Dangerous Sanctuary

‘It wasn’t because of us, was it?’

She hadn’t been aware of him getting up from the sofa, but now the warm draught of his breath against the back of her neck warned her that he had come to stand behind her. Which was disturbing enough, without the shocking reality of what he was saying.

‘I—–’ Her tongue felt riveted to the roof of her mouth, and blind panic flooded her being. Answer him, you fool! she told herself agitatedly, but it wasn’t that easy. ‘Us?’ she got out at last, with just the right measure of scorn in her voice. Moving stiffly, she put some space between them before turning to confront him. ‘I don’t think even you can believe that!’

She had the satisfaction of seeing the faint contortion of his features at the contempt in her words, but if she thought she could dismiss his question without an answer she was mistaken.

‘I think it’s what you believe that matters,’ Ben declared doggedly, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans. The action parted the sides of his jacket, exposing the open-necked shirt beneath, and the low belt riding on his hips.

And, although Jaime wanted to look anywhere but at him, she was forced to acknowledge his unconscious sexuality. He might be thinner than she remembered, and he might look haggard, but his physical appeal was unimpaired. ‘Why don’t you tell me the truth, for a change?’ he persisted.

Jaime’s breath caught in her throat. ‘And you think—the truth, as you put it, involves you?’

‘Oh, stop acting as if you didn’t once care what I thought,’ retorted Ben harshly. ‘All right, it’s been fifteen years. I don’t need you to tell me that. I’ve lived every one of them too, you know, and, whatever you think, it hasn’t been a picnic!’

‘Oh—shame!’ Jaime was openly sarcastic now, but Ben didn’t even falter.

‘You knew how it was,’ he persisted grimly. ‘You knew I’d never leave Maura. I told you. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t care about you, about what happened to you. God, you know I did!’

‘Oh, stop it!’ Jaime’s hands clenched. She knew she was handling this badly, but she couldn’t let him go on. ‘I don’t think there’s any point in rehashing something that was—that was never anything more than a—a mild aberration, on both our parts,’ she declared, hoping she sounded more convincing than she felt. ‘I—was going through a bad time, and you were there. I was—grateful. But that’s all there was to it.’

‘Crap!’ Ben’s reaction was violent, and before she had a chance to take any evading action he had crossed the space between them, and clamped his hands to her shoulders. ‘Don’t bait me, Jaime,’ he added, his hard fingers biting through the fine material of her dress. ‘You might have been able to fool that crazy brother of mine, but I know you. Better than he ever did, I’d say.’

Jaime knew she must keep control here. Events were moving too fast, and the desire to escape those cruel, yet unbearably familiar hands was rampant. She knew she mustn’t allow his anger to force her into any unguarded admission. It would be too easy to say something she would later regret. But with the heat of his body only inches from hers, and the raw male scent of his skin invading her nostrils, she was in danger of succumbing to any means to get away.

‘Will you let go of me?’ she demanded, resisting the almost overwhelming impulse to fight free of him. ‘You can’t browbeat me into agreeing with you. I’m not Maura!’

It was unforgivable, and she knew it. Throwing his dead wife’s name at him like that was indefensible, and she was quite prepared for him to deliver an equally ugly response.

But, to her shame, Ben didn’t say anything. He just looked at her, his green eyes searching her defensive features with stark deliberation. And, as he looked at her, his expression changed, the jade eyes narrowing and darkening in their intensity.

Jaime’s resistance wavered. She told herself it was because she felt guilty about what she had said, but deep inside her she knew it was more than that. It might be more than fifteen years since Ben had held her and looked at her in quite this way, but in an instant her awareness of him was threatening to destroy all her hardwon independence.

And, as if sensing victory, Ben’s eyes dropped to her mouth, to the vulnerable curve of her lower lip, and the pink tip of her tongue that appeared, and then darted nervously out of sight. His own mouth flattened, and the remembrance of how his lips had felt, moving possessively on hers, was suddenly an almost tangible memory. She remembered the first time he had kissed her as if it were yesterday. She remembered its urgency, and its sweetness, and the foolish belief she had had that he loved her. She had felt so protected in his arms—so safe. Had she ever been either?

But his reaction towards her was changing. She could see it. She could feel it. His hands were no longer bruising her shoulders. Their grip had become gentler, sinuously abrading the cloth, so that the silk jersey rubbed sensuously against her skin. It made her want to tear the garment from her flesh and let his seductive fingers do their worst, and when he looked down at the shadowy hollow, visible between the wrap-over folds of her dress, the blood started hammering in her ears. He was going to touch her; she knew it. Not as he was touching her now, but sexually, intimately, and there was not a thing she could do to stop him…

‘He’s mine, isn’t he?’

The incredulous exclamation was like being doused in cold water. Jaime swayed, momentarily in fear of losing consciousness. Had he really said what she thought he had said, or was it simply a continuation of the crazy fantasy she had been indulging? She blinked, gazing at him through shocked eyes, and his hands, which only moments before had been caressing her shoulders, applied a bruising pressure.

‘He is, isn’t he?’ Ben said again, harshly, accusingly. ‘My God! Why didn’t you tell me?’

It was difficult to think, let alone answer him. Jaime felt as if she had been standing on the edge of a cliff and someone had just pushed her over. She had the same feeling of precipitation, of being out of control, of having nothing to hold on to. Dear God, this couldn’t be happening, she told herself. But it was.

‘Mum? Mum? Are you all right?’

The tentative tapping at the door, and Tom’s anxious enquiry brought her to her senses. Even if Ben’s hands hadn’t immediately dropped from her shoulders, Jaime knew she would have found the strength then to escape him somehow. Like a tigress protecting its young, she wrenched open the door, and much to Tom’s surprise—and embarrassment—she pulled him into her arms.

