Loving

When he saw her surprise, he grinned, a surprisingly boyish grin that made him look years younger than his thirty-odd and for some reason Lissa felt her heart start to trip in tiny hammer blows that made it difficult for her to breathe. ‘Don’t look like that. All I’ve done is take something out of the freezer and put it in the oven. I did it whilst you were feeding the kids. I thought about taking you out to eat, but you look all in.’ He glanced at his watch and announced, ‘You’ve got half an hour.’

It took her twenty minutes to shower and change. Joel had been up to London and cleared her flat, and now all her clothes were hanging up in her new wardrobe. Her heart started to thud despairingly as she picked out a soft lilac Jean Muir dress she had bought on impulse. The colour brought out the rich red of her hair and the silky jersey clung lovingly to the sleek lines of her body, but Lissa was barely aware of how she looked, she was too concerned with what lay ahead. Would Joel expect her to move her things into his room or … If only she could just get through tonight … Dare she risk telling him that she could not be his wife? She bit her lip thinking of the promise she had just made to Louise.

‘Play it by ear,’ an inner voice told her. Joel wasn’t a boyfriend after all … he might not even care whether she responded to him sexually or not … he might not even realise that … that she was a virgin and frigid as well? Don’t be a fool, she cautioned herself. The man she had always imagined Joel to be might not have cared what she was and might indeed have simply been content to take his own pleasure without giving a thought to her, but the complex, sometimes sensitive man Joel was revealing himself to actually be would hardly be oblivious to the fact that she was not the experienced, almost promiscuous woman he thought her.

Frowning slightly Lissa brushed her hair. Why did Joel want their marriage to be consummated? Knowing the opinion he had of her he could hardly desire her that much, he had certainly never been short of female companionship … The answer lay in his love for Louise and Emma, Lissa decided. Like her he cared very deeply about his two nieces, and like her he obviously did not want a long drawn out legal battle over them.

But that did not answer her question, Lissa reflected thoughtfully. It showed why he might want to marry her; but not why he should want that marriage consummated. Unless perhaps he wanted a son … For some reason that thought made her heart beat faster, her mind’s eye all too easily conjuring up the image of a small dark-haired baby with Joel’s golden eyes.

Perhaps if she simply said nothing and let him discover … Shivering she pushed the problem out of her mind, coating her mouth with a soft lip gloss and then getting up. The more she dwelt on what lay ahead the more tense she got. If she carried on like this Joel was bound to realise something was wrong. What if he became furious and insisted on having their marriage annulled? Could she bear to lose the girls now?

‘Lissa?’

The sound of his voice outside her door made her jump up from the dressing table and hurry across the room. ‘Coming,’ she called out, huskily, opening the door, coming to a full stop as she realised that Joel too had changed. Her eyes widened a little over the formality of his crisp white shirt and dinner suit, and then colour flooded her pale skin as she realised that he was studying her, his glance lingering appreciatively on the curves the lilac jersey seductively revealed.

‘Why the embarrassment?’ he asked, touching her cheek lightly with his finger. ‘Surely by now you must be used to men finding you attractive.’

‘I … I never think of myself that way.’ She had made the admission before she was aware of it, adding more to herself than to him, ‘I was always so gawky and plain as a teenager, especially compared with Amanda and my mother.’

‘… that in an effort to prove to yourself and them that you were attractive you flung yourself into bed with every available male that came along?’ Joel finished for her, but there was no accusation in his voice, no contempt either, Lissa noticed. In fact, if anything, the only emotion she could hear was a certain wry sadness. She risked a quick glance at Joel and found that he was smiling at her.

‘I … I always felt that my parents preferred Amanda to me,’ Lissa heard herself admitting huskily, much to her own astonishment.

‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ Joel agreed. ‘John was always very much my father’s favourite and there was a time when I over-reacted against that favouritism in an effort to draw my father’s attention to myself.’

