brows shot up. ‘I see! Well, if you want me to share your bed, I’ll be happy to stand in for Beaumont.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant!’
He sighed. ‘Pity. For a moment I thought—’
‘And you know quite well it wasn’t.’
His grin confirming that he’d just been baiting her, he said with mock resignation, ‘So the couch it is.’
With growing desperation, she clutched at straws. ‘But you don’t have any night things… And surely your hotel can’t be too far away?’
‘I do have some night things,’ he contradicted her calmly. ‘What I don’t have is a hotel. You see, I hadn’t planned on staying in town. My intention was to go on to Saltmarsh.’
‘Saltmarsh?’ The word was only a whisper.
Unbidden, her mind produced a series of vivid pictures. The town of Saltmarsh, with its narrow streets and half-timbered houses, its air of time standing still… Saltmarsh Island, some mile long by half a mile wide, connected to the mainland by a causeway which was only passable at low tide… Saltmarsh House, the beautiful old house that dominated the island…
‘It’s in Essex. Have you ever been there?’ Quinn’s glance was searching.
Her mind still full of images, she shook her head mutely.
‘It was once a thriving coastal town; now it’s a sleepy backwater with a population of a few thousand. My father used to live just off shore, on an island connected by a causeway.’
Used to? Henry Durville had once told her he would never willingly leave his home.
Had he become too ill to remain there? She saw Quinn’s eyes narrow, and for one frightening second thought she’d asked the question aloud.
But of course she hadn’t. Making an effort to pull herself together, Elizabeth went back to the real issue. ‘I’m quite sure you could find a hotel. There are several not too far away.’
‘I’m quite sure you’re right,’ he agreed easily. ‘But, taking everything into consideration, I’d rather stay here.’
She found herself begging. ‘No… Please…’
‘What are you so scared of? Don’t you trust me not to wander in the night?’
It wasn’t that. By his own admission he was married, and she was oddly convinced that he was a man who wouldn’t cheat on his wife.
As she began to shake her head, he went on, ‘If that’s it, I promise I won’t move off the couch.’
‘No, it isn’t.’
A gleam in his eye, he suggested, ‘You’re scared that with such a build-up of frustration you’ll wander?’
‘Nothing of the kind!’
‘Then why are you so against me staying until morning?’
She wanted him to go now. At once. Wanted never to have to see him again. The thought of him being here under her roof until morning was unendurable.
Hoarsely, she said, ‘Richard would be furious if he found out.’
‘Then we won’t tell him. Now, if you could just rustle up a spare pillow and a blanket, I’ll fetch my things in.’
Shrugging into his jacket, he went out to the car, leaving the door slightly ajar.
Feeling sick and helpless, she stood rooted to the spot, watching swirls of fog drifting into the room and disappearing like wraiths in the warmer air.
A moment or two later she heard the boot lid being closed. Only then, as though some part of her mind had just kicked in, she hurried to the door and slammed it shut. If he couldn’t see to drive, he could walk to the nearest hotel.
CHAPTER THREE
ALMOST before the thought was completed, she heard the key turn in the lock. A second later the door swung open.
Too late, she wished desperately that she’d reacted quicker and either pushed home the bolt or set the safety chain.
Closing the door carefully behind him, Quinn put the small grip he was carrying down beside the settee, and shook his head reprovingly. ‘That wasn’t very kind. It’s just as well I had the key in my pocket.’
‘Was that chance or foresight?’ she asked bitterly.
‘I try not to leave too much to chance…’
So the first time he’d opened the door he’d kept her key. She’d had so much on her mind she hadn’t given a thought to what might have happened to it.
‘Which is just as well. It’s as thick as soup out there. Even trying to walk to the nearest hotel would have been no picnic.’
Deliberately, he stepped towards her. ‘Don’t you think you owe me an apology?’
‘No, I don’t,’ she retorted with a boldness she was far from feeling. Then, standing her ground with an effort, she added, ‘I didn’t invite you in in the first place, and I want you to go.’
‘I’m afraid it’s what I want that counts.’ Though he spoke quietly, there was little doubt that beneath his air of calm he was furiously angry.
He took another step, and all at once he was much too near. She saw, as though magnified by some glass in her mind, that his dark hair was dewed with tiny droplets, his lashes were long and curly, and his green eyes had flecks of gold in their depths. At the corner of his mouth a muscle twitched spasmodically.
As she stood staring into that tough, dynamic face, he took her head between his hands.
She froze. Afraid he was going to kiss her. Wanting him to kiss her.
Even after all this time, and remembering how he’d cruelly shattered her life, part of her still hungered for him with a deep, primitive desire that frightened her half to death.
One hand dropping to cradle the warmth of her nape, the fingers of the other following the curve of her cheek and tracing the neat contours of her ear, he leaned closer.
Her lips parted and, drowning in a wave of emotion, she waited.
But instead of kissing her he tugged at first one earlobe, then the other.
She saw him slip something into his pocket but, dazed and disorientated, it was a second or two before she realized he had deftly removed her earrings.
‘What are you…?’ The slurred words were lost and every thought went out of her head as he nuzzled her ear, exploring the neat whorls with the tip of his tongue, making her shudder.
Firm and sensual, his lips travelled along the line of her jaw to find and linger at the warm hollow at the base of her other ear. While she stood spellbound, his teeth nipped playfully at the lobe, before that marauding mouth began to move towards hers.
At last. She closed her eyes.
His lips reached the corner of her mouth and lingered there tantalizingly. She was waiting in an agony of suspense, when suddenly he lifted his head and moved away, leaving her bereft.
Her eyes flew open.
He was watching her with a taunting little smile. ‘In view of what I said earlier about not moving off the couch, it might be better to call a halt before things get too heated.’
‘Why did you do that?’ she asked jerkily.
‘Don’t you know?’
‘Because you were angry?’
He raised a dark brow. ‘You think it was meant to be a punishment?’
‘Wasn’t it?’
‘Suppose we call it