Chapter Seventeen

He ached to touch her but he clenched his fists by his sides instead, as he turned round and went back to the kitchen. He had to step away before it was too late, before he gave in to the urge to pull her into his arms, pin her against the wall and kiss her until he was lost.

He had no idea if she followed him or not. What he did know, however, is if he wanted to catch his breath and give his body a chance to cool down, he had to keep busy. He opened the oven and grabbed a tea towel to take the tray of wedges out. They were nowhere near ready yet, so he shoved the tray back in. He had lost his appetite anyway.

Rosalie walked into the kitchen, lifted her coat from the back of the chair without saying a word, and bent down to grab her wet boots.

‘Where are you going? I told you we needed to talk,’ he said as he opened the fridge, grabbed some ham and cheese and put them on the table. They would do while they waited for the potatoes to be ready.

She cast a thunderous look in his direction. ‘I can’t think what we have to talk about.’

‘I’ll explain in a minute. For now, sit down and have something to eat.’

‘I told you. I’m not hungry.’

The atmosphere in the kitchen was decidedly frosty as she sat down.

She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms on her chest. He tried not to stare at the delightful décolleté barely concealed under her ugly green cardigan.

‘So what did you want to talk to me about?’ she asked, tilting her chin.

‘Love Taxis.’

The phone ringing interrupted him.

A look of alarm on her face, Rosalie jumped to her feet.

‘Who could it be at this time? I hope it’s not bad news from the hospital.’ She rushed up the stairs, the hem of her peach satin dressing gown flying after her.

Sighing, he turned the oven off and went after her.

‘Yes, of course, I’ll call him. Please hold on.’

Rosalie put the phone down on the console table and turned when she heard his footsteps behind her.

‘Is it the hospital?’ he asked.

She shook her head. She had been so scared of getting bad news about Geoff that it had been a relief to hear the impatient woman’s voice demanding to speak to Marc.

‘No, it’s for you,’ she replied, handing the telephone to him. ‘A Miss Kirsty Marsh.’

His face hardened and he said as he grabbed hold of the phone, ‘This won’t take long. Please wait for me in the drawing room. We still need to talk.’

Even though all she wanted was to be alone, she did as he asked. The moment of truth had arrived. He was about to deliver his verdict about Love Taxis, tell her he was closing her down, and ask her to speak to Fergus, Fiona and Duncan about redundancies.

She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. If only she could find new arguments to convince him, but she’d said everything already. What’s more, she could hardly look him in the eye after tonight’s mortifying incident – yet another instance when she’d misread his intentions. Shame heated her face. She believed he wanted to kiss her, thought she’d seen heat and desire in his eyes. How could she have been so mistaken?

She heard him talking on the phone as she walked to the drawing room.

‘No, Rosalie isn’t the maid. She lives here. Yes, with me. I told you, it’s complicated. Is there a problem? My mobile? Sorry, you’re right, I haven’t checked it for the past couple of hours or so. To tell you the truth, I can’t even remember where I left the damned thing.’

There was a pause. ‘What? When did that happen? Four days ago? Why didn’t you phone me or email me earlier? Poor Maguire. He must be devastated. I’ll be there to represent the firm. Of course, I have to. More to the point, I want to. You can do what you want, it’s your choice … I’ll come back to Scotland after the funeral. I haven’t made much progress with the inventory here. I’ve been busy … Doing what? Driving a taxi, if you must know, and no, this isn’t a joke.’

Feeling suddenly guilty for eavesdropping on his conversation, Rosalie pushed the door open and walked into the drawing room. Fire smouldered in the fireplace, Geoff’s papers and books were scattered all over the floor, and a bottle of beer stood on the coffee table. She lifted it up. It was empty. Angus would be proud. It looked like his homebrewed ale had made a new convert.

