‘I do. I’m worried about you and your aunt. That is one of the reasons why I am offering to pay generously for your services. Your aunt is worried about you,’ Nathan rushed on to reason with her before she could express further indignation.
‘Aunt Dora worries about most things.’
‘Mostly about you. Which is why I’m willing to pay you five thousand pounds if you come with me to Portugal.’
Lucy halted and stared at him incredulously. ‘Five thousand pounds?’ Letting out a small sound of frustration, with a toss of her head, she stalked ahead, her hands clenched by her sides. ‘You jest, Nathan Rochefort,’ she hissed when he fell in beside her. ‘How dare you play with my mind—with my feelings in this way? You really are quite despicable.’
Taking her arm, he brought her to a standstill. ‘I’m being serious about this offer,’ he stated firmly. ‘I want you with me.’
She raised her head with an impassioned air. ‘Doesn’t it matter what I want?’
‘Of course it does.’ The intensity receding slightly from his stare, he smiled. ‘It matters to me a great deal what you want. Just don’t ask me to believe that you are indifferent to the money I am offering to pay you.’
He spoke the truth. Of course she was tempted by the amount. Who in their right mind would not be? Five thousand pounds would mean she never had to work again and enable her to get the best possible care for Aunt Dora. But could she tolerate being with Nathan day in and day out, feeling his presence, his gaze, for ever watchful, commanding her, when she had struggled so hard to put the past and him behind her?
‘But why me?’ she cried. ‘Why pay me all that money?’ Her eyes locked on to his face and her gaze did not waver.
Seeing that his offer of five thousand pounds had taken the wind out of her sails and that passers-by were beginning to stop and gape at them, taking her arm, he began to escort her along the street. ‘I would prefer to carry on this conversation in private—at your house.’
* * *
Neither of them broke the charged silence on the way home, but no sooner were they over the threshold and the parlour door had closed behind them than Lucy faced him.
‘I’m not at all cut out for what you are asking of me. I would probably turn and run at the first sound of gunfire.’
Nathan gentled his gaze when he saw her staring at him with a stricken look. ‘Lucy,’ he said quietly, ‘I will always keep you safe.’
She bristled as though he had given her some great insult. ‘No.’ She shook her head, glaring at him accusingly. ‘No one can promise that.’
‘I can be very determined,’ he answered, with a half smile, as he saw he should push her. It was obvious he’d already touched a nerve. ‘I am not perfect. Far from it, in fact. But if you come with me, I will do all in my power to see that you come to no harm.’
‘How?’ she demanded, her green eyes glittering with remembered pain. ‘How can you claim you will do that? And why is there no one else you can ask?’
‘Because I know you. You are exactly the person I am looking for. You speak French for a start. As I recall it is very good.’
‘Aunt Dora taught me. She spent many years in France as a child. She considered French an important part of my education. What else?’
‘You are an accomplished actress—the only actress I know. Your talents may be required of you to play a part. You are also witty and wise enough to know a fool when you see one.’ He moved to stand directly in front of her, encouraged that she did not step away from him. ‘You have confidence, too, as well as a sense of humour—although I have seen very little of that of late. And your compassion for others compels my admiration and respect.’
Lucy trembled, staring at him.
‘You are also brave,’ he continued as she turned away abruptly. ‘The fact that you have worked your way through adversity in your profession and the care you take of your aunt is commendable and bespeaks your courage and good sense. It makes me feel that I can trust you, trust in your integrity, which is a rarity for me. It is not often I come across a person I can trust.’
She looked at him, listening like a doe in the woods, but poised to flee from him. She was rendered helpless by his words. It was difficult to argue with a man who praised her not for superficial things, as Jack had done, but for the very qualities that she most valued in herself. It would seem he did understand her a little better than she had given him credit for.
The tantalising channels in his cheeks deepened as he offered her a smile that seemed every bit as persuasive as it once had been. ‘Will you not relent, Lucy?’
She hesitated. All things considered, she could do worse. Feeling herself weakening, before she could do so completely, in a moment of desperation, she said, ‘I don’t know. And now I would like you to leave. I have much to think about.’
Shaking his head slowly, he moved to stand in front of her. Perhaps it was time to try another method of persuasion. ‘Not yet.’ His eyes delved into hers, seeking he knew not what. ‘I’d appreciate a few more moments of your time. We have much to reminisce over.’
His voice was low, incredibly warm, melting her. Lucy feared, from the inside out. She couldn’t believe what he was able to do with her emotions and with such little effort.
Sighing softly, he touched her cheek with the tip of his finger. ‘I remember our time together and our conversations and the first time I ever heard you laugh—the first time we kissed and the first time we made love,’ he said, his voice low and fierce and wrenching to hear. Suddenly he was catapulted backward through time while the image of the beauty before him abruptly blended into another image—that of an enchanting, curly-haired young girl who had once looked up at him with unconcealed love glowing in her eyes.
He could not prevent his thoughts from returning to what it had been like to be with her. The exquisite tease of her ankle caressing the back of his leg beneath a table, the feel of her arms coming up around his neck in a wave of delicate scent, the heat of her body. Most of all he remembered her face after they had made love, the genuine pleasure of her smile, pleasure that his kiss had given her, pleasure she had not been able to hide from him.
All that passion was within her still. It simmered just under the surface. He had been driven to unleash it and that was coming back to taunt him now, for he wanted to unleash it again. Within him, he felt a pang of nostalgia, mingled with a sharp sense of loss because the girl he had known was gone now.
‘I remember how it felt to hold you, how your skin felt to my touch. I remember how you looked in the moonlight with your face upturned to mine, wanting me to kiss you.’
‘Stop it.’ She felt her face grow hot beneath his eyes and turned from him, trying to still the trembling in her limbs.
Nathan moved to stand close behind her, bending his head so that his lips were close to her ear, his breath warming her neck. ‘I remember how you liked me to touch you, how you would say my name over and over again, of how you filled my senses until I could not think.’
Lucy placed the back of her hand over her mouth and caught back a sob of pain and fury. ‘You are cruel, so cruel,’ she told him in a fierce whisper. ‘You should not say these things to me when we both know it is only to get me to do what you want that impels you to say them.’
‘You accuse me of being cruel after what you did to me? You killed what we had without giving me an explanation. It is you who has been cruel, Lucy, to deny me that.’
‘Stop it,’ she cried, moving away from him. ‘I will not listen to this.’
‘Close your ears all you like, but I remember everything and I cannot believe you have forgotten. If you have, I will make you remember. I swear on my life I will.’
Turning round