BITTER SECRET

Carol Gregor

Sophie's world was orderly, well controlled

Then the charismatic new owner of Sedbury Hall made an unwelcome intrusion into it. "You're just a taker, Seth Huntingdon," she told him. "You see something you want and it doesn't matter who is standing in your way."

After the heartbreak of the past, Sophie was not going to risk further hurt and she certainly had no room for a man in her life.

Which was a pity--because even though she loathed what Seth stood for, there was definitely a strong attraction between the two of them.

'SOPHIE, darling, at last! Although at least you've come. I was beginning to wonder—'

'I'm sorry, Amanda, I really am. But one of the children had an accident in the playground this afternoon. I had to go to the hospital to see how he was. I tried to ring you from there, but the telephone was out of order.'

'Oh, dear,' Amanda drawled, 'nothing serious, I hope?'

'No, thank goodness. He hit his head, but it's only mild concussion, nothing worse.'

'Good, good.' Amanda wasn't listening, she could tell. 'Well, now you're finally here, you'd better hurry on in and meet everyone. Although I suppose you'll need to titivate first.'

Sophie stepped out of the darkness into the hall and felt Amanda's keen glance take in every detail of her appearance. She pulled a face. 'Do I look that awful?'

Amanda looked with scarcely hidden envy over her guest's luminous skin, her soft natural curls of honey and ash, and bewitching smoky blue eyes. 'You look as ravishing as ever, Sophie. You know, I know women who would kill for your looks, yet you seem to take them for granted.'

She shrugged, saying, 'I've never known anything different,' and turned to smile at the village girl who had hurried forward to take her coat. 'Hello, Tracey. Are you on dinner duty tonight? How's young Glenn getting on at his new school?'

'Fine, miss, thank you.' The girl's shy, rural vowels contrasted strongly with Amanda's social drawl.

'Does he actually manage to get up in time to catch the bus?'

Tracey smiled. 'Mum bangs a pan by his 'ead until he can't stand it any more. Then he has to get up.'

Behind her she heard taffeta flounces rustle impatiently. Quickly she handed over her jacket, saying, 'I'll just slip into the cloakroom for a minute. Don't wait, Amanda, I'll come straight in,' and she escaped through the nearby door. In the quiet she stood for a moment or two putting herself in the right frame of mind for the grand dinner party ahead. She repaired her lipstick and repinned the combs that held her curls back from her fine cheekbones, then smoothed down the narrow sheath of black velvet over her slender hips and grimaced.

The dress looked stunning, but it had been a mistake to buy it. Hurrying late into town last weekend, she had had a desperate search for something—anything—she could wear tonight.

When she slipped the simple black dress on it had felt wonderful, and after a hasty twist in front of the mirror she had shrugged it off and written out the horribly large cheque needed to buy it.

Only when she got home and tried it on at leisure had she realised just how low-cut and revealing its off-the-shoulder top was, how clinging the skirt. Although she loved clothes and wore them with flair, she never wore things so blatantly sexual. And although her figure, both Full and slender, was perfect for the dress, the glamorous seductress who stared back at her from the mirror was a stranger to her eyes.

She sighed, and picked up her bag. It was done now. Too. late to worry. She would just have to brazen it out.

Outside the door she met Amanda, still hovering.

'My goodness, Sophie! That's—incredible.'

'Well, different, anyway. Actually I hate it. I want to keep pulling it up. I feel half-naked.'

'You are,' Amanda said bluntly. 'But you look fantastic. They aren't going to know what's hit them. Come on.' She was already tapping her way across the entrance hall to the double-panelled doors. 'I've got the most perfect man for you to meet.'

'I doubt it,' said Sophie softly as she followed Amanda in. She had met dozens of 'perfect' men at Amanda's famed dinner parties and not one of them had been the sort she wanted to see again once the evening was over.

In fact she often wondered why she continued to accept invitations to evenings at Bicknor Manor when she had so little in common with Tim and Amanda and their relentless socialising. Often she was tempted to ring up at the last minute with some excuse or other. But the moment the door opened on to a blaze of warmth and colour, and a happy hubbub of talk, she remembered exactly why.

