eyes. Then he smiled, a gentle smile, and her insides acted most peculiarly. ‘Allow me to show you to your room,’ he suggested quietly.
That gentle smile, his quiet manner, seemed to have the strangest effect on her. Because, instead of mutinying some more that her plans appeared to be getting away from her, Jermaine found she was standing meekly by while he went out into the foulness of that stormy night and collected her overnight bag from her car.
Unprotesting, she went up the wide wooden staircase with him, turning right and going along the landing with him to a room at the far end. He opened the door to a beautifully furnished room with not a speck of dust to be seen, the double bed already made up. Jermaine did protest then.
‘I shouldn’t have come.’
‘I asked you to come. Pressed you to come,’ Lukas reminded her.
‘All I’ve done is given your Mrs Dobson more work.’
‘My Mrs Dobson has help during the week,’ he answered, a teasing kind of note in his voice, his grey eyes fixed on Jermaine’s regretful look. ‘Sharon probably “did and dusted”. Now, you get settled here and I’ll get you something to eat.’
That surprised her. ‘ You will?’
‘Knowing you were on your way to look after your sister, I have given Mrs Dobson the night off. What kept you, incidentally?’
‘I worked late,’ Jermaine replied—before it abruptly came to her that she was being far too friendly with someone who had more or less coerced her to come to his home that night—a man she had not so very long ago declared she hated. ‘And I’ve already eaten,’ she added snappily, ‘so you can leave your chef’s hat on its peg!’
His eyes narrowed at her tone, and he took a step towards the door. ‘And there was me trying to be pleasant,’ he commented, and she guessed he had more from instinct than desire accidentally fallen into the role of host—ensuring that his guest wanted for nothing.
‘You don’t have to bother on my account,’ she retorted. And just in case he thought she might be joining them downstairs once she had ‘settled’, ‘I’m going to bed!’ she announced firmly. ‘I need to be up early in the morning.’
‘Presumably you intend to help your sister comfortably into bed before you put your lights out. That, after all, is why you’re here.’
Jermaine glared at him. Ooh, how she hated him. She was here because she had no option. She did not thank him that he had just reminded her that, but for her being there to do her family duty, he wouldn’t have given her house room.
She sent him a seething look of dislike, which speared him not at all, and he favoured her with a steely grey-eyed look and went from her room.
Men! She hated the lot of them. Well, perhaps that was a bit sweeping. She liked the men she worked with, and her father most of the time. But the Tavinor brothers—pfff!
Because she knew she was going to go and have a few words with her sister at whatever time the ‘invalid’ decided she must return to her room, Jermaine unpacked her bag, showered and donned her nightdress and the lightweight robe she had thought to throw in. A very short while later she heard sounds that indicated that Edwina was being ‘assisted’ up the stairs.
Some minutes later Jermaine was wishing she had thought to ask Tavinor which room was her sister’s. She didn’t fancy going along the landing trying all doors until she came to the right one—though she wouldn’t mind waking up Tavinor if he was already fast asleep.
Then someone came and knocked at her door. She discounted that it might be Edwina—she’d be ‘struggling’ to walk at all. Jermaine went and opened her door, and as Lukas Tavinor stared down at her, his eyes going over her face, completely free of make-up, so she felt stumped to say a word.
He seemed pretty much the same, she thought, then immediately cancelled any such notion. Because, although that gentle look was there about him again, he wasn’t at all stuck for words. However, what he had to say was the last thing she would have expected him to say.
For softly it was that he murmured, ‘You know, Jermaine, you’re incredibly beautiful.’
Her heart gave a jerky beat and she wasn’t sure her mouth didn’t fall open. She firmed her lips anyway, when she saw his glance go to her mouth, and from somewhere she gained some strength to tell him acidly, ‘I’m still not falling at your feet!’
He was amused; she could see it in his eyes, in the pleasant curve of his mouth. He didn’t laugh, but stared at her for a moment longer before, ‘Damn!’ he mocked. ‘In that case—your sister’s in the room three doors down. The first one at the top of the landing.’
Which, Jermaine realised as he turned and went back the way he had come, was what he had come to let her know. Clearly he didn’t fancy his sleep being disturbed if she tried his room when she decided to go looking for her sister.
Jermaine found Edwina’s room without any trouble. Her light tap on the door before she went in ensured that Edwina was sitting down looking suitably helpless when Jermaine had the door open. By the time she’d closed the door after her, however, Edwina was angrily on her feet, her glance on Jermaine’s night attire having made it plain she was staying the night.
‘It didn’t take you long to get established,’ she snorted.
‘I didn’t expect you to be thrilled.’
‘Why did you have to come at all?’ Edwina demanded hostilely.
‘You think I wanted to? Lukas went to see Mum and Dad this morning. He…’
‘Did he now?’ Edwina was soon smiling. ‘He must be worried about me to do that. Perhaps he’s falling in love with me.’
Jermaine was side-tracked. ‘What makes you say that? Has he…?’
‘There are signs,’ Edwina purred. ‘Little looks here and there. Small indications.’
Jermaine didn’t want this conversation after all. ‘What about Ash? I thought he was your “man of the moment”.’
‘You can have him back any time you want him.’ Edwina shrugged. ‘I’m no longer fishing for tiddlers.’
Thanks for nothing! ‘How does Ash feel about this?’
‘Good Lord, I haven’t told him—and don’t you, either,’ she warned. ‘Naturally, being in so much pain, I at once made sure I had my own room. Ash moved my stuff out of his, like the gent he is, and Lukas will probably never know that Ash and I were that close.’
She really was a heartless madam, Jermaine fumed. She might have been in love with Ash, for all Edwina knew, but did that stop her from letting her know that she and Ash had been bedroom lovers? Did it blazes! Jermaine knew then that she would be wasting her time remonstrating with her.
‘Mum and Dad are very worried about you,’ she said instead. ‘I told Dad you’d ring him tomorrow.’
‘The batteries are flat on my mobile. I didn’t think to bring my charger.’
‘I’m sure somebody will carry you to a
