Serena to return so they could all go swimming. He didn’t think he could bear to suffer a worse loss. He had a vision of Serena’s body, brought back to the house on a stretcher. The sorrow he had seen. His mother, Alexa, her beautiful face distorted by grief; the pulverising shock and grief of the others. Leona’s father had been unable to speak, totally gutted. Rupert had taken charge of everything, as was his way, his strong autocratic features set in stone.
He opened his eyes again as he heard Leona’s shout of victory. She was galloping hell for leather towards the ruins. Like her mother, she brimmed over with life. He was over his fear now, but for several moments he sat on his quivering horse, trying to quell the sudden upsurge of anger that swept in to take the place of his enormous relief.
“Sorry, Boyd, dear, I beat you!” She waved an arm high above her head and, not content with that, pulled off her wide brimmed hat and threw it rapturously in the air, bringing home her victory.
“Goodness, you’re not mad, are you?” she asked in the very next second, catching sight of the bright sharp anger in his face. He had dismounted, too, and was stalking towards her.
“Why do you take risks?” he gritted with what she took to be hostility.
“I don’t. I never do.” Hurriedly she tried to defend herself. “Risks? Don’t be absurd.” This was Boyd. How could she be afraid of him? Boyd would never hurt her. “You’re upset,” she said as she quickly comprehended. “There’s no need to be. I wouldn’t do anything stupid.”
His eyes burned with the blue intensity of sapphires. “Your mother didn’t do anything stupid.”
Now both of them were confronting the past. She remembered the horror everyone had felt on that tragic day. The utter disbelief that life, as they had known it, was for ever changed. Her father had been near catatonic. The tears had poured out of Aunt Alexa’s eyes. Geraldine had had her arms around her, trying to comfort a loved child. A Blanchard uncle was there with a second wife. That marriage hadn’t lasted either. She remembered the way she had afterwards clung to Boyd like some little monkey too scared to let go.
Now she tried desperately to offer conciliation. “We’ve had a lovely ride. Please don’t spoil it.”
“Spoil it?” He knew he was losing control, something that never happened. “What you had to do was not tackle that damned wall. It could have cost you your neck.”
Would anything go as she hoped? Temper flashed. “What I did,” she told him defiantly, “was jump a fairly low obstacle. I’ve jumped a lot higher than that.”
“Not on that little mare you haven’t,” he said with a vigorous jerk of his head towards the pure bred Arabian.
She stared back at him in disbelief, forgetting all caution, missing the fear behind his grimness. “So she isn’t the tallest horse in the stable, but I love her. In any case she’s sure-footed. Who the devil do you think you are, telling me what I can and cannot do?” she demanded. “Who are you to rule my life? No wonder I resent you. No wonder I’ve fought you for years. No wonder—”
She was on such a roll she was completely unprepared for his explosive reaction. Sparks seemed to be flowing from him like tiny glittering stars. While the blood rushed in her ears, he pulled her to him in a kind of fury, locking one steely arm around her, his left hand thrusting up her chin. “Oh, shut up bleating about your resentments and irritations,” he bit off with unfamiliar violence. “You irritate the hell out of me.”
He had confirmed it at long last. She let out a cry of pain. “I was wondering when you’d get around to admitting it,” she said, small white teeth clenched. They were standing so close together all her senses were reeling. Her blood ran blisteringly hot in her veins. To her distress she knew she couldn’t handle this. She was shaking with the effort to hold herself together. Dazzling sunlight spun around them like an impenetrable golden web.
“Let me go, you savage!” Even as the words left her lips she was shocked that she had said it. Boyd, a savage! Why couldn’t she shout, I love you? Why did she for ever have to hold it in? It was agony. There was no hope of getting free unless he released her.
“Count yourself lucky I’m not!” He laughed, but that didn’t lessen the bright anger on his face. “I’m not going to let you go, Leona, until I’ve taught you a necessary lesson. No point in struggling. I’ve been far too indulgent with you, taking all the little taunts you throw at me on a regular basis. Just how long do I have to wait before you call a ceasefire?”
How could she possibly demolish the defensive structure she had so painstakingly built up in a matter of moments? “For ever!” she shouted fiercely, not fully realising how wildly provocative she had become.
And that sealed her fate.
With a face like thunder Boyd lowered his head. He hauled her right up against him, her delicate body near breakable in his grip, intent on finding her beautiful, softly textured mouth. He felt capable of something monstrous, like picking her up and carrying her off into the forest like some primitive caveman. Sometimes she literally drove him crazy.
The impact on Leona was equally tremendous. Yet hadn’t she always known that something like this would happen? This was the man she loved. And, from time to time, hated. Because he made her feel so…so what? Off her brain? She couldn’t move. Her riding clothes seemed to have turned to gossamer. She had to tense her body so it wouldn’t dissolve into his. She had never experienced such tumultuous emotions in her whole life. It was seismic.
His long fingers plunged into her hair, catching up handfuls of red-gold curls. “I get so tired of your fighting me,” he groaned.
Her legs had given way to the extent that she thought if he hadn’t been holding her so powerfully she would have slid down his body to crumple at his feet. “Open your mouth,” he said. “I want to taste you.”
The sensuality of the moment was ferocious. It stole her breath. Desperately she clamped her lips together. The utter senselessness of it. His tongue prised them apart. “This is something else you can resent,” he told her harshly.
To save herself from going totally under, like a swimmer in wild surf, she closed her eyes and let the giant waves of emotion engulf her.
He was kissing her, devouring her, eating her, as if her mouth were a peach. To make it worse, she was so driven by sensation she began to eat him. It certainly felt like it. All she knew was desire. It was terrifying. So sensuous, so natural, so voluptuous, so God-given. To ease the strength of his hold on her, she thrust one of her legs between his, making her acutely aware that he was powerfully aroused. And she was the cause of it.
When he let go of her—all but pushed her away—she felt so disorientated, so weak-limbed, she actually fell down into the thick, honey-coloured grasses that grew in a wide circle around the ruins. “I don’t believe you just did that,” she said eventually, her hands pressed to her temples as if they were pounding.
“It happened all right.” Forcefully, Boyd drew air into his lungs.
“I hated it,” she said. An outrageous piece of lying. And it wouldn’t help her.
“Don’t lie to me, Leo,” he chided her curtly. “It won’t work.” He gave them both a necessary minute of respite, then he reached down to pull her to her feet, keeping a hold on her swaying figure.
Her green
