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last night was utterly mutual, and you know it. Shall I show you the marks

you left on me to prove it?' He began to push the sheet away, and Natalie

shrank.

'No, just leave me alone. You're vile! You got me drunk—you know you

did. You made me drink too much champagne, and then you—you..

'Now you're being ridiculous.' His tone altered, became almost curt. 'All in

all, I doubt whether you drank more than half a bottle during the entire

twenty-four hours. Quite within your capacity, I'd have said, but enough to

relax you sufficiently to forget a few of your damned inhibitions.' His gaze

held hers. 'It wasn't just alcohol running through your bloodstream,

sweetheart, but a healthy dose of sexual frustration. An equally potent

additive, or didn't you know?'

'I don't want to know,' she said on a little anguished sob. 'I don't believe you.

I—I've never behaved like this in my life before. Oh God, I've got to get out

of here! I must have been crazy to trust you—to let you come anywhere near

me. And now I'm going to feel dirty for the rest of my life!'

There was tension in him now, swift and dangerous.

'Why, thank you,' he said too courteously. 'Perhaps you should have

considered that last night before falling into my arms quite so willingly.'

'I—I didn't!'

'Oh, yes, you did.' He smiled at her in insolent reminiscence. 'I always

sensed, my lovely Natalie, that once the ice cracked, the spring floods would

come roaring free, and how right I was! You were begging to be

kissed—touched, but if you'd decided to call a halt at any point, I wouldn't

have argued. It was you making the pace, lady, not me.'

'That isn't true!'

'Ah, but it is. And anyway, what's the problem?' He shrugged a shoulder.

'We were consenting adults, in private, and we wanted each other. It's not

exactly a new situation.'

'Not for you.' Natalie's voice shook. 'Oh God, I wish I never had to see you

again, you—you swine!'

'And you, my sweet, are a hypocrite—if we're calling names,' he retorted

tersely. 'Why, even now...' He let his thumb brush slowly and insinuatingly

across the quivering peak of her breast, bring the tender nipple to taut life.

'You see?'

Natalie bit on the inside of her lower lip until she could taste blood. 'I

thought—I told you to let me go.'

'But I don't take orders from you, darling, either professionally or

personally, remember?' He paused. 'Besides, your unflattering eagerness to

leave suggests this may the only opportunity I'll ever have to enjoy you, so I

may as well make the most of it.'

He moved, the lean body sliding over hers in explicit demand.

'You're disgusting!' Shock held her rigid beneath him.

'If you say so.' He sounded almost casual. 'In which case, I can dispense with

the—er—usual preliminaries. Why don't you close your eyes, sweetheart,

and think of something else—or someone else, if you prefer. Keep

reminding yourself that Terence Strang is still sending us his

horses—although I suppose you could blame that for your—downfall.' His

breathing quickened. 'Ah, God, you feel so good- Why don't you relax that

iron will of yours, and join me?'

She said, 'I'll see you in hell...' and stopped with a gasp, her body reacting

swiftly and urgently to his invasion of her. Horrified and ashamed, she

fought for control, for rejection, closing her heart, mind and senses to a

possession which threatened to overwhelm her. And she won.

When, at last, his body shuddered violently into hers, she had not betrayed

by a word or a movement the agony of need he had engendered within her.

'Thank you,' he said eventually, politely. 'It didn't compare with last night's

performance, of course, but beggars can't be choosers.'

She said huskily, terrified that the savage, burning ache of desire inside her

would become apparent in her face, 'May I go now? Have you—finished

with me?'

Eliot lifted himself away from her. 'Yes—damn you!' There was a controlled

violence in his voice which made her flinch.

She looked round the room. 'Where—where are my clothes, please?'

He shrugged shortly. 'In the other room, with mine. You have a convenient

memory for details you prefer to forget.'

She swallowed. 'Well, would you mind—looking the other way?'

He sent her an incredulous glance, then started to laugh. 'Yes, I would mind,'

he mocked. 'You've got a beautiful body, darling. I'm going to enjoy every

last glimpse of it.'

Natalie's instinct was to run for the door, covering herself as best she could

with her hands, but she knew that would only make her look and feel

ridiculous.

She pushed back the covers and stood up, not even glancing at him, moving

proudly, gracefully and unhurriedly, closing the bedroom door behind her.

But once she was safe from Eliot's appraising stare, she abandoned all

pretence of dignity, almost flying to the sitting-room, wincing at the scatter

of garments all over the carpet.

Her memory wasn't convenient at all. It was far too vivid, she thought,

flinching from the sight of Eliot's elegant shirt with half the buttons torn

from it, as she huddled into her own clothes. And the far from empty

champagne bottle gave her no comfort either. His contradiction of her claim

that she'd been drunk had a certain justice, she recognised wretchedly. She

hadn't had that much, but it had gone straight to her head.

She shook her head, as she forced her feet into her boots. It wasn't the wine,

she thought miserably. It was Eliot who'd gone to her head. She'd

thought—all her previous experience suggested—that she was immune

from sexual attraction. But now she knew very differently, and the

realisation would haunt her for a long time.

