heavily, or rather almost snorting like an enraged bull, she thought in some amusement, noting the rapid rise and fall of his chest, and the strain his rage was putting on the four out of half a dozen or so buttons that enclosed it.
‘Finished the inventory?’
The scorn in his voice should have embarrassed her, especially since she was not in the habit of staring so openly at any man, stranger or no. Lean hips tapered down to long legs, and aware that it was annoying him, she deliberately let her glance linger before saying demurely, ‘Er … it seems that your zip’s gone.’
There was a moment’s stunned pause, compounded of astounded silence on his part and unholy glee on her own. She wasn’t quite sure why, but it amused her intensely to see such an arrogantly male man so utterly confounded.
He looked down, swore briefly and then turned his back on her, while she fought against the bubbles of laughter threatening to escape from her throat. By the look of him if she dared to laugh he was quite capable of murdering her.
When he turned back to her, he was still furiously angry although he was obviously trying to control it.
‘My apologies,’ he said between gritted teeth. Very nice white teeth, Jessica noticed absently. ‘But I am in something of a rush, so if you could bring yourself to shift your car.’
A rush? Why? Had he been on the point of being discovered by some angry husband? She looked at him and saw two things reflected in his eyes. The first was that he had guessed what she was thinking and the second that he was absolutely furious about it.
Almost she was tempted to dither, just to see what effect it had on him, but wisdom persuaded her otherwise, and so neatly reversing the Mercedes right to the side of the road, she made room for him to pass, which he did crashing his gears awfully and sending up a cloud of dust, which descended on the Mercedes’ immaculate paintwork in tiny gritty particles.
She spent another five minutes studying her map and then realised guiltily that she was going to be late for the appointment. Luckily she found the house on her first attempt, momentarily appalled by the uncontrolled wilderness that passed as a garden, as she drove slowly up the drive and parked outside the front door. The drive continued round the side of the house and presumably to the back, but Jessica had no intention of trusting her precious car to the gaping holes she could see in the fragmented drive that lay beyond the front door.
She climbed out of the car without bothering to look in her mirror. Her hair was slightly tangled from the drive, and she had put make-up on before setting out, but apart from that she had made no other feminine concessions to what lay ahead. After all if this man wanted to marry her it would be for reasons other than her looks. Indeed it would have to be because one thing she intended to make very clear indeed was that this would be a marriage in name only.
A noticed pinned to the front door announced that the waiting room and surgery lay to the left of the door, and that all other callers were to press the bell.
Dutifully she did as instructed, and had to wait so long for her summons to be answered that she turned her back on the front door and instead surveyed the wild tangle of rhododendrons that lined the driveway, some of them dead, allowing a glimpse at the awesomely neglected lawns that lay beyond. It would take an army of devoted gardeners armed with scythes to cut down that lot, Jessica thought drily, looking in vain for the point where the lawn ended and what she imaged must be the herbaceous border began. Lupins gone frantically to seed and almost uniformly blue were the only flower she could actually recognise and she shuddered faintly when she contrasted the overgrown wilderness in front of her with the neatly ordered gardens surrounding her flat.
‘Yes?’
The harsh voice was uncomfortably familiar and decidedly unwelcoming, the shock in the blue eyes as she turned to face him hardly flattering.
‘God, it’s you!’
Shock gave way to amusement as she recognised the man who had accosted her so angrily earlier.
‘I suppose you’d better come in then.’
He was scowling horribly at her, close to, even taller than she had first thought.
She followed him inside, grimacing faintly to herself at the decidedly unfriendly grimness in his voice as he pushed open a door and said curtly, ‘In here.’
The room was a hodge-podge of unmatching furniture, most of it worthy only of firewood or a jumble sale from what she could see. Closing her eyes, Jessica tried not to think of her own carefully chosen decor and antiques.
‘So, you’re looking for a man.’
The openly derisory tone of his voice caused her eyes to narrow faintly. This antipathy was not what she had expected from his letter.
‘Oh no,’ she responded blandly, hiding her smile as he looked warily at her. ‘I can quite easily find a man,’ she told him truthfully. ‘What I’m looking for is a husband, and moreover one who is prepared to accept the restrictions I should want to place on such a relationship.’
If she had expected to provoke an adverse reaction by her provocative statement she would have been disappointed, Jessica admitted, watching him study her with the same thoroughness with which she had herself studied him so recently, although there was considerably less amusement in his eyes than there had been in hers, only a hard resentment which she recognised and wondered at. It was almost as though he didn’t want to marry her—her or anyone else—she acknowledged, as though in some way he was being forced. She frowned and looked at him, watching his eyes narrow as they saw the comprehension in hers.
‘That’s right,’ he said flatly. ‘None of this is my idea, it’s my sister’s. She’s the one who wrote to you, who brought you down here on this mad goose-chase.’
‘I see.’ Jessica studied him thoughtfully, half shocked by the swimming sense of let-down she was feeling. Good heavens, the man was rude, hostile and as patently the wrong type of material for the sort of marriage she wanted as it was possible for anyone to be, and yet she was feeling disappointed because he was making it so plain that he did not want her, or anyone else, as a wife.
Smiling calmly at him she made for the door. ‘Then there’s really nothing more to be said, is there?’ she said as she opened it.
‘Wait a minute.’
She herself was tall, but she had to look up to meet his eyes, half surprised by the strength in those lean hands as he pushed the door closed.
As he leaned over her she could smell the faint male tang of his sweat, and unconsciously she shifted her weight so that she could move back from it. She disliked the evidence of such male sexuality, and even more she disliked the fact that she should be aware of it, backing away as nervously as a highly strung horse.
‘What the devil?’
She watched his eyebrows draw together in a frown, his mouth indenting with irritation.
‘I wasn’t going to touch you.’
He said it in a way that left her in no doubt of his distaste of such an action, and irrationally his vehemence stung. Was she so unattractive then that a stranger was repelled by her?
‘Why are you looking for a husband?’
The abruptness of his question when she thought they had nothing left to say to one another made her stammer slightly and hesitate before replying, but she had nothing to hide, no reason not to tell him the truth, so she did so, briefly explaining her concern over her sister’s mental and physical state, as well as lightly touching on David’s irritating manner towards her, but not at this stage mentioning her book.
‘So, it’s for your sister’s sake, rather than any desire to get married, then, is it?’
Scorn touched her eyes shadowing them to dark gold. ‘I would hardly marry for any other reason,’ she told him bluntly. ‘Marriage in my view is a form of self-inflicted torment, which these days is no longer necessary. In the past