might be storing up for herself by taking her on. And yet wasn’t the job exactly what she needed? And with the added benefit of living accommodation thrown in as well?
It wasn’t just the luxury of the house that drew Lark. It was the warmth that seemed to pervade it. A warmth that she guessed sprang from Mrs Mayers herself. Lark had found herself wishing that she might have had an aunt or a godmother like the American woman. Someone to whom she could have turned when her parents were killed.
How cold and withdrawn her aunt seemed when compared with Mrs Mayers. Or was it simply that she herself was far more sensitive to such things since the ordeal of the last few months? It was true that since she had grown up there had been an enormous distance between herself and her aunt and uncle, but she had put it down to the fact that she was growing up rather than to any lack of emotion for her on their part.
Now she knew the truth. They had never loved her in the way that she had always believed they did. In fact, they had resented her, and very deeply. That had been made abundantly clear to Lark following Gary’s death.
It didn’t take her long to clear up after she had eaten. She was still wearing the clothes in which she had gone for her interview. She ought to change out of them and press them so that they would be ready to wear the next time that she needed them. If she ever needed them again …
She had just changed into an old pair of jeans and a warm sweatshirt when she heard someone knocking on her door. Visitors were such an unusual occurrence that it was several seconds before she could actually accept the fact that it was her door which was being knocked on.
She went to open it and then hesitated uncertainly. While she hesitated, the knocking increased in volume, its imperative summons demanding that she open it immediately.
The man standing there was instantly familiar to her, but the shock of seeing him so totally unexpectedly robbed her of the ability to do anything other than simply stand and stare, her heart giving a gigantic leap and the breath squeezing out of her lungs as she looked into James Wolfe’s cool grey eyes.
Her first panicky thought was that somehow or other there had been a mistake and that he had come to drag her back to court. Her fear of that thought was so great that she actually started to try to close the door.
But, as though he had anticipated such an action, he stepped into the room, forcing her to move back or risk coming into physical contact with him. If he had appeared formidable in court, it was nothing to the effect he was having on her senses now.
Somehow, being stripped of his court robes had invested him with an even more intensely masculine aura. As he reached out to push her door closed behind him, her attention was caught by the sinuous strength of his wrist. A gold watch glinted discreetly in the dim light of her room.
She watched him tensely, unable to understand what he was doing here, and yet too shocked to frame any coherent questions.
‘You should never open your door without finding out who’s on the other side of it,’ he reproved her casually. ‘Not these days—not in London.’
Weakly, Lark collapsed on to her shabby, lumpy settee.
‘What are you doing here?’ Her voice sounded cracked and strained, artificially high and totally unfamiliar. She noticed that her hands were shaking and, to hide it from him, she folded them and tucked them underneath her. She didn’t want to betray any weakness in front of this man, but she realised immediately that he had seen the small, betraying gesture.
Something flickered in the depths of his eyes. Triumph? No, it hadn’t been that. Then what? Compassion? No, never, not from a man like James Wolfe.
‘What are you doing here?’ she repeated huskily. ‘Or can I guess?’ she demanded bitterly, her brain suddenly working properly. ‘You hated it, didn’t you, that the case was dismissed? You wanted them to convict me.’ Suddenly she was back inside the court room, the silence around her charged with expectations, as the jury waited for her to respond to his allegations.
She drew a quivering breath, unaware of his frown as he studied her, unaware of anything other than the terror of the moment when she had known that no one would believe her. That, innocent as she was, innocence on its own was not going to be enough.
‘Well, there’s nothing you can do about it now,’ she told him harshly, dragging herself back to reality.
There was a moment’s silence, and then he asked quietly, ‘Is that how you’re going to spend the rest of your life? Living in the past?’ His question startled her. It wasn’t the reaction she had been expecting at all, but before she could say a word he continued derisively, ‘But then, what else can you do, living here? You don’t have a job, you don’t have anything, do you?’
He had come here deliberately to taunt her, to remind her that, although she might have escaped conviction, she was still being punished as he quite obviously considered that she should be. But he was wrong, she did have a job.
Lark didn’t stop to weigh the consequences, to remember how she herself had had doubts about the wisdom of accepting Mrs Mayers’ generous offer. Instead she told him with fierce pride that he was wrong, that she did have a job. Her eyes flashed fierce signs of fire, her hands clenching into small fists as she stood up to face him.
He didn’t look as surprised as she had expected, but then, of course, he was adept at concealing his true feelings; that would have been all part of his barrister’s training.
‘You see, despite what you tried to do to me, there are still people around who can recognise the truth when they hear it.’
An odd expression crossed his face. If she hadn’t known better she might almost have believed that he was amused, and then suddenly he leaned forward, his hand touching her throat, sliding up over her skin to her jaw, cupping it firmly.
The shock of his unanticipated touch scalded her into immobility, while her pulse jumped frantically beneath her skin and her heart surged heavily against her breastbone. She knew that he was going to kiss her, and yet she refused to believe it. It was unthinkable, impossible, unimaginable, and yet when his mouth touched hers it was as though some part of her had always known that one day there would be a man who would kiss her like this, who would make her pulses race and her blood burn, who would caress her mouth with his own, and in doing so possess her more thoroughly than any other man before or after him.
Her senses reeled beneath the force of it, her mind a total blank, as he kissed her with slow thoroughness, not rushing or forcing her, his mouth tasting hers with voluptuous delight. His hand still supported her neck, his thumb gently caressing her pulse. His body didn’t touch hers. He made no move to hold her closer or to touch her in any other way, and yet she trembled as much as though he had caressed every single inch of her.
He released her slowly and deliberately. She came back to earth to hear him saying softly, ‘Delicious.’
Her eyelids felt weighed down. It was an effort to open them and look at him. He was smiling at her, his mouth curving half mockingly. His eyes looked more silver than grey, liquid like mercury.
She wanted to reach out and trace the shape of his mouth in wonder and awe, still lost in the mystery of what had happened between them, and then he said in amusement, ‘What’s wrong, Sleeping Beauty? Has no one ever kissed you before?’ And immediately she realised exactly what she was doing and wondered how on earth she would ever be able to forgive herself for being so stupid.
‘You
