Marrying The Enemy!. Elizabeth Power

and slightly rough against the heated column of her throat, slipping with outrageous insolence beneath the collar of her blouse, locking her breath in her lungs until she thought she was suffocating.

      The clock was silent now, the only sound that steady, somnolent tick, and her expelled breath suddenly shivered through her as she fought a myriad reckless sensations generated by the perverse excitement of his touch. No matter how immune a woman might think she was, that treacherous sexual sophistication of his could break through any resistance, she realised with sudden, terrifying clarity.

      ‘No. Some of us just grow up, York!’ she uttered. And with one hard twist of her chair, which had her knocking her knee painfully against his, she leapt up and away from him, out of the room without stopping to subject herself to the mocking triumph she knew would be written on his face.

      

      She was grateful when, the following morning, Celia suggested that they go riding. Not that Alex considered herself a particularly good horsewoman, but she welcomed anything that took her away from the house and York.

      ‘I always try to get in the saddle before I go home as the countryside’s so good for riding around here,’ Celia commented as she swung the Range Rover into the yard of the pretty moorland stable nestling beneath the dark ochre of the heathland and the lush green hills. Here and there the glint of silver betrayed a stream tumbling down

      to the wooded valley. ‘It keeps the muscles in shape. Not that you need to worry about that,’ she said, with an approving glance over Alex’s slim figure.

      ‘Even so, I never say no to a workout,’ Alex laughed, petting one or two of the equine heads peering curiously out at them above the stable doors as they made their way across the yard.

      ‘York suggested you might enjoy a ride when I told him I was thinking about coming here today,’ the woman enlightened her when they were leading their horses out of their respective stalls, Celia looking the part in full riding gear, Alex noted, with an inward grimace at her own rather less suitable anorak and cords.

      ‘Did he?’ Fastening the helmet she had hired from the stable, she hoped she had managed to make her voice sound casual. She had heard York drive off in the BMW earlier that morning and had known relief at the likelihood that she might not be seeing him for the rest of the day.

      Above them the moor beckoned, open and delightfully wild, and all she wanted to do was canter over the bracken-covered hillside until she reached the top, ride off the tensions that had been plaguing her ever since she had moved into his house. She wanted to forget about York.

      When the land had levelled off, though, and they were walking their horses side by side after their first exhilarating canter up through the heath Celia spoke. ‘You haven’t been hitting it off very well with my son, have you?’ was her disconcerting comment. She was flying home later that day, back to Dublin, and Alex was dreading her going, apprehensive about being left entirely alone with York.

      She wanted to say, He doesn’t believe I’m who I say I am. But she didn’t. Apparently, for some reason, York hadn’t voiced his concerns about her to his mother, and although Alex didn’t imagine Celia Masterton to be a woman easily taken in, the woman had accepted her far more readily than York seemed prepared to do. Better, therefore, she thought, not to start casting doubt in Celia’s mind as well!

      So she said, ‘He obviously resented Shirley for disgracing the family name and running off like she did. I suppose it’s only natural, therefore, that he should resent me too.’

      ‘I don’t think it’s so much that, dear.’ They rode on in silence for a few moments before York’s mother, looking uncomfortable, went on, ‘He loved your grandfather more like a father than an uncle. Unfortunately he was always closer to Page than he was to Kieran, my late husband. And I believe Page—your grandfather—didn’t ever really get over…’

      Her words were lost, caught and tugged away by the gusty wind that blew up from the wooded valley.

      Didn’t ever get over what? The stroke? Alex was about to query, but two figures on horseback were trotting towards them from the opposite direction, and her heart missed a beat, every nerve sharpening as she recognised the proud, confident rider sitting astride the dappled stallion. York!

      ‘Well, well, this is an unexpected pleasure!’ Cold eyes that appeared green-gold as he brought the prancing stallion to a halt were bright with laughter, skimming cursorily over Alex before coming to rest on his mother. ‘I see Kay kept her promise and made sure to reserve the two gentlest horses.’

      ‘Kay being the one on the left,’ Celia joked informatively to Alex, who was regarding the small, pretty girl accompanying him with nowhere near the degree of cold interest with which his lovely companion was assessing her.

      ‘I own the stable.’ Kay extended a slender gloved hand. ‘Well, in partnership with Daddy.’ Some years younger than Alex, she spoke with confidence and polish, the short, dark hair cropped neatly into her neck and her figure-hugging jodhpurs and jacket giving her a rather boyish look that somehow added more allure to her femininity.

      ‘York said he had an extra guest,’ Kay informed her after the man had introduced them, although he still wasn’t committing himself to accepting her as his cousin, Alex noted when he referred to her simply as Alex. ‘When he stressed that you might want something gentle, though,’ Kay went on, ‘I hadn’t imagined you to be so young. I thought you’d be more Celia’s age. In fact when I saw you coming…’ She shrugged, gave a little laugh.