Take What You Want. Anne Mather

      So Sophie had left the party and gone along the hall to her father’s study, and sure enough, Robert was there, stretched out in her father’s chair, his feet resting lazily on the desk, reading a manual on structural engineering. He looked up when she entered the room and his eyes were wary.

      ‘Your mother sent me to find you,’ Sophie had said, feeling rather like an intruder.

      Robert did not bother to get up but sat there regarding her with steady grey eyes. ‘Did she?’

      ‘Yes.’ Sophie had hovered uncertainly by the door. ‘Are you coming back to join the rest of us?’

      ‘I don’t think so, thanks.’

      He had returned his attentions to the book as though that was the end of the matter, and Sophie had been annoyed. He had dismissed her without even a word of apology.

      With a determined set to her mouth she had entered the study and closed the door and walked round the desk to where he was stretched out. When he eventually became aware of her standing there in front of him, he had looked up again and said resignedly: ‘Run away and enjoy yourself, Sophie. I’m perfectly happy here. I’ve no intention of getting myself plastered when I have to drive back to London in the morning.’

      Sophie had stared at him angrily, upset at the realisation that he would be leaving in a few hours and it might be months before she saw him again. ‘Don’t you think you’re being rather boorish?’ she had demanded. ‘Sitting here alone like some temperamental prima donna!’

      Robert had smiled at this, a lazy mocking smile that did nothing for her temper. Controlling a desire to slap his lean intelligent face, she had said: ‘You haven’t even danced with me!’

      Robert’s eyes had flickered then. ‘You have boys of your own age to dance with,’ he pointed out. ‘And besides, Simon is more than eager to accommodate you.’

      Sophie had really lost her temper then and she had snatched the book from him and thrown it aside, grasping his hands and trying to pull him up out of the chair. But he had resisted, dragging her down instead, down on to his knee, on to the hard muscles of his thighs, and he had kissed her in an urgent adult way that had sent the blood flaming along her veins and her senses spinning. Under that passionate assault her lips had parted and her fingers had slid up to his neck where the thick dark hair brushed his collar. When he had finally let her go, her legs had been like jelly and his face had been pale and shaken. He had muttered a rough apology and left her, and she had known then that things between them could never be the same again.

      She had not seen Robert again before he left for London. The following morning she had intended to be up early, but exhaustion after the strenuous evening had taken its toll and by the time she came downstairs both Robert and Emma had gone.

      Her faint hopes that she might see him before returning to boarding school were dashed by a telephone call to her stepmother informing them that Robert was leaving for the Far East at the end of the week, and she had returned to school feeling more depressed than before.

      But all that had been eighteen months ago now. During that time Sophie had matured considerably, and although the holidays she had spent with her parents had been at times when Robert was away on some job or other, she had consoled herself with the thought that he was giving her time to grow up before involving himself more deeply. After all, she had had the sense to realise that their parents would never have countenanced any kind of a relationship between them while she was still at school. But now her schooldays were over. She had six months to decide whether or not to apply for university entrance next year, and during those six months …

      She sighed, raising her shoulders in a little self-satisfied gesture before letting them fall again. A lot could happen in six months and in less than an hour she would see Robert again.

      She turned back from the window and encountered the admiring gaze of one of the soldiers. The message in his eyes was unmistakable and it gave her a warm feeling inside to know that she was attractive. Surely Robert must see the difference in her, the way her breasts had swelled, the narrowness of her waist, the provocative curve of her hips. Laura had promised these holidays that she would buy her a whole new wardrobe suitable to a young woman who had successfully gained three ‘A’ levels and who was leaving the school portals for good. She intended to buy some long feminine clothes, skirts and dresses and trouser suits, that accentuated her femininity rather than detracted from it.

      She looked out of the window again and her stomach plunged. The tracks were widening out into shunting yards, they passed a signal box that indicated that Hereford station was not too far distant. Glory, they were almost there!

      She looked down at her feet. Her two cases stood side by side along with the school briefcase which contained all her books. She had had quite a struggle along Paddington station until a friendly porter, busy with the pigskin luggage of a rather haughty-looking middle-aged woman, had taken pity on her and hefted her cases on to his trolley and deposited them by the open door of the second class compartment for no charge, much to his employer’s annoyance.

      ‘Can I give you a hand?’

      It was one of the soldiers. They were running into Hereford station now and Sophie’s attention was diverted from scanning the platform with heightening excitement.

      ‘What—oh, well, I’m sure I can manage,’ she demurred, half impatiently, but the young man was persistent.

      ‘It’s no trouble,’ he insisted, shaking his head. ‘We all get out here. Is someone meeting you?’

      Sophie cast a hasty look at the barrier as the train slowed. ‘I should think so.’

      The soldier grinned, ‘We should be so lucky!’

      She smiled at this, and then with a lurch the train ground to a halt and she rolled down the window and lent out to open the door.

      They were among the first to emerge into the humid, diesel-clogged air of late afternoon. The two soldiers had taken charge of a suitcase each and Sophie was left with only her briefcase to carry. Their attentions had distracted her and she was fumbling for her ticket when a cool, masculine voice said: ‘Hello, Sophie. It’s good to see you again.’

      Sophie looked up, her colour rising, her hands beginning to tremble uncontrollably. She hadn’t see his approach and she felt a ridiculous sense of resentment towards the two soldiers who had deprived her of that. But he hadn’t changed—at least, not a lot. He was perhaps a little leaner than she remembered, and had his grey eyes always had that steel edge to them? His tanned features bore witness to the months he had spent in warmer climes, and his hair was thicker and fell in a heavy swathe across his forehead. Heavy-lidded eyes, narrow cheekbones, a mouth that right now looked thin and uncompromising. And tall—dwarfing even her five feet six inches. He was wearing tightfitting jeans and an open-necked denim shirt and he exuded an aura of strength and disturbing masculinity. And yet for all that, she sensed that he was suppressing anger. But why? Did he imagine she had picked up the two soldiers who were now exchanging glances and clearly wishing they had not offered their services?

      Sophie made a helpless little movement of her shoulders. This was not how she had planned their reunion to be. She had waited over a year for this. She would not allow anyone to spoil it.

      With a determination born of desperation she dropped her briefcase and ignoring everyone but Robert, she stepped close to him and threw her arms round his neck, pressing her lips to his mouth. Because of the unexpectedness of her action, Robert’s hands came up automatically to close around her forearms to prevent them from overbalancing, but within seconds their pressure had hardened and he was thrusting her roughly away from him.

      ‘Sophie!’ he muttered angrily, and the two soldiers set down her cases and with embarrassed smiles walked on. ‘Sophie, for God’s sake!’ He raked a hand through his hair and cast a swift look around them to assure himself that they were not under observation.

      Sophie was unrepentant. In spite of his anger, just for a moment Robert’s mouth had responded to hers, and it was sufficient