Sophisticated Seduction. Jayne Bauling
you, at least until I have Virginia’s assurance that you haven’t somehow manoeuvred her into giving you this assignment,’ he warned her casually.
‘Because my word on that isn’t good enough for you?’ she challenged scathingly.
‘I don’t know you,’ he pointed out.
‘Whereas you know your family are always honest?’ she prompted bitterly, with a thought for the way Loris had misled her, not with outright lies, admittedly, but through his silence about the other woman in his life. ‘Sita says you don’t like puddings, so there isn’t one. Shall I make coffee?’
‘I’ll do it, as you helped cook.’
He started to, but she swiftly began to suspect that he was doing it to avoid having to offer to help clear the table as it became obvious that he was not at home in a kitchen.
‘You’re in the way,’ she told him softly after a few minutes.
A slow smile transformed his face as he stood still, regarding her curiously.
‘That’s a very old-fashioned attitude, but then I suppose you’re too young yet to have been domestically exploited by my sex… And this makes you look even younger! Why are you blushing?’
He had reached round behind her to tug gently at her long, shining plait, the action catching her unawares. Suddenly incapable of moving, Bridget stood staring at him. She could feel his long, lean fingers against the back of her neck, and she was pierced by a sharp needle of sensation, oddly pleasurable and yet utterly disconcerting at the same time, dismaying and embarrassing her.
‘I’m… Nothing! It’s you! I’m just not used to—to living with anyone else,’ she prevaricated, aware of how gauche it sounded and blushing even more deeply.
Nicholas took his hand away, a speculative gleam in his eyes as Bridget retreated a step.
‘This isn’t exactly living together. Believe me, you’d find it a revelation if we were.’
‘I meant I’m not used to sharing a house with a stranger,’ she corrected herself, just before resentment got the better of her. ‘You take delight in trying to embarrass me, don’t you?’
‘Judging by this emotional reaction, I gather you find the whole situation embarrassing—or improper, Bridget?’ he taunted, his eyes seeming to study her hairline, observing the silky dark hair shadowing her temples, fine as a baby’s, the growth too new and short to be pulled back with the rest of her hair. ‘Relax—as I’ve said, I’m not interested in young, untouched girls, however lovely they promise to be, so you’re not in any need of a chaperon.’
It incensed her, goading her to rash retaliation. ‘Are you sure you don’t need one, though, Nicholas?’
Somehow she didn’t just see his slashing smile. She felt it too, cutting into some tender centre of sensitive emotion deep within her.
‘Oh, I think I can cope should you decide to leap on me in some frenzy of girlish lust,’ he claimed sardonically, and paused deliberately. ‘Nevertheless, I’m seriously advising you not to get any ideas of that sort where I’m concerned, sweetheart, because you wouldn’t enjoy my method of dealing with either infatuation or curiosity.’
‘You—’ Bridget was too enraged to find words. ‘Arrogant—I wouldn’t!’
‘What was that?’ He pretended not to understand, slanting her another brilliantly mocking smile. ‘You’re somewhat incoherent. Calm down, you baby. As I’m in the way, I’ll remove myself.’
But Bridget couldn’t calm down. She had never met anyone so utterly and deliberately provocative, and her fury was exacerbated by her confusion over the sensation that had assailed her when she had felt his fingers against the back of her neck so briefly.
When the coffee was ready, she took a tray through to the living-room, the faint fragrance of sandalwood that permeated the room for once failing to soothe her. Nicholas was scanning the front page of a newspaper and she would have liked to slam the tray down on to the low table beside him, but she had too much respect for the intricate inlay of delicate slivers of pastel semiprecious stones that adorned its upper surface.
‘Aren’t you having any?’ he asked, noticing the single cup and saucer.
‘Not with you,’ she snapped, and his face hardened visibly. ‘And I’ve only brought this here for you because I was the one who told you you were in the way!’
‘How very fair-minded of you! Off to your lonely bed to spend the night crying over your lost love or whatever he is again?’ he prompted unkindly.
‘No!’ Bridget denied it fiercely.
‘Here’s some free philosophy for you. I’ve often thought it might be of comfort to those of you who play this game of love.’ His tone had grown thoughtful. ‘I believe it evens out eventually, like bad line-calls in tennis. Next time around, it’ll be someone agonising over you, and even if the guy you’re crying over at present isn’t suffering over you he will be some day, over someone else.’
He wouldn’t say that if he knew it was his cousin Loris who had been responsible for her tears, Bridget reflected with wan humour. He would know Loris too well to believe in such an eventuality. Stirling men were all alike.
‘That’s horrible,’ she protested, unthinkingly dropping gracefully to her knees, her back straight, and beginning to pour his coffee, causing Nicholas to shoot her a startled look from beneath thick black eyelashes.
‘It’s about as much revenge as anyone can realistically hope for,’ he asserted.
‘I don’t want revenge,’ she insisted angrily. ‘I wouldn’t want someone to—to suffer over me the way I… Or over someone else either. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.’
‘You’re unbelievable!’ Nicholas was insultingly astonished. ‘Come on, Bridget, it’s unnatural not to want whoever has broken your heart to know what it feels like.’
‘He’s never likely to,’ she said in a dry little voice. ‘Milk and sugar?’
He laughed abruptly, startling her, and she lifted her eyes from her task to look at him. They were very close, so close that she could see the texture of his dark skin and the day-old stubble that darkened his jaw and upper lip. Nicholas stared back at her with cynically amused curiosity.
‘You really do believe in the helpless male, don’t you? No one else I know, however good-natured, would be serving me like this, and especially not if they were so furious with me that they weren’t prepared to join me. You’re doing it quite instinctively too, without a thought—’ Nicholas broke off, an irritable expression manifesting itself as he noted her sudden bewilderment. ‘I can assure you that I’m perfectly capable of putting sugar in my coffee and stirring it myself, Bridget.’
She rose with unconscious grace, bewilderment giving way to rage.
‘You’re right, I wasn’t thinking!’ she confirmed acidly, and walked out of the room, the sound of his soft laughter following her.
He quite clearly thought her an absolute idiot, she realised self-consciously, but he had been right in one respect. The instinct to tend to the comfort of others was so deeply ingrained that not even her angry resentment had stopped her doing it. She hadn’t even paused to wonder what she was doing, waiting on him like that, until he had pointed out the incongruity of the action.
Well, in future he could beg her on his knees and she still wouldn’t do a thing for him!
His mockery rankled and she was even more furiously convinced than before that he was the most unfeeling, offensive monster in existence. That was what made that strange pleasure she had taken from the touch of his fingers so shaming.
Bridget was restless that night, but at least there were no tears, mainly because she was too busy resenting Nicholas to spend more than a few minutes thinking