Duelling Fire Read online

  ‘Salt?’ suggested Jude mockingly, watching her reactions. ‘A good Scot always has salt with his porridge.’

  Sara swallowed convulsively before speaking. ‘I really don’t want this,’ she whispered, pushing the plate aside. ‘Can’t you do something?’

  Jude finished his own porridge, regarding her thoughtfully. ‘What would you like?’ he enquired, with easy audacity, and she shook her head bitterly and turned her face away.

  When Jude got up, she glanced round at him anxiously, and then saw to her relief that he had gathered both plates together. As she watched with some trepidation, he sauntered over to the sink and apparently scraped the contents of her dish down the drain.

  Janet turned as what Sara realised was a sink disposal unit started up, and Jude spread his hands apologetically before resuming his seat. ‘Just a little too much,’ he declared, rubbing his flat stomach, but Sara knew the housekeeper had not been deceived.

  The second course was more appetising, but Sara was not used to a large meal in the morning. At boarding school she had groaned over fatty bacon and watery eggs, but since she had lived with her father she had grown used to the continental style of croissants or toast. Janet’s idea of a good breakfast consisted of two eggs, bacon, kidneys and sausages, with a couple of grilled tomatoes thrown in for good measure. Sara was amazed that Jude could swallow such a meal, without seeming to put on an ounce of superfluous weight.

  Simply because she had to, Sara swallowed a little crispy bacon and one of the sausages. But the eggs defeated her, even firm and crisp at the edges. Instead, she drank two cups of the strong black coffee, and looked up defiantly when Jude had finished.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, pushing back his chair. ‘It’s too nice a morning to waste in here. See you later, Janet.’

  Janet’s dour expression mirrored her feelings over Sara’s scarcely-touched plate, but she didn’t say anything. She merely watched with her sharp eyes as Jude showed Sara the door that led into the yard at the back of the house, and the girl had no doubts that her behaviour would be reported.

  ‘Worried?’ asked Jude, sliding his arms into the jacket he had been carrying. His lips twitched. ‘Don’t concern yourself over Janet. She’s a crotchety old besom at the best of times.’

  Sara pressed her lips together. ‘That’s easy for you to say.’

  Jude glanced sideways at her. ‘Why not for you, too?’

  ‘Oh, she obviously thinks you’re wonderful!’ she muttered pushing her hands into the pockets of her jeans. ‘But she doesn’t like me, and she makes it obvious.’

  Jude gave her a lazy grin. ‘Correction, she doesn’t like you being with me,’ he declared, leading the way through the kitchen garden. ‘Forget it. It doesn’t matter what she thinks.’

  ‘It does.’ Sara hunched her shoulders. ‘I suppose she’ll tell Harriet.’

  ‘Mmm … mm, probably,’ he agreed carelessly. ‘So what? Let her. Harriet doesn’t own me.’

  The words: Doesn’t she? hovered on Sara’s lips, and when she looked up and found him watching her, she knew he knew it, too.

  ‘Relax,’ he said flatly. ‘I won’t spoil any of Harriet’s plans. Just disrupt them a little.’

  Sara didn’t know what he meant, but they had reached the stable yard and Mr Barnes had seen them. ‘Morning, Jude—Miss Shelley!’ he greeted them smilingly. ‘You come to check on our newest arrival?’

  ‘You might say that, Frank,’ remarked Jude drily, glancing round at Sara. ‘Where is Midnight? Still in the same place?’

  ‘No. As a matter of fact, she and the foal are over there.’ He gestured towards a small pen at the end of the stable block. ‘Barry’s cleaning out the stalls at the moment, and as it was such a lovely morning …’

  ‘Good idea.’

  Jude patted the man on the shoulder, and then he and Sara crossed the cobbled yard to where the mare was happily munching some hay, with the little colt nuzzling at her legs. A week had made a tremendous difference to the foal, and although his legs still looked scarcely capable of supporting him, he was evidently gaining strength.

  Sara gasped in delight, and rested her arms on the rails of the pen. ‘Isn’t he adorable!’ she exclaimed, forgetting her antipathy in her excitement. ‘Has he got a name yet?’

