Love's Duel

‘Never!’ Her eyes were wide with fear as he advanced on her yet again. ‘I don’t want you. I don’t!’ she cried brokenly. ‘If you touch me again I swear I’ll be sick!’

His eyes blazed at her challenge, his mouth twisted with cruel satisfaction. ‘Maybe you like to fight—something else Jeremy didn’t tell me,’ he drawled insultingly.

‘Do you know him so well he would discuss such things with you?’ she said disgustedly.

‘About you he told me everything.’

‘More than everything, by the sound of it! If you don’t get out of my room, Mr Noble, I’m going to scream so loud I’ll wake the whole household. Do you want that?’

He gave her a considering look. ‘Now why would you do a thing like that? We haven’t even discussed the details yet. I’ll make the same arrangements for you that Jeremy did. Satisfied?’

Leonie frowned. ‘What arrangements?’

Giles shrugged. ‘The apartment, the car, the monthly allowance. Of course, it will be a bigger allowance than he gave you—after all, nearly five years have elapsed since your affair with him.’

She gasped. ‘You really believe all that rubbish about the car and the allowance?’

He nodded. ‘And don’t forget the apartment.’

‘I never stayed at that apartment. Jeremy may have paid the rent on it, may even have taken other girls there, but I never even saw the place, let alone actually lived there.’

‘The maid said differently.’

‘A maid employed by Jeremy! Don’t you see, it was all made up, to blacken my character even more.’

‘Let’s forget about Jeremy, for God’s sake!’

‘Forget him!’ Leonie echoed shrilly. ‘Do you think I haven’t tried?’ And yet his handsome face was much harder to bring to mind then Giles Noble’s, it always had been; this man’s image was indelibly printed on her memory. ‘I despise him, and I despise you even more for listening to his lies. Now would you please get out of here?’

‘No,’ he replied calmly.

‘I shall scream,’ she threatened again.

‘Go ahead.’

She got no farther than opening her mouth, when his firm lips instantly clamped down on hers. Leonie had never known such faintness, everything started to fade into darkness, her body going slack, and still that mouth continued its punishing onslaught, moving over the softness of her lips with a savagery that bruised.

When she felt she could take no more he at last raised his head, his eyes searching her waxen features, her dilated eyes and shaking body. That she was suffering from a minor form of shock was obvious at a glance, and Giles’s features hardened angrily.

‘You really mean it about feeling sick, don’t you?’ he rasped.

Her breathing was shallow, her eyes dazed. ‘Yes,’ she choked.

‘Sit down.’ He led her over to a chair, forcing her to sit down. ‘Bend down. That’s it,’ he put her head between her knees. ‘All right?’ he asked a few seconds later when she had struggled back up to a sitting position.

She had broken out in a cold sweat now, the shaking was getting worse. ‘Could you please leave me? I’m sure I’ll feel better when you’ve gone.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ he agreed grimly. ‘But I’m not going anywhere just yet. Come on,’ he led her over to the bed. ‘I’ll help you in,’ he rasped as she just stood there in front of him.

Leonie stood motionless as he helped her off with her robe and slipped off her mules, tucking the covers in around her as if she were a little girl.

His thoughts seemed to be running along the same lines. ‘You may only be twenty-two, Leonie, but you’ve done a lot of living in your young life.’

She was in a daze, making no demur as he moved to turn out the light, half expecting the bed to give as he got in beside her. When she heard the door open and close as he left she heaved a sigh of relief, then turned over to sob brokenly into her pillow.

She stayed in her bedroom the next morning, asking Dorothy for the luxury of breakfast in bed. Not that she was particularly hungry, but not eating breakfast at all would cause even more speculation.

The Rolls was still in the driveway when she let herself out of the house at nine-thirty, her intention to go for a walk until Giles Noble had left to go back to London. She couldn’t face him again, not after last night’s insults. To think that he had actually offered to make her his mistress! She still shook at the thought of it.

She walked down the gravel driveway, wearing practical flat shoes, her denims old and faded, her cotton sun-top showing the creamy expanse of her shoulders, finishing abruptly at her waist. She intended cutting across the fields to the river, and would have done so if the plum-coloured Rolls hadn’t come to a silent halt beside her.

Giles Noble leant over and pushed open the passenger door. ‘Get in,’ he ordered grimly.

‘I’d rather——’

‘Get in, Leonie,’ he repeated tautly. ‘We have to talk, surely you can see that?’

‘If it’s about last night——’

He gave an impatient sigh and got out of the car to come round and forcibly push her inside. He was soon behind the wheel again, driving off at great speed.

‘Could you please slow down?’ she finally had to ask, her fingers digging into the edge of the seat as his huge car manoeuvred the small country roads.

His foot at once eased off the accelerator, his shoes of the finest leather, the formal suit he wore in that dark pin-stripe that Leonie remembered so well.

‘Don’t you ever wear anything else?’ she asked without thinking, at once biting her lip. ‘I’m sorry,’ her voice was stilted, ‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’

‘I take it you mean the suit. I have half a dozen made a year for wearing in court.’

‘But surely it doesn’t really show under that black flowing thing?’

He gave a wry smile. ‘That “black flowing thing” happens to be a dignified part of my profession.’

‘Yes.’ She repressed a shiver. The black gown he wore in court had often turned him into a bird of prey in her dreams, the gown appearing as wings, wings he wrapped about her before he devoured her. ‘Whose life are you hoping to ruin today?’ she asked bitterly.

His mouth tightened. ‘The man in question is as guilty as hell,’ he told her grimly.

‘It must be nice to always believe that,’ her mouth twisted. ‘I wonder how many of them were really innocent.’

‘As you were?’ he scorned.

‘As I was. There’s no point in this conversation, Mr Noble. I can’t prove my innocence, if I could I would have done so four years ago. Your friend Jeremy is much more believable. It’s easier to believe a Harley Street doctor than the young girl who imagined herself in love with him.’

‘You didn’t love him at all,’ Giles said tautly. ‘You and your brother used his infatuation with you to try and obtain money from him. How did you feel about seeing Philip Trent this weekend? Did you find you still love him?’

‘I’ve always loved Phil, but not in the way you mean,’ she told him resentfully. ‘Take me back, Mr Noble. I shall pack my belongings and leave immediately.’ Damn the contract, she wouldn’t live through this agony again, not again. ‘You can explain the reasons for my departure to your aunt.’

‘I don’t intend telling my aunt anything,’ he surprised her by saying.