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  She had started to tremble. Automatically her arms went round him, holding him close, her heartbeat racing with excitement and tension, as her body recognised the heat and arousal of his.

  ‘I want you so much,’ he groaned against her ear. ‘I came here today determined to behave in a mature and controlled fashion to reassure you that, while last night was the most wonderful night of my life, I could control my desire for you and take things slowly, allow you all the time you needed to get to know me, to talk things over sensibly and maturely, and yet now, with you in my arms, all I can think about is how much I want to kiss you…to touch you, to hold you the way I held you last night and to make love to you until you make those same little sounds of pleasure against my skin, until you…’

  His lips were caressing her throat in between the husky words he was whispering to her. She was trembling violently, her body reacting as urgently and eagerly as his. She closed her eyes, tilting her head to one side and whimpering huskily with pleasure as his mouth devoured the exposed column of her throat. Another second or so and he would be touching her mouth, caressing it with his lips, gently at first, delicately as though she were the most delicate and precious thing on earth, and then less gently, and more passionately, far more passionately until…

  ‘Mum, I’ve got your jacket.’

  Her eyes opened, her body tensing as she tried automatically to step back from James, but he refused to release her so that when Lucy bounded into the room he was standing with one arm around her.

  Lucy seemed completely unperturbed by their intimacy, coming over to her and handing her her jacket.

  ‘Is Rupert really staying with you?’ she asked James as they all headed downstairs.

  ‘Yes, he is indeed,’ James assured her, and then added, ‘I think you and I might have a go at training him, and teaching him some sense. What do you say?’

  ‘Oh, yes, let’s,’ Lucy agreed quickly, and when Tania had finished locking the door, she turned round to discover that Lucy had slipped her hand into James’s and was standing gazing up at him with something very close to adoration in her eyes.

  Fear clutched at Tania’s stomach, fear not just for herself but for her child as well. Things were happening too quickly, and too intensely. She had no experience of this kind of thing, no previous knowledge by which she could judge the present situation. Instinct warned her to be cautious, but when James turned and looked at her and smiled at her the way he was doing right now, it was difficult to remember to be cautious, difficult to remember anything at all other than the way he made her feel when he touched her.

  ‘No, Mum. You sit in the front with James,’ Lucy instructed her firmly, when James had unlocked the car door, and settled Lucy safely in the rear seatbelt.

  Confused, Tania hesitated, standing beside the rear door, until James said softly, ‘Yes, Tania, you come and sit beside me. Please.’

  Willingly she did so, fumbling with the seatbelt until he took it from her and gently slotted it into place, smiling at her the whole time, so that even though he hadn’t actually touched her body she was sharply aware of how much he would have liked to do so, of how easily, had they been alone, he might have slid his hands over her body and caressed her breasts, as he had done last night. Her chest felt tight, her breath had become erratic, beneath her sweatshirt she felt the sudden tightening of her nipples and her face flushed with mortification. She could feel James looking at her, and prayed that he wasn’t able to read her mind. That she, she who had never really experienced any kind of wanton sexual urges or impulses, should now feel this, react like this, ache like this…

  She bit her lip, worrying it, believing that her thoughts, her feelings were known only to herself until James set the car in motion and told her softly, ‘It’s just the same for me, you know. And contrary to popular myth the majority of men do not enjoy wanting one particular woman so much that the mere thought of her is enough to bring them to intense physical arousal…especially not once they get to my age.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he told her roughly, when she turned towards him, an involuntary protest on her lips, even while her eyes were rounding with shocked excitement. ‘Don’t,’ he repeated. ‘Otherwise there’s no way I’m going to be able to keep my hands off you.’

  Why was it that her body reacted to his words more as though they were a promise than a threat?

  Trying to fight against the sensations quivering inside her she turned round to ask Lucy if she was all right, all too conscious of her flushed skin and husky voice.

  Perhaps it was because she had never experienced passion before, never imagined it could ever be something she would know at first hand, never believed or considered that she would want with such intensity that she was so bowled over by what she was feeling, alternately bewildered and bemused by it, torn between awed delight and sharp fear as she recognised how drastically, how permanently what she was feeling was going to change her life. There was no going back now, no way she could wipe out what had happened and return to her safe, unawakened state. Even if she never saw James again, even if she shut him out of her life completely, she could never obliterate the memories he had given her; the feelings, the emotions, the needs. No, she would never be able to wipe her emotions or her body free of their knowledge of him.

  She felt the car slowing down and turned her head, focusing on her surroundings. They were turning in through a minute pair of gate lodges, shaped like dovecotes.

  ‘Hence the name of the house,’ James told her wryly, aware of her small start of pleasure. ‘Not original features of the house, though. That was built in sixteen hundred and odd. These were added round about eighteen-fifty when the estate was bought by the first Warren to settle here. He apparently built them to please his new bride. Perhaps after all I oughtn’t to be so surprised at the way I’m reacting to you. It isn’t as though I’m the first Warren male to fall helplessly and very deeply in love.’

