Taming Jason. Lucy Gordon

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СКАЧАТЬ I’ve seen some of the presents he’s given you—all bought with money he doesn’t have.’

      ‘I don’t ask him to—’

      ‘Sure you don’t. You don’t need to. He enjoys splashing out. Well, I can be generous too—for a purpose.’ He named a sum of money.

      ‘Are you trying to buy me off?’ she demanded, outraged.

      He shrugged. ‘Put it how you like. It’s a good bargain.’

      ‘And my-self respect? How would I buy that back?’

      ‘That’s a good line. I’ll up the offer a little, but not much.’

      ‘You could double it and I still wouldn’t be interested.’

      ‘No, don’t overplay your hand. I won’t double it.’

      Furiously she stormed off, but at the last minute something made her turn back to look at him, standing there, regarding her with a sceptical look.

      She was used to waking early, and she enjoyed getting up with the dawn to look out of her window and watch the sun rising over the Tenby estate. At such moments she could forget the tensions that swirled around her, spoiling this beautiful place.

      But then one morning it was spoilt anyway, by the sight of Jason pounding up the avenue of oaks, mounted on Damon, his big black stallion. Simon had called the horse ‘a ferocious brute who tries to kill everyone who comes near him’, but Jason sat him as easily as if he were a pony.

      He wore no jacket, and through his thin shirt she could see the tension of his muscles, controlling the huge beast without effort.

      He thought he could control everything, she thought—his estates, his brother, the whole world. But she wouldn’t let him control her.

      A moment later he stopped under her window.

      ‘Do you ride?’ he called up.

      ‘I—yes,’ she said.

      ‘Good. I’ll find you a mount.’

      She’d made a bad mistake. Her mother had once done housework for a man who owned a fat, elderly pony. He’d let the child play with the animal, and she’d learned to saddle him and sit there while he ambled slowly about. And she’d thought that was riding.

      She looked good in a riding habit that belonged to their recently married sister, but almost at once she knew she’d done something stupid. Her mount was gentle enough, but it was a real horse. It needed to be properly ridden. And she didn’t know how.

      What happened next would always fill her with shame.

      The horse simply ignored her, going happily on its own way, while she grew more and more miserable and humiliated. Her one real effort to take charge resulted in the beast trotting off to the nearest stream and stopping so suddenly that she was deposited in the water.

      It was Jason who hauled her out. ‘Why did you pretend you could ride?’ he demanded, exasperated. ‘Of all the idiots!’

      ‘I can ride, but not on an animal like that,’ she insisted, pulling off her sodden jacket. Beneath it she wore a thin white sweater, which was also soaking.

      ‘What do you mean, “an animal like that”?’ he yelled back. ‘It’s a horse, for Pete’s sake. It’s got one leg at each corner and nothing between its ears. It’s a mount for a child, always assuming the child knows what it’s doing. What did you learn on, a rocking horse?’

      ‘Stop it!’ she cried. ‘Stop trying to bully me.’

      ‘Bully you, you stupid girl? I’m trying to prevent you making the biggest mistake of your life.’ Suddenly he seemed to lose his temper, taking hard hold of her shoulders. ‘Stop trying to be something that you’re not, d’you hear? Get out of here while you can. Simon isn’t the man for you.’

      ‘That’s for me to say. Simon loves me and I love him.’

      He gave her an exasperated little shake. She tried to pull free but he held her harder than ever. ‘Love,’ he said contemptuously. ‘What do you know?’

      They held each other’s eyes, both now equally furious. She could hardly believe her own anger. Normally she was sweet tempered to a fault, but suddenly all the restraints were off and a fierce emotion rose in her, sweeping all before it, startling her. It startled her enemy too. She could see that in his eyes, as though something unexpected had winded him.

      ‘Hey!’

      Simon’s voice surprised them both. He’d ridden up while they were preoccupied. Jason swore under his breath and released her. Simon threw himself down from his horse and put his jacket around her. Jason remounted and galloped off without a backward glance.

      That evening Simon carved their initials on the oak tree, kissed her, and said, ‘I could have knocked him down for holding you like that. Did you know you were almost naked from the water?’

      She blushed and laughed. ‘You don’t need to be jealous of your brother. He’s the last man I could ever look at. I can’t see how any woman could even like him.’

      ‘Jason knows how to make himself pleasant when it suits him. But when he wants to make himself unpleasant—look out!’

      ‘And he wants to make himself unpleasant now,’ she murmured. ‘But it won’t make any difference to us, will it?’

      ‘We won’t let it,’ he assured her.

      How blindly confident she’d been that Simon could cope with every problem! How pitifully naive that confidence seemed now! Jason had managed to part them because he’d sworn to do so, and his will was inflexible.

      But how could she ever have imagined that he would do so in a way so cruel, so callous, so unspeakably wicked?

      Looking around the luxurious bedroom, Elinor knew she was mad to have returned here where bitter memories mocked her at every turn. She’d refused the job at first, and it had gone to someone else. But two days ago the other nurse had suffered a family crisis. The head of the agency had pleaded with her to fill the gap, and she’d decided perhaps it was time to confront her ghosts.

      The first face to greet her hadn’t been a ghost. Mrs Hadwick had worked for the Tenbys all her life, but she’d been away for Elinor’s first visit.

      Her decision not to tell Jason who she was had been an impulse. Smith was such a common name that he couldn’t identify her from that alone. Even Elinor wouldn’t mean anything to him. He’d known her as Cindy.

      She’d done it for his sake. Telling him the truth would only put pressure on him, and he had enough pressures already.

      She too was feeling pressured. She’d vowed to return, and she’d done so, in defiance of Jason’s order to ‘stay right away from this family’.

      Now it didn’t feel right. She’d made that vow in grief and passion, but over the years all passion had drained away from her, replaced by the will to make something of herself. She’d worked night and day СКАЧАТЬ