f physically sensual awareness came over her.
For a moment she actually felt as she had done when they had stood together by the river, her heart pounding, her senses aware of everything about him, but most especially the fact that he was standing so close to her, holding her, touching her, his mouth only inches away from her own.
‘Where have you been…?’
‘I—er—’ She felt dazed, giddy, foolishly, dangerously light-headed. Pull yourself together, she warned herself fiercely. Just because for once his voice had sounded soft, gentle, almost provocatively teasing, as though he too was remembering…
‘I visited the caves,’ she told him huskily.
‘I thought tomorrow I might visit Cahors,’ he told her, adding astoundingly, ‘Perhaps you’d like to come with me. We could have lunch somewhere together, maybe…’
Livvy stared at him in shock. ‘No…no, I’m sorry, I can’t. I’ve already made arrangements… I’m having lunch with someone else…’
She was gabbling, she recognised shakily, but then she would defy anyone not to betray their feelings if they were in her shoes. The shock of hearing Richard actually suggest that they spend some time together, actually ask her to have lunch with him after the way he had behaved towards her, was enough to send anyone off balance.
As she looked into his face and saw the way it was closing, hardening, she had to suppress a wild urge to cry out in protest, to say that he had got it all wrong…that it was not that she didn’t want to accept his invitation, to explain that it had come as such a shock.
‘I see…’
His voice was cold and hard. As cold and hard as his face.
He was turning away from her, walking away from her. Livvy bit down hard on her lip to stop herself from calling him back. It was obvious what he was thinking, but what was the point in trying to explain? He obviously thought she had picked up some man and arranged to see him again.
Something dangerous and vulnerable inside her ached pitifully, but she refused to give in to it. After all, wasn’t it really safer, wiser to let him think the worst of her? To ignore that ridiculous yearning to hear over and over again that gentle, almost tender, intonation to his voice which surely had to be a product of her ridiculously overcharged imagination?
And if it hadn’t been… It had, she told herself firmly. After all, there was no way he could possibly feel any tenderness towards her.
* * *
‘Good lunch, was it?’
Livvy tensed as she heard the sarcasm splintering through Richard Field’s voice.
She had returned to the farmhouse less than half an hour ago, half expecting to find that Richard was still out, but instead she had discovered that he had returned before her.
‘Yes, as a matter of fact it was,’ she replied calmly. ‘Very enjoyable.’
She warned herself that there was no point in deliberately goading him, and then asked herself ruefully what it was about him that drove her into over-reacting so irresponsibly.
She already knew how he believed she had spent her ‘lunch’. Did she really look as though she had actually passed the afternoon indulging in some heavy sex-session, instead of enjoying a very pleasant lunch with another woman, accompanied by a very interesting discussion on different methods of teaching?
‘And yours…?’
The look he gave her warned her that she had pushed him too far. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ she exclaimed irately. ‘Look, I know what you think, but you’re totally wrong. My lunch date was another woman…a fellow teacher. I met her yesterday when I was touring the caves. She invited me to visit her school and to have lunch with her.’
When he made no response, she shrugged her shoulders and added impatiently, ‘All right, don’t believe me if you don’t want to…I don’t care.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?’
Livvy turned away from him uncomfortably. She knew quite well why she had led him on to believing the worst about her, and she knew equally well that there was no way she was going to answer his question honestly.
How could you tell a man like this one that your instincts, those perverse, feminine, rebellious and oh, so hard to control, deeply rooted, atavistic feelings which really had no place in the life of a sensible modern woman, had warned her that it would be dangerous to let him get too close to her…that it would be foolish to do or say anything which might bring down the barriers they had erected against one another, that it was safer to allow him to think the worst of her?
No, she couldn’t tell him any of that. So instead, she shrugged again and, keeping her face turned away from him, said dismissively, ‘Why should I?’
When he didn’t make any response, she added edgily, ‘It really didn’t seem that important.’
‘No? Then why tell me now?’