Forbidden Pleasure

‘I hope you will pour,’ the owner said.

‘Yes, of course.’

Standing back, Mark said woodenly, ‘I’m sorry if I frightened you, but you were trespassing.’

With equal formality, Ianthe said, ‘Property rights don’t confer manhandling privileges, but I accept your apology.’

Summoning her most limpid smile, she directed it at him until colour rose in his skin. He sent a swift, frowning glance to his employer, who said, ‘Thank you, Mark.’ With an abrupt nod the younger man turned jerkily and left the room.

Her host laughed quietly. ‘You New Zealanders!’ he murmured. ‘I’d say the honours went to you that time.’

With an unwilling smile Ianthe poured tea with a strong, tarry smell. When she asked what sort it was, he answered, ‘Lapsang souchong—Chinese tea. Don’t you like it? Shall I get another—?’

‘No, no,’ she interrupted. ‘I just haven’t come across it before. I like trying new things.’

He waited while she sipped it, and smiled lazily when she said, ‘It’s different, but I like it.’

‘Good,’ he said, and picked up the cup he’d collected from her. ‘Are you a local, or holidaying like me?’

‘I’m on holiday.’

‘At the camping ground?’

‘No, I’m staying in a bach.’ His lifted brows led her to enlarge, ‘In New Zealand a bach is a small, rather scruffy beach house.’

His scrutiny shredded the fragile barrier of her confidence. Ianthe stopped herself from blinking defensively; whenever he looked at her something very strange happened in the pit of her stomach, a kind of drawing sensation that hardened into an ache.

Dourly she told herself that he probably had an equally powerful effect on any woman under a hundred. Those eyes were hypnotic. Perhaps he was conducting a subtle interrogation; if so, he’d mistaken his adversary. He hadn’t told her who he was, so she wouldn’t tell him anything about herself.

Childish, but she felt threatened, and defiance was as good a reaction as any.

He broke into her thoughts by saying, ‘Ah, those small houses near the camping ground.’

‘Yes.’

‘I heard that they’re under threat.’

Ianthe nodded. ‘They’re built on what’s now reserve land. The owners aren’t allowed to alter the buildings beyond any necessary repairs, and when they die the baches will be torn down and the land returned to the Crown.’

‘And is yours a family bach?’

She said warily, ‘It’s owned by friends.’

He changed the subject with smooth confidence. ‘I hope the weather stays as idyllic as it’s been for the past couple of weeks.’

‘It should, but Northland—all of New Zealand, in fact—is a forecaster’s nightmare. The country’s long and narrow, and because it’s where the tropics meet the cold air coming up from the Antarctic we get weather from every direction. Still, it’s high summer, so with any luck we’ll have glorious weather until the end of February.’ The pedantic note in her voice was her only defence against his speculative, probing gaze.

She added, ‘Unless another cyclone comes visiting from the north, of course. We’ve already had two this holiday season, although neither of them amounted to more than heavy rain.’

‘Let’s hope the tropics keep their cyclones to themselves,’ he said, giving no indication of how long he intended to stay.

After that they spoke more generalities—conversation that meant nothing, revealed nothing, was not intended to be taken seriously or recalled. Yet beneath the surface casualness and ease there were deeper, questionable currents, and whenever she looked up he was watching her.

Eventually Ianthe put down her empty cup and said, ‘That was lovely, thank you. I’d better be getting back.’

‘Certainly.’ He got to his feet with loose-limbed masculine grace. ‘I’ll drive you to your car.’

‘I can walk,’ she said automatically.

Without taking his eyes from her face he asked, ‘And make your leg even more painful?’

She grimaced, because it had now begun to throb, and she knew that the only way to keep it from getting worse was to lie down. ‘All right,’ she said reluctantly, adding, ‘Thank you very much.’

‘It’s very little recompense for Mark’s officiousness.’

He’d come to take her elbow again. Ianthe knew that his fingers didn’t burn her skin as he helped her up, but that was what it felt like. ‘Mark’s responsible for that,’ she said tersely, tightening her lips against the odd, shivery sensations running through her.

‘He’s employed by me,’ he said, ‘so I’m responsible.’

Ianthe took a few stiff steps, her limp becoming more pronounced as the ache in her leg suddenly intensified.

He said something under his breath, and with an economy of movement that shocked her, lifted her in his arms.

‘Hey!’ she exclaimed, unable to say anything more as a secret, feverish excitement swallowed her up.

‘Perhaps you’d rather Mark carried you,’ he said, locking her against his hard-muscled torso with casual strength as he strode with surprising ease towards the wide hall that led to a big front door.

The promise of masculine power hadn’t been an illusion. The self-control that gave authority to his spectacular, hawkish good looks had been transmuted into sheer, determined energy.

An alarming combination of flame and ice electrified Ianthe. Striving to sound level and prosaic, she said, ‘I don’t need to be carried.’

‘You’re as white as a sheet and sweat is standing out on your forehead. Please don’t try to make me feel worse than I already do.’

Because Ianthe hated being pitied she returned coldly, ‘I’m not. My leg hurts, but I’d get there.’

‘Even if you had to crawl,’ he said with caustic disapproval. ‘Cutting off your nose to spite your face not only wastes time, it turns perfectly legitimate sympathy into intense irritation.’

Which left her with nothing to say. Clearly he did feel responsible for his henchman’s behaviour, but Mark’s macho hijacking no longer concerned her.

Her heart jumped as she stole a glance at the splendid profile, outlined by an unexpected blaze of gold as they stepped out of the door beneath a skylight. Attraction, she told herself with contemptuous bravado. It’s just attraction—that common meeting point between male and female. It means nothing.

Bracing herself against it, she forced her attention away from him and onto her surroundings.

Whoever had designed the house had understood Northland’s climate. A porte-cochère extended from the door across the gravel drive, offering shelter from summer’s heat as well as from the downpours that could batter the peninsula at any season. In its shade waited a Range Rover, large and luxurious and dusty.

‘I’ll have to put you down,’ her host said, and did so with exquisite care.

She clutched at the handle of the vehicle, and for a second his arms tightened around her again. Her bones heated, slackened, melted in the swift warmth of his embrace and the faint, potently masculine tang she’d been carefully not registering. He waited until she let go of the door handle and straightened up, then stepped back.