the silt on this part of the coast, and nothing like the deep blue of the ocean she had become accustomed to in New Zealand.
The Somerset countryside, however, could not be equalled, and, wrapped up in a warm anorak, scarf and gloves, Alex enjoyed ambling alone along the quiet rural lanes and through the silent woods adjacent to Moorlands on tranquillity-restoring walks she remembered Shirley telling her about more than a decade before.
Enjoying herself, though, wasn’t the reason for her being here, she reminded herself firmly, no matter how much the moor beckoned or the country lanes offered a diversion from the house and her reluctant awareness of a man she despised and yet who, contrarily, could make her pulses throb with more than just angry resentment whenever she was in his company.
As had happened that morning, when he had left her, to all intents and purposes, browsing through the books in Page’s study.
Having caught sight of a photograph sticking out of one of the pigeon-holes in the bureau, she had been so absorbed by other things the bureau had to offer, which included more old photos—mainly of the family, she presumed—as well as some interesting postcards, that she hadn’t heard anyone come in until York’s voice had cut startlingly through the silence.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Alex started, knocking something off the blotter as she swivelled round on her chair.
‘N-nothing,’ she uttered inanely. ‘I—I saw a photograph I thought was of Shirley and I suppose I just got carried away.’
From the hard cast of his features, he clearly didn’t believe her.
‘Were you looking for something in particular?’
Alex swallowed, wondering if the dryness in her throat stemmed from guilt or just from his sheer vitality as he stood there in that immaculate grey suit. It was a hard, restless vitality that seemed at odds with the bleak austerity of the room, with its tall mahogany clock and bookcases and the imposing ambience of what had once been his uncle’s very private sanctum. But wouldn’t he enjoy hurting her if he knew!
‘Nothing in particular…’
‘Then what were you doing in here under the pretext of looking at books? And what’s this?’ Casually he fingered the pointed leaf of a potted miniature daffodil she hadn’t been able to resist in town the previous afternoon, and which she had placed on a low-standing bookcase just inside the door.
‘This place seems so cold. I was just trying to brighten it up a bit,’ she defended firmly, and guessed from the way he grimaced as his grey-green eyes scanned the room that he probably agreed with her. But he wouldn’t have admitted it in a thousand years, she thought grudgingly, before enquiring with a boldness that refused to be dampened, ‘My mother’s things…what happened to them?’
An eyebrow lifted sceptically as he came towards her and with one fluid movement picked up the little gold dagger letter-opener that was lying on the rug, placing it back on the desk. ‘Do we have them?’
She tried not to breathe, tried not to acknowledge that subtle masculine scent of him that played on her reluctant senses.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, York!’ She wasn’t going to let him wear her down with suspicion, no matter how much he might try to use that daunting, tyrannical streak to intimidate her. She had come for the letters which Shirley had once told her about in one of her weaker, more confiding moments, and until she found them—if they were here—he could go to hell!
‘What sort of things?’ he asked then, almost disinterestedly.
Now she had to think quickly. ‘Anything. Books. Old toys. Teenage scribblings. You know, girlhood things.’
The clock, indicating the quarter hour, made her jump as it suddenly whirred into motion, as though it were in conspiracy with him to make her more edgy, though she was determined not to let her tension show.
‘You’re not likely to find anything like that ransacking my uncle’s bureau.’
‘I hardly expected to! And I wasn’t ransacking!’ she threw back heatedly, her nerves stretched to the limit because of his disturbing proximity. He was standing too close, one immaculately clad arm outstretched, hard knuckles on the edge of the desk.
‘As far as I know, my cousin took everything with her when she left, and what she didn’t take I would hope Page would have happily burned long ago.’ There was nothing but hatred in his voice for his unfortunate cousin—a hatred so intense that it made Alex shudder.
‘And to me it looks pretty much as if that’s what happened!’
Unconsciously, Alex’s fingers gripped the leather cushion under her legs as he made one purposeful move to come and stand, tall and imposing, in front of her.
‘What exactly is it you’re looking for, Alex?’
‘I told you.’ She could hear her own voice starting to quiver, and not so much from the threatening quality of his but because she couldn’t move, couldn’t swivel her chair now without risking actually touching him. ‘And I was under the impression I had every right to come in here. Legally if not morally.’
‘Morally?’ His laugh seemed to split the air. ‘What does a conniving little opportunist like you know about morals?’
Animosity burned in his eyes, so intense that involuntarily she shrank back from it, although she managed to keep her head high as he suddenly stooped to rest one hand on the back of her chair, the other on its padded arm.
‘My lovely little second cousin didn’t have any then—ten years ago—and I’m sure as hell she wouldn’t have grown up to stake any ostensible claims to any now. This air of cool poise is out of character, Alex.’
Sudden mockery was etching the dark symmetry of his features with something that was wholly feral and which sent warning bells clamouring through her brain.
‘The unrestrained passion of the Alexia I remember wouldn’t have diminished with the years. Such elemental attraction makes no concession to time. To age. Or even to hatred.’
His words were intimidatingly soft, the hand above her shoulder dropping now to move with heart-stopping sensuality along the delicate curve of her jaw. His fingers were strong and slightly rough against the heated column of her throat, slipping with outrageous insolence beneath the collar of her blouse, locking her breath in her lungs until she thought she was suffocating.
The clock was silent now, the only sound that steady, somnolent tick, and her expelled breath suddenly shivered through her as she fought a myriad reckless sensations generated by the perverse excitement of his touch. No matter how immune a woman might think she was, that treacherous sexual sophistication of his could break through any resistance, she realised with sudden, terrifying clarity.
‘No. Some of us just grow up, York!’ she uttered. And with one hard twist of her chair, which had her knocking her knee painfully against his, she leapt up and away from him, out of the room without stopping to subject herself to the mocking triumph she knew would be written on his face.
She was grateful when, the following morning, Celia suggested that they go riding. Not that Alex considered herself a particularly good horsewoman, but
