Stronger than Yearning Page 9

‘Of course, if you get this contract, it will mean us working closely together…going out to Spain to view the properties. You’re a very attractive woman, Jenna…I’ve always thought so…’

  Sensing that he was about to proposition her, Jenna stiffened. Her immediate instinct was to wrench free of him and tell him in no uncertain terms exactly what she thought of him, but caution prevailed. Gently easing herself away from him, she began, ‘Roger…’ breaking off in relief as the study door opened.

  Roger had his back to the door and didn’t realise they were no longer alone until James Allingham said coolly, ‘Am I interrupting? I thought I might find Vincent in here…’

  ‘Roger and I were just having a business discussion,’ Jenna told him coldly. Dear God, of all the people to find her in such an embarrassing position it would have to be him.

  His raised eyebrows conveyed a polite disinclination to put any real belief in her excuse, and all her relief at being interrupted was overtaken by a fierce surge of anger against him. For the second time this evening he was trying to disparage her.

  ‘Roger. Ah, there you are…’ said Margery, appearing in the doorway. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you, I want you to come and tell Phil Edgerton all about this new development of yours.’

  As Margery led Roger away, Jenna was acutely conscious of the silence left behind. James Allingham stood between her and the door, and for some reason that fact alarmed her.

  ‘I’ll leave you to wait for Vincent,’ she said, striving to appear calm, and heading for the door. He didn’t move and in order to get past him she would have to come within inches of his body. The thought made her cringe inwardly and then mentally berate herself angrily for her reaction to him. What on earth was getting into her? He was a man like any other, shallow, vain, impossibly egotistical, and with an uncomfortable habit of catching her off-guard and unprepared, she acknowledged.

  ‘I see you’re taking my advice,’ he drawled as she drew level with him.

  His remark made her look frowningly at him.

  ‘About providing Lucy with a father.’ One eyebrow rose. ‘I wouldn’t recommend that you try to secure Mr Bennett for the post, though. He’s hoping for a peerage and most unlikely to divorce Maria…’

  For a second she was too stunned to speak, and then the mockery in his eyes was like a burning torch applied to gunpowder, anger exploding so intensely inside her that it totally overwhelmed everything else. Too wrought up even to think of finding the words to release her fury Jenna reacted in the only way she could, all the anger and contempt she felt towards him behind the force of her open palm against his face.

  The violence of it made her palm tingle and gave her a glorious, dizzying sense of release so heady that she was barely aware of his reaction until she felt his fingers snap round her wrists.

  Fury glittered in her eyes, the trappings of civilisation stripped from her expression as she let him see the loathing in their depths, using all her strength to resist the pressure he was exerting to drag her into his arms.

  She expected him to release her and he did, but only to force her hands behind her back and manacle them there, imprisoning her against his body with his other hand. Shock darkened her green eyes to emerald. No man had ever dared to handle her in this way before! She was too angry to feel fear, only an all-consuming rage that he should dare to touch her as he was. Through her suit she could feel the hardness of his body and the rapid thud of his heart. Arching back she glared up into his eyes. They were like ice water, glittering with a rage to match her own. In his jaw a pulse thudded erratically just below the dark red marks of her hand.

  ‘So, there is life beneath that controlled façade, after all.’ He bared his teeth in a parody of a smile. ‘What a pity your friend isn’t here to observe the real Jenna. I’m sure he’d find it most illuminating.’

  ‘Roger Bennett is no friend of mine,’ Jenna spat at him furiously. ‘We came in here to discuss business, but like all your sex, he believes he has a God-given appeal to women that none of us can resist.’

  James Allingham’s eyes narrowed on Jenna’s face as she spoke, the anger dying out of them to be replaced by cool speculation.

  ‘A feminist, I see. Well, my dear, you’ll have to castrate the entire male sex to convert the world to believing as you do.’

  ‘With the greatest of pleasure.’ She had grated out the words before she could stop herself, twisting desperately to break free of him as she saw his expression change.