Her eyes feasted on the beauty of the rich Persian carpets, the velvet curtains, the roaring logs in the enormous carved fireplace. Tim, Amanda's husband, looked her over with open appreciation as he handed her a drink, and the cut glass sparkled in her hand and the sherry was rich and smooth.

Such opulence was worlds away from her usual hard-working life, but that was exactly why she enjoyed it so much, she thought, as she sank quietly down into a corner of a deep sofa. She liked good food and drink, and although her fellow guests were rarely to her taste, she enjoyed meeting new faces.

Normally, too, she loved the chance to dress up for the evening, and since she knew only too well that her role at the Manor's polished mahogany dining-table was mainly a decorative one, she had no hesitation in doing her best to look as beautiful as she knew how. But tonight her appearance gave her no pleasure and she sipped her sherry quickly, hoping it would smooth away her uncomfortableness, as well as ease the tiredness of her long and difficult week. It did, and she began to feel better.

Amanda had given her a moment or two to collect her thoughts, but now she leant down and introduced her to an elderly man sitting near her. He was a cordial but painstakingly slow conversationalist, and after a moment or two her glance began to stray discreetly round the room.

It did not get far. There, leaning languidly against the mantelpiece, was the most striking man she had ever seen in her life. And he was looking at her. No, not looking. He was stripping her naked, devouring her with his eyes, quite openly and without any hint of shame!

The look-drove all thoughts from her head. She completely lost the thread of what the elderly gentleman was saying. She had heard of smouldering glances. This one was a blaze, as much a conflagration as the fire he stood beside.

She could not look away. She swallowed. She felt his eyes on her skin, like an intimate caress of her neck and shoulders. Beneath her dress her body lifted and tightened towards him.

Her hand shook and spilled some of her drink. He had noticed. He began to smile, lazily, conspiratorially, one side of his mouth crooking more deeply than the other. She looked away, then back. Now the glass as slippery in her shaking hand. She leaned forward to put it down on the coffee-table beside her, but before she got it there it slipped from her grasp, struck the glass table top and shattered on to the Persian rug.

Everyone in the room stopped talking. It was so embarrassing, she felt herself flushing. Then the man crossed the room and was swiftly picking up the pieces.

'Don't worry, Seth. Tracey will see to it,' Amanda instructed and went to summon the girl. The conversations around the room resumed.

'I always have thought glass coffee-tables were lethal objects,' the man said to her, and he looked up at her with wicked, laughing eyes.

'It was nothing to do with the table!' she hissed fiercely.

'Oh?' He paused in his ministrations, kneeling on one knee and stared, mockingly inquisitive, at her. Now he was very close.

'You made me do it. You know you did.'

'Me?' He was enjoying himself. 'I was on the other side of the room. I'm not a magician.'

'Looking at me like that.'

'A cat can look at a king.'

'Not looking, then, leering.'

'I can promise you I've never leered in my life. Dirty old men in raincoats leer. I was, I admit, looking. But why shouldn't a normal, warm-blooded male look at the female form? Especially,' he lowered his voice, 'when it is so delicious, and so utterly exposed as yours.'

She sat back quickly, acutely aware that as she leaned down towards him she was even more exposed than the dramatic dress intended.

She glared at him fiercely, unaware that her anger only made her eyes smoke more luminously and sent a perfect flush of colour along her fine high cheekbones-. From the smirk on his face she guessed he thought he had won the point.

'Most normal warm-blooded males have seen enough low-cut dresses not to behave like eye-popping schoolboys every time they set eyes on them,' she persisted. He rattled her and she was not going to let him see it.

'Every time?' He levered himself up and sat easily next to her on the long sofa. The old gentleman at the far end had long ago turned his attention elsewhere. 'Who said anything about every time? In my life—which I willingly admit has seen more decadence than many—I've probably viewed more low-cut dresses than you've had hot dinners. Not to mention,' his eyes went outrageously over her again, 'more tiny waists, more long, slim legs in sheer black stockings, more slender ankles. Very few even make me want to glance twice any more. You can stand assured you rated very special treatment.'

"Scuse me, miss.' Tracey had arrived with dustpan and brush to clear away the damage.

'Miss?' The man burst into astonished laughter. 'With that dress, wouldn't madam be more appropriate?'

