Passionate Retribution

'It's very nice,' she said, her voice reflecting amazement.

Luke dumped the bags he'd carried in on the long refectory table. 'What had you anticipated, no electricity or running water?' He looked at her face. 'O thou of little faith; as if I'd expose a delicate little flower like yourself to such indignities.'

The delicate flower swung a wild punch which he side-stepped. 'Next you'll be expecting me to thank you.'

'Thanks from a Stapely? Hardly. In the meantime, help me fetch the things in.'

She watched him pick up the envelope propped in the centre of the table and open it. His eyes scanned the contents. 'Fetch your own things in,' she retorted petulantly. As always, the way he said her name gave the impression that it left a nasty taste in his mouth. She'd seen his name inscribed in capitals on the envelope, probably perfumed paper, she thought scornfully, assuming instantaneously that the author of the missive was female.

His eyes darkened as he tucked the note in his trouser pocket. 'If you want your stuff, get it, Miss Stapely. I'm not your lackey. And if you're going to explore, be careful; this is the only habitable room down here. I'm renovating it room by room and some of the floors are hazardous,' he informed her.

'I want to go home, Luke,' she said, the plaintive winning out over the aggressive in her quavering voice.

He placed the last of his burdens on the flagged floor and shut the heavy oak studded door. A door built to keep out the most severe of elements. His eyes swept over her slight figure thoughtfully. 'I'll light the fire,' he said as she shivered, her arms clamped around herself to retain heat. He moved over to the ingle- nook. 'Matches in the bottom drawer of the dresser.'

The imperious way he held out his hand, apparently certain that she would jump, refuelled her sense of injustice. 'I told you I want to go home,' she repeated. The high-handed way he'd coerced her into being here was still almost impossible to take in. The fact that she was almost incidental in the exercise was an added insult; just an instrument to twist the knife in her father's flesh…it was disgusting!

'I thought you'd been cast off, a homeless stray,' he murmured with his back still to her. He stayed crouched beside the fire and rolled up his sleeves. Her eyes, with a will of their own, were drawn to his forearms; the fine sprinkling of dark hairs was in danger, she realised furiously, of making her stare like some witless idiot. 'Or was that just a cosmetic exercise? Had you planned to go back in a couple of days and be Daddy's good little girl? I'm sure even Gavin will seem acceptable once he's seen the error of his ways.' He turned his head, his blue eyes glittering with contempt.

His derision cut through her bewildering fascination with certain mundane details of his person. 'I'd sooner marry—' Her eyes glittered and her chest heaved as she searched for the worst fate she could imagine '—you than Gavin.' Her brief feeling of triumph faded as she encountered the very disturbing expression that flickered into his eyes.

'That would be something to write home about, wouldn't it, sweetheart?' His smile was subtly sensuous. 'Was that a proposal?'

'Don't be stupid,' she snapped, unbalanced by his response. 'Where are the matches?' she said, more to divert him than to be a willing little helper. The gleam of ironic laughter in his eyes made it abundantly clear that her tactics, like her unease, were as easy for him to read as foot-high type.

'Bottom drawer of the dresser,' he said after holding her defiant gaze for a moment. 'Thank you.' Unnecessarily he caught hold of her hand as he took the box, his thumb moving over the blue-veined inner aspect of her wrist.

Her wide, startled eyes were captured by his for a split-second before she snatched her hand away. Neat electricity travelled to her toes. Contact gone, the current was broken—but not the unpleasant aftereffects. She sat in a high-backed Windsor chair, her knees feeling incapable of supporting her at that moment.

'Why exactly do you hate us so much?'

There was a hiss and the kindling caught fire. His eyes were gem-hard when he turned. With the elegance that was such an integral part of him he straightened up. 'Us?'

She took a deep breath; the taboo subject had been broached and she intended to get to the bottom of it. She was no longer a child to have her questions smiled away. 'You know exactly what I mean,' she said impatiently. 'What particular sin have the Stapelys committed?' It had puzzled her half her lifetime. It was no normal antipathy he felt, something much more complex. Beneath his casual contempt there was always something which eluded her.

'Are you trying to tell me you don't know?' His voice was tinged with incredulous scorn.

'I know your mother was disowned by her adoptive mother, and she ran off because…' She felt suddenly embarrassed at cold-bloodedly discussing Luke's history as though the people involved were characters in a novel as opposed to people with feelings. Did her curiosity sound crude and clumsy? But she was suddenly sure that it was relevant to the present, and she had conceived a strong, dog-like tenacity to get to the bones at long last.