She poked at the embers and placed a couple of logs on the grate to start the fire again, then sat on the sofa and flicked through one of the manuscripts. A few minutes later the door creaked and Marc strode in. He stood facing the fire for a moment, hands shoved deep in his jeans pockets, before turning to face her. He looked so sombre she did not dare speak.

‘I have to go back to London,’ he said. ‘Will you take me to the airport tomorrow morning?’

A fist squeezed her heart but she forced a smile. ‘Of course. Shouldn’t you check the times of the flights first?’

‘There’s no need. I arranged for the company jet to come for me. They’ll be there at noon. Is that all right with you?’

‘Should be. You know our bookings schedule as well as I do by now, since you’ve been doing all the driving.’ She almost added that she was surprised he trusted her to drive, but the quiet sadness in his eyes stopped her.

‘That phone call … Was it bad news?’

He nodded. ‘One of my employees, Maguire … His wife died a few days ago.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

‘The thing was, it was their anniversary a couple of weeks ago. He’d arranged a surprise for her. It was partly the reason I’m here. It should have been him who came to Raventhorn.’

He turned to stare into the flames again and added in a quiet voice, ‘The funeral is the day after tomorrow.’

‘What was her name?’

His lips stretched into a thin, bitter smile. ‘You know what? I can’t even remember. The man has worked for me for the past five years and I can’t recall the name of his wife. What does that say about me?’

She rose to her feet, and went to him. ‘It’s because you’re in shock. What really matters is that you’ll be there for him, and you’ll support him.’

He took a deep breath and smiled. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as nice as you, Rosalie Heart. You are truly one of a kind.’

She forced a laugh. ‘You said that the night I bashed you on the head with Lorna’s copper pan, but I don’t think you meant it in a good way then.’

He didn’t reply, but there was something unfathomable in his eyes – something soft and tender that made her soul fly. But no! It was impossible. She was reading too much into it, once again.

‘You said you wanted to talk to me. Is it about Love Taxis?’

He nodded.

‘You’re closing me down, aren’t you?’

‘I am, but—’

‘I knew it.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I was hoping you would see beyond the poor accounting and the bank overdraft. Obviously, I was asking too much. Your priorities are to yourself and your company, not to the people around here.’

‘Rosalie, let me speak.’

‘There’s no point. I have no intention of listening as you dissect my inability to manage my business and give me perfectly sensible reasons to shut me down.’

‘Will you hear me out?’ He sounded impatient now – impatient to list her inadequacies, her failings, no doubt.

‘What for? So you can treat me the way you treat that poor man on the phone, the one you threaten with ruin because he didn’t follow your instructions?’

He frowned. ‘It’s you I want to talk about, not Fitzpatrick.’

She crossed her arms and tilted her chin up. ‘Go on then, I’m listening. I know what you think already. All I’m good for is eating chocolate cake, wearing silly pink clothes, and boring people stiff with my chatting and my bad singing! And now …’ she stammered and this time she didn’t even try to stop the tears from falling, ‘now you’re taking away the only thing I have ever managed to achieve. Love Taxis was my idea. I knew I had no talent for business but I tried.’

Through a veil of tears she saw him shake his head and smile. How dare he smile when he was destroying everything she loved? All the emotional upheaval of the past week suddenly caught up with her, swept her up in a tidal wave of grief and anger.

‘I have to go.’ She turned away and made for the door.

She didn’t get very far. Two strong arms snatched her back.

‘Calm down and listen.’ He spun her round until his arms encircled her waist and she was trapped against his chest.

‘Let go of me.’ She struggled to break free but he was too strong.

‘Not before you listen to me. I’m trying to explain that although I must shut down Love Taxis because it’s not viable as a business, I have come to agree with you about the need for more public transport around here. I want to start a new venture – a minibus company – and ask you to help run it.’

His words took a few seconds to penetrate her brain. Her body stilled, she lifted her face towards him and met his cool, grey stare.

‘A bus company?’