'Oh!' Sophie gasped in an outrage of disbelief. 'How dare you?' Tracey stood open-mouthed, awkwardly wondering what she had done that was so funny. The girl's bafflement redoubled Sophie's anger at this man, this stranger, who seemed to care not a jot for anyone's feelings but his own.

'It's all right, Tracey,' she said swiftly, gently. 'He's not laughing at you.' She shot him a savage glance, and he had the grace to look marginally abashed.

At that moment, Tim summoned them all in to dinner. 'Ah, Seth, Sophie,' he boomed, vaguely, 'see you've already—yes, yes—well, come on in.'

Seth stood and offered her his arm. 'I guess from that incoherent mumble that I'm destined to lead you to the trough. Will you do me the honour of accompanying me? If I promise not to look down your frock once?'

Despite herself she laughed. She did not mean to, but his irreverence pricked the usual pomposity of evenings like this in a not unwelcome way. And when she took the crook of his arm to walk through to the dining-room she was acutely aware of the warmth and ease of his long, lean body beside her.

They were seated opposite each other at the table. Branching silver candlesticks with cream tapers lit the table and threw their reflections into deep pools on the dark polished wood. As he opened his napkin and tossed cheerful remarks to the guests on each side of him she was able to scrutinise him closely for the first time.

That first, startling impression had simply been of his challenging maleness. Now she saw he was a tall man, whose broad shoulders wore his dark dinner jacket lightly. The whiteness of his shirt emphasised his light tan and the thick depths of his chestnut hair.

She had thought his eyes were brown, like his hair, but now she saw that was only partly true. As he laughed and spoke, she saw they contained a fascinating blend of other colours—gold and green and grey. She looked closer and closer, almost hypnotised by their complex depths, then she started and recollected herself enough to sip at the cucumber and lobster soup.

For a time she did her social duty, exchanging light pleasantries with her neighbours, a middle-aged merchant banker and the wife of a local solicitor, but her eyes were constantly pulled back to him. His face was expressive, warm, full of humour. He had such presence that both his neighbours were delighting in his company, and it seemed for all the world that he had quite forgotten her. It gave her the chance to study his features, the dark brows, strong cheekbones and straight lips, but it also made her feel strangely peeved.

Then, as she looked at him, his eyes went swiftly to hers, as if he had been aware of her all along, and he smiled slowly and so directly sensually at her that for a moment a private world of desire and longing seemed to rise up and unfold them both.

Amanda's voice from down the table broke the spell, and Sophie was relieved. She did not want these feelings, they had no place in her life any more, and they made her feel frightened and lost.

'Sophie, darling, forgive me. But you arrived so very late there was no time to make proper introductions.'

'Ouch,' said a low voice to her across the table.

'Seth Huntingdon, Sophie Walker.' Amanda leaned forward. 'I so much wanted you two to meet. Sophie's a keen member of the local Conservation Society, Seth. I'm sure she'll be fascinated to hear your plans for Sedbury Hall.'

Their neighbours laughed.

'Sounds like "a lively exchange of views" coming up!' said the merchant banker.

'So it's you who bought the Hall!' the solicitor's wife said. 'According to the local paper you're an international property developer. Is that right? People are so rude about property developers that I've always longed to meet one.'

He laughed. "If you cut us, do we not bleed?" ' he quoted, hand on his heart.

His fingers were long and straight, Sophie noticed, with firm, blunt nails. She shook her head slightly and asked, more sharply than she had intended, 'And just what are your plans for Sedbury Hall?'

He leant back and surveyed her in a calculating manner for a moment. 'I can assure you, you won't like them.'

'Perhaps I could be the judge of that.'

'We-ell.' He put his fingertips together and looked at her over the top of them, choosing his words. 'You have to acknowledge we live in a leisure society.' She nodded, reluctantly, feeling the hateful jargon harsh on her ears. 'So it seems to me that what people want is a multi-functional complex that will answer their business needs while also affording them the chance to relax in a non-stressful environment.'

Surely he couldn't be serious? Her eyes flickered over him, but there was no mockery in his eyes and his tone was serious.

She put her knife and fork down, suddenly not hungry any more. The poached turbot could have been sawdust for all she could taste.

