Levelling The Score. PENNY JORDAN

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      The cocoa was surprisingly good, warming her chilled hands as she cradled the mug.

      Simon disappeared into the bathroom, and was gone long enough for her to finish her drink and snuggle down into her sleeping bag.

      She felt the bed dip and heard the rustle of the nylon fabric as he made himself comfortable, and then the room was plunged into darkness as he extinguished the light.

      Some time during the night she dreamed that she was freezing cold, ploughing through numbing wastes of snow, and then deliciously she was warm again. She smiled in her sleep, completely unaware of the fact that the reason she was now so warm was that Simon had unzipped their separate sleeping-bags and then zipped them together to provide extra warmth.

      It also brought Jenna into much closer contact with his warm body as he lay against her back!

      CHAPTER THREE

      JENNA heard the noise distantly, as no more than an irritating intrusion into the pleasant rosiness of her dream. She wriggled comfortably and burrowed deeper into the sleeping-bag, relishing the solid wall of warmth at her back, and then when the noise grew more intrusive she opened her eyes, blinking reluctantly in the brilliance of the early morning sunshine.

      It took her several seconds to grasp what was going on. She remembered getting into bed all right, and she remembered the sleeping-bag as well, but she also distinctly recalled cocooning herself into it alone, and now for some reason it seemed to have stretched to include …

      She tensed and turned over.

      Simon!

      He was still asleep, looking absurdly young, even with a dark overnight growth of beard.

      ‘I don’t know who it is in there, but you’re on private property …’

      The bedroom door opened unceremoniously, and Mrs Magellan stood there, glaring belligerently at the bed.

      The way her expression changed as she recognised both its occupants could in other circumstances have been amusing, but right at this moment Jenna felt more like a naughty schoolgirl caught in an underhand activity.

      ‘Well, I never! Miss Jenna … And Master Simon …’ A disapproving frown pleated Mrs Magellan’s forehead. ‘Well, when I saw those two cars parked outside, I thought you must be some of those hippies … I never thought …’

      Her frown deepened, and Jenna wondered despairingly how on earth she was going to be able to explain the long and complicated story that was the truth.

      She kicked Simon ruthlessly and hard on the shin. He was the one who had got them into this mess, she fumed, and he could jolly well get them out of it! He was the one with the trained legal brain, after all—the brilliant barrister so fluently capable of putting forward a good defence.

      She kicked him again. He muttered something unintelligible and then opened his eyes.

      ‘My God, Mrs M!’ He sat bolt upright, exposing a good deal of hair-darkened masculine torso.

      ‘Mrs Magellan wants to know what we’re doing here, Simon,’ Jenna told him.

      ‘Ah …’

      Jenna could have sworn that he was amused, though no sign of undesirable levity showed in his face.

      ‘Well …’

      ‘I’m sure it’s not for me to question a fully grown man about his morals, Mr Simon, but I should think your mother would have something to say to this … and with Miss Jenna as well …’

      ‘Yes, well, you see, Mrs M, Jenna and I—we’re going to get married … and Jenna being the sentimental sort wanted to come down here to the place where she first fell in love with me. You know what girls are …’

      At his side, Jenna seethed in bitter silence. How dared he do this to her! Why couldn’t he simply have told Mrs Magellan the truth?

      ‘Of course, we had intended to have separate rooms, but we didn’t realise there’d been so much rain damage …’

      ‘Oh, well, since the pair of you are getting married, I suppose it’s all right … but it’s not what I would have expected of you, Miss Jenna … I’ll go downstairs now and let you both get up. I dare say you’ll be wanting to get back to London once you’ve had a bite of breakfast.’

      The moment the older woman had closed the door behind her, Jenna rounded on Simon.

      ‘What on earth made you tell her we were getting married?’ she demanded furiously. ‘Why didn’t you tell her the truth?’

      ‘I didn’t think she’d believe it. I thought I did quite well on the spur of the moment,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘Very well, in fact …’

      Jenna wasn’t to be mollified.

      ‘You know what a gossip she is! It will be all round the village by tonight …’

      ‘So what? Come on, Jenna,’ he drawled, looking into her shuttered, angry face. ‘It could be worse. I could have let her go on thinking that the pair of us had sneaked down here for a spot of illicit sex, instead of which I did the gentlemanly thing and …’

      ‘Lied to her! Gave her a totally false impression of our relationship!’ Jenna fumed.

      ‘What’s wrong? It will never get any further than the village. Your boyfriend isn’t likely to find out, if that’s what’s bothering you.’

      ‘It isn’t,’ Jenna announced shortly. ‘I just don’t like being involved in any sort of deceitfulness,’ she told him virtuously.

      His eyebrows lifted.

      ‘And of course, lying to me about Susie’s whereabouts in no way constituted any form of deceit?’ he suggested softly.

      Jenna wanted to hit him. In fact she was reaching out to do so, when he moved away from her and she became aware that all he was wearing appeared to be a minute pair of briefs.

      ‘And that’s another thing,’ she told him bitterly. ‘When I went to bed last night, I was lying alone, in my own sleeping-bag.’

      ‘Mm … You woke me up during the night complaining that you were cold, clinging on to me for dear life. The only way I could shut you up was to zip both bags together.’

      Jenna was about to make a heated retort when she had a sudden and extremely disturbing memory of dreaming about snow. She bit down hard on her bottom lip, cursing the tricks that the subconscious mind could play.

      ‘Look, there’s nothing to get so worked up about. To listen to you anyone would think this is the first time you’ve been to bed with a man.’

      He said it so casually that Jenna was stricken into silence. Although СКАЧАТЬ