I feel.’
Desperately trying to convince him that she wasn’t as feeble as she appeared, Liadan sank back down onto the bed without even realising she’d automatically done so. God, she was tired! Perhaps if she did allow herself to catch up a little with some shut-eye she would feel more like herself later on. Oh, why did this have to happen now, when she was just getting into the swing of her housekeeping role? Now Adrian would have to disrupt his schedule to tend to her and that was the last thing she wanted!
‘You and I aren’t going to stay friends for very long if you insist on lying to me, Liadan.’ Adrian’s dark gaze was ominously threatening and Liadan took a very big gulp. Was she his friend? Or was he just using a figure of speech to lure her into co-operating with his insistence that she stay in bed?
‘I—I didn’t want to let you down. My head’s throbbing a bit but it’s not bad. I think I feel worse because I didn’t get much sleep last night, that’s all.’
‘Get beneath the covers. Come on, be quick about it, I want to phone the doctor.’
‘No doctor—please!’ Her blue eyes beseeched him as she threw off her robe and swung the slender legs that were hidden beneath her long white nightgown onto the bed. As she settled herself Adrian tidied the jumbled bedclothes and remade the bed. When he’d plumped up her pillows, he stood back to examine her pale, unhappy face as she stared up at him.
‘You do not move from that bed unless it’s to go to the bathroom; do I make myself clear?’
‘I’m twenty-seven years old, not a child in kindergarten!’ Her retort was mutinous and for some reason Adrian’s heart squeezed unexpectedly.
‘Right now you’re not in a position to make intelligent decisions for yourself so I’m temporarily taking charge. Where did you get that nightgown, by the way? Your great-grandmother’s attic?’
As she saw the unexpected humour in his eyes Liadan’s heart did a pirouette as perfect as any prima ballerina’s inside her chest. But then irritation surfaced, quickly squashing the warmer emotion. She hadn’t bought the long antique nightdress to titillate anyone; it kept her warm and made her feel secure alone at night in her bed in the cottage. And what right did he have to criticise her nightwear anyway?
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You clearly have no idea how much old-fashioned Victorian nightgowns on young, sexy, blue-eyed red-heads turn me on.’ His expression was no longer humorous, but quietly, deadly serious, and Liadan closed her mouth on the follow-up retort she’d been going to make. Suddenly the air in the room seemed thick and heavy and disturbingly she felt as if she were melting into the mattress beneath her. Unconsciously wetting her lips, she raised her big blue eyes to nervously meet Adrian’s penetrating gaze. ‘My hair isn’t red. My mother said the colour was more like strawberry-blonde.’
‘Or red-gold…like autumn leaves.’
‘That’s the writer in you.’
‘No, Liadan.’ His voice husky, Adrian’s smile was dangerously seductive. ‘That’s the man in me.’
It was almost uncanny how right at that instant the pain in her head seemed to disappear. Instead, a new, far more delightful sensation was rippling through her body, making her feel as if she were floating on a warm, sensuous sea, and she was no longer weighed down by tiredness. On the contrary, she was gloriously, vibrantly awake.
‘I’ll try and get some sleep. Just an hour or two, then I should be able to come downstairs.’ As much as she desired him, Liadan badly needed him to go before something happened that they would only regret.
‘I’m still calling the doctor.’
‘No, Adrian, please!’ Unthinkingly, Liadan grabbed his hand and held it. ‘I’ll stay in bed for the rest of the day if you insist, but please don’t call the doctor out. I know I’m going to be fine.’
‘Okay.’ His dark brows drawing briefly together, Adrian glanced down at the small, pale hand that presently held him captive and mentally fought like a Trojan to stem the flood of sensual heat that infiltrated his blood and aroused him as he’d never been aroused before. She wasn’t well, he harshly reminded himself, so what the hell did he think he was doing lusting after her in her prim, unsuspectingly sexy Victorian nightgown? And Liadan wasn’t even his girlfriend. She was the woman he’d hired to be his housekeeper—a role that was as essential to his lifestyle as his computer, and no more emotional. He knew he had to get a grip. ‘Against my better judgement I won’t phone the doctor. But the second you feel worse or you’re in pain, that decision will rapidly change, and no argument!’ Reluctantly tugging his hand free, Adrian strode to the door. ‘I’ll give you a couple of hours, then I’ll bring you up a cup of tea.’
‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘Get some rest. I’m going downstairs to my study to work.’ His expression unreadable, he closed the door behind him without another word and Liadan had no choice but to sink back against her pillows and close her eyes.
About to go into the study at Adrian’s behest, she paused outside the door for a moment, letting the tinkling, soporific sounds of the most exquisite piano music wash over her. It was one of her favourite pieces of music, written by an Italian composer who had died an early and tragic death. Liadan knew it well and had played it often. Her throat welling with emotion as she listened, she had to shake herself out of her momentary trance to knock on the door. At Adrian’s curt, ‘Come in!’ she pushed open the door and went inside.
He was seated by the fire in a deep leather armchair, the silver in his hair an eye-catching contrast to the darkness of his clothing, his long legs stretched out before him as though he’d been relaxing for the first time in days, and Liadan was almost loath to disturb him. His expression was closed and unsmiling as he regarded her, but right then he exuded such strength, such irrefutable male beauty, that Liadan found she could forgive him for his less than warm welcome. Besides which, he’d let her rest upstairs in her room all day and had even brought her lunch. Not all employers would be so lenient and caring to someone who’d barely been in their employ for five minutes, and she should count her blessings. She was feeling much better, too. Her headache had definitely subsided and if she didn’t overdo things the following day, she would be more or less back to her old self. Now all she had to do was convince Adrian of the same.
‘You must be feeling better.’ He got to his feet and this time he did smile—albeit briefly. ‘You’ve got rosy cheeks.’
Catching the ends of the dark green pashmina shawl she had teamed with her maroon sweater and long, black skirt, Liadan smiled back. ‘I had a long hot bath and washed my hair and now I feel like a new woman.’
She’d left her hair free of binds this evening and it tumbled down her back in a riot of waves, like a fall of the most exquisite silk on display at a Bedouin market. For a moment Adrian was truly lost for words. The air he breathed was disturbed by the sweetly heady fragrance she wore, and its spellbinding impact registered a sensual punch deep in his belly, stirring feelings and emotions and needs he’d long trained himself to dismiss. But it was becoming more and more difficult to distance himself from this enchanting woman, he realised. He could no longer deny that he could barely think about anything other than seducing her. Even that nonsense with Petra had ceased to occupy him and last night, for the first time in ages, he hadn’t dreamt about Nicole at all…
‘Come and sit down.’ Indicating the other chair beside the
