Loves Choices. PENNY JORDAN

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘What is it?’

      ‘A headache,’ Hope told him, ‘but it is nothing. It will soon go.’

      ‘It’s probably the result of too much excitement,’ the Comte said wryly. ‘I forget that your convent life has not prepared you for the hurly-burly of real life.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I think we had better find somewhere to stay tonight and then continue our journey tomorrow. When I said we would drive straight to Serivace I had forgotten that you are not as used to travelling as I am myself.’

      Hope wanted to protest. She didn’t want to spend any more time with the Comte then she needed to.

      ‘I shall not eat you, mon petit,’ she heard the Comte drawl mockingly above her. ‘The good Sisters should have taught you that it is not always wise to look at a man the way you are looking at me. Your eyes have all the dread and fear of the persecuted for the persecutor, and who would blame me, if, when I look into them, I am tempted to make your fears reality.’ He saw her flinch and smiled. ‘You shrink from shadows, Hope. Do you really fear me so much?’

      His mockery brought a flash of rebellion to Hope’s eyes. She was not so foolish that she didn’t know when she was being deliberately baited. The nuns had taught their pupils from an early age to give respect and obedience to their elders, and the fact that the Comte was her father’s friend, coupled with his manner towards her, had made Hope defer to him. Now she faced him with stormy eyes, her slender body braced against retaliation as she said defiantly, ‘I am not afraid of you, Monsieur le Comte.’

      ‘Just as cautious as a gazelle penned up with a leopard,’ the Comte added wryly. ‘Tell me, how long is it since you last saw your father?’

      Not sure what had prompted the change of conversation, but nonetheless grateful for it, Hope told him.

      ‘Two years?’ His eyebrows drew together, darkly.

      ‘My father has many business interests, it is not always possible for him to visit me, and … and during the holidays there is not always someone to accompany me …’

      ‘But now you are no longer a schoolgirl, but a young woman. Have you any plans for your future?’ He was talking to her now more in the manner she would expect a man of his years and sophistication to address her, and Hope did her best to respond, explaining that the training at the convent did not really equip its pupils for careers.

      ‘Other than the time-honoured one of marriage,’ the Comte agreed dryly. ‘Is that what you want, mon petit? To go from the schoolroom to the bedroom?’ He saw that he had shocked her, watching the colour come and go in her face.

      ‘Come,’ he murmured, glancing sardonically at her. ‘You are not going to tell me that the nuns kept you in complete ignorance of the “facts of life"? There must have been holidays, encounters with attractive young men who were only too willing to add practical knowledge to theory.

      ‘No!’ Hope’s shocked denial silenced him for several seconds, while she sat bolt upright in her seat, her body trembling with rejection of his suggestion, her mind unable to analyse why it should have provoked such a strong response. After all, many of her fellow pupils had indulged in just the sort of experimentation the Comte had so mockingly described, and although she had never been included in the excited midnight discussions about them, she was not so naïve that she didn’t know that there was far more to human relationships than the cold, dry facts presented to them during their lectures.

      ‘No?’ The Comte pulled off the main road, bringing the car to a halt beside a field. They were in the middle of the country and Hope noticed absently that the crop was growing, green-gold fields stretching into the distance, an ancient stone castle perched precariously among the foothills which marked the beginning of the sierras.

      Her profile averted from her companion, she tensed when his fingers cupped her jaw, forcing her to face his enigmatic green gaze.

      ‘No?’ he repeated queryingly. ‘Not even so much as a stolen kiss, ma jolie?’

      Sensing the mockery behind the question, Hope blushed hotly, hating the way he was exposing her life, her inadequacies, because hadn’t she secretly wondered what it would be like to share the giggled confidences of the others? Hadn’t she secretly lain awake in her bed wondering why she felt none of their desire?

      ‘There is no one to steal kisses from behind the walls of the convent,’ she retorted bravely at last, ‘except for Father Ignacio who comes to hear our confessions. My father wouldn’t let me spend my holidays with my friends and …’ She broke off, hating herself for confiding so much to him. Now, doubtless, he would tell her father what she had said and she burned with embarrassment and humiliation. How gauche and disloyal her father would think her.

      ‘So!’ His gaze rested disturbingly on her lips, and Hope could almost feel the soft flesh burn from the contact. She longed for him to look away, but his fingers still cupped her jaw, curling against her skin, his thumb gently stroking along the bone, quivers of sensation spreading from the point where his flesh touched hers. Her mouth had gone dry, her lips parting on a small sound of protest, turning to a shocked gasp when the Comte rubbed his thumb over the fullness of her bottom lip, his free hand grasping her wrists as though he sensed her intention to thrust him away. His dark head descended, and the brush of his mouth against hers caused Hope to tense and stiffen, confused by her conflicting emotions. On the one hand was shock, outrage that he should trespass on his friendship with her father, on the other was this curious, languorous sensation that the brush of his lips against hers evoked, making her want to slide her hands over his dark-suited shoulders, explore the shape and feel of him, while his mouth continued to …

      With a horrified cry, Hope tore herself out of his grasp, her eyes huge and deeply violet in her small face, her fingers fluttering betrayingly to touch the quivering softness of her lips. Was that compassion she read in the darkness of his eyes? Or was it scorn for her lack of expertise, her inexperience?

      ‘Well, mon petit? Is your curiosity now satisfied? Do you no longer envy your schoolfriends their little experiments?’

      Hope sat immobile with despair and hatred in her heart. Not even her most secret thoughts were safe from this man. Had he known also that she had looked at his mouth and wondered what it would be like to have it touch her own? She had quenched the thought almost at birth, shocked and disturbed by it, but somehow he had known.

      ‘What’s the matter? Did the good Sisters tell you that such intimacies should only be shared with your husband, that no one should touch those soft lips but him?’

      ‘I am not quite a fool, monsieur,’ Hope managed stiffly. ‘I am well aware that it amuses you to … to torment me.’

      She heard him laugh soundlessly as he re-started the car, and turned back to the main road. Was he married, she wondered curiously. Did he have a family of his own?

      ‘There is a small town a few miles away, where we can spend the night,’ she was informed as the Ferrari ate up the miles. ‘The hotel was once the home of a local family, but it has now been taken over by the government and opened as an exclusive hostería.

      Several miles on they came to the town. The road had started to climb into the foothills, and to Hope’s surprise, their destination turned out to be the castle she had noticed before.

      ‘A fitting setting for you, Hope,’ the Comte murmured lazily as he stopped the car. ‘We shall have to ask them if they can find a turret room for you. You have all the inviolate innocence СКАЧАТЬ