A Bad Enemy. Sara Craven

Bannerman?’

      Lisle prayed for patience. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m not sure where he is, Mrs Foxton. I hoped you might be able to help me. You see, there’s rather a crisis here. My grandfather has had a severe heart attack, and I feel Gerard should come back immediately, for a number of reasons.’ She paused, but there was no response from the other woman. ‘So, if you do happen to know where he is, perhaps you could pass on a message for me.’

      Another lengthy pause, then Carla Foxton said curtly, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ And rang off.

      Lisle sighed as she replaced her own receiver more slowly. It occurred to her that really she liked very few of Gerard’s women, and Carla Foxton probably least of all. She was petite, black-haired and beautiful in a voluptuous way which spoke of the Latin-American blood in her recent ancestry, and Gerard had been frankly besotted with her for several months. Carla was some fifteen years younger than her wealthy indulgent husband, and although Gerard was undoubtedly more to her taste as a lover, their affair had been carried on fairly discreetly. Carla much preferred to have the best of both worlds, and was shrewd enough to ensure that she did so. Lisle could understand her caution on the phone, but not the lack of humanity she had displayed.

      Dispiritedly, she walked to the door, and stepped out into the hall, pausing as her hand reached for the switch to plunge the library back into its former peaceful darkness.

      ‘Walking in your sleep?’ Jake asked.

      She nearly screamed, her hand flying to her mouth just in time to stifle the sound, so that it emerged instead as a kind of strangled squeak.

      He was lounging in the doorway to the drawing room, his hand clasped round a tumbler of whisky. His head was thrown back slightly, and the grey eyes were narrowed as he looked at her.

      Lisle said faintly, ‘You—you startled me.’

      ‘You startled me,’ he returned pleasantly. ‘When I saw you go past the door, I thought for a moment you were the resident ghost.’ A faint appreciative smile twisted the corners of his mouth. ‘But if you were, of course, I’d be able to see right through you, instead of merely through that pretty nonsense you’re wearing.’

      Lisle realised with embarrassed dismay that, standing in the strong light streaming from the room behind her, she was providing him with a frank revelation of the outline of her body through the thin nightdress and robe. Hastily her hand moved to the switch again, snapping it to the ‘off’ position.

      ‘What are you doing down here?’ she asked. Apart from a couple of extra buttons unfastened on his shirt, he was dressed exactly as when she had left him. It didn’t seem as if he’d been to bed at all.

      ‘Thinking,’ he said. ‘And drinking.’ He held up the tumbler of whisky in a kind of mocking salute.

      ‘You find alcohol aids your thought processes?’

      ‘I find that sometimes it blocks them out altogether, which can be equally useful. May I ask, in return, what you’re doing down here?’

      ‘I—I couldn’t sleep,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Worrying about Grandfather, I suppose.’ She gestured towards the doorway behind her. ‘I came down to get a book.’

      He looked past her into the shadowed room with its tier upon tier of booklined shelves, then back to her empty hands. He began to laugh.

      ‘But you couldn’t find one. Or have you read them all before?’

      She glared at him. ‘Only I decided I’d rather have some hot milk instead. I was just going to get it.’

      ‘Hot milk,’ he said softly. ‘How very girlish. May I recommend my own personal anodyne instead?’

      ‘Whisky, I suppose.’ Lisle pulled a small, jeering face.

      ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not whisky.’ And his eyes slid down her body from head to foot, assessing her in a slow deliberate sensual scrutiny, which left her oddly breathless and as vulnerable as if it had been his hands which had stripped her and left her naked beneath his hungry gaze.

      She said on a little gasp, ‘You’re disgusting!’

      ‘And you’re a hypocrite,’ he said derisively. ‘You know what to expect when you flaunt yourself in front of a man with hardly a stitch on. And I’m not interested in your fables about books and hot milk either. There’s a very good reason why we should both be roaming the house at two in the morning suffering from insomnia, and I’m sure I don’t have to spell it out to you.’

      She swallowed. ‘It isn’t what you think. …’

      ‘As I’ve already told you, I’ve stopped thinking.’ Jake put the glass down on the huge carved chest which stood against the wall next to him. ‘I suggest you do the same. Just let your feelings take over. We may not like each other, Lisle, but I’m ready to bet any money that we have a common meeting ground just the same.’

      He walked towards her, watching her, missing nothing, she thought desperately as she tried to steady her breathing, to control the hurry of her small breasts under the lace bodice of her nightdress.

      He touched her face, his thumb caressing the soft curve of her cheek, his fingers discovering the delicacy of her jawline.

      He said quietly, ‘If it’s any consolation, I never intended this to happen either.’

      He took her quite gently into his arms, not kissing her, just holding her against the hard, lean length of him, and deep within her a pang of desire began a crescendo into real pain.

      She was bewildered by it. It was too new to her experience, too sharp, and too urgent for her to know how to deal with it, although in some dim recess of her mind, something told her that she should pull away now while she still had some will to do so.

      She knew by the pressure of Jake’s body against hers that he was deeply and hotly aroused, and in the past she had always found that faintly disturbing, even alarming. Evidence, she had thought, of passions and emotions which seemed to pass her by, and which she had no wish to share.

      Now, suddenly, it was exciting to know that she was wanted, and she evinced no kind of protest as his hands slid down her body to her slender hips, moulding her against him, because she knew that she wanted to be even closer still.

      His hands moved on her without haste, his fingers stroking her body through the thin nightdress, the silky material creating a sweet erotic friction against her skin. She was silent, eyes closed, within the circle of his arms, conscious only of this new sensual clamour in her blood, the uneven race of her pulse.

      A few hours before, the thought of his kiss had filled her with tension, but now, when his hand gently cupped her throat, tipping her head back slightly so that his mouth could find hers, she reached for him with blind eagerness, like a parched flower thirsting for rain. His lips were warm and incredibly sensuous, demanding and winning an equally passionate response from her. Her hands locked behind his dark head, she felt her senses swim, her body melt in quivering eagerness.

      Still kissing her, Jake slid an arm beneath her knees, lifting her bodily off the floor, then carried her across the hall to the warm shadows of the drawing room.

      He knelt, lowering her gently to the huge fur rug spread in front of the fire, sliding the robe from her shoulders as he did so. The breath caught in her throat as she looked up at him, saw the grey eyes glittering suddenly, and hungrily intent. With the first sign of impatience he had shown, he pushed down the straps of her nightgown, baring the small rounded breasts, and Lisle gasped, lifting her hands instinctively to cover herself.

      His fingers gripped her wrists, tugging her hands away. He said in a low voice, ‘You’re too beautiful to hide yourself. Let me look at you. I want to see every perfect inch.’

      He freed her arms, and pulled the nightdress down from her body. In an agony of shyness, Lisle closed her eyes as she felt the soft silk slither away. There was little light in the room, but she’d never been naked in front of a man