  Lucy wasn’t listening to them; she was too busy exclaiming her excitement as James drove down the long gravel drive. The lawns that swept back from it were covered in fallen leaves from the trees that lined the drives and dotted the green parkland, many of them probably rare specimens, Tania reflected, trying not to give in to her growing awe.

  When she had glimpsed the house from the river, she had not realised it might be so impressive, so stately, and it was almost a relief when they rounded the final bend and she saw the house in front of her to realise that it was not after all the imposing edifice she had been dreading, but rather a delightful creeper-clad three-storeyed building of simple proportions built in what she later discovered was a classic H shape out of soft russet-coloured bricks.

  James stopped the car, allowing her to study the house in silence until Lucy exclaimed impatiently, ‘Where’s Rupert? Can I play outside with him, please, James?’

  ‘After your mother and I have had a cup of tea, we’ll all go for a walk through the grounds,’ James promised her, and then, turning to Tania, he said simply and quietly, ‘Welcome to what I hope one day very soon will become your new home, Tania, my beloved.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  TEARS stung Tania’s eyes. She reached shakily for the seatbelt release, letting her hair slide forward protectively to conceal her expression from James.

  This place her home? Nothing could have been a greater contrast to her inner city flat, and yet instead of feeling awed or intimidated as she walked with James into the magnificent tiled hallway she felt as though the house were actually welcoming her.

  The soft sounds of creaking wood, the scent of beeswax polish from the panelling, and apple logs from the open fire; all of them were somehow familiar and warming. It was as though the house itself were murmuring its appreciation of her, settling warmly around her.

  On the polished oak table next to the huge jug of autumn flowers stood a large silver framed photograph. She focused on it automatically, catching her breath as she recognised a much, much younger Jam
es standing between an older man and woman. The young girl standing at his side must surely be Clarissa.

  As though he sensed what she was thinking, James moved over to the table and picked up the photograph.

  ‘My father and Clarissa’s mother shortly after they were married. He’d been a very lonely man after my mother’s death and Harriet made him very, very happy—’

  He was about to say something else, but broke off as they heard a sharp volley of shrill barks from behind one of the doors. Someone opened it from the other side, and Rupert came rushing out to greet them all with ecstatic, enthusiastic barks and licks.

  The plump, rather breathless woman following him apologised, ‘I am sorry, Mr Warren, but he was that excited.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Jane. While you’re here let me introduce you to Ms Carter and her daughter, Lucy.’

  He drew Tania forward, standing behind her, with his hands placed lightly and yet very possessively on her shoulders as she shook hands with the older woman.

  As he introduced her to Jane Williams, his housekeeper, Tania reflected ruefully that he was making their relationship more than plain to the older woman, but if she was either surprised by or disapproving of it she did not betray it in the genuinely warm and welcoming smile she gave Tania, before turning to Lucy and exclaiming with pleasure, ‘So this is the young lady who is going to take this rascal Rupert out of my kitchen for a little while.’

  ‘I’m afraid Jane is finding Rupert something of a trial,’ James told Tania after the housekeeper had excused herself to finish preparing lunch. ‘It isn’t that she’s anti-animal, far from it. The kitchen is in fact ruled by an extremely large and lazy cat which she spoils to death, but Rupert’s manners leave something to be desired, I’m afraid to say. I said to Clarissa when she bought him that she’d be better off with a more placid breed, a retriever or a labrador, but no, she’d set her heart on having a King Charles, and, quite irresponsibly, totally refused to make any attempt to train him. It’s not the dog’s fault. He had a nice enough nature, but he’s already caused a commotion locally by escaping and putting up some of the birds Colonel Walters was raising for his annual shoot. Prior to that he nearly drowned himself chasing ducks in the mill pond at Mill House.’

  ‘Can you train him, or is it too late?’ Tania asked him. Now that they were alone, Lucy having gone with Jane to the kitchen to see the aforementioned cat, she suddenly felt unbearably self-conscious and nervous.

  ‘No, it’s not too late,’ James told her and then came towards her, stopping a few feet short of her, to ask her gently, ‘What is it? Are you really so frightened of me?’

  She shook her head immediately, half laughing at her own vulnerability as she admitted, ‘No, not of you. But I am frightened of…well, of everything else.’

  For a moment he obviously didn’t understand. He frowned and looked around the pleasant sitting-room in which they were standing and asked quietly, ‘The house. The house frightens you?’

  ‘No, not the house. This…this thing between us.’ She still could not bring herself to put her emotions into words, to say as he had done that she loved him. ‘It’s all happened so quickly, so unexpectedly.’

  He came to her, and took hold of her hands, holding them firmly in his own.

  ‘Are you trying to tell me you’ve had second thoughts? That you don’t want me? That last night—?’

  ‘No,’ she interrupted him honestly. ‘It’s not that. I may not have your experience, I may not have had any previous experience at all really, but I know that…’ She paused, took a deep breath, looked up at him and admitted openly, ‘I know that what we had…what we shared last night was something very special, something…something rare and precious, and I can’t regret it. But there are so many problems, so much…’

  ‘You’re thinking about Clarissa?’ he asked her.