  ‘I see. Then I shall know how to exact retribution for this, shan’t I?’ he drawled nastily, briefly releasing her to touch the scarlet marks against his skin.

  Jenna tried to use her momentary advantage to escape, bucking fiercely against his punishing grip on her wrists, driven wild by fury when she felt the soundless laugh that shook his body, and then his hand was at the nape of her neck, his fingers sliding up into her hair in a taunting parody of tenderness, the pressure of his body against hers forcing her back until she felt her muscles clench against the pressure. She tried to kick him and was rewarded by the hard pressure of his leg trapping hers, forcing her between his thighs.

  Stubbornly, she refused to give in to the pressure of his hand splayed against her head, and to the agonising pain she felt when his fingers tightened punishingly into her hair, dislodging the pins in her French pleat. He was hurting her deliberately, and enjoying it, damn him!

  ‘No one should be allowed to inflict pain without accepting the risk of getting it back,’ he told her softly, his eyes on hers.

  ‘Is that how you get your kicks?’ Her own glared back at him. ‘By hurting women?’

  ‘Are you a woman?’ His mocking smile was derisive. ‘I haven’t seen anything to convince me of that—yet!’

  Jenna struggled harder, driven to fury by his behaviour. ‘Damn you! Let me go!’ She arched against him, trying to break free, tensing suddenly when his glance fell to her breasts, moving in uneven agitation beneath her jacket.

  For a moment, she thought he meant to touch her and a wave of hostile rejection gripped her body.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he told her laconically. ‘I find you about as sexy as a Barbie doll and nearly as plastic.’

  Just for a second his contempt pierced through her, hurting her in a way she had never thought to be hurt but then the pain was gone superseded by sheer animal rage. ‘Then why don’t you let me go and get back to your little blonde playmate?’ she shot at him. ‘I’m sure she’s everything a man like you could ever need.’

  Her mouth twisted cynically over the word ‘man’. He let her finish and then said silkily, ‘You asked for this.’

  She couldn’t even free her hands to beat at his shoulders as his mouth ground down on hers. Her attempt to twist away at the last moment was foiled by the fierce pressure of his fingers in her hair, tugging back her head until she thought her neck might break, his mouth grinding her lips back against her teeth, a savage display of male anger and contempt, of male desire to subdue and physically destroy the female. It asked for and got no response. It was not designed to. It was inflicted upon her purely as punishment.

  When he eventually released her, her mouth felt bruised and sore. She could taste blood on her lips, and wiped her hand across her mouth distastefully, hating him with a ferocity that almost matched her hatred of Lucy’s father. But then, of course, he too was a member of that accursed family. No wonder he had behaved as he had. It must be in the Deveril blood, this desire to humiliate and degrade women.

  ‘If you’re trying to frighten me into giving the Hall to you, I can tell you now, you won’t succeed,’ she told him scathingly.

  He smiled then, very coldly, with eyes like ice. ‘I wasn’t, but don’t think I’ve given up, it will be mine.’

  ‘Over my dead body.’

  He laughed then, and drawled tauntingly, ‘All things are possible.’

  She was still blindingly angry when she got home. She had managed to leave the apartment via the back e
ntrance, without anyone seeing her, and when she got home had been so appalled by her own appearance that she was thankful no one had. Her hair hung down her back in untidy strands, her eyes glittered febrilely, hot colour staining her cheekbones. And, dear God, her mouth! She touched its swollen outline, wincing at its soreness. Her bottom lip was split and still bleeding slightly.

  When he had been grinding his mouth down against hers she had almost bitten him; the temptation had been overwhelming but she had been aware that to give in to it was to allow him even more opportunity to hurt her. Even now she felt acutely sick at the thought of the loathsome intimacies he might have forced on her had he been able to get beyond the gritted barrier of her teeth. Vile, arrogant animal! She shuddered, stripping off her clothes and going into her bathroom. She even felt as though she smelled of him. She was too wrought up for sleep and decided instead to do some work. Pulling a comfortable old bathrobe over her nude body she went through into her small study.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SHE had been working for over an hour when she heard her doorbell ring. Thinking that Lucy must, after all, have decided to return home she padded into the hall, releasing the safety catch and opening the door.

