attention.
‘Is Mr Quinlan’s suggestion agreeable to you?’ the doctor persisted.
The poor man was still half convinced she had taken a beating from Raff Quinlan!
And Raff was still fully aware of the unspoken accusation.
‘Yes, it’s agreeable to me,’ Jane finally answered, much to Raff’s unspoken but felt relief, and the doctor’s chagrin.
But he seemed to be resigned to her decision as he stood up to leave. ‘If you have any further trouble, don’t hesitate to either come back here or see your own doctor,’ he advised.
‘By ‘‘further trouble’’, I suppose he meant any more beatings from me,’ Raff muttered grimly in the darkness, Jane now seated next to him in the Jaguar, their departure from the hospital made without further incident after the nurse had carefully helped her to dress.
In truth Jane felt slightly lethargic now, the doctor having prescribed pain-killers to at least help ease some of her discomfort. The last thing she felt like doing now was sorting out a hotel for the night. But it had to be done. Raff Quinlan’s ruffled feelings over the doctor’s implications was the least of her worries for the moment.
She looked about her in the darkness, realising they were fast leaving town—Raff’s home, wherever it was, seeming to be far from the hotels of London.
‘If you pull over at the next corner, I can get a taxi back to a hotel,’ she told him sleepily, those tablets, whatever they were, making her feel very tired.
He didn’t even glance at her. ‘I said you had somewhere to go,’ he said tersely. ‘And you do. You also have someone to ‘‘take care of you’’.’
‘You?’ Jane scorned, her lids becoming so heavy now she could barely keep them open.
‘If necessary,’ he nodded abruptly.
‘It isn’t,’ she said drily.
He gave her a scathing glance. ‘Forgive me if I disagree with you.’
Her mouth tightened at the insult. ‘No.’
‘My dear young lady …’
‘I’m not your dear anything,’ Jane snapped. ‘And I have no wish to go to your home.’
His mouth twisted. ‘You talk as if you usually expect your wishes to be carried out without question.’
Perhaps she did, but she had a feeling, from the little she had learnt of this man this evening, that he rarely considered anyone else’s wishes but his own!
‘I want you to stop the car immediately so that I don’t have too far to walk before I can get a taxi back into town,’ she told him firmly, although she was aware that her voice sounded less than convincing, and that she was feeling sleepier and sleepier by the moment.
Raff Quinlan laughed softly. ‘You don’t look capable of standing on your feet, let alone walking anywhere.’
‘I am—capable, of doing—whatever I have to—do …’
It was the last thing she remembered saying, sleep finally overcoming her as she slumped down in the car seat.
WHAT on earth …?
Where was she? Jane felt panicked as she awoke fully and didn’t recognise her surroundings. She had been on her way to a hotel—but this wasn’t a hotel, she felt sure of it.
God! The pain when she tried to move …
And with the pain came the return of her memory. The headlights of the car. The pain in her ankle as she turned to hurry back on to the pavement, then the terrible jarring of her hip as she made contact with the hard road.
Raff Quinlan …
She remembered everything about him too now—the way he towered over her in the darkness, his arrogance, his rudeness, the way he had insisted on bringing her to his home despite her protests …
She was almost afraid to look beneath the bedclothes, had a feeling she already knew what she was going to find. Nevertheless she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and lifted the sheet.
Naked.
Completely.
Even the peach-coloured underwear was missing now.
There was something vaguely disturbing about the thought of someone undressing her when she was unconscious from the effect of pain-killers and tiredness because of shock—unfair somehow, and it gave Raff Quinlan an advantage over her that she didn’t like. At the hospital she had been wearing no less than if she had been on a beach, but being stripped naked when she could do nothing to prevent it was—well, it was underhand.
And Raff Quinlan was responsible, somehow she felt sure of that. After all, he had admitted he didn’t have a wife who could have done it.
She looked up sharply as the bedroom door opened after a brief knock.
‘Ah, good morning, my dear!’ A tall woman in a tailored blue dress with a pristine white collar bustled into the room carrying a silver tray that held what looked like a pot of coffee. ‘I hope I didn’t wake you.’ She smiled brightly before putting the tray down on the bedside-table and straightening, a perplexed frown appearing between her eyes as she looked down at Jane.
‘I didn’t realise—— For a moment you looked so much like——’ She broke off, shaking her head. ‘I’m sorry, for a moment you looked so much like—someone I used to know.’
Her smile was only a little strained now. ‘I haven’t even introduced myself,’ she scolded self-derisively. ‘I’m Mrs Howard, Mr Quinlan’s housekeeper.’
And she had obviously never seen Jane before this moment, confirming that she hadn’t been the one to undress her the evening before!
But, remembering the evening before, Jane realised she had started a deception with Raff Quinlan that she would now have to carry on. ‘Jane Smith,’ she supplied gruffly.
‘Cream and sugar?’
‘Sorry?’ She looked up with a frown, the frown clearing as she realised the housekeeper was pouring her a cup of coffee. ‘Oh. Both. Thank you,’ she accepted with a tight smile.
What was that saying, ‘When first you practise to deceive’ …?
Sitting up to actually take the offered cup of coffee wasn’t as easy as it should have been, either. Every movement caused her pain, and there was her nakedness to consider. Not that she was at all shy about that, she just didn’t know what explanation Raff had given this woman for her being here, and her nakedness might look a bit suspect, in the circumstances. If Raff had felt he owed his housekeeper an explanation at all! Somehow she doubted it.
‘Jane