'You mean ‑'

'Oh, I haven't decided on the final details,' he said, waving away her interruption. 'There's still the dry rot and wet rot and new floors and ceilings to deal with. But I thought something like a combination business centre, health farm and sports centre. I could get a spa pool and jacuzzi complex out of the main bedrooms, with beauty-treatment rooms off the gallery. There could be a fully equipped gym in the stables and a snooker-room in the old kitchens. All the rooms will have wall-size video screens, of course, and there'll be a communications centre in the library. There should be plenty of room for computer terminals and fax machines once we tear out that musty old panelling.'

'What about outside?' she got out.

'I thought a practice golf course on the back terrace and perhaps an all-weather plastic dome over an outdoor pool. The hill behind the house would make a good motor-cycle scrambling track, but I'm not sure that's quite the clientele I'm after ‑'

'You'll never get planning permission!' Sophie exploded. Sedbury Hall was a fine old Elizabethan house, set high above a neighbouring village in a beautiful bowl of hills. It had been empty for years, left to decay while its owner made his fortune in Australian gold, but he had died, and the recent sale of the house had raised local hopes that it might be lovingly restored.

'I wouldn't be so sure of that. It's in such a bad state that if my plans fall by the wayside it's likely to have to come down. Anyway,' he flashed a brilliant smile at the solicitor's wife, 'we property developers have ways of getting things done, as I'm sure you've heard.' He rubbed his fingers together. 'Money always talks.'

'Oh!' Sophie was repulsed by what she heard, and appalled that she could have felt any pull of attraction to a man like this. 'Not everyone's like that!' Like you, she meant. 'And it would never be pulled down. The National Trust would buy it, if they had to.'

'Would they? They're turning properties down every day of the week. They can hardly afford to maintain the ones they have got. The Hall is a pretty little house, but it's not that exceptional. I'll promise to keep the front facade intact and that'll keep the planners quite happy, you mark my words.'

He smiled brilliantly at her again, but now she was unmoved by his charm.

'It might keep the planners happy. I wouldn't be so sure about everyone else. There will be a tremendous local outcry.'

If anything, his smile broadened. 'Is that a threat I hear? I do so hope so. If there's one thing I enjoy it's a good hard fight.'

She smiled tightly back. 'I can promise you I'll do the best I possibly can to make sure you get what you want.' And with that she turned pointedly away and ignored him for the rest of the evening.

It was late by the time the party finally began to break up, and Sophie's head was pounding with tiredness as she shrugged her jacket over her hateful dress and made her way across the gravel drive. Cold rain poured down on her and when she turned the ignition key in her car the engine only coughed and spluttered in the damp.

'Damn and blast!'

'Such language—from a conservationist.'

She got out, slamming the door, and felt her high heels digging into the wet drive. Seth had followed her closely out of the front door and paused to observe her misfortune. Now he walked quickly over and dived under her bonnet. She shivered as he unclipped wires and ministered to her sickly engine with a handkerchief that he pulled from his pocket.

'Try that.'

The engine still sputtered sadly.

'Sorry. Can't help you any further, I'm afraid. It's well and truly soaked. You'll have to leave it to dry out.'

'That's no problem. I can walk. It's no distance.'

'In this weather? Nonsense. My carriage awaits.' He indicated a smart black Range Rover.

'It would only take five minutes,' she protested.

'In those shoes it would take you five minutes to get to the end of the drive. By which time you would look like a drowned rat.'

He had a point. She got in, slamming the door hard and rudely neglecting to thank him. He climbed into the driving-seat beside her. The dark vehicle seemed uncomfortably intimate. He turned and grinned at her.

'Into the lair of the enemy,' he intoned dramatically, and started the engine.

'Which way are you going?' she said stiffly.

'Whichever way you want.'

'I meant, which way would you be going?'

'To Sedbury, of course.'

She was surprised, she did not think the Hall was habitable in its present state, but she was determined to ask no questions, to build no links of friendship between them.

'Then you'll be going past the end of my road. It's on the other edge of the village. You can drop me at the turning.'

In silence they drove through the main street, where all the houses were in darkness. She stifled a yawn, longing for the shelter of home and bed, and for the whole upsetting evening to be over.

'Here it is.'

