Force of Feeling

She felt like a butterfly pinned down for inspection. She desperately wanted to escape, to be left alone. She hated this merciless probing, this constant pushing at her to produce something that… That she was incapable of producing? Despair stabbed through her. She couldn’t tell him that. She had her pride, after all. There must be a way… While she was still trying to sort out her confused thoughts, she heard Guy saying softly, ‘Campion, I’ve read all your books over the last few weeks. There’s an odd lack of sexuality in all of them, do you know that?’

Odd? Her body stiffened, sensing danger, her head lifting defiantly as she met the look in his eyes and forced herself not to cringe beneath it.

‘Why should I be considered odd just because I don’t spatter my work with lurid passages of pseudo-pornography?’

His eyebrows rose. ‘Is that how you see sex? As pornographic? You surprise me. The written word can be pornographic, I agree, but it can also be very, very sensual.’

‘It isn’t my job to write that kind of thing,’ she protested sharply.

‘No, but it is your job to flesh out the character of a young woman whom you seem to be dooming to a course of behaviour that’s totally out of keeping with the personality you’ve given her, and thus making her totally unbelievable in the mind of the reader.’

‘I could change her character.’

As she looked at him, Campion was unaware of the desperation in her voice and eyes. All she saw was a sudden and totally unexpected softening in the grey eyes that held her gaze. Guy lifted his hand from her manuscript, and instinctively she flinched back. Immediately, that slight softening was gone, and tiny sparks seemed to ignite in the depths of his eyes, as though he was very, very angry indeed. But he still continued to smile, and she decided that she must have been wrong. When men got angry they lost control, said and did things that were hurtful in the extreme, as she knew to her cost.

‘Tell me, Campion, why do you find it so hard to give your characters any sexuality? Your men, for instance. I’ve noticed that, even when you’re sticking to historical fact, you manage to avoid the human side of their natures completely. Why?’

She was frightened now. He was probing too close to things that hurt. Things that she had always thought were her secrets, and hers alone. Helena had never talked to her like this. All right, so sometimes she had laughed and teased her, sometimes she had made gentle suggestions which necessitated some small alterations in her work, but she had never, ever done anything like this.

Suddenly, her anger left her, and in its place came an icy thrust of fear. Why was Guy doing this to her? What was he trying to get her to admit? That she was inadequate as a woman? Her skin crawled as she realised how much she might have unwittingly betrayed about herself in her writing. Was this why she had so fiercely resisted the idea of having a secretary? Had she known, without actually acknowledging it, that she was vulnerable? Had she been afraid of what someone working closely with her might discover about her?

Panic built up inside her, coiling and burning, seeking some means of escape.

Guy was sitting far too close to her. She felt trapped, hemmed in. She stared desperately at the wall, as though she could somehow conjure up a gap in it through which she could escape, but there was none. She turned to face him, her eyes darkening as she saw the calm, waiting quality in his composed silence.

‘What is this? The Inquisition?’

To her relief, he didn’t laugh at her. Instead, he asked seriously, ‘Is that how you see me, Campion? As an inquisitor; a man capable of great cruelty; a man who enjoys inflicting pain on others; a man so zealous in his pursuit of what he believes in that he’s prepared to go to any lengths to secure those beliefs?’

Of course she didn’t. It had been stupid of her to choose that particular simile.

‘I’m just trying to help you, that’s all.’

‘I don’t need your help…’

‘I think you do,’ retorted Guy quietly. ‘Shall I tell you what I see when I look at you, Campion?’

Now, when she wasn’t prepared for it, he did reach out and touch her, his hand cupping the side of her face firmly. Her skin hurt, and she shook with shock and fear. She could feel the hard pads of his fingertips against her skin. She was shaking like someone in the grip of an intense fever, and there was nothing she could do about it—not a single thing.

She could see the irises of his eyes—clear, cool grey. His eyes were thickly and darkly lashed, his jaw dark where he shaved.

Campion opened her mouth to cry out to him to let her go, but no sound emerged. Panic flooded her. She wanted to cry and scream. She wanted to tear his hand from her skin. She wanted…she wanted to turn and run, and go on running until she could find somewhere to hide, both from him and from herself.

What was he doing this for?

‘Your skin feels like silk velvet.’ He smiled at her, and tiny lines fanned out from around his eyes.

Campion felt as though she were disintegrating, as though she was being torn apart by the pain of what was happening. How could he do this to her? Did he think she was blind, that she didn’t, couldn’t see for herself the differences between them? Did he honestly imagine she was stupid enough to believe that he could actually find anything physically attractive about her?

‘Stop it! Stop it! Don’t touch me!’

At last she had found her voice, even if the words did come out high and strained. She jerked back, her eyes wild with emotions that made Guy release her immediately.

‘You don’t have to waste your time complimenting me, Guy,’ she told him harshly. ‘I know exactly what kind of woman I am.’

‘Do you?’ Unexpectedly, his own voice was far from its normal, even tone. ‘I wonder.’

She couldn’t stand it any longer; the atmosphere in the small room was far too fraught and tense for her to even think about working.