The City-Girl Bride

In the end Finn had won, but only because she had allowed him to, Maggie defended her own capitulation mentally. Only because he had thrown down a trump card by declaring, ‘Since this is my home, I rather think that the decision of who sleeps where lies rather more in my hands than yours, Maggie. And, as your host, I fully intend to claim the right of giving up my bed for my guest.’

Maggie had clenched her teeth together at those words ‘host’ and ‘guest’, but in the end she had had to give in. And now here she was, standing in Finn’s bedroom, staring out of the window into the starlit snow-covered landscape. Turning her back on it, she faced the bed. Something she had deliberately been avoiding doing since Finn had shown her up here half an hour ago, suggesting that she ‘make herself at home’ whilst he cooked them a meal.

It was, as she might have expected given the size of the room—and Finn himself—very large. Very large. Large enough not just for two adults but potentially large enough for a handful of children as well. Children! Now, where had that thought come from? And, far more disconcertingly, why?

Concentrate on the room as it is, Maggie warned herself. Instead of fantasising about…about things there is totally no point whatsoever in even thinking about—or even wanting to think about!

Its high ceiling and decorative plasterwork were typical of the period of the house, and someone—Finn—had washed the walls in a fresh covering of subtly tinted bluey-green paint, picking out the plasterwork in white and a denser colour of the tint. But, whilst Maggie would normally have thoroughly approved of the plain white bedding and bare stripped floorboards, somehow the room cried out for something softer and warmer.

That floor would be so cold on those little bare feet as their owners came rushing into their parents’ room to join them in bed, and one would have little inclination to linger for long intimate embraces en route from bathroom to bed, surely, without the softness of a thick carpet to curl one’s toes into. No, what this room needed was the sensually rich fabrics that its original builder must have favoured, and furniture, too: the kind of furniture owned by her grandmother, furniture one polished with traditional beeswax and lavender polish.

Maggie gave a faint sigh and then blinked. Just for one suffocating second, whilst she had been looking absently at the bed, she had somehow or other seen Finn lying there, propped up against the pillows, his body bare, lean, muscular and oh, so inviting, his hair ruffled from sleep, his jaw malely rough, his mouth curling invitingly as he looked at her…

Quickly Maggie blinked again, banishing the wickedly tantalising image. In the room’s en suite bathroom she tidied herself up, and placed the clean warm towels Finn had taken from the airing cupboard and given to her on a stool. The huge towelling robe he had given her, which was patently one of his, she determinedly placed at the bottom of the pile.

It was time she went back downstairs. If she didn’t Finn might actually start thinking that she wanted him to come looking for her. As she hurried to the bedroom door she glanced towards the window, her forehead furrowing in a darkly accusing frown. It had started to snow again. It was almost as though the weather was determined to cause her problems, to keep her here with Finn.

‘We’ll have to eat in here,’ Finn announced as Maggie walked into the kitchen. ‘I suppose ultimately I’m going to have to get designers in to revamp the place, but at the moment—’

‘Why didn’t you tell me that you used to work in the City?’

The abruptness of her unplanned question made Maggie wish she hadn’t asked. The high standards and professionalism she normally demanded of herself made her blush with embarrassment at her own unfamiliar gaucheness, but to her relief, instead of reacting with a cool put-down, Finn looked at her searchingly for a few seconds before replying quietly, ‘It’s a part of my life I’ve put behind me and which has no real relevance to the way I live now other than that the money I made then has made it possible for me to choose my own future.’

‘You can’t say that,’ Maggie objected immediately. ‘Everything that happens in a person’s life has relevance.’

‘You mean like your own relationship with your parents?’ Finn countered.

Brown eyes met blue, the pride and pain in the brown an immediate barrier to the challenging masked compassion in blue.

‘Whatever unhappiness I experienced through my parents’ lack of love for me was more than outweighed by the love of my grandparents,’ Maggie defended herself sharply. ‘You, on the other hand, are obviously hanging on to your bad feelings about city life and city people.’

She had a very quick and incisive mind, Finn acknowledged with reluctant admiration, If there was one thing he did miss about city living in his current solitary life, it was the buzz that the exchange of conversation, opinions, news and views with other like-minded people had given him.

‘Not really,’ he denied, giving a small shrug as he told her, ‘It’s simply that I’ve moved on inwardly, as well as physically, and the man I am now wants a hell of a lot more out of life than material success. And besides…’ He paused, opening the oven door to study its contents before adding sombrely, with just enough contempt in his voice to make Maggie’s face sting with angry resentment, ‘I’ve seen too many people damaged or destroyed by the pursuit of wealth and success—driven to abuse themselves and others by their fear of what they consider to be failure—to have any illusions left.’

‘It isn’t city living that causes that,’ Maggie protested.

‘Maybe not, but it doesn’t help. The lasagne is just about ready,’ he informed Maggie. ‘And, since they say that arguing is not conducive to good digestion, I suggest that we find something else to talk about.’

‘I’ve got an even better idea,’ Maggie told him acerbically, adding without waiting for his response, ‘Why don’t we just eat in silence?’

‘A silent woman! Is there such a thing?’ Finn mocked her as he removed the lasagne from the oven.

Maggie threw him a murderous look, but somehow managed to restrain herself from making any verbal response.

Half an hour later, her stomach deliciously full, her earlier antagonism and with it her mental vow to herself momentarily forgotten, Maggie announced, ‘That was good. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was.’ She stopped abruptly as she realised what she had done, but instead of taunting her for breaking her self-imposed silence, Finn simply looked at her.

When she forgot to be on her guard against him there was an endearing sweetness about her which gripped him by the throat and the heart. And wasn’t his body wel

l and truly reacting to that knowledge, and to her? He could feel his glance sliding dangerously towards her mouth, the appetite he wanted to satisfy having nothing whatsoever to do with food, and he hastily dragged it back before Maggie could see.

If he had thought the buzz he had once got from the City traders’ always-on-the-edge lifestyle possessed too much dangerous and addictive excitement, it was nothing to the charge this reckless game of advance and retreat he and Maggie were now putting one another through. But, despite what common sense and caution were telling him, he still couldn’t resist the opportunity presenting itself to him.

‘A city woman who likes to eat. Now you have surprised me. Although I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, after all…’ There was a gleam in his eyes when he paused that made Maggie’s muscles tense as she waited for the blow she knew was about to fall. But when it came it was not what she had been expecting, and its effect was so devastating that she suspected her reaction must have given her away completely. ‘After all,’ Finn continued in a softly sensual voice that felt like male fingers stroking her skin, ‘They do say that a woman with a healthy appetite for sex has a healthy appetite for all the pleasures of life. Another glass of wine?’ he offered, indicating the bottle of red wine he had opened when they had begun their meal.

‘No! No, thank you,’ Maggie amended in a calmer voice as she battled against her reaction to his soft words.

A healthy appetite for sex. Did he have to remind her…to torment her…?