take the first few steps, and then said, ‘I can’t let you do it.’
She stopped. She knew she must keep on walking, but almost against her will she turned, and when she did so she caught her breath. There was an air of such intensity about him it seemed he was more alive than anything else in the forest.
Against the suddenly-dimmed background he stood out, his attitude one of tightly-leashed power, as though he were a predator about to pounce. But it was not just his body that held her motionless, causing her heart to skip a beat. His face, a collection of sharp angles and planes, held her rigid, and his eyes burned.
She felt alarmed, not because of what he might do, but because of what they might do together. Yet despite this she was unable to move; unable to take the steps that would let her walk away.
Then she must say something. If she could not move she must at least utter a few words. The situation was becoming so charged with pent-up energy that she knew she must do something to give it release, for if it continued it would become unbearable.
‘I . . . I don’t know what . . . ’ She started to speak, but it was impossible for her to continue because her throat and mouth were parched.
His eyes continued to bore into her own, holding her and drinking her in.
She began to tingle.
And then he spoke. ‘I can’t let you marry Chuffington,’ he said.
‘Marry . . . ?’ She couldn’t think what he was talking about. Had she heard him correctly? There was such a rushing in her ears that she could not be sure. Her mind was no more help than her ears, for it was filled with heart-wrenching memories, and she was finding it difficult to think.
She was in the forest, with Alex, and his eyes were full of an intense emotion that she could not begin to understand; her legs were turning to water; but beyond that her mind could not go.
‘It isn’t worth it,’ he said. His eyes still held her. ‘I know life has been difficult for you, and I know he can give you a beautiful home, but -’
Cicely blinked. The rushing sound in her ears began to diminish.
He can give you a beautiful home?
‘ - you will not be happy,’ he went on.
He can give you a beautiful home. The words began to sink in.
And her expression changed.
Gone was the rushing in her ears, and the weakness in her knees. In their place was a growing disdain. To begin with she had been perplexed that he should think she was going to marry Chuff Chuff, but realizing he thought she was going to marry him for Parmiston Manor, her anger began to stir. Did he really know her so little? Did he hold her in such low esteem that he thought she would marry for mercenary reasons?
‘It isn’t enough,’ he said.
‘Isn’t it?’ she demanded.
She was by now almost back in control of herself but her gaze was drawn to his eyes, which were fixed tumultuously on her own. She had never realized how deep they were before, as though they were whirlpools that could draw her in.
She stood her ground as he approached her, but even so a part of her had an urge to back away. He was so overpoweringly, so overwhelmingly masculine; something she was able to forget on occasion, when it was hidden under a civilised veneer, but it was always there, waiting to break through. And it had broken through now, revealing the full strength and power of the man beneath.
‘I can’t let you do it,’ he said again. He cupped her chin. ‘You’ll regret it.’ He searched her eyes as though searching her soul. ‘Chuffington’s a buffoon -’
At his criticism of her childhood friend her anger began to rise again, and she used it to fight the unwanted sensations that were bubbling just beneath the surface, aroused by his touch. It would be so easy to let her eyes close; so easy to fall into his arms and turn up her face for his kiss, but she could not allow herself to do it.
If she once surrendered to him she would do so completely; body, mind and soul.
And she had no intention of surrendering herself to a man who thought so little of her that he believed she would marry without love. Let alone a man who was obviously very