Storm In A Rain Barrel Read online

Domine’s cheeks burned. ‘It’s your home.’

  ‘Correction. It’s yours.’

  ‘Not any more. I signed it over to you this morning.’

  James gave her a sardonic smile. ‘You’re still under age, remember? It needs verification. I refused to give it.’

  Domine stared at him. ‘You’ve seen Mr. Brown?’

  ‘This afternoon,’ he agreed quietly. ‘We had a long discussion about you.’

  ‘Oh, James!’ She pressed her hands to her cheeks. ‘I don’t want the house or the money! It’s what your mother said all along. Henry’s reasons for getting me out of the orphanage were all selfish ones!’

  James slid an arm around her, but gently, without passion. ‘Oh, Domine,’ he murmured softly, ‘you’re so ready to think the worst of yourself, aren’t you? Has it never occurred to you that Henry might have taken such a liking to you that he wanted you to have his possessions? That he wanted you to be the mistress of Grey Witches?’

  Domine bent her head. ‘Why should he do that? I’m such an ordinary person. He had no reason to care about me.’

  ‘That’s nonsense, and you know it,’ muttered James roughly. ‘You’re sweet, and you’re gentle, and you can be quite formidable when you choose!’ He smiled. ‘And you’re intelligent, and a man can talk to you! Why shouldn’t my father have loved you? I do.’

  Domine’s heart skipped a beat and she looked at him disbelievingly. Then she hunched her shoulders and shook her head. ‘Oh, stop trying to be nice to me!’ she exclaimed miserably. ‘I don’t want your—your—pity!’

  James’s arm tightened about her, drawing her close against the hard strength of his body. Taking her hand, he placed it against his chest and said, rather thickly: ‘Can you feel that—that unsteady beat? Does that feel like pity?’ One hand cupped her throat. ‘You’re adorable, Domine,’ he murmured unsteadily, ‘and after the torment you’ve put me through these last couple of weeks thinking I’d destroyed any chance we had of happiness together by my clumsiness, I can’t be expected to feel pity for anyone but myself.’ He put his mouth against hers gently, but as her lips parted his mouth hardened, and he had to wrench himself away at last. ‘This isn’t the place for this,’ he groaned huskily. ‘And anyway, we have some things to settle first.’

  Domine’s whole being was seething with happiness. Cupping his face in her hands, she traced the outline of his mouth with her fingers until he turned his lips to her palm, pressing her hand against his mouth for a moment. ‘Domine,’ he muttered, putting her away from him, ‘I’m trying to be sensible. Don’t make me want you any more than I do already. I’m only human!’

  Domine folded her hands demurely and looked at him through her lashes. ‘Go on,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll be good—for a while.’

  James smiled, and fumbling in his pocket brought out his cigarettes. After one was lit and he had inhaled deeply, he said: ‘First of all, I want you to keep Grey Witches.’

  Domine’s face changed. ‘Why?’

  James sighed. ‘Honey, legally it’s yours anyway until you’re eighteen in a couple of months’ time. But eighteen is not a very great age, and I don’t want you to leave Grey Witches and get some place of your own where it might be difficult for me to be with you—’

  Domine frowned. ‘But—but what do you mean?’ Her voice quivered.

  James heaved a sigh. ‘Oh, Domine, please don’t make it any harder for me than it already is. I know what you’re thinking—what you’re imagining—but it’s not like that. I want you, I need you, I don’t deny that, but you’re too young yet to be certain that it’s me you want! Can you see that? I can’t run the risk of destroying your life.

  What I have I hold, and once we were married I’d never be able to let you go!’

  ‘So—so what is your suggestion?’ she asked tautly. ‘I—I presume you have one.’

  James raked a hand through his hair. ‘We wait—say until you’re twenty. I’ll be thirty-nine then. The gap won’t seem so insurmountable!’

  Domine shivered. ‘And if I refuse?’

  James drew deeply on his cigarette, rather jerkily. ‘That’s your prerogative, of course,’ he said shortly.

  Domine stared at him. How could she make this stubborn man see that she was not like other girls? She didn’t care about the things they cared about. She didn’t want entertainment, excitement—teenage things. Entertainment for her meant riding across the wild expanses of the moor; excitement was being in the presence of the man she loved.

  Wanting to hurt him as he was hurting her, she said: ‘Vincent Morley asked me to marry him. I told him I’d think it over.’

  James did not speak, but continued to smoke his cigarette, staring bleakly out across the cliffs to the sea beyond. Domine watched him loving the curve of his jawline, the thick darkness of his hair, the brilliance of his eyes. She loved everything about this man with an intensity that amounted to pain. Didn’t he know? Couldn’t he feel her love?

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ she asked tightly.

  He turned his eyes in her direction and she saw the gauntness of his face. ‘I heard,’ he said grimly. ‘And have you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Thought it over,’ he snapped savagely.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. Then her fit of aggression left her. ‘I’m sorry, James, I’m sorry.’

  Her submission aroused him as her aggressiveness never could, and with a stifled exclamation he pulled her back into his arms, burying his face in her neck. ‘I didn’t believe you could care for me,’ he muttered achingly, ‘not after the way I’d treated you, and then Lucia told me about your conversation with her and I gambled that she was right.’

  ‘You’ve spoken to Lucia?’ exclaimed Domine. ‘When?’

  ‘On the telephone, yesterday. She told me I’d be a fool to let the difference in our ages matter.’ He drew back to look at her. ‘But I haven’t the right to take away your youth—’

  ‘If you go away, you’ll take away my life,’ she murmured, against his chest. ‘James, please don’t make us wait. All right, until I’m eighteen I won’t press you, but if I’m old enough to vote surely I’m old enough to decide what I want out of life!’

  James tipped her face up to his. ‘You do have a point,’ he murmured huskily. ‘But I warn you, it may not be easy. I’m used to living alone, and I’m a brute when I’m writing and it isn’t going well. I shall probably spend hours alone in my study and then come out and bully you—’

  ‘And then we’ll make love,’ finished Domine, drawing his mouth to hers.

  James rested his forehead against hers. ‘How can I refuse when I want you so much?’ he muttered a trifle roughly. ‘I think I began wanting you that very first day when I brought you back to the apartment. You were such an aggressive little thing. I wanted to protect you, and then later I realized I had to protect you from myself. I think that was when I began despising myself. But God forgive me, I love you so much, I can’t let you go.’

  Domine stroked his cheek. ‘Well, at least your mother can keep Grey Witches,’ she said gently. ‘And Melanie can keep the stables. And when we have children they’ll be able to learn to ride there and love the moors as I do—’

  ‘Steady on,’ murmured James, with his mouth against hers. ‘I shall want you to myself for quite some time yet …’

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  IMPRINT: Sexy

  ISBN: 9781488740862

  TITLE: STORM IN A RAIN BARREL

  First Australian Publication 2014

  Copyright © 2014 Anne Mather

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-excl
usive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Mills & Boon®, Level 4, 132 Arthur Street, North Sydney, N.S.W., Australia 2060.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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