Shadows Of Yesterday. CATHY WILLIAMS
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bathroom and dressing-room, ‘to shout to you from the bathroom, so you can either step over that threshold or else whatever you have to say will have to wait until another, more appropriate time.’
He turned on the shower and Claire reluctantly closed the bedroom door behind her and followed him to the dressing-room.
He had turned on the shower and through the open door she could see him getting undressed until he was completely naked. He was making no effort to continue their conversation. Either he was totally incurious about what she had to say or else he was simply waiting until she was forced to break the silence.
Claire took a few steps towards the bathroom but she didn’t enter, and she refused to give in to the temptation to stare at the sleek, strong body, hazy behind the smoked shower-door. She deliberately turned away and stared in the opposite direction. It was a dramatic bedroom, full of deep reds and golds, with an eighteenth-century fourposter bed dominating everything. Quite out of character from the rest of the place, which relied on muted colours to create a feeling of refined good taste. It had always struck her as a fitting background for someone as sensuous as James.
‘Still pretending to be a shrinking violet?’ he whispered from next to her, and she jumped, turning around to stare at him. His hair was damp and he was wearing nothing apart from a thick beige towel wrapped precariously around his waist. The shower had obviously refreshed him, though. He was in a better mood, not as abrupt and biting as when he had first walked into the study.
‘Still set on talking?’ he asked in the same low voice, and he gave her a smile of such devastating charm that the breath caught in her throat. ‘Or should we postpone the conversation in favour of something less cerebral?’ His fingers curled into her hair and he drew her forward, tilting her face up to him. Her lips parted, an unconscious reaction, and he covered them with his own. She felt him harden, aroused, against her and she placed the palms of her hands on his chest and pushed him away. He stepped back, surprised and irritated.
He would be surprised, she thought, and irritated. She had never rejected him before. On the contrary, she had yielded to him like a flower bending in the wind, allowing him to dictate her responses, the eager novice so willing to be taught. The thought of it was enough to make her feel ill.
‘Well,’ he said, turning away and unhitching the towel from his waist, throwing it across a chair then rummaging through the chest of drawers to extract a pair of silk boxer shorts, which he slipped on before turning to her, ‘get it off your chest. You’re standing there like a virgin about to be raped. I don’t think I can stand the suspense of wondering what you have to say that’s of such great importance.’
‘Really?’ Claire said flatly. ‘You don’t look like a man who’s crying of suspense. In fact, you don’t look as though you give a damn about what I have to say.’
That outburst surprised him even more. He folded his arms across his chest and stared at her as though she had taken leave of her senses.
This was the first time that she had ever confronted him. He was not a man to encourage confrontations. There was a steel-hard core to him that made you think twice before you decided to cross him. Now, she was beginning to wish that she had never begun on this route. He was making her nervous, staring at her like that with those dramatic, shuttered green eyes, his arms folded, like someone who was temporarily willing to be indulgent, but not for very long. She licked her lips and told herself that she had nothing to be scared of. She had slept with this man, and besides, she had every right to ask him whatever she chose to. He could hardly kill her just because he didn’t care for the question.
‘Well?’ he prompted silkily. ‘I’m all ears.’
Claire took a deep, steadying breath and stretched out her hand with the photo. ‘I’d like to know about this,’ she said quietly.
He stepped forward and took the picture. He stared at it, then he looked up at her, his eyes as hard as diamonds.
‘And where did you get this?’
‘In the drawer of your study,’ Claire said defiantly. ‘I was doing some artwork at the cottage and my paper supply ran out. I thought that you might have had some foolscap up here. I know you sometimes work from your study, and I didn’t think that you would mind…’ Her voice trailed off and she realised that her courage was beginning to desert her. When she had been angry, it had been easy to face the thought of confronting him, but now she was no longer angry, she was scared stiff, and she had no idea what to say next. Every word was like taking one step further on molten lava.
There was a long, unbroken silence and finally he said in a cold voice, ‘I would have locked that bureau if I had suspected that you would feel free to come up here and rummage through it.’
‘I was not rummaging through it,’ Claire defended hotly. ‘But how else would I have found the paper if I hadn’t…?’
‘Had a good, long look at everything else in there,’ he finished for her and she went scarlet, even though what he was implying was far from the truth. She hadn’t been nosing around. That sort of thing simply wasn’t in her nature.
‘I wasn’t even looking in the drawer,’ she said angrily. ‘I stuck my hand in…’
‘And to and behold, what should it chance upon but this?’ He threw the photo on the bed where it landed face-down.
‘Will you let me finish?’ she asked tightly. ‘Yes, I pulled it out, and yes, I looked at it, of course, I’m only human after all. I thought,’ she added with a trace of sarcasm, ‘that you might want to provide an explanation.’
He was beginning to look dangerously angry, and her eyes widened in apprehension as he took a step towards her.
‘I can’t imagine why you would think any such thing,’ he said in a soft voice that carried a hint of distaste in it. ‘I didn’t realise that I owed you anything, least of all an explanation about something that’s really none of your business.’
That hurt, but she wasn’t going to let him see that. The man in front of her wasn’t the James that she had fallen in love with. This was a stranger, a cold, menacing stranger.
‘We’ve slept together,’ she began, and he gave a bark of laughter.
‘And?’
‘And,’ she stuttered in confusion, ‘and I would have thought, I would have imagined… I mean when two people sleep together, they usually share things…’ As soon as the words were uttered, she realised how ridiculous they sounded. There was nothing cosy about their relationship, it wasn’t an ordinary, run-of-the mill situation where two people shared their bed and their hearts. It was wild, and obsessive, and ultimately, she knew now, fatal, at least for her.
‘I always knew that you were far too young for me,’ he said coolly. ‘Because, my dear Claire, we made love, that does not entitle you to scour my private life.’
‘But I am your private life!’
‘You flatter yourself.’ He turned away and she blinked rapidly, fighting down the sting of tears.
He moved across to stand at the window, half turned away from her, an impressive animal without an ounce of scruple, and she wanted to rush across to him and tear his eyes out.
‘Didn’t I mean anything to you?’ she asked, trying with great difficulty to maintain some semblance of self-control.
His shoulders stiffened and he remained silent for so long that she began to wonder whether he had heard her question. Not that she was inclined to repeat it. After all, it didn’t take a genius to deduce the answer from that telling, prolonged silence.
‘What do you want me to say to that?’ he asked, facing her, half sitting on the window ledge.
Yes! she wanted to scream at him, I want you to say yes! I want you to say that you’re as crazy about me as I am about you! I want you to declare undying love and fidelity!
‘You