Sinful Nights: The Six-Month Marriage / Injured Innocent / Loving. PENNY JORDAN

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СКАЧАТЬ might do. I’ll come up and sort it out myself.’

      ‘Alan no …’ Sapphire started to say, but it was too late. ‘Look I’ve got to go,’ he told her before she could continue. ‘I’ve got an appointment. I’ll be up as soon as I can—possibly in three or four days.’

      ‘Everything okay?’ Mary nodded to the kettle. ‘Fancy a drink? I normally take one up to your dad about now.’

      ‘No … no thanks, I think I’ll go out for a walk.’

      ‘Well, don’t go too far,’ Mary cautioned her. ‘The temperature’s dropping and we might well have snow. Snow in March isn’t uncommon up here,’ she reminded Sapphire dryly when she raised her eyebrows. ‘Many a farmer’s lost a crop of newborn lambs to the weather. You should know that.’

      She needed time to think, Sapphire acknowledged as she walked into the cobbled yard and through into the field beyond; time to come to terms with what she herself had set in motion. She couldn’t back out now; that much was plain. How could she have been so stupid as to allow Blake to manoeuvre her into this situation?

      But it hadn’t been Blake’s logical, reasoned arguments that had won her over, it had been her father’s pain. Guilt was a terrible burden to carry. She shivered suddenly, conscious that her jumper was no real protection against the bitter east wind, but she wasn’t ready to go back to the farm yet. Going back meant facing Blake; and that was something she wasn’t ready for yet. But she couldn’t avoid him forever, and it was getting colder. Reluctantly she turned and re-traced her steps but when the farm came in sight and she saw that the Land Rover was still there, instead of heading for the house she walked towards the large attached barn.

      In the days when Flaws Farm had possessed a small dairy herd this barn had housed them but now it was empty apart from the farmyard hens whose eggs were purely for domestic use. She had kept her pony, Baron, in here and had spent many hours grooming him, preparing him for local agricultural shows. They had even won a couple of prizes. Sighing faintly she wandered deeper into the barn stopping beside the ladder into the hayloft. As a teenager she had retreated up there to read and daydream. The sound of familiar footsteps made her body tense. Even without turning round to look she knew who it was.

      ‘Something told me you might be in here.’ Blake’s voice was mocking. ‘You always did use it as a bolt-hole.’

      She turned round, trying to blank all emotion out of her features, while Blake studied her with a slow, insolent appraisal that set her teeth on edge. Inwardly shaking with nerves she refused to let him see how much his presence disturbed her. ‘Finished?’ she asked sourly. ‘What exactly were you doing Blake?’

      ‘Just wondering why you choose to wear such masculine clothes.’ It was a blatantly challenging statement when coupled with his open study of her, and to her resentment she knew she had already been betrayed into a response to it, even if it was only in the increased stiffening of her muscles.

      ‘These happen to be the only clothes I had this morning. No doubt you like your women dulcet and feminine, compliant and obedient, but I’m not like that Blake. Not any more.’

      ‘No, you’re not are you?’ There was just a suspicion of laughter trailing in his voice, enough to make her stare back at him aggressively and refuse to give way as he came towards her. ‘I also like them aroused and responsive—just as you are at the moment.’

      The explosive denial trembling on her lips died as he reached forward, his thumb stroking along her throat to rest on the point where her pulse thudded betrayingly. ‘Anger is a form of arousal isn’t it?’ he mocked lightly. ‘And you are angry with me, aren’t you Sapphire?’

      ‘Not as much as I am with myself,’ she told him curtly, drawing away. She wasn’t going to give Blake any advantages this time. ‘What I said to you last night still holds good, I don’t want to marry you.’

      ‘But you told your father that you did.’

      ‘No. I told him that I was doing. I didn’t mean to, but before I could retract you arrived.’

      ‘And now?’ He asked the question softly, watching her with eyes that gave nothing of his own feelings away.

      ‘I’ll have to go through with it—you know that. You saw how he reacted. Dear God, even now I can’t believe that I’m going to lose him.’ She paced distractedly, too strung up to give way to tears and yet needing to release some of her nervous energy.

      ‘And what about the boyfriend—have you told him?’

      ‘Alan? No … not yet, but he’s coming up for his car soon, I’ll tell him then.’

      ‘How soon is soon?’ Blake asked idly. ‘Because in three days’ time we’ll be married.’

      Three days! She looked up at him not even attempting to hide her shock. ‘So soon?’

      Blake shrugged his shoulders and against her will Sapphire found herself comparing the masculine breadth of them to Alan’s. Even dressed in faded jeans and an old woollen checked shirt Blake possessed a lithe masculine sensuality that Alan would never have, for all his expensive tailoring Alan believed that appearances were important and Sapphire wouldn’t have denied it, but Blake was one of those men who could afford to break life’s rules. Angrily she pushed the thought away.

      ‘Why wait?’ Blake asked laconically. ‘The sooner it’s done the happier your father will be.’

      ‘He told me that most people up here don’t even know that we’re divorced.’ Her voice gave away her anger.

      ‘Most people? No-one knows,’ Blake corrected, blandly.

      ‘Not even Miranda?’

      His eyebrows rose, and Sapphire felt her face flush. What on earth had possessed her to bring Miranda’s name up? She had no interest in Blake’s love life—it was his own affair.

      ‘Why mention Miranda in particular?’ Blake mocked.

      ‘Perhaps because it’s the sort of thing a man would tell his mistress,’ Sapphire came back curtly. ‘After all you told her that our marriage … wasn’t consummated.’

      ‘How do you know that?’ His voice had sharpened, hardened almost, but he had turned slightly away so that Sapphire couldn’t see his expression, but she had definitely caught him off guard. Good, she thought, watching him. Obviously he didn’t know what Miranda had said to her.

      ‘Because she told me.’ She shrugged disdainfully as he turned round and stared at her with cold hard, golden eyes. ‘It was at the same time as she told me about the weekend the two of you spent in the Cotswolds actually.’ Giving him a cold smile she marched past, heading for the barn door. It would do him good to realise that she wasn’t as naive as he had always believed, but just as she drew level with the door his arm snaked out, his fingers curling painfully round her wrist.

      ‘And that, of course, was why you left me?’

      ‘It was one of the reasons—there were others.’ It was her turn to shrug dismissively. ‘But none of that matters now, I merely asked about Miranda so that I could be prepared for any situation that might arise.’

      ‘She doesn’t know we’re divorced,’ СКАЧАТЬ