A Cotswold Christmas Bride. Joanna Neil
by chance, could it? And now she was alone with him in her hotel bedroom, and it began to dawn on her that she was becoming increasingly vulnerable, lying here this way and allowing him to make all the running. She didn’t know the first thing about him.
She tried to sit up, and suddenly realised that she had complete freedom of movement, with no tight-waisted silk dress to bind her rib cage or folds of soft material to tangle with her limbs.
‘Stay where you are for a bit longer,’ he advised in an even tone, laying a hand lightly on the smooth, bare flesh of her arm. ‘If you try to get up too soon you may become dizzy all over again.’
A ripple of heat ran through her. His gentle, but firm, touch set her heart racing and she looked away from him, away from the purposeful silver glint reflected in his eyes.
Instead, she stared down at bare limbs, at her long, shapely legs, which were naked but for a shimmer of lace that edged her flimsy, silk chemise. She gasped. ‘You took my dress off me,’ she said in a shocked whisper. Her hand went up to cover the creamy swell of her breasts, but it was a futile gesture, one that came far too late, because he had already seen everything he wanted, hadn’t he?
His gaze moved over her, amusement lurking in the depths of his grey eyes. ‘I did,’ he agreed. ‘I thought it was the best course of action at the time. You were burning up, and I thought you might be able to breathe better for being unzipped.’
‘But you … you don’t know me, and yet you … I can’t believe that you would do that …’ She stared at him, her blue eyes troubled, her cheeks hot with mortification. ‘You could have just undone the zip … that would have been enough.’
‘I don’t believe in half-measures … and really, you shouldn’t worry—I had your interests at heart. I didn’t intend to take advantage of you. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.’
‘But you did.’ She fumbled around for a sheet, desperate to cover herself, but she was lying on the duvet and he was pinning it down with the weight of his body so that her efforts were futile.
He shrugged. ‘You’re worrying too much.’
‘That’s easy for you to say. I’m not used to being in this sort of situation.’
He gave a half-smile. ‘That goes for the two of us.’
She scrambled to a sitting position and then leaned back as a wave of dizziness threatened to swamp her once more.
Lucas leaned forward and piled up the pillows behind her. ‘See?’ he said. ‘Didn’t I tell you that would happen? Sit back for a while and let the blood settle.’ He assessed her thoughtfully. ‘Seriously, you don’t have to worry about me looking at you. I’m a doctor. My intentions are perfectly honourable, I can assure you of that.’ He left her for a moment and walked to the bathroom.
Returning, he handed her a satin kimono. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘put this on.’
‘Thank you.’ Sophie slid her arms into the robe and stared at him doubtfully from the sanctuary of her pillows. ‘You’re a doctor?’ she said. It didn’t really come as that much of a surprise to her. After all, the bride and groom worked in a hospital, and so a good many of their guests were likely to be medical professionals.
She was a doctor herself, a paediatrician at a hospital in the Cotswolds, but she didn’t want to share that information with him right now. This whole situation was way too embarrassing and she just wanted to escape from it as soon as she could. ‘If that’s the case, maybe you’ve managed to come up with a diagnosis of sorts?’ Perhaps her tone was sharper than she intended. She was frazzled, and annoyed because she had found herself in this predicament.
He might well have detected her note of cynicism, but he made a show of taking her words at face value. ‘Well, your pulse was racing,’ he answered, ‘and I suspect your blood pressure was sky high for a while. It occurred to me that you might be anaemic. If you’re not eating properly, you might not be getting all the right nutrients—and, of course, being a woman, you’ll be more prone to anaemia …’
‘Yes,’ she cut in swiftly. ‘I don’t believe you need to go into detail.’ She frowned. ‘And I doubt I’m anaemic. I’m just stressed, that’s all. I’ve been stressed for weeks, with one thing and another.’ She clamped her mouth shut. Why was she telling him her problems? How did she know if he was to be trusted?
‘Not just because of Nathan, then?’ His voice was soothing, coaxing her to divulge more.
She shrugged lightly, a movement that caused the robe to slip, allowing a glimpse of bare shoulders. His gaze followed the movement, lingering momentarily on the creamy slopes until she tugged the robe back in place.
‘I doubt he’s really worth all that anxiety,’ he murmured. ‘You seemed quite keen to be free of him earlier. Perhaps you’re at war with yourself.’
She shook her head. ‘No, you’re right, it isn’t just that.’ The end of a relationship was a bad thing, but she would get over it, wouldn’t she? In fact she was already over it. Or at least, so she had thought, until Nathan had turned up here today. She gave a heavy sigh. ‘I lost my parents a couple of months ago,’ she explained. ‘It was a shock. It was so unexpected. An accident.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He moved closer to her, laying a hand on her arm. ‘That must have been dreadful for you … an awful tragedy.’ He stroked her arm lightly, a gentle caress, like a breath of warm air gliding over her. It was meant to be a gesture of sympathy, to show her that she wasn’t alone, but his touch seared her flesh and Sophie had to take a deep breath in order to calm herself and enable her to go on.
‘It’s not something you think will ever happen.’
‘No. I don’t suppose it is.’ He lifted his hand to her face to smooth back the strands of hair that had fallen over her cheek. ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters that can help you through this?’
She shook her head. ‘There’s no one … no family.’ She hesitated, aware of his fingers following the line of her cheekbone, tucking the wayward tendrils of hair behind her ear. It was a strangely hypnotic motion that made her want to lean back into his embrace. It encouraged her to go on talking, to tell him everything that was going wrong with her life.
‘So how are you coping? Not well, by the sound of things.’
‘No—it’s difficult, you see, because now I have to take over the running of the farm. I used to help out, but finding myself in charge has been a bit overwhelming.’
‘I imagine it would be easier said than done.’ He sounded curious.
She nodded. ‘I’m at my wits’ end, really. I have to keep going because if I don’t do it, who else will see to the animals?’ She thought about it, and about Nathan’s reaction. ‘I’d hoped Nathan might want to help out, him being a vet and all, but it seemed he had other things on his mind.’
She’d expected Nathan to understand what she was going through and to be supportive, but he had seemed preoccupied, and she had been left to muddle through on her own. She felt as though he had let her down when she needed him most.
‘What sort of things?’
‘Well, after my parents died, I inherited the farm, as well as money tied up in shares and investment bonds. Nathan was full of plans for what we might do with it.’
‘You think the money was important to him?’
‘I don’t think it was the money in itself. I think it was just that it made him ambitious. He started to make plans, and he would talk about starting up a veterinary practice of his own—he’d need a large property and acres of land, he said, and he thought my farm, Woodvale, would be the ideal place for that. That wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want the house turning into business premises … it was my home.’
She frowned. ‘I suppose I began to see him in a different light—he had started to take