  It wasn’t Lucy who stood outside, but James Allingham. It was too late to bar the door to him, but to her surprise he made no attempt to push his way inside, merely stretching out one long arm to display her jacket, held lightly in his hand.

  ‘You forgot this.’ He said it softly, the smile in his eyes totally derisory as he added tauntingly, ‘I wonder why?’

  Every instinct she had screamed at her to snatch the cloth from his fingers and slam the door in his face, but the lesson he had already forced upon her lingered, and she was reluctant to do anything that would bring her into contact with him, no matter how briefly. It infuriated her that he should have had such a powerful effect upon her instincts. She had never gone in fear of any man, and it goaded her to the point where her temper was ready to explode that this man should engender it in her.

  ‘Margery noticed it when we were leaving, so I volunteered to deliver it for you, since I had to drive past.’

  ‘Thank you, but you really needn’t have bothered.’

  Margery thrived on gossip and wasn’t above doing a little extra embroidery of her own, and there was no limit to the fairy tale she would be able to concoct out of his simple offer. She was always questioning Jenna about the lack of men in her life. Her eyes narrowed as something rather odd struck her. ‘How did you know my address?’ she demanded flatly.

  The dark eyebrows rose in mockery. ‘Isn’t there a saying—know one’s enemy? Through circumstances beyond my control, I might have been obliged to drop out of the auction and allow you to gain possession of the old Hall, but the game isn’t over yet.’

  ‘Why are you so anxious to possess it?’

  Jenna bit her lip in vexation the moment the question was asked, angry with herself for being betrayed into showing any interest in anything about him.

  ‘It is my ancestral home.’

  Jenna could not deny that, but she sensed that something stronger than a mere yearning to possess the house that belonged to his ancestors drove him. Compulsive determination to reach a specific goal was no stranger to her—perhaps that was why she recognised it so clearly in someone else.

  ‘Why were you so determined to possess it?’

  ‘I fell in love with it.’ She offered him a tight smile to accompany the words, which were, after all, true, if only part of the whole truth.

  ‘You know, I find that an extremely intriguing admission. You don’t strike me as a woman who knows the meaning of the word,’ he told her brutally.

  For one crazy moment she wanted to strike him, to hit out at him violently in her own pain, but she withstood the fierce drive to retaliate, remembering how he had reacted to her before.

  ‘I mustn’t keep you waiting.’ She stretched out her fingers, trembling slightly as they curled round the fabric of her jacket and he allowed it to slip from his own, without making any attempt to restrain her.

  His glance slid lazily over her body as she stepped back from it, making an openly sexual inventory of her that made her tense with raw rage.

  ‘Your friend will be wondering what’s happened to you,’ she added with pointed curtness.

  ‘I doubt it.’ His teeth gleamed white in a brief smile. ‘I dropped her off on the way here.’

  Jenna felt her stomach lurch, without quite knowing why it should. She took another step backwards, starting to close the door, tensing when long male fingers curled round the wood just above her own.

  ‘Before you do, I have a small favour to ask you.’

  Jenna watched him warily.

  ‘I have some family documents and diaries relating to the old Hall, including descriptions of some of the rooms as they originally were when my ancestor left England—I didn’t have them with me when I went round the place before the auction and I was wondering if you would allow me to go round again. Just out of interest, of course.’

  He was challenging her, Jenna knew that, telling her that he knew she feared him, and mocking her for it, letting her know that he already anticipated her refusal. But if he was speaking the truth and he did have some records, they would be an invaluable source of information for her in her desire to refurbish the house as closely as she could to the original. Thinking quickly she said, ‘I think that could be arranged, but only if you are willing to allow me to look at these records: they could be of interest to me in my renovation work.’