'I'll take you to your door.'

She was firm. 'There's absolutely no need. It's less than a hundred yards.'

'It's the middle of the night.'

'It's the middle of rural Gloucestershire. Nothing is going to happen to me.'

'Ah. Remember Little Red Riding Hood? In the forest? That was pretty rural, too.'

'The only wolf around here ‑' She bit back her words, but the end of her sentence hung clearly between them. He did not turn to look at her but she saw he was grinning wickedly as he pulled into the side.

He got out and came round to open the door. In the darkness he was just a shimmer of black and white, dark hair and eyes and dinner suit, white shirt and teeth. He helped her down, a hand on her elbow. She could feel the power of him, the mischief, as she landed beside him and she shivered deeply; She had been right, he was a real wolf, and he made her very edgy.

She pulled her arm away from his grasp. 'Thank you very much. It was interesting meeting you. I dare say ‑'

It was another sentence she did not finish. As she pulled back he caught her fingers, then abruptly pulled her to him, into his arms? and kissed her hard and passionately. It was a raw, physical embrace, so forceful she was pushed hard up against the side of the Range Rover while he bruised her mouth with his searching, wanting lips, and his hands shifted under her jacket, and up over the nakedness of her back, possessing her warm skin.

For the briefest moment a swift unbidden shaft of desire arrowed through the heart of her, then it was gone, pushed out by an overwhelming tide of outrage at what he was doing. She flung her head to one side, her lips tearing savagely from his mouth.

'Stop it! How dare you?'

She tried to push him away from her, but his chest was like iron. Only when he finally chose to drop his arms was she released.

His hair was tousled and his breath uneven, but he did not look in the slightest bit abashed by his behaviour. His eyes were warm, alive.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?'

He ran a hand through his hair, his mouth crooking cruelly.

'I thought, since I was. the wolf, I'd better behave true to character,' he drawled, then with a grin and a lift of his hand in farewell he jumped into his Range Rover and sped off into the night.

The rain had stopped, and the morning sun was climbing past Sophie's bedroom window. Outside the birds sang so loudly they seemed to be echoing inside her head.

She groaned, punched her pillow, then stuck her head beneath it. Her temples pounded. She must have drunk far more of Tim's fine claret last night than she had realised. That was the trouble with letting go after a hard and difficult week, she thought. Once you started to unwind, you quickly began to unravel completely.

Now the sun had found a crack in her defences and was making her eyelids glare red. She gave up the struggle to sleep and pushed herself up against the pillows. It wasn't only her head that hurt, she realised; her lips felt sore and bruised as well. Then she remembered, all in one rushing go.

'Oh!' she groaned again as the anger and humiliation of last night flooded back to her. She fingered her lips and grimaced at the tenderness of her swollen flesh.

So she hadn't imagined the force of that uninvited embrace. She really had been kissed so hard that the damage was still there to see this morning. The man was outrageous! A monster!

She shut her eyes again, remembering everything about Seth Huntingdon, from that first insolent stare to the way he had pushed her back against his Range Rover to plunder her lips.

He was worse than a monster. He was a raper and pillager! When he saw something he wanted, whether it was a woman or a house, he just walked right in and took it. She loathed the very thought of him.

The sound of a car engine interrupted her thoughts. She frowned. Hardly anyone came up this tiny cul-de-sac, and certainly not first thing on Saturday morning. Although—she squinted at her clock—perhaps half past ten was not exactly the crack of dawn.

Then her doorbell rang. She got up and, pushing back the curtains, saw an unknown white van outside. Pulling on her dressing-gown, she hurried downstairs.

'Miss Walker?'

'Yes.'

'Oh, good. Flowers for you. I was given the road, but not the number. I had to look you up in the phone book. Glad I've got the right house.'

'Oh! Thank you.' It was the largest bunch of red roses she had ever seen in her life. Her arms hardly went round them. She went to the kitchen and put them in water, and, peeling off the white envelope, went slowly back up the bed.

The message was short and to the point: 'With apologies from a contrite wolf.' No signature. She threw it down. She would have liked to be able to believe it, but she simply didn't. It was just another move in his game. She was a prize his eye had happened upon, and she sensed he would do anything to get it.

...