplined, controlled exercise designed to underline his superiority; and, because it wasn’t what she had been expecting, she had no defences against it.
Frazer’s mouth brushed hers as softly as silk, feathering slowly against her lips, lingering. He moved in his seat, his hands on her waist, and she prayed that he would not recognise the long tremor that shook her body for what it was. He made a sound in his throat, something that her senses recognised and responded to, and as though she had given him some hidden signal she herself didn’t recognise he crushed her back against her seat and kissed her as, she recognised distantly, she had been aching for him to do for far too long.
There was no way she could resist it, no way either that she could disguise her response to him. Even without touching him, even without doing anything, she was already betraying her response to him. Beneath her thin suit-jacket her nipples peaked and ached. There was nothing she wanted more than the touch of his hands on her skin, his lips…
She shuddered and made a soft sound of anguish in her throat as he bit at her mouth, her body arching up to his, everything forgotten in the need that he had unleashed inside her. The sensation of his hands caressing her body, moulding it through the layers of her suit and underwear, maddened her with its tormenting promise of what it would be like to have those hands against her skin with nothing between them.
Quite when she reached out and slid her hands under his jacket, smoothing her palms feverishly first against his shirt, and then against the moist heat of his bared chest, she had no idea; she knew only that the sensation of rough hair and satiny skin caused the twisting ache tormenting her lower stomach to intensify to such a pitch that she actually moaned a husky protest when Frazer lifted his mouth from hers to look down at where her hands lay against his body.
‘I could take you now and make you forget that Rory ever existed,’ he told her rawly.
Sickly Rebecca withdrew from him as though he had struck her, her eyes glazing with tears of shock and bewilderment. She couldn’t bear to look at the shadowy darkness of his exposed chest. She had no memory of wrenching those buttons from their fastening, no memory of pulling off his tie—and yet she must have done so.
Although he refastened all but the top button of his shirt, he didn’t replace his tie. He had got what he wanted, she thought despairingly, as he set the car in motion once more. There was no need for him to look so grim and bitter.
She was tempted to replace her lipstick, but one sickening glance at her mouth in the mirror had shown her that no amount of lipstick was going to disguise its swollen fullness, and that anyone looking at her was going to know exactly how she had come by those two tiny betraying marks that showed where Frazer’s teeth had raked her mouth’s softness. She burned with misery and humiliation as she remembered how she had responded to that small violence, how she had almost encouraged him to repeat the fierce caress.
‘We’re home.’ The curtness of Frazer’s voice brought her back to reality, and she flushed again as she realised that the car was motionless.
Once out of the car she hurried on ahead of Frazer, desperate to escape to the privacy of her room. The hallway was brilliantly illuminated, and she stopped, dazzled for a moment, and unwittingly giving Frazer the opportunity to catch up with her and to slide a possessive arm around her waist, as the sitting-room door opened and as though on cue Rory walked out. Only he wasn’t alone. Lillian was with him, a Lillian who looked both tired and angry.
The look she gave Rebecca tightened her mouth for a moment, then she said coolly, ‘Rory tells me congratulations are in order. A pity we’ll probably be back in Hong Kong before you get married.’
‘Back?’Frazer turned to Rory and said grimly, ‘I thought you’d decided to become UK-based.’
Rory shrugged dismissively, and Lillian gave him an anxious look as she caught the repressive tone of Frazer’s voice.
‘We did think about it,’she said quickly, ‘but…’
‘But since I don’t have your financial advantage, my dear brother, I can’t afford to whistle several thousand pounds a year down the wind, which I would be doing if we moved back to the UK. However, we do have some good news for you, don’t we, my love?’ he said smoothly. ‘Lillian has made us an appointment for tomorrow to go and look at a boarding school that’s been recommended to her. It’s in the south of England…’
It was Rebecca who interrupted him, too angry to check the impulsive words of protest that rose to her lips. ‘But surely the twins would be better off here?’ she said fiercely.
Lillian
seemed about to say something, but Rory silenced her, saying softly, ‘Oh, we couldn’t be so selfish. Once you and Frazer are married, you won’t want those two brats hanging around, and so I’ve told them,’ he added carelessly, disregarding both his wife’s anguished look and Frazer’s frown. ‘Of course you’re welcome to join us tomorrow when we go to look at the school. With your expertise, Rebecca, you’ll be able to give us your professional opinion.’
Carried away on a wave of rage against Rory and compassion for Frazer and the twins, Rebecca said sharply, ‘Of course we’ll go with you. Frazer will want…’
She broke off, suddenly aware of how much she was taking for granted, and was relieved to hear Frazer saying coldly, ‘Rebecca is quite correct. I just wish you’d consulted me first. There are plenty of excellent schools locally, where the children would at least be able to come home for the weekend.’
‘Nothing’s been firmly decided as yet,’ Rory told them carelessly. Some private pleasure was making his eyes glitter with amused malice, and the look he was giving them both made Rebecca’s heart thump uncomfortably. ‘It will mean an overnight stay, you realise?’ and when Frazer gave him a curt nod of assent, he added equally casually, ‘Right, then. Lillian will sort out the hotel booking. Someone’s recommended a decent hotel reasonably close to the school.’
And even then Rebecca didn’t realise the danger both she and Frazer were stepping into.
CHAPTER NINE
THEY set out early, all of them travelling in Frazer’s car, after an uncomfortable breakfast with the twins, neither of whom addressed more than a single word to their parents.
Rebecca felt heart-stoppingly sorry for Lillian, who was plainly unhappy with the situation, and who was very obviously torn between her love for Rory and her love for the twins.
Rebecca wondered sadly if there would ever come a day when she might regret having put Rory first, and suspected that there very likely would. He was a selfish, spoilt man, incapable of loving anyone other than himself. Several times during the long drive, he deliberately tried to needle Frazer, and Rebecca could only marvel at the latter’s calm, unruffled ability to turn Rory’s jibes harmlessly aside.