Passion & Pleasure. Julia James
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I mean no one—suffers the kind of physical abuse you had to contend with and emerges unscathed.’
‘I don’t need this, Ma.’
‘I think you do.’ She was determined. ‘You were starved, Matthew. Starved and beaten. God knows what other kind of mental torture they put you through—’
‘For pity’s sake.’ Matt could feel every nerve in his body chilling with the memory. ‘Do you think this is helping? Is there any useful purpose in forcing me to remember? I’m trying to forget.’
‘I know, I know.’ At last his mother seemed to realise how insensitive her words must sound. ‘I’m sorry, darling, I’m a stupid old woman and you have every right to be angry with me. But I’m so worried about you, Matthew. We both are.’
‘Both?’ Matthew frowned.
‘Diane and I,’ said his mother impatiently. ‘She was such a comfort to me while you were away. A daughter couldn’t have been sweeter.’
‘Yeah, well…’ Matthew definitely didn’t want to talk about his relationship with Diane. ‘You can relax. I’m OK. Right?’
‘Right.’ But she still sounded uncertain. Then, injecting a note of optimism into her voice, she added, ‘Anyway, at least I’ll be able to tell Diane that you’ve got yourself a housekeeper. I know she’ll be relieved.’
Will she? Matt wanted to ask her not to mention it to Diane, but he didn’t have the strength to explain why. ‘I’ll ring you later in the week,’ he said, hoping to escape any more reproaches on Diane’s behalf. ‘OK?’
‘You will take care, won’t you, Matthew?’
‘I promise,’ he said, and with another brief word of farewell, he ended the call.
But, as he pushed himself away from the bookshelves and looked wearily around the library, he wondered if he was just kidding himself by thinking he could escape himself…
Chapter Seven
FOR the rest of the week, Fliss did her best to avoid her employer. She had plenty to do, and Matt himself seemed more than willing to keep out from under her feet. He didn’t mention what had happened and nor did she. She hadn’t forgotten the scars she’d seen on his back, but if he suspected she might tell her father he was very much mistaken.
On Wednesday morning, she arrived to find Albert Freeman, a local painter and decorator, already at work with his measuring tape and clipboard. He was only too happy to tell her that he’d been approached by ‘Mr Quinn’ to give him an estimate for how long it would take him to redecorate the hall, stairs and landing. Fliss knew a momentary—and totally unjustified—feeling of alienation at being cut out of the process. Matt had said nothing about his plans to her, and she consoled herself with the thought that he’d very likely find the pompous Mr Freeman rather hard to take.
However, she said nothing, getting on with her work as usual, and on Thursday morning it was Matt who came looking for her. She was cleaning out one of the store cupboards in the kitchen when his lean dark frame appeared in the doorway, and she was instantly conscious of him in every fibre of her being.
Fliss was standing on the top of the steps that had been rusting in the garden shed since old Colonel Phillips’s time, and she was unhappily aware of her bare legs below the cuffs of her khaki shorts.
It was ironic really, because for most of the week she’d sweated in her jeans and T-shirt. But today it was so hot, she’d decided to go with a sleeveless vest and shorts. It wasn’t as if Matt noticed what she was wearing, she’d assured herself. Most of the time, he barely seemed to notice she was there.
Except for that first morning…
But she didn’t want to think of that now, not when Matt was standing staring up at her with those dark, inscrutable eyes. He was wearing loose-fitting cotton trousers and an open-necked chambray shirt folded back over muscular forearms. Both the trousers and the shirt were black and accentuated the sombre cast of his expression.
‘D’you have a minute?’ he asked, and she wondered with an uneasy pang if he was going to give her notice. Finding out that her father wrote a column for the weekly newspaper had definitely angered him. It was only because he’d developed those muscular pains in his back and shoulders that the subject had been dropped.
The fact that that was several days ago now didn’t reassure her. He had been avoiding her, and he might have thought he had to let her work a week before finding fault with her efforts. Whatever, he was waiting for her to get down before telling her what he wanted, and, dropping the cloth she’d been using into the bucket, she turned, her foot groping blindly for the second stair.
The sudden crack as the support that had been holding the steps together snapped sounded like a gunshot in the quiet room. Almost in slow motion, it seemed, the two sides of the steps parted company, sliding away in opposite directions, leaving Fliss to flail uselessly for something to hold on to.
She was going to fall onto the steps, she knew. She couldn’t avoid it. A vision of herself hitting the floor, of her limbs crumpling onto broken ribs and bare metal was all too vivid in her imagination, and there was nothing she could do about it.
It didn’t happen. Somehow, Matt managed to grab her around the waist and haul her back out of harm’s way. For a heart-stopping moment she was in his arms, the hard muscles of his chest and thighs pressed close to her back. Then he lost his balance and they both went down, Fliss landing heavily on top of him.
He grunted as her weight knocked most of the air out of his lungs, but for a moment Fliss couldn’t move. She was so relieved that she’d escaped serious injury, that she wasn’t nursing any broken bones, that it wasn’t until she heard his stifled groan that she scrambled off him.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she cried, only just resisting the urge to run her hands all over him. Just to reassure herself that he was still in one piece, she told herself fiercely, ignoring the other urges his supine form engendered in her. ‘I’m such a fool. I should have had more sense than to use those old steps!’
Matt shifted a little uneasily, as if testing his own resistance to injury, and said weakly, ‘It’s not your fault. You didn’t know they were going to break at that moment. Where the hell did you get them, anyway?’
Fliss pulled a wry face. ‘From the shed.’
‘Whose shed?’
‘Colonel Phill—I mean, yours,’ she amended lamely. ‘They’ve been there for years.’
‘I believe it.’ He managed to get an elbow under his body and levered himself up onto it. ‘I guess I need some new ones.’
Fliss sat back on her heels. ‘I suppose you do.’ She bit her lip. ‘Are you all right? I haven’t—damaged anything, have I?’
Matt’s lips twitched with reluctant humour. ‘Well, you’re not as light as you look,’ he conceded mildly, and faint colour entered her cheeks. He winced as he moved again. ‘I may have need of your other services, however.’
Fliss blinked. ‘My other services?’ she echoed, not understanding what he meant for a moment. ‘What other services?’
Matt gave her a dry look. ‘What are you offering?’
Fliss swallowed. ‘I don’t know what—’
‘Physiotherapy?’ suggested Matt innocently, though his eyes were giving her a decidedly sensual appraisal. ‘I’m afraid I’m not in the market for anything else at present.’
‘Oh!’ Fliss’s face burned. ‘I wasn’t—I mean I never thought—’
‘No.’ His gaze had dropped to her mouth and she felt a flame ignite deep down in the pit of her stomach. ‘I know that. I was only kidding.’
He didn’t look as if he’d been kidding,