  ‘That sounds fine.’ His expression was hidden from her by the fall of dark lashes guarding his eyes.

  ‘I’ll give you a call later in the week and we can fix something up. No doubt you’ll want to be in attendance when I visit—just to make sure I don’t steal the place away brick by brick. When you’ve got the time to go up there, let me know and we’ll go together.’

  That wasn’t what Jenna had had in mind at all, but she knew there was no way she could refuse his suggestion without betraying her fear of him. She clenched her fists angrily, wishing her desire to see the documents he had described had not led her into agreeing to his visit, but it was too late to back out now.

  She stepped back again, her expression firm as she made to close the door, relieved that this time he made no attempt to stop her. Only when it was firmly locked and the safety chain in place did she feel she could actually relax. Her mood for work was gone now and instead she went through into her bedroom. Her own reflection caught her eye as she drew level with a mirror. Her thin robe outlined the curves of her body, the shape and fullness of her breasts clearly visible beneath it. A wave of hot colour beat up under her skin as she remembered James Allingham’s leisurely scrutiny of her. Her fingers curled into angry claws. How she detested the man! She wished she had never agreed to allow him to look round the house. He meant to try and take it away from her, she knew that, but she would never let him have it…never!

  * * *

  Jenna had a very disturbed night. When she eventually managed to get to sleep, her rest was punctuated by vivid dreams so realistic that when she woke up just before dawn, she was trembling, still half convinced that if she opened her eyes she would find herself not in her own bed, but in a walnut four-poster in a room at the Hall. But, far worse than that, if she turned her head, she would discover beside her the man who had just seduced her—the dark, cynical-eyed Regency buck from the portrait that hung above the stairs at the old Hall.

  Shuddering, she tried to dismiss the dream, but it refused to go away. Every time she closed her eyes, it came flooding back, and she saw herself dressed in a flimsy, gauzy muslin dress, adorned with fluttering ribbons, the fabric so fine that when she moved it swirled like mist round her body, provocatively revealing more than it concealed.

  * * *

  Tonight marked the occasion of her betrothal ball. All that she and her aunt had worked so determinedly towards during the London season had n
ow come to fruition. As the only daughter of an immensely wealthy tradesman, if it had not been for her family connections on her mother’s side, she would have been denied any entrée into aristocratic society. Its doors were closed to tradesmen and their offspring no matter how wealthy. At twenty-six she was old for a débutante, but during his lifetime her father had never allowed her to mix in society. She had been sent to school in Bath and there had suffered innumerable snubs and slights from the daughters of the poverty-stricken upper class who also boarded there. Mrs Hartwell had taken her as a boarder only because her father had paid her well to do so, and she had grown up hating those other little girls, who had every social advantage denied to her and were all too eager to make her conscious of that fact.

  Now with her aunt’s connivance and backing she had finally breached the walls of aristocratic contempt. Her aunt’s connections and her own wealth had secured for her an invitation to one of the most exclusive balls of the season. It was there that she had met Viscount Deveril.

  The viscount and his father were on the look-out for a rich bride, or so the gossips said. Their Yorkshire estates were deeply in debt, and the viscount himself, although only thirty-five, had already gambled away a fortune like his father before him. Physically, he had little appeal to her. But she craved the social position being his wife would give her, and so, deliberately and subtly, using the bait of her wealth, she had set out to snare him.

  Now she had succeeded and it was the evening of their betrothal ball, which was being held at his ancestral home in Yorkshire. By the end of the week they would be married—her husband-to-be’s debts would not allow a long delay, and since her father-in-law was a widower, she would have full control of the household. Although Francis did not know it yet, she intended to keep an extremely tight hand on the purse-strings once they were wed. She liked Sir George even less than she liked his eldest son, but she was still determined to go through with the match. She knew that people talked about her behind her back, mocking her single-minded determination to get herself a titled husband, but she did not care. As the viscount’s wife, she would be in a position to turn the tables fully on those stuck-up misses who had made her school-days such a misery.