  Slowly Tania nodded her head. She hadn’t wanted to voice her doubts, her apprehensions. She hadn’t wanted to reveal to him what she considered to be her own small-mindedness, but she felt as though her own deep-rooted antagonism towards Clarissa was like a tiny speck of poison, so small now that one could hardly believe it could ever in any remote way harm the way she felt about him, and yet at the same time instinct told her that it was something that did threaten any future happiness they might otherwise share, and that in burying it, in ignoring it she would be allowing it to grow and fester.

  Clarissa was James’s stepsister. He had always loved and protected her. It was only natural that he should be concerned for her, should even make excuses for her, and Tania doubted if she would ever be totally able to come to terms with his love for her, or with his need to protect her. Just as she doubted that Clarissa would ever be able to accept another woman, any other woman in her brother’s life.

  Privately she didn’t know if she had the temperament, the patience or the compassion to deal with Clarissa’s dangerous and neurotic behaviour, and then even if she was prepared to do so, to make herself tolerate and accept Clarissa’s role in James’ life, how could she even think of allowing Lucy to be exposed to her venom a second time?

  Much as she wanted James, much as she loved him, ached for him, needed him, how could there really be a future for them together when Clarissa would always be there between them? Even if she was the kind of woman who could ask him to banish Clarissa from his life, even if he was the kind of man who was prepared to do so, how could any kind of deep and lasting love grow between them if she forced him to make that kind of decision? How could she live with herself if she did so, never mind expect James to live with her and love her? And yet how could they have any chance of building a life together, a secure safe life for their love, for Lucy and for the children they themselves might have if Clarissa was always there, constantly reminding her of what had happened, of how she had threatened Lucy’s safety?

  It was a problem to which there was no answer, and now, seeing the anguish and pain in James’s eyes, she whispered achingly through numb lips, ‘Can’t you see I have to think of Lucy…the risk?’

  ‘Yes. Yes,’ James agreed heavily. ‘I can see that. But Tania…please let me explain about Clarissa. Sit down for a moment.’

  Reluctantly Tania did so, her eyes wary as James led her to the comfortably cushioned and plump settee with its soft brocade cover, the fabric rich and warm beneath her fingertips. He sat down next to her, taking hold of her free hand and keeping it within his own.

  ‘Clarissa’s father deserted Clarissa’s mother when she was seven years old. Prior to that he had treated Harriet abysmally, even to the point of trying to turn Clarissa against her mother. When he finally left the family to go and live with a woman who had been his lover for a number of years Clarissa was heartbroken, so much so that Harriet actually feared for her life. At first Clarissa blamed her mother totally for her father’s absence, and then apparently she began to blame herself; to believe that it was because of something she had done wrong that her father had to her mind rejected her.

  ‘I don’t think any adult can really understand what goes on inside a vulnerable child’s mind, can really know the damage that we selfishly cause when we ignore the claims of emotions of those children and allow our own feelings, our own needs to take priority.

  ‘Apparently Clarissa became very withdrawn emotionally, going from refusing to accept that her father had actually gone, to refusing to allow his name to be mentioned in her hearing. Even years later when her mother married my father, she still couldn’t bear to hear her father’s name mentioned. She never saw him again after he left her mother. He remarried and went to live abroad.

  ‘When she came here to live she seemed to attach herself to me. I felt heartily sorry for her—I’d lost my own mother, but I’d been older, known more about the world…and I’d lost her in a different way. There wasn’t the same sense of betrayal as Clarissa had experienced.

  ‘Perhaps with hindsight I did allow her to become too attached to me, too dependent on me
, but, as with all these things, by the time I saw the danger the damage was done and it was too late to draw back without hurting Clarissa desperately, without, in her eyes at least, deserting her as her father had done. That was why I was so anxious that you shouldn’t break up her marriage. I knew how vulnerable she was, how…’

  ‘Yes,’ Tania agreed shakily. ‘I do understand. But understanding doesn’t change anything, James,’ she told him sadly. ‘It doesn’t alter the fact that we both know that Clarissa will always resent any other woman you take into your life, and in my case—’

  ‘You want me to cut her out of my life, to—’

  ‘No,’ she told him vehemently, angry that he should think her so selfish. ‘No, of course I don’t. How could you? No. I’m not asking anything from you. Or, at least, not anything like that. What I am asking is that you let me go. That you let me go now, before it’s too late and I don’t have any will or ability to go. I’m just as capable of reacting emotionally or feeling jealousy as Clarissa,’ she told him gravely. ‘I don’t want what we feel for one another, what we’ve already shared to become soured and tainted by my inability to come to terms with Clarissa’s presence in your life, just as I can’t allow Lucy to be exposed to Clarissa’s jealousy. Don’t you see, James? It isn’t enough that we want one another, that we love one another. And I can’t bear to stand and watch us destroying one another, because I know that’s what will happen. I can’t help it. I can’t trust Clarissa. I don’t like her. I’d never feel comfortable, or at ease. That’s my fault, not hers.’

  She paused, tears glistening in her eyes as they beseeched him to understand that this wasn’t what she wanted, that what she wanted—all she wanted—was him, but how could she bear it if she gave in to that need only to discover one day that he was looking at her not with love but with resentment, with bitterness?