A Husband's Revenge

The smell made her wrinkle her nose. ‘I don’t like hot chocolate.’

‘Drink it all the same. It’ll help you sleep soundly.’

Sipping obediently, she avoided his eyes.

As soon as the beaker was empty he put it on the bedside cabinet and then, rising to his feet, reached to flatten her pillows.

As she slid down his hand brushed her breast and she flinched away.

His chiselled mouth tightened. ‘There’s no need to look quite so alarmed. I am your husband, you know.’

But that was just it, she thought as the door closed behind him, she didn’t know. As far as she was concerned he was a stranger.

But a stranger who had a devastating effect on her.

Earlier, when he’d kissed her, desire, terrifying in its intensity, had overwhelmed her. And, though his intention had clearly been to punish her, she’d sensed a fierce reciprocal hunger in him, which even such a cold, self-controlled man as he couldn’t totally hide.

Their relationship, whatever other dark threads were woven into it, was undoubtedly a passionate one.

Suddenly she was even more afraid of what the future held than she had been when she’d left the hospital.

CHAPTER TWO

CLARE’S brain stirred into life slowly, unwillingly. Lying stretched on her back, eyes closed, she was aware of softness and warmth, of a physical comfort that went hand in hand with a kind of bleak mental anguish.

Bodily she was at ease, but her mind was a teeming mass of disturbing, shadowy thoughts. When she tried to hold onto them, to coax them into the light, they vanished like wraiths, leaving only a set of hard, handsome features indelibly printed there.

Jos. Her husband.

Her heart began to beat at a fast, suffocating speed. She recalled him coming to the hospital. Bringing her home. Kissing her. Innocuous enough memories except for the powerful black undercurrents which, like some deadly whirlpool, threatened to drag her down and drown her.

Undercurrents which, if she could only remember, would almost certainly explain why she had taken off her rings and walked out in the first place.

But had she just stormed off in a temper, as he’d tried to imply? Or had she meant to go for good?

If she had meant to leave him, surely she would have taken a case? Certainly she would have had a handbag. Some money...

Eyelids still closed, to help her concentration, she tried to think, but her memory would go back no further than awakening in the hospital.

Sighing, she opened her eyes to semi-gloom. Abruptly the sigh turned into a gasp. The sight of Jos lounging in a chair by the bed, his eyes fixed on her face, made her jerk upright.

His mere presence brought a surge of dismay and excitement that took her breath and made her heart start to race again.

As though he’d run restless fingers through it, his hair, peat-dark, not quite black, was slightly rumpled, his jaw was smooth, clean-shaven, his lean face, with its fascinating planes and angles, heart-stoppingly attractive.

He was casually dressed in light trousers and a dark green cotton-knit shirt open at the neck, exposing his tanned throat, and with the sleeves pushed up his muscular hair-sprinkled forearms.

Pulling the duvet high, though her nightgown was perfectly modest, she demanded hoarsely, ‘How long have you been there?’

His clearly delineated mouth curved slightly. ‘Most of the afternoon.’

The idea of him sitting watching her sleep was disturbing, to say the least. Slowly, with an effort, she smoothed her face into a careful, unrevealing mask, before asking, ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

Rising to his feet, he crossed to the wide window and drew aside the curtains, flooding the attractive blue and white room with light, before answering, ‘I wanted you to wake up naturally. I thought perhaps...?’ He allowed the question to tail off.

‘It’s no use...’ She heard the desolation of her own despair. ‘I can’t remember anything prior to waking up in the hospital.’

Suddenly he was by her side again, looming too close. Tilting her chin, he examined her face, taking in the translucent skin stretched tightly over the wonderful bone structure, the paleness of her lips, the lost look in the long-lashed violet eyes.

His touch closed her throat and made her mouth go dry. Unconsciously, she ran the tip of her tongue over parched lips.

Something flaring in his green eyes, he followed the small, betraying movement. She froze, terrified he was going to kiss her, wanting him to kiss her...

He, who seemed never to miss a thing, obviously noted her reaction and smiled a little. Releasing her chin, he touched a bell by the bedhead before sitting down again. ‘When you say “anything”...?’

It took her a moment or two to recover. Then, forehead creased in thought, she said slowly, ‘I remember the ordinary everyday things of life. How to read and write, add up and subtract...that kind of thing. It’s personal memories that have gone...’

Were those memories so dark, so disturbing, that her subconscious wanted them blanked out? Had she needed to lose herself and the past in order to survive some emotional trauma?

Or was this feeling of being threatened by past and future alike merely symptomatic of her amnesia? When her memory returned would she find she was a perfectly ordinary woman with a perfectly ordinary marriage?

But suppose it never returned?

Fighting down a rush of blind panic at the thought, she went on, ‘I don’t know anything about myself. If I’ve got a middle name or what my maiden name was... I don’t even know how old I am.’

‘Your middle name is Linden, your maiden name was Berkeley and you’re twenty-four. You’ll be twenty-five on September the third. A Virgo,’ he added, with a derisive twist to his lips.

Before Clare could react to what seemed to be a sneer, there was a tap at the door, and it opened to admit a dark-suited dignified man, carrying a tray. Pulling the metal supports into position, he placed it carefully across her knees.

Bending his balding head deferentially, he said, ‘I’m delighted that madam is safely home.’

‘Thank you, er...’ She hesitated.

‘This is Roberts,’ Jos informed her. Then, to the manservant, he said, ‘I’m afraid Mrs Saunders still hasn’t recovered her memory.’

Roberts looked suitably grave. ‘Very upsetting for both of you, sir.’

After deftly removing the lid from a dish of poached salmon, he opened and shook out a white damask napkin. ‘Mr Saunders thought a light meal... If, however, madam would prefer chicken, or an omelette...?’

‘Oh, no... Thank you.’ Then, sensing a genuine wish to please, she remarked with a smile, ‘I’m sure this will be delicious.’

Roberts departed noiselessly.

‘A butler instead of a housekeeper?’ Sipping her tea, Clare spoke her thoughts aloud. ‘I get the feeling you don’t care much for women?’

‘In one area at least I find a woman is indispensable.’ His mocking glance left her in no doubt as to which area he referred to. ‘I also employ a couple of female cleaners. But I happen to prefer a male servant to run the household.’

Head bent, hoping to hide her blush, she asked, ‘Has Roberts been with you long?’