Dangerous Nights. Rosalie Ash
hot July day, four years ago. She’d just finished her first year at LAMDA. A virus had laid her low in the final few weeks of term, and she’d battled on, determined not to miss a single day of her course. When the holidays had finally arrived, she’d abandoned plans to stay with friends, and instead caught the train home to Dorset, to surprise her father.
After the frenetic pace of drama school, she’d been anticipating blissful peace at Farthingley, the sixteenth-century mansion where she’d spent an idyllic childhood. Instead, she’d arrived to find the house and its ancient wooded grounds seething with her father’s company employees, manically preparing for a top-level conference.
Her father’s secretary-PA had met her in the hall, her cool reception implying that Ana was intruding where she wasn’t wanted.
Security was high on the agenda, she’d stated cautiously, eyeing Ana’s wind-swept blonde hair, ripped denim jeans and outsized denim shirt with misgivings. While there was no specific cause for alarm, she’d informed Ana, Hart Pharmaceuticals had to take routine precautions against cranks. That was why there was so much coming and going in the house and grounds. Frankly, she was surprised Ana’s father had invited her home.
Ana had retreated to the kitchen, coaxed some freshly baked flapjacks and a carton of orange juice from Ellen, snatched the old picnic rug and a straw sunhat from the cupboard, and retired to the tranquillity of the walled herb garden with her well-thumbed copy of Romeo and Juliet.
Rounding the clipped, nine-foot yew hedge, preoccupied by childhood memories induced by the heady scent of lavender and rosemary, she’d literally bumped, headlong, into Jed Steele.
A pair of hard brown hands had stabilised her. She’d looked up into that cold grey-green gaze, locked eyes with him for the very first time, and felt…How had she felt? Different. Altered, in some fundamental way. Like emotionally crashlanding in a jungle, without a clue how to hack her way out again…
‘Who are you?’ he mused, a gleam in his eyes. ‘A spy from a rival drugs company, maybe?’
‘I could be.’ She heard her unsteady voice, her husky laugh, and felt mystified.
He hadn’t released her. He was still holding her upper arms in a firm grip. She was registering the most extraordinary sensations from the warm touch of his fingers. Even through the blue denim of her shirt, tiny impulses were snaking their way along her nerve-endings, arousing the sensitive army of hormones just beneath the surface of her skin…
She drew a shaky breath, pulling herself together determinedly. She couldn’t be feeling this riot of reaction to a chance encounter with a total stranger. Maybe it was the aftermath of her virus.
‘I’m not, though,’ she added on a calmer note. ‘I’m more in favour of alternative medicine. I prefer natural remedies to manufactured ones, don’t you?’
It was a provocative question, she knew. This man could only be here as one of her father’s employees. He’d hardly admit to siding with the enemy.
‘I’ll plead the Fifth Amendment on that,’ he murmured. There was no visible reaction on the harsh, dark face. This was a characteristic she was to become familiar with. Jed Steele appeared to have trained himself to control his reaction to provocation.
‘You’d better identify yourself,’ he added coolly.
‘Lord above—’ she flicked her eyes comically skywards, twisting her arms free of his restraint ‘—I come home for a spot of peace and quiet, and get interrogated in my own herb garden!’
‘You’re William French’s daughter?’ His eyes raked her up and down without the faintest flicker of personal interest. ‘Come to think of it, you look like him.’
‘Since my father’s fifty-something and decidedly rotund, I’m not sure how to take that. And who are you?’ She widened her brown eyes enquiringly beneath the brim of the ancient straw hat. He looked sober and efficient and businesslike, she noted, in a darkly expensive grey suit, white lawn shirt, muted fawn silk tie. In the warmth of the summer afternoon, and in contrast to her own casual attire, he looked overdressed. There was a portable telephone, or two-way radio receiver, or something, in his pocket.
‘Don’t tell me…you’re Dad’s latest right-hand man? The new “company son", eager to impress?’
The level gaze narrowed. Ana felt a jolt of confusion. Why had she said that? The sarcasm, the world-weary air she’d projected hadn’t even begun to reflect what she was feeling inside. Resorting to this self-protective act was fine when she wanted to fend someone off. But did she want to fend off this man?
‘And you’re his spoilt, bolshie teenage daughter, eager to stir up trouble?’ It was more a cool observation than a malicious insult.
She reddened, and bit her lip. With a slight, embarrassed laugh, she said quickly, ‘I’m not spoilt! Why does everyone always assume that because I’m the only daughter of a very rich man I must be spoilt?’
‘Maybe you’re not in a position to judge?’
Was there the faintest glimmer of amusement in the cool gaze?
‘Maybe not. But then neither are you! You don’t know me well enough to judge me,’ she reasoned, with a dimpled grin. Gesturing to the picnic basket hooked on her arm, she added impulsively, ‘Why don’t you join me for a flapjack? We can exchange life stories.’
There was a fractional pause.
‘Some other time, maybe.’
He turned go to, and impulsively she said, ‘I’m Anastasia—Ana—French. Don’t you have a name?’
‘Jed Steele.’ After a second’s deliberation, he turned back and gravely shook her outstretched hand. The wry smile she’d prompted made her heart squeeze and then leap crazily in her chest. With most people, a smile was just a smile. With Jed, it was such a brilliant contrast to the wary hardness of his features that it took her breath away.
She met him again at dinner. He was sitting beside her father, in a darker, more formal evening suit. They appeared to be in deep, soft-voiced conversation. The brilliant smile she gave him was ignored. The cool snub seemed deliberate. She was staggered by the sharp contraction of pain in her stomach…
Without admitting it to herself, she’d taken abnormal care with her appearance—hair piled up in an elegant chignon, subtle make-up to enhance her tilted brown eyes and high cheekbones, short brown silk skirt and a cropped cream lace blouse.
‘You look gorgeous tonight,’ her father had announced proudly when Ana had dropped an affectionate kiss on his thick, greying blond hair and joined them at the table. ‘Don’t you agree, Jed?’
Her father had turned to Jed, with a proud grin. ‘Have you met my daughter? Just back from her first year at drama school. She’s going to be a famous actress one day!’
‘We met earlier, in the garden,’ Jed had murmured non-committally, his light grey-green eyes dissecting her appearance with just the faintest hint of sexual interest. Ana had felt goose-bumps shivering the surface of her skin. Suddenly the cream lace top had felt transparent. Her lack of bra had felt like a major indiscretion. Fighting the warm blush creeping into her face, she’d averted her eyes quickly.
There were several of the company directors at dinner that night. The hum of conversation had gradually risen as wine and excellent food were consumed. The old oak-panelled dining-room, the candlelight and the flowers on the long, highly polished refectory table felt familiar yet strangely alien with Jed Steele’s cool gaze moving with what struck her as ruthless detachment over the entire gathering…
She pointedly concentrated on relating all her news to her father. She always enjoyed the warmth of his lively interest in her life. In turn, she heard about the conference, about the top-ranking scientists and drug-company chiefs expected to arrive the next morning.
When the meal was over, Jed Steele left