Mistresses: Bound with Gold / Bought with Emeralds. Sandra Marton
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turned with a fat chuckle. ‘Well, surprise, surprise! Look who’s here. Keeping tabs on me, bro?’
Joshua’s gaze was steely and calm, his stance relaxed and yet also finely balanced. ‘Always.’
Chris snickered, even as he obeyed the silent command. ‘Night, Regan.’ He gave her a sloppy salute as he turned away. “Ware the bogeyman!’
Regan watched him go with puzzled eyes, wondering what he was so smug about, what it was he thought he had achieved. She cast a fleeting look at Joshua, not quite meeting his eyes.
‘Well…goodnight.’
She closed the door in his face, but she had only a few seconds to savour her small victory before it flew open again, and Joshua strolled in with an arrogance that immediately made her vibrate with outrage.
‘You could have knocked!’
‘Why? We both know you wouldn’t have opened it.’ He walked around the room, looking at the white flounced cover on the single bed, the half-open wardrobe displaying her small collection of clothes on hangers, the array of toiletries neatly arranged on the mirrored dressing table.
‘Perhaps because I didn’t want to let you in,’ she said with withering sarcasm, watching his profile as he picked up a paperback from beside the bed. ‘Would you mind not handling my things?’
He turned the book over with careful deliberation, stroking his fingers across the covers, touching every inch of the available surface before he just as deliberately set it down, satisfied he had delivered his silent message. He would handle whatever he liked, whenever he liked…
Including her? Regan felt a quiver of guilty excitement.
‘I did warn you not to flirt with Chris. It seems that you chose to deal with the consequences…’
‘You also said he didn’t need encouragement!’ she pointed out tartly. ‘I didn’t invite him up here, you know—he followed me. And in spite of everything Hazel said, I’m virtually a paid employee—I can’t start off my first day by insulting the brother of the groom—’
He spun around on his heel and rapped out, ‘You’re a little ahead of yourself. I’m not actually a bridegroom until my wedding day.’
He was playing with words again. She bravely stood her ground as he invaded her personal space. ‘He was very persistent. I couldn’t get rid of him without being rude. What was I supposed to do?’
‘Be rude…be very, very rude…’ His hand came up to cup the side of her throat, his thumb extending under the point of her chin. ‘I don’t like him touching you. I find I really—don’t like it an extraordinary amount…’
She swallowed, feeling the pressure of the ball of his thumb against her larynx and the heavy throb of blood at her pulse-point. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she murmured thickly, her voice vibrating in the cup of his palm. ‘The door is open…anyone could look in.’
‘We’re not doing anything wrong…’
Yet.
The unspoken qualification lingered in the air.
His eyes dropped to her mouth. Her lips parted. His head sank, his breath a hot streak of sensation across her cheek.
‘Say my name…’
‘What?’
He inhaled the scent of her skin. ‘I want to hear you say my name…’
‘Joshua.’ It was a mere sough of wind across her tingling lips.
His head sank further, the pressure on her throat increased and her mouth tilted up like a flower to the brilliant incandescence of the sun, and he groaned.
‘Damn and blast!’ His lips were hard against her forehead for a fleeting instant before his hands were gripping her shoulders, setting her firmly away. ‘No! We’re not going to do this.’ There was a sheen of perspiration on his forehead and upper lip as he stared down into her dazed violet eyes and ground out savagely, ‘You’re a complication I really don’t need right now!’
Stricken, she writhed out of his implacably gentle grip and lifted the shield of her pride. ‘Join the club, buster!’
There was a rustle from the hallway and they looked across just in time to see Carolyn drooping wearily past.
‘Carolyn?’ Joshua was at the door with startling speed.
She halted, her golden eyes curiously blank, not even seeming to register that her fiancé was coming out of another woman’s bedroom. ‘What?’
His voice gentled to a note that caused Regan physical pain. ‘Are you all right?’
‘No, I’m not all right.’ Her pouty mouth turned down sullenly. ‘I’m tired. I’m going to bed.’
‘But not all your guests have left—’
‘God, you sound just like Granny!’ she snapped. Then she put a hand on her flat stomach. ‘I don’t feel very well, OK?’
‘Do you think you’re going to be sick?’
‘Of course I’m not going to be sick!’ Two patches of pink stood out on her cheeks. ‘Tomorrow, when I get up in the morning, that’s when I’ll probably be sick, and I’ll feel rotten for half the day.’ Her eyes glittered with tears, this time genuine, and her voice was shrill. ‘Oh, God, I hate this—it’s all such a ghastly mess! If there were any justice in the world men would have to go through this, too!’
She dashed away down the hall towards her room at the far end, and when Regan would have gone after her she found a strong arm barring her way.
‘No, let her go. She’ll probably throw herself on the bed, have a good cry, and feel the better for it.’
After his tender tone, it seemed awfully callous. ‘But she says she doesn’t feel well.’ She remembered her earlier suspicions. ‘Perhaps she’s had too much to drink—in which case she might need someone there.’
‘She’s not ill and she’s not drunk.’
‘Not ill? But—’ Suddenly it hit her, nearly knocking her to the floor. She clutched at the door handle for balance and stared up at him as her mind made the conscious leap from instinct to understanding. That Empire-line dress and the many-layered look Carolyn had worn to dinner would cover a multitude of sins!
‘My God!’ Her voice cracked. ‘That’s why you two are in such a rush to get married! Carolyn’s pregnant, isn’t she? Isn’t she?’
His face was like granite, his voice tight with the effort of control as he lowered his voice. ‘Yes, she’s pregnant, but Hazel doesn’t know about it yet…that’s the way Carolyn wants it. So, for her sake, promise me you’ll keep quiet?’
‘You weren’t courting her, and you didn’t owe her fidelity, but you did go to bed with her—unless you’re going to claim it’s a virgin birth! You heartless, hypocritical, lying, lascivious beast!’
This time when she slammed the door thunderously in his face it stayed shut.
Chapter Seven
AT ELEVEN o’clock the next morning it was an unpleasant surprise to walk into the dining room and find the lying, lascivious beast laughing and chatting with Hazel and Sir Frank as Alice Beatson served him up a large plate of scrambled eggs and salmon cakes.
‘Good morning, Regan,’ carolled Hazel from her position at the head of the long refectory table. ‘Look who’s dropped in for brunch!’
While Sir Frank grunted and waved his marmaladecovered knife in greeting, Joshua had risen to his feet and rounded the table to pull out the chair squarely opposite his own.