  ‘Well, we’re calling him Blackie provisionally, for obvious reasons,’ Jude replied wryly. ‘Not very imaginative, perhaps, but his eventual registration will be as Black Knight—knight as in Knight’s Ferry.’

  ‘Oh!’ Sara was pleased. ‘I like that. Was Minstrel his father?’

  ‘No.’ Jude laid his arms along the rail, too, resting his chin on his knuckles. ‘He was sired by a stud from another stable.’ He turned his head and quirked a brow. ‘Why? What do you know about such things?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Sara coloured, as he had known she would. ‘I just wondered, that’s all.’

  ‘Why? Is parentage of importance to you?’

  Sara pursed her lips. ‘Well, of course—I mean—it matters who one’s father is, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Does it?’

  Sara sighed. ‘Stop being so awkward! You know what I mean.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘You should.’ Sara clenched her fists. ‘Unless you didn’t have a father,’ she added sarcastically.

  His expected rejoinder didn’t happen. With an abrupt movement he withdrew his arms from the rail and walked away, and Sara was left with the unpleasant realisation that once again she had said something totally unforgivable.

  With a guilty sense of injustice she hastened after him, catching up with him as he was about to enter the building on the opposite side of the yard. Following him inside, she realised that this was evidently the grain store, and as well as the bales of hay stacked against the walls, there were sacks piled up on the floor. Some of the sacks had burst open, however, and the clean smell of straw pervaded the atmosphere, warm and pungent, and distinctly earthy.

  ‘Jude—–’

  Her tentative use of his name caused him to glance over his shoulder, but he didn’t turn to look at her. ‘Go find Frank,’ he instructed her shortly. ‘Tell him to come here, will you?’

  ‘In a minute …’ Sara lingered. ‘Jude, what I said—well, I didn’t mean to be rude.’

  ‘Forget it.’ He moved his shoulders indifferently, and crossed the floor to where a stack of bales looked definitely unsteady. ‘Find Frank, there’s a good girl. I want to see him.’

  ‘Jude—–’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Losing patience, he gave the pile of bales a vicious thump with his fist, and before Sara could cry a warning the whole stack tumbled down on top of him.

  He went down immediately, the suddenness of the fall and the weight of the hay giving him little chance to defend himself. He disappeared beneath an avalanche of bales and a cloud of dust, and Sara didn’t stop to think before launching herself into the fray.

  She was on her knees tearing the hay aside when he sat up, pushing the offending bales off his legs, and gave her a rueful grimace. ‘God!’ he muttered, raking back his hair with a slightly unsteady hand. ‘I guess I asked for that!’

  ‘Are you all right?’ Sara was red-faced and anxious, brushing scraps of hay from his sleeve, reaching to pull a straw from the unruly darkness of his hair. ‘Oh, Jude, I thought they’d knocked you out!’

  ‘Not quite,’ he told her wryly. ‘But thanks for your concern. It’s welcome—if a little unexpected.’

  Sara sat back on her heels. ‘It was my fault,’ she declared. ‘I—I shouldn’t have said what I did—–’

  ‘I told you—forget it,’ he said tautly, arching one arm over his head and resting his elbow on his updrawn knee. ‘Just give me a minute, will you …’

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  Sara saw another straw lodged in the opened neckline of his shirt, and stretched her hand to take it. But to her dismay, Jude captured her fingers, and when she would have drawn them away he propelled
them deliberately to his chest. His shirt had been torn open by his fall, and her fingers recoiled from the fine covering of body hair that brushed her palm.

  ‘Touch me,’ he said harshly. ‘For God’s sake, stop playing games!’

  ‘I—I’m not playing games,’ she breathed. ‘There was a straw—–’

  ‘I know what there was,’ he muttered, reaching out to take her face between his hands. ‘Oh, God, come here—–’

  ‘Jude, no—–’ she protested, pressing her hands against him in an effort to keep him at arm’s length. But all she did was lose her balance, and when she grabbed for his jacket to save her, she pulled him down on top of her.

  The weight of his body knocked the breath out of her, and she lay helplessly panting for air. His chest crushed her breasts, his flanks tangled with hers in the rough bed of straw. She could feel the heat of his skin penetrating his clothes and hers, and the strong masculine scent of him in her nose and her mouth, male and intoxicating.