They had reached the top of the stairs and Lissa felt a wave of fellow-feeling towards him engulf her. She turned towards him but he forestalled her questions by saying quietly, ‘We must make sure that neither Louise, nor Emma … nor indeed any children of our own we have, suffer that same burden.’

Instantly the rapport between them snapped as Lissa contained a shiver of fear and drew back slightly from him, her eyes unconsciously darkening. ‘Who are you thinking about Lissa,’ Joel grated. ‘Simon Greaves? Then forget him,’ he snapped. ‘You’re married to me, not him.’

The abrupt change from compassionate fellow human being to arrogant male unnerved her, and she hurried down the stairs, turning towards the kitchen.

Warm, enticing aromas greeted her, but the wooden kitchen table was bare of all utensils. As she turned automatically to open drawers and collect cutlery Joel stopped her. ‘It’s all done,’ he told her coolly, adding, ‘I thought we’d dine in style tonight—in the dining room. You go through and sit down, and I’ll bring the food.’

It was a novel experience for Lissa to be waited on by a man, but Joel did a superb job so calmly and efficiently that she must have betrayed her surprise, because he paused to smile at her and explained, ‘I was in the army for a couple of years after leaving Oxford and if it taught me nothing else, it taught me to be self-sufficient.’

Lissa was surprised. She’d always thought that Joel had gone straight from university into his father’s firm, and it was disturbing to realise how little she knew about him; and how guilty she was of having preconceived ideas about the type of man he was.

‘Like you, as a

teenager I was rebellious,’ he further explained whilst they were eating. ‘I wanted to travel … to see a little of the world before I settled down to the life my father wanted me to lead. I’ve always been more interested in the land than in industry, but as I was the eldest my father expected me to take over from him in the business. Later of course the situation resolved itself, but at twenty-two I couldn’t see that far ahead and so I opted out—joined the army more in defiance of my father than anything else, but it’s something I’ve never regretted. It …’

‘Made a man of you?’ quipped Lissa lightly, wanting to change the intimacy of their conversation, alarmed by the sensations and emotions he was arousing inside her. She didn’t want to feel sympathy for him … she didn’t want to feel anything. She wanted to hang on to her resentment and dislike. For some reason she needed to hang on to them. Why? she asked herself and knew the answer was because she felt it would be dangerous for her to get to know and like this man who was now her husband. Further than that she was not prepared to go.

‘Not in the sense that I suspect you mean.’ Joel’s mouth twisted slightly and Lissa knew she had been successful in destroying his relaxed mood. ‘More wine? You’ve barely touched yours. Don’t you like it?’

The plain truth was that she was too tensed up to enjoy her meal at all, but dutifully she sipped the rich, ruby liquid, feeling it warm first her throat and then her stomach, relaxing over-taut nerves.

It was gone nine before they had finished their leisurely meal—or at least Joel had finished, she had done little more than toy with hers.

‘Coffee?’

She shook her head tensely. ‘No … no thanks. I’ll take these things out to the kitchen.’

‘I’ll give you a hand.’

There was something disturbingly intimate about being in the ktichen with Joel, his easy, competent movements somehow pinpointing the uneasy tension of hers. When every last cup and plate had been cleared away he said easily, ‘Why don’t you go and check on the girls while I’m locking up? Oh and Lissa,’ he added, less casually as he opened the door for her. ‘Remember it’s my room you’re sleeping in tonight.’

Now was her time to tell him the truth, but Lissa knew that she couldn’t. Trailing reluctantly upstairs she tried to convince herself that he might not notice her coldness; that it might not be as bad as she envisaged; that thousands upon thousands of women before her had endured the unwanted possession of the male sex. But Joel thought she was experienced and even worse eager for sex. Well he would soon learn the truth. All the fierce triumph she had felt at the thought of him being confronted with her innocence had gone, and a wild trembling seemed to seize hold of her limbs. She checked automatically on the two sleeping girls, leaving on the night-light in case one of them woke. The nursery was still relatively unfamiliar to them, and although on the surface they seemed to be accepting their parents’ death, who knew what terrors their subconscious minds might harbour.

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