‘A social enterprise, a non-profit venture if you like. I don’t believe any private hire firm would be profitable around here.’ He was still holding her tight, and his warmth was seeping through her nightclothes, and making her dizzy all over again.

‘I do, however, believe I can find enough capital and public grants to start something.’ He gazed down at her. ‘Will you stop crying now?’

She smiled. He wasn’t selfish and cold-hearted, after all. He had listened. He cared about the people of Irlwick. On an impulse, she rose on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

‘Thank you.’ There was so much more she wanted to say. That she loved him, for a start. She loved him so much. She’d known it, fought it, for long enough. Now she had to accept it.

He held her more tightly. Something shifted in his eyes, his face became tense. ‘Rosalie … I want to kiss you.’

‘Oh.’ Her heart stopped then started again with a bump. Mesmerised by the heat in his eyes, the closeness of his mouth, she felt quite unable to speak. He slipped his hand onto the back of her neck and drew her to him. For the briefest of moments their breath mingled, then his lips touched hers.

With a groan he wrapped his arm around her waist and moulded her to him as if she was made of hot, soft and yielding clay. His mouth caressed and teased, light as a feather, until she parted her lips, and then he kissed her hard and deep.

Her heart drummed hard as his hands glided along the curve of her back in a slow, fiery caress. Her satin dressing gown rustled as he drew her closer, and her breasts felt full and heavy as they rubbed against his hard body in an arousing caress that caused her to whimper and arch against him. Her fingers gripped his shoulders, laced at the back of his neck. Closer, she wanted to be closer. It was like being thrown at the centre of a whirlwind. Never before had her body felt so alive. Never before had she been filled with this burning need to be touched, kissed, and taken.

The silk and velvet of female skin. Its sweet, warm, intoxicating scent. A man could lose himself in so much softness. His fingers pushed Rosalie’s dressing gown over her shoulders and he bent down to kiss her jaw line, the side of her throat and the hollow at its base where her pulse beat, fast, erratic.

She threw her head back and her breasts pushed upwards, straining against the nightdress’s bodice. He wanted to touch, taste and savour, get drunk on the taste of her. There was only one force driving him – primal and overwhelming. Strip her down and expose her body to his gaze, his hands, his mouth. Then lay her under him and thrust deep inside her. The heat of feeling and need swelling, pulsing inside him threatened to annihilate any conscious thought he might have.

He heard her moan softly and looked down. Her eyes were unfocused – dark pools of warm, liquid chocolate. Her lips were red and swollen, the skin of her cheeks and throat flushed a delicious pink. Her fingers stroked the back of his neck in a light, insistent caress that made his body harder. Could it be that, despite everything that stood between them, she wanted him as much as he wanted her?

Hope soared inside him, only to be immediately crushed. She might want him right now, but it still didn’t mean he had the right to take her. He didn’t do relationships. He had nothing to give a woman, especially one as special, kind and genuine as Rosalie – nothing but a few moments of heat and pleasure. Rosalie deserved better.

He tore his mouth away with a ragged breath, took a step back.

‘Wait,’ he said in a rough whisper. ‘I can’t make any promises. I can’t stay with you. My life, my work are a long way away from here …’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t want your promises, I only want your kisses.’

He smiled. ‘That sounds suspiciously like one of your Happy Baby Radio tunes.’ He bent lower, closing the space between them. ‘All I can give you is the here and now.’

She put her index finger on his lips. ‘That too sounds like a song.’

‘I’m serious, Rosalie.’

‘So am I.’

‘Are you sure?’

For an answer she stood on her tiptoes, brushed her lips to his, traced the outline of his mouth with the tip of her tongue.

He kissed her again, revelling in the taste of her mouth, aroused by her soft, lush, female body. He felt like he was burning with a fever, and it had nothing to do with the flames dancing in the fireplace behind him.

‘I want to take you to my room and make love to you.’

He waited the space of a few pounding heartbeats, felt her shiver in his arms.