‘Of course I am, sweetheart!’ she exclaimed, only allowing him to release himself with reluctance. But she kept a possessive arm about his shoulders, as she added with unnatural brightness, ‘Your—your uncle was just leaving.’

Her eyes challenged Ben’s to deny that, to repeat the accusation he had just made to her, and run the risk of alienating Tom’s loyalties once and for all. But, of course, he didn’t. As she had hoped—no, known—he wouldn’t. Whatever he thought of her, Tom was the innocent party here, and Ben was far too shrewd to try to expose her to her son without proof.

‘Oh, were you, Uncle Ben?’ Tom asked now, shaking off his mother’s arm, and giving the man a rueful look. ‘Couldn’t you stay and have some supper? I’ve made some sandwiches.’

There was a moment’s silence, which for Jaime seemed to stretch into eternity, and then Ben made his excuses. ‘I’m afraid not, Tom,’ he declined, and although Jaime had been avoiding looking at him she couldn’t prevent an automatic glance at his dark features.

But Ben’s face was unreadable, the green eyes opaque between their thick veil of lashes. Perhaps he looked a little paler than he had done earlier, but she refused to believe that that was anything more than the vagaries of his fever. For he was running a temperature; she was unwillingly aware of that. Though her desire to ensure that he was looking after himself had suffered a distinct relapse in the circumstances.

‘But we will be seeing you again, won’t we?’ Tom persisted, as his mother backed into the hall, and Ben came towards them. ‘I mean, now that you live in Kingsmere—–’

‘Oh, yes.’ Ben’s confirmation was like the death-knell to all Jaime’s hopes. ‘You’ll be seeing me again, Tom.’ He smiled, but only Jaime noticed that it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘You can depend on it.’ He paused, and then added, deliberately, ‘After all, we are family.’

‘Family!’ Tom echoed the word with obvious satisfaction. He grinned. ‘Yes, we are, aren’t we? How about that, Mum? Even if Dad doesn’t want to have anything to do with us, Uncle Ben does.’

Jaime felt physically sick, but she had to say something for her son’s sake. ‘I—I’m sure—Uncle Ben is just being polite, Tom,’ she murmured, making a final bid to appeal to Ben’s humanity. But it was wasted.

‘On the contrary,’ he said, ‘I’m looking forward to showing Tom where I’m going to live. As you probably know, I’ve bought the old Priory, and I’m hoping to move in within the next few days. I’ve had quite a few alterations made, and I’m sure Tom would like to take a look at the gym and the pool-house.’

‘An indoor pool!’ echoed Tom disbelievingly. ‘And a gym!’ He gave his mother a bemused look. ‘Holy shit!’

‘Tom!’

Jaime was glad she could focus her anguish on something other than the man, who was so effortlessly baiting her, but her son was too excited to pay any attention to the reproof.

‘I’ll be in touch with you next week,’ Ben promised, ignoring Jaime, as he passed her on his way to the front door. ‘And apologise to your girlfriend for me, won’t you? Tell her I’m sorry if I spoiled her plans for the evening.’

‘Hey, no sweat,’ declared Tom carelessly, as Jaime exclaimed,

‘He doesn’t have a girlfriend!’ But no one was listening to her.

‘It’s been good to meet you, Tom,’ Ben said instead, pausing at the door. ‘You remind me a lot of myself, when I was young.’ He offered the boy a grin which only Jaime knew was malevolent. ‘See you—both!’

Jaime slept badly, when she slept at all, and she was up at six, making herself a strong cup of tea. Thank heavens it’s Sunday, she thought, as she seated herself at the kitchen table, and wrapped her hands around the cup. She would have hated to have to go into work this morning and face Felix’s inquisitive gaze.

Not that he was likely to know anything about Ben’s visit. Not yet, anyway. But he would want to hear her opinion of the party, and it was going to be incredibly difficult to disassociate one from the other. The whole evening had assumed the trappings of a nightmare, with her own repulsive reaction to Ben’s touch as the final humiliation. She should never have gone to the Haines’s. She should have suspected there was more to it than a simple desire on Lacey’s part to exchange confidences. But was that why Ben had chosen that particular evening to investigate her circumstances? Because he had known she wouldn’t be there to obstruct him?

She shivered in spite of herself. Surely it hadn’t been a concerted effort on all their parts to enable him to talk to Tom alone? she thought wildly. But no. She shook her head. She was getting paranoid. Ben hadn’t even known her son was a Russell until he saw him.

But he had seen him now, she reminded herself tensely. He now knew what she had spent the last fifteen years trying to forget. That Tom was his son, not Philip’s. That, far from being the child of some mythical ‘other’ man, Tom was his own flesh and blood.

Her hands trembled, and she put the cup down with a clatter. He didn’t actually know it, she told herself fiercely. He suspected it. And she hadn’t denied it—yet. But he had no proof. Nor would he have, if she had anything to do with it. But what was the alternative? That he should tell Philip that he had a son? God, no! She couldn’t let him do that. She wouldn’t give Philip that kind of rod to beat her with.

Unable to sit still, when every nerve in her body was screaming for action, Jaime got up from the table and moved to the window. Beyond the narrow panes, the walled garden spilled its fecund beauty, and she tried to calm her clamouring senses in its familiar surroundings. The previous year she had saved enough money to have the central area dug out and block-tiled, and now an upper level of trees and flowering shrubs tumbled over the retaining wall. There was a stone bird-bath in the centre, and a wrought-iron table and chairs, where she and Tom sometimes ate their lunch on summer weekends. It was small, but attractive, and her father had said it was the nicest-looking garden he had ever seen. But then, he hadn’t seen the gardens of the Priory, she reflected bitterly. He was used to beer gardens, and pub yards, and the idea of sowing seeds or cultivating plants came very low on his list of priorities.