on the crisp white pillows.
But Pierce’s eyes were closed, she noted with a sense of relief, his long black lashes lying like crescents just above the strong cheekbones, the dark regrowth of his beard already shadowing the hard line of his jaw. She’d just leave the towels and go, she told herself, moving on tiptoe so as not to disturb him.
It was as she reached for the switch to turn off the lamp that those heavy lashes lifted slowly and she froze, staring straight into slightly unfocused, sleep-clouded sapphire-blue eyes.
‘Natalie...’ Her name was a weary sigh rather than a sound of welcome, stilling the tentative smile on her lips. ‘What the hell do you want now?’
‘I just brought some towels—I forgot to give them to you earlier.’ Pain made her voice tight and cold, her gesture jerky as she indicated the small bundle at the foot of the bed. ‘I thought you’d probably want a shower in the morning.’
‘Thanks.’
She was dismissed, his indifferent tone said. His eyes were closing again, deliberately, she thought, communicating only too clearly the message that she was not wanted.
“All right, then, I’ll leave you in peace.’
‘Please do.’
Those two words burned like bitter acid in her heart.
‘Well... goodnight.’
She couldn’t help herself; a shadow of her distress tinged her words in spite of the effort she made to hold it back, and, as he heard it, Pierce’s eyes flew open again.
‘Nat...’ His voice was low and strangely rough at the edges. ‘Thanks for everything.’
There was a subtle, indefinable change in his face, one she couldn’t even begin to interpret, and suddenly he lifted himself up on the pillows, holding out a hand to her.
‘I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t been at home.’
‘I’m glad I was here for you.’
She tried to sound brisk and matter-of-fact, fighting against the recollection of just why he was here in the first place—because of the hurt that another woman had inflicted on him. But, try as she might, she wasn’t strong enough to resist the appeal of that outstretched hand, the new softness in his eyes.
Her heart jerked violently in her chest as she perched awkwardly on the side of the bed, taking the warm strength of his fingers in hers.
‘After all, isn’t that what friends are for?’ She let her hand linger in his for a moment longer, then forced herself to make a move to get up. ‘Now you must get some sleep—I need some if you don’t; I have—’
‘Nat,’ Pierce interrupted suddenly, his voice touched with a rawly urgent note that stilled her, holding her unable to move. ‘Don’t go—I don’t want to be alone—not tonight.’
‘But...’ Looking into his eyes, she saw how they had darkened, only the tiniest trace of blue edging the blackness of the pupils. ‘Pierce—’
‘Please.’
It was frightening how easily she found herself considering it, appalling how little hesitation there was before she accepted the idea. It was downright impossible to say no, even though stern reason warned her not to consider the idea even for a second, but to get out now.
‘I don’t have any ulterior motives.’ Slight as it had been, Pierce had caught her hesitation and hurried to reassure her. ‘For one thing, I’m half asleep already—I was dead on my feet downstairs—and I’ve really had far too much to drink to be considered a threat to any woman. And besides, we’re friends...’
If only he knew how much she had come to hate that word, particularly now, when the description seemed so very far from flattering. It was more than he had ever offered her before, but a million miles from what she wanted. As his friend, she had no physical appeal for him. The cold rationality of that thought pushed her into a belated attempt to assert some sort of control over things.
‘I don’t think it would be—’
‘Please.’
It came so softly that she might have missed it if she hadn’t been so sensitive to everything about him, but she did catch it and it tugged at her already vulnerable heart. It would have taken a far stronger will than she possessed to resist that low-voiced appeal, and besides, he was already drifting away into exhausted sleep, heavy lids closing, his breathing slowing.
Looking at him now, with those brilliant eyes hidden from her, his face relaxing from the taut, strained lines that had drawn the skin tight over his forceful bone structure, she could see the younger Pierce in him again.
‘I need a hand to hold...’
‘What?’ She couldn’t believe she had heard right, the words slurred with sleep. Or, if she had, did it mean as much to him as it did to her?
‘A hand to hold...’
Natalie bit down hard on her lower lip as the intervening years were stripped away and she was once more a skinny adolescent, physically a late developer and desperately, painfully self-conscious, particularly when Pierce Donellan was around.
He hadn’t noticed her at first, of course. When her mother had started work at the Manor, she had been a mere eleven, and Pierce a lordly twenty-year-old. He had barely spared her a glance then, or at any point over the next couple of years, but then fate had stepped in in a dramatic way, throwing her quite literally at his feet.
She had been on her way home from school, returning late after staying for choir practice, and already the gathering dusk had been closing in around her, the conditions worsened by a miserable, persistent drizzle. It had been as she was crossing the road to the bus-stop that a motor cyclist, travelling far too fast, had come roaring round the corner, slamming into her and sending her flying. For a moment she had lost consciousness, coming round a short time later to find herself lying on the pavement supported by strong, comforting arms and with a pair of deeply concerned blue eyes looking down into hers.
She’d thought she’d died and gone to heaven, she recalled now, a soft smile curving her lips at the memory of the way Pierce, who had been taking that route home when he had seen the accident, had despatched someone to collect her mother while he stayed with her, travelling to the hospital in the ambulance when it came. He had held her hand, soothed away her fear with gentle words, and hadn’t even noticed the way her badly grazed arm had dripped blood all over his expensive suit.
She’d lost her heart to him then, and in the weeks that followed, when, knowing that a fractured ankle meant that she was confined to her room in the housekeeper’s quarters at the Manor, he had been a frequent visitor, bringing books and games to keep her amused, tasty treats to tempt her appetite. She had lost her heart completely and had never, ever been able to get it back.
It had been then that, unable to thank him properly, but wanting to convey her gratitude as well as she could, she had poured out the ardent, if naive, declaration of feeling that Pierce’s words had brought so vividly to mind.
‘If ever you need me—for anything—you only have to ask,’ she had said, not pausing to ask herself what an unsophisticated, barely fourteen-year-old could possibly offer to a grown man almost a decade older. ‘If you need someone—a hand to hold as you held mine—I’ll be there.’
But then, of course, what she had felt for Pierce had been simple hero-worship, the blind, unquestioning devotion of innocence, uncomplicated by the sort of considerations that had come with maturity and a greater understanding of the complexities of relationships between men and women. With young adulthood had come a realisation of exactly what her mother feared, and a new sense of awareness—the sort of awareness that now kept her frozen on the edge of the bed, unable to move one way or the other.
‘Nat?’ Pierce forced open sleep-blurred eyes, their jewel brightness softened to the gentleness of a spring morning sky. ‘I