  She thought afterwards that he had intended to pull away from her. There was a world of difference between a kiss, given and received between two upright adults, and this totally intimate embrace. He even put his hands to the floor at either side of her, as if to push himself up from her heaving body. But their eyes met and locked, hers wide and uncertain, his dark and immobile, and when he lowered his gaze to her mouth, Sara’s lips parted in mute betrayal.

  With a groan of anguish Jude lowered his head, his lips seeking that moist invitation. It was an involuntary reaction, his mouth hard and searching. It was as if he wanted her to fight him, and indeed Sara’s hands rose to push him away from her. But beneath the soft leather of his jacket she encountered his hips, bone-hard and tautly muscled, pinning her legs to the floor. And instead of pushing him away, her hands slid over his spine, and his shuddering response set her own limbs trembling.

  His mouth softened, gentled, exploring her cheeks and her eyes before returning to her lips with devastating results. As he shifted, she shifted too, fitting herself against him, yielding to his every demand, until the cool sweet air against her skin made her realise her sweater was up below her arms.

  She was breathing unsteadily, quick shallow gulps of air, when the possessive pressure of his mouth allowed it, but the draught against her flesh was briefly sobering.

  ‘No, Jude—oh, God, what are you doing?’ she choked, feeling his lips encircling the tip of her breast, and his tongue probing sensually at the taut nipple.

  His urgent mouth silenced her, and his hands moving caressingly over her thighs aroused in Sara an uncontrollable desire to share his exploration. Her hands found his, entwined with his, guided his with instinctive eagerness, and then were guided in their turn to the thrusting maleness she could feel against her …

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  JUDE! Jude, where are you?’

  The voice floated illusively on the air, not quite real, and yet not quite unreal either.

  ‘Jude! Jude, are you in there?’

  The voice was nearer now, an annoying source of irritation, and even as Sara’s sexually-drugged brain struggled to comprehand its identity, Jude smothered an oath and dragged himself away from her.

  ‘I’m here, Frank,’ he said, striding swiftly to the door to intercept the other man. ‘I had a bit of an accident, I’m afraid. Half the hay toppled down on me.’

  ‘I say!’ As Sara was brought abruptly to her senses, Frank Barnes uttered a shocked exclamation. She groped desperately for her sweater as he endeavoured to look over Jude’s shoulder, and scrambled to her feet in an agony of shame as Jude was forced to step aside and let him see. ‘I say!’ he said again, but whether that was because of the mess or because he had seen Sara, she couldn’t say. ‘You seem to have caught it, too, Miss Shelley.’

  ‘Yes.’ Sara tried to restore her hair to some semblance of order, aware of the straw that must be everywhere clinging to her. What must the man be thinking, she thought with dismay, and what version of this story was likely to get back to Harriet?

  ‘Let me help you.’

  Barnes stepped forward to brush the revealing strands from her sleeve, and over his head Sara’s eyes encountered Jude’s brooding gaze. For someone who only minutes before had been dangerously close to losing control of his emotions, he was amazingly calm, but when he lifted his hands to brush the dust from his denims, she saw that they were not quite steady. Dear God, she thought, a ghost of a smile crossing her face in gratitude for Frank Barnes’ assistance, if the groom had not interrupted them as he did, she might not have been able to stop him. Her knees went weak. How could he? she asked herself bitterly. How could she? And why did the idea of Jude possessing her body make her feel shaky, as well as ashamed?

  ‘I’ll have Barry clear this up right away.’ Barnes looked round and shook his head. ‘Dear me! It could have been much worse, couldn’t it? You’re feeling all right now, aren’t you, Miss Shelley? You still look a little bit shaken.’

  Sara was finding it difficult to answer him, and Jude took the question. ‘She’s all right,’ he declared flatly. ‘I took the brunt of it. But apart from a few cuts and bruises, I seem to be in one piece.’ He paused. ‘But you’re right—it could have been worse. And I want these bales shoring up in future, and those sacks storing somewhere else.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Barnes adopted a conciliatory tone, his earlier familiarity giving way to mild deference. ‘It’s a job I’ve been planning on doing these weeks past, but what with Midnight foaling and Miss Ferrars sending Minstrel to Cheltenham …’

  ‘I know, Frank, I know.’ While Sara listened with some incredulity to this exchange, Jude gave the older man a rueful grin. ‘I guess we’ll say no more about this incident, hmm? You fix things up, and I’ll forget it ever happened.’