She let out a low chuckle. ‘Then what are you waiting for?’

He took her hand and led her up the stairs to the first floor and the Crimson Room, pausing every few steps to kiss her lips, her eyelids or the tender skin of her throat. When they finally reached the first floor, he pushed the door to his room open with his shoulder and strode across the wooden floorboards. The bedside lamp was on and cast a dim, warm glow onto the bed, leaving the rest of the room shrouded in thick shadows.

He slid one hand against her cheek, the other around her waist and drew her close. He could have taken her anywhere in Raventhorn – on the drawing room sofa or the rug in front of the fire, on the stairs or standing against the wall in the corridor, but for some inexplicable reason it was in the massive four-poster bed he wanted to make love to her.

As he kissed her mouth again, and again, there was no clear thought in his mind, only a chaos of sensations and needs, of colours and scents. He wanted more. He wanted everything. And he wanted it now. He tumbled her onto the bed, covered her with his body, and started nuzzling the side of her neck, trailing kisses down to her shoulder and back to her earlobe until she writhed and sighed and whimpered under him. The sounds of satin and skin rustling against the ruby red counterpane inflamed his senses further.

His fingers felt thick and clumsy as he untied her belt and pushed the dressing gown off her shoulders. With a sharp tug, he pulled the bodice of her nightdress down and his hard, eager mouth closed onto her breast. She tangled her fingers in his hair to draw him closer while he kissed and teased and suckled one tender pink tip, then the other, into hard buds.

He pulled up the hem of her nightdress until it bunched up around her waist and then he stroked the silky skin inside her thigh, and when he touched her at last he caught her moan in his mouth. Drunk on the smell and the feel of her, he deepened his kiss. His fingers caressed, applied pressure, took. Nothing mattered but her and the feel of her body trembling under him. Her hands clutched at the bedcover, her breathing was short and shallow, and her heart thudded against his chest. And when she arched against his hand and cried out, he felt like the strongest, the wealthiest, the most powerful man on earth.

Suddenly touching her wasn’t enough. He wanted to be inside her. He lifted himself off the bed, stood up to peel his jumper off and take his jeans off. He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she lay on the bed, eyes closed, a half smile on her lips, and her body almost naked, soft, flushed, open. An offering. For him alone.

Naked at last, he lay next to her on the bed and his hands found the lush curves of her breasts, her hips and stomach. Bending down, he kissed her lips softly, teasing and nipping, until she moaned and her fingers tickled once again the back of his neck, slid down his spine then up again to knot into his hair. Every one of her caresses was a sweet torment; every one of her kisses drove him wild.

In the small corner of his subconscious that was still dimly aware of reality, of her, himself and their surroundings, he felt her body tremble and was experienced enough to recognise it was probably because she was shy, or a little scared.

In another lifetime he would have forced himself to slow down, gentle his touch, wait until he was sure she was ready. Tonight, in that great massive bed which looked like an island in a sea of shadows, something wild and hot and primitive drove him.

He thrust away the last glimmer of awareness and rolled on top of her, bent down and kissed her mouth again whilst his hands roamed, hard and impatient now over her body. He pushed a knee between her legs to spread them wider apart, grabbed hold of her wrists and pinned her arms above her head.

‘I want you.’

She opened her eyes. Her lips were red, her cheeks flushed a deep pink. Her brown curls tangled on the red counterpane, since in his haste he hadn’t even pulled the covers down. At that moment his heart knew exactly who she was.

She was the mysterious woman he’d dreamt of every night since he’d arrived at Raventhorn. The woman who made him feel whole. The one who touched his soul.

He pushed deep inside her, slowly at first then harder and faster, and together they moved and soared inside that dark and delicious place where time and space ceased to exist.

She sobbed his name once, then once more. She tensed, threw her head back against the pillow. He took hold of her hands, pinned them on the bed and interlaced his fingers with hers and followed her.