The Hidden Years. PENNY JORDAN

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ her tension, ignoring the tremors that made her thigh muscles quiver.

      ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he told her, ‘I only want to show you how good it’s going to be between us… You do love me, don’t you…?’

      What could she say? Of course she loved him.

      ‘Yes,’ she whispered helplessly.

      ‘Then let me touch you…let me love you. You’re not one of those women who can’t please a man, are you?’ Kit asked her, abruptly changing tack and making a fresh shiver of fear ice along her spine. Of course she wasn’t what he was suggesting…was she? Confused thoughts jumbled in her brain. She did love him, she knew that; so why did she feel this hesitation…this fear? Why, when she had enjoyed his kisses so much, did she feel this apprehension at his more intimate touch?

      She heard the hospital village clock tolling the hour. Four o’clock already, and she was due back on the ward at five.

      Mingling with her panic was a sense of relief…of escape almost, as she pushed desperately against Kit’s imprisoning arms and told him huskily, ‘I must go… I’m due back at work at five.’

      Cursing beneath his breath, Kit released her. She was proving more of a challenge than he had expected and like green unripe fruit she was beginning to leave a sour taste in his mouth, but he still wanted her; not just because he desired her. Now anger and male pride were also spurring him on. There was something about her. Something about her vulnerability, her naïveté, that made him almost want to reach out and punish her for them.

      Not a man given to introspection of any kind, he withdrew from her abruptly, uncomfortable with his own thoughts. It wasn’t in his nature to give in, to back down from a challenge of any kind.

      ‘I’d better drive you back, then,’ he told her curtly, watching the effect his coldness was having on her, and smiling inwardly as he recognised her pain. Well, it wouldn’t hurt her to suffer a little… It might even teach her a much-needed lesson, and it would certainly make her all the more eager to give him what he wanted the next time he saw her.

      He walked her back to the car in a coldly remote silence that made Lizzie ache with misery and regret. Why on earth had she behaved so stupidly? Of course she loved him, and of course he had expected her to allow him to make love to her. He wasn’t a boy; he was a man…a man who was fighting for his country, a man who could walk out of her life today…

      She felt the tears clogging her throat and pain and the panic churning inside her stomach. Why had she panicked like that…? Why had she felt that tension, that apprehension? Was there something wrong with her…was she perhaps incapable of pleasing a man as he had suggested, of sharing physical desire?

      It was a devastating thought and one that made her face go white with anguish as they finally reached Kit’s car.

      When he turned to look at her Kit was pleased to see the effect his silence had had on her. It made him relent a little towards her and cup her face with one careless hand while he demanded softly, ‘When can I see you again, sweetheart?’

      Lizzie’s heart leaped with gratitude and relief. He still wanted her, after all. He was actually giving her a second chance—he did love her.

      ‘I—’

      ‘Tonight,’ Kit pressed. ‘What time do you finish work? I could pick you up…’

      Lizzie shook her head.

      ‘Not until late.’

      ‘Then when?’ Kit pressed her. ‘Tomorrow…’

      Tomorrow was her day off. Her heart started to pound, as, almost incapable of speech, she nodded her head.

      ‘Good,’ Kit told her, and then added carelessly, ‘Look, I’ll tell you what. Instead of picking you up, why don’t I meet you at the summer-house? That way…that way we’ll keep it our secret…something special just for the two of us…’

      Silently Lizzie nodded her head. She had no idea how she was going to get through the interminably long hours before she could see him again, but one thing she had already promised herself, and that was that when she did see him, when he held her and kissed her, when he touched her and told her how much he wanted her, she was going to behave like a woman and not a child, she was going to remind herself of how lucky she was to have met him, and how precious this time together with him was…how vulnerable their future together when the war could sweep them apart again at any time, maybe only for a short space of time, or maybe for eternity.

      She shuddered from head to foot, suddenly so cold that her teeth were chattering.

      ‘Tomorrow, then…eleven o’clock,’ Kit reminded her before they parted.

      ‘Tomorrow,’ Lizzie echoed in a whisper, her sight suddenly blinded by weak tears.

      She loved him so much. She wanted to reach out to him and to say the words, to be held in his arms. To be kissed by him…to be loved by him, she recognised shakily. So why was it that when he touched her the way he had she had acted like that, tensing against him, rejecting him?

      As she watched him drive away from her she shivered again, feeling more alone, more sharply aware of the precariousness of life, more confused by her feelings than at any other time in her life…

      Back at the hostel there was her borrowed finery to be returned. When questioned, she kept quiet about her date with Kit in the morning. She still felt too bruised by her own stupidity, by the way she had angered him and jeopardised their love to want to discuss what had happened with anyone, so that when Rosie asked eagerly, ‘Seeing him again, are you?’ she made a non-committal reply, glad that the fact that she had to hurry to get to work on time made it impossible for them to question her too closely.

      The evening shift was always a busy one, with the men to be settled for the night, their medication to be given to them, the wards to be cleaned and made ready for the morning.

      Lizzie only saw Edward Danvers briefly as she passed through his ward.

      As she helped another aide with the blackout cloths, she noticed how grey Edward’s skin looked and guessed sympathetically that he was in great pain. She wanted to go across to him and ask him if he would like some extra medication, but already she knew how touchy his pride was, how he hated any reference being made to the physical agony he often had to endure.

      She glanced uncertainly across the ward. The sister on duty was a woman in her late fifties who had little time for the young aides, and Lizzie knew there would be no point in her trying to have a discreet word with her to solicit her help for Edward. She was the kind of woman who genuinely believed that to endure pain was good for the soul. All the junior nurses, and even some of the doctors, were in awe of her. The aides detested her, mercilessly mimicking her and making fun of her behind her back.

      ‘A sexless old bag,’ was how Lizzie had heard them describe her. Sexless… She grimaced over the word, exploring it apprehensively, her heartbeat quickening with anxiety. Surely she wasn’t like that…surely she wasn’t that kind of woman? No, of course she wasn’t…

      Then why hadn’t she been able to respond to Kit’s lovemaking…? Why had she felt so afraid, so tense?

      Too young and far too inexperienced to know that the answer lay both in her aunt’s СКАЧАТЬ