  Barnes nodded, and grinned in return. ‘Suits me, Jude. I’m sure we can trust Miss Shelley’s discretion.’

  ‘I’m sure we can,’ agreed Jude drily, and Sara walked out of the grain store on legs that were still decidedly unsteady.

  Jude accompanied her to the boundary of the stable yard, and then halted. ‘Are you going back to the house?’ he asked, in an undertone, and she flashed him an angry look.

  ‘What would you have me do?’ she demanded, stung as much by his attitude to Barnes as by the disturbing remembrance of what had—and what had almost—happened. ‘I assume I’m to forget what happened in there, too, aren’t I? How delightful it must be to have such an expedient conscience!’

  ‘Sara!’ His grey eyes impaled her with a savage look. ‘Don’t over-dramatise the situation. What happened—happened. It wasn’t planned. And as God’s my witness, I didn’t intend for it to go as far as it did!’

  ‘I don’t suppose you did.’ Sara refused to be appeased. ‘After all, there’s just so much one man can do, isn’t there? And you have other means of expunging your frustration.’

  ‘You think I should expunge it with you?’ he demanded, flatly. ‘I could, you know. Very easily. And with a great amount of satisfaction.’

  Sara caught her breath. ‘For you, I suppose.’

  ‘For both of us,’ he told her roughly. ‘And don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. You’re not as innocent as all that.’

  Sara bent her head. This was getting out of hand. ‘I—I’ve never slept with a man,’ she declared tautly.

  ‘Well, obviously I can’t say the same—about women, I mean,’ he retorted, bringing a hot flush to her face.

  ‘And nor do I intend to,’ Sara added, forcing herself to look up at him. ‘Outside of marriage, of course.’

  ‘Really?’ Jude plucked a blade of straw out of her hair, his eyes darkening disturbingly as they rested on her mouth. ‘Poor old Rupert! I wonder if he knows what he’s in for.’

  ‘Rupert?’ Sara gazed blankly at him. ‘What has Rupert to do with it?’

  ‘Oh—forget it.’ Jude grimaced. ‘It was just a thought. But how do you think you got an invitation to Linden Court?’

/>   He swung away before Sara could question him further, striding out across the park towards Lord Hadley’s home without even a backward glance. Sara was left to return to Knight’s Ferry feeling bewildered, raw, and very vulnerable, unwilling to contemplate either the past or the future.

  Harriet was in the library when she returned, not yet dressed, but drinking a cup of coffee, impatiently scanning the letters in the mail. She called Sara as the girl crossed the hall, and she turned back unwillingly, wishing she could have crawled in unnoticed.

  ‘Janet tells me you went out with Jude,’ Harriet remarked, without looking up from the letter she was reading.

  ‘Yes.’ Sara’s tongue moistened her dry lips. ‘We—er—we went to the stables. To see Midnight’s foal.’

  Harriet glanced up briefly. ‘Where is Jude now?’

  ‘Oh—–’ Sara shrugged. ‘I imagine he’s at Linden Court. He left me to go that way.’

  ‘I see.’ Harriet put down the letter, and regarded the girl intently. ‘And you’ve been with him all this time?’

  Sara made as if to look at her watch, realised how revealing that would be, and let her arm fall. ‘Is it late?’ she ventured foolishly. ‘I thought it was quite early.’

  ‘It’s after nine o’clock,’ replied Harriet tersely. ‘Janet says you left the house before eight. Does it take the better part of an hour to look at a mare and her foal?’

  Sara wanted to die. ‘It—must have,’ she admitted faintly. ‘I’m sorry if you were anxious.’

  ‘I’m not anxious, Sara. I’m disappointed,’ Harriet retorted swiftly. ‘I thought we were friends. I thought we had respect for one another.’

  ‘We do—–’

  ‘Do we?’ Harriet’s lips tightened. ‘When you return from the stables with straw on your garments and your hair all mussed, I’m to believe you’ve just been examining a mare and its foal?’

  Sara bent her head. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Harriet sniffed. ‘So—what have you been doing?’