The Ultimate Surrender. PENNY JORDAN

not fair.’ Polly defended herself quickly. ‘And it’s not true either. I’ve always been aware of how much both Briony and I owe you, and I’m very grateful for everything that you’ve done for us.’

      When he didn’t make any response she added incon-sequentially, ‘This was always one of Richard’s favourite places…’

      ‘Yes, I know,’ Marcus agreed curtly—so curtly that Polly turned round to face him properly. His face was wearing that austere, withdrawn expression that made him seem so distant and disapproving.

      ‘He loved to paint here,’ Polly continued protectively. ‘And…’

      ‘And you keep the painting he gave you of this place in that nun-like cell you call your bedroom…’

      ‘It isn’t a cell,’ Polly protested, outraged.

      ‘No, you’re right, it isn’t,’ Marcus agreed tersely. ‘It’s more like a shrine…a shrine to a man—a boy—who would have been appalled by your maudlin determination to turn him into some kind of plaster saint…’

      Polly could feel herself starting to tremble. Why was it always like this? Why was it always like this between them? Why did they argue so much…fight so viciously? Why, when he obviously disliked and resented her so much, had Marcus done so much for her? But she already knew the answer to that conundrum. First it had been for Richard and then, after his death, for Briony.

      ‘Richard was my husband,’ she reminded him with a small quiver in her voice.

      ‘Was…Was, Polly,’ Marcus emphasised savagely. ‘Richard is dead and has been for a very long time.’

      ‘Briony wants me to give a private dinner party,’ she told him quickly. ‘She—’

      ‘Yes, I know.’ Marcus interrupted her shortly. Uncertainly Polly searched his face. What exactly had Briony told him—that she had found the woman she thought would make him the perfect wife? It wouldn’t surprise her. Marcus would accept things from Briony that she could never imagine him accepting from someone else. They were on the same wavelength, so much in tune with one another that…that they made her feel excluded, envious…Envious? Of her own daughter…? Fiercely Polly resisted her thoughts.

      ‘I have to go back,’ she told Marcus jerkily, her body tensing when he fell into step beside her as she headed for the footpath. Just as she reached it she tried to distance herself from him, gasping in shock as a small branch from one of the trees became entangled in her hair.

      ‘Keep still,’ Marcus instructed her, immediately realising what had happened and reaching out to free her.

      He was standing far too close to her, Polly recognised weakly. Far too close. She was beginning to feel dizzy…light-headed…

      ‘Keep still,’ Marcus repeated irritably as he tried to tug her hair free. She felt engulfed by him, surrounded by him as he moved closer to her whilst he worked patiently to free her.

      Standing this close to him was almost like being in a lover’s embrace with him…Polly could feel her skin starting to prickle with nervous tension. She could hardly breathe and if he didn’t free her soon and move away from her she knew she was going to panic and do something really stupid.

      ‘There. You’re free now.’

      Free…For one wild moment Polly actually contemplated telling him how impossible it was for her ever to be free of the unwanted burden she carried, but just in time she stopped herself, her ‘Thank you’ short and sharp, as though the words hurt her throat.

      Her head was beginning to ache, but not because of her pulled hair and no way near as much as her heart.

      Marcus provoked her, irritated her, angered her more than anyone else she knew, sometimes she felt that the hostility between them was such that she could almost reach out and feel it. But only she knew how much, how desperately she needed to cling onto that anger and hostility…how much she needed the defence it gave her.

      ‘There’s no need to walk back with me,’ she told him tersely. ‘I can manage.’

      ‘As you never seem to cease delighting in reinforcing to me,’ Marcus agreed curtly. ‘Polly, has it ever occurred to you—?’ He stopped.

      ‘Has what ever occurred to me?’ she pressed him. But he simply shook his head and told her grimly, ‘It doesn’t matter.’

      No, she wanted to correct him, I’m what doesn’t matter to you, Marcus…me. But somehow she found the strength not to do so.

      

      On her return to the house Polly went straight to the kitchen. Polly loved cooking, and its pleasure for her came from a deeply rooted nurturing instinct.

      ‘Ma, you should have had half a dozen children, not just one,’ Briony often told her.

      Perhaps it was true; perhaps the love she poured into Fraser House and their guests was simply a form of displacement therapy, an outlet for the love and caring she no longer had her beloved Richard to give.

      Paradoxically, perhaps Marcus was like herself, someone who, whilst enjoying and insisting on top-quality health-protecting, wholesome food, was not a gourmet, which was probably why, at forty-two, he still had the superbly fit and muscled body of a man half his age—as Polly had good cause to know. The last time he had been home she had hurried down to the swimming pool intent on having her early-morning swim before getting down to prepare the guests’ breakfasts, and as she had approached the pool she had realised that Marcus had beaten her to it.

      Reluctantly impressed, she had watched as he completed a length in a stunningly effective and fast crawl before turning at the far end of the pool to see her watching him. Quickly she’d started to walk back to the exit but, to her chagrin, Marcus had hauled himself out of the water and come after her, stopping her before she could leave.

      ‘Nice swimsuit,’ had been his drawlingly derogatory comment as he had surveyed her. ‘What is it—one of Briony’s schoolfriend’s cast-offs?’

      Furious with him for his rudeness, and herself for allowing herself to be provoked, she had compressed her mouth, refusing to make any verbal response even though she’d known her heightened colour had given away her real feelings.

      Perhaps her swimming costume was a little bit old-fashioned, a plain, serviceable affair which she had originally bought when Briony had been a little girl and she had been taking her for swimming lessons; but the bikini Briony had insisted on her buying for their last holiday together was, in Polly’s maternal opinion, far too brief and revealing—little more than a few scraps of black satinised cotton edged in a dull gold, and certainly far too sophisticated for a businesslike early-morning swim.

      Distractedly she had watched the downward path of the droplets of water coursing their way through the sleek dark pelt of Marcus’s body hair, across the flat, hard-packed muscles of his chest and stomach, and then…

      It hadn’t been until Marcus had oh, so deliberately wrapped the towel he was carrying around his hips that she’d realised just how hard she had been staring at him, and where, and her face had flushed an even deeper hue of pink as he had asked her, ‘What is it Polly? Have you forgotten what a man looks like, or is this…’ his hand had reached out and touched the hot skin of her face ‘…because you have remembered?’ And then, before she could say anything he had challenged her, ‘Do you think if your positions had been reversed that Richard would have clung so unnaturally to his widowhood or his celibacy?’

      ‘Celibacy is easy when you…when there’s only one man you love—only one man you want,’ she had managed to retort; and, after all, it had been and still was the truth.

      CHAPTER THREE

      ‘AHA! I thought so. No way are you wearing that.’ Briony pounced, coming into Polly’s bedroom just as she was zipping up the plain, faithful black dress she’d decided to wear for Briony’s dinner