She managed to leave the flat without anyone seeing her, and went straight

to the office, where she typed her resignation and left it on Eliot's desk.

Then she went back to the house, and up to her room. She stripped, letting

her clothes fall into an untidy pile. Presently, after she'd had a bath, she

would fetch a plastic sack and bundle them into it. She never wanted to see

any of them again—not even her boots, which were brand-new.She soaked

herself, immersed in hot water up to her chin, for nearly half an hour, then

washed her hair, digging her fingers into her scalp.

It was a futile gesture, and she knew it, but she needed to do something

which would make her feel like her own person again, instead of Eliot's

possession—his plaything.

She was on edge for the rest of the day, watching the path that led to the front

door, half expecting his arrival, his invasion of her privacy.

But she was left severely alone. At lunch time, she cooked and forced down

some leathery scrambled eggs, and, when evening came, she hunted through

the freezer for a single portion of one of Beattie's delicious casseroles,

although she did it less than justice.

She tried to catch up on some reading, and when that palled, to watch

television, but she couldn't relax, or prevent her mind turning relentlessly

back to the events of the past twenty-four hours. She kept finding the image

of them being slowly and relentlessly re-created across her aching mind.

It was so totally out of character, she wailed inwardly. Her brief experience

of married life had taught her quite unequivocally that sexual matters left her

cold. Her wedding night had been painful, both physically and emotionally,

and matters between Tony and herself had never improved. She'd been

alarmed and revolted by his insistence on enforcing his rights, in spite of her

shrinking. She'd believed she was incapable of the response he'd demanded,

in some way incomplete as a woman.

'It's like making love to a bloody waxwork!' Tony's voice, bitter with

disillusion, came back to her over the years, and she shivered, wrapping her

arms defensively round her body.

So how could she possibly have wanted—have encouraged Eliot to do those

things to her?

She must have been mad, she thought, and now she had to live with the

humiliation of it.

She tried to make some plans. She had a few savings} so she could afford to

support herself while she looked round for work. But not locally, she

thought. She would get as far away from Wintersgarth as it was possible to

go without falling off the edge of the world.

And she would have to find some convincing story to reconcile Grantham to

what he would undoubtedly see as her defection, she thought, biting her lip.

A clash of personalities? Or irreconcilable differences, as they said in

divorce cases. But would her father accept that—and would Beattie's shrewd

eyes see through it?

She groaned to herself. Why hadn't she listened to the warning voice in her

head last night and come back here, decorously and alone? She would have

been spared all this—dissimulation.

And she would also, she realised, as the dark hours wore on, have been

spared the misery of physical frustration which, for the first time in her life,

kept her tossing and turning in heated restlessness for most of the night.

She put on a black skirt and a matching sweater, shapeless and elderly, with

the sole merit of buttoning high to the throat, the following morning, and

scraped her hair back into an elastic band at the nape of her neck before

going down to the office.

She was early, but Eliot was there before her, waiting for her, his dark brows

drawn together, his mouth set in an uncompromising line.

'I got your letter.' He held it up between finge' and thumb as if it was

distasteful, then tore it across and dripped the pieces into the waste-basket.

'That's an empty gesture.' Natalie faced him, keeping her voice steady with

an effort. 'I'm leaving anyway, at the end of the week.'

He shook his head. 'You're paid a salary. I think that entitles us to a month's

notice, and I'm sure that will be your father's view as well.' He paused. 'As a

matter of interest, how do you intend to justify your departure?'

She said tautly, 'I'll think of something.'

'Why not try the truth?' The hazel eyes bored relentlessly into her pale face.

'That having enjoyed yourself with me all night, you started hating yourself

in the morning.'

'Isn't it bad enough for me to know what I did?' she asked wearily. 'Do you

really think I'd hurt Grantham by letting him know I'd behaved like a slut?'

'Is that how you regard yourself?' There was an odd note in his voice. 'It's a

hard judgement for letting yourself be human for once.'

'You make it sound so simple!'

'Because it isn't that complicated.' Eliot took a step towards her, halting, his

frown deepening incredulously as Natalie backed away. 'My God!' He flung

up a hand. 'All right, I'll keep my distance. But I want you to know, Natalie,

that I don't regret a thing that happened the other night, and you shouldn't

either.' His mouth twisted. 'The aftermath wasn't particularly admirable,

perhaps, but your hysterical assertions that I'd made you drunk and forced

myself on you got under my skin. Anyway, running away—either from me,

or from yourself—won't solve anything.'

'You can't stop me,' Natalie averred unevenly.

'No, but when Grantham asks me why you're leaving, as he assuredly will, I

can tell him.' He paused. 'I don't think he'd be as shocked or as upset as you

think. He might even see it as a way of cementing our partnership for good

and all.'

It was like a nightmare repeating itself.

She said hoarsely, 'No. You've made your contract with Grantham—and I'm

not part of the deal.' Dear God, not again. Not this time.

What the hell do you think I'm suggesting?' he asked harshly. 'Some bloody

dotted line, with you on it?'

She shrugged. 'It's been done before.' And to me, she wanted to scream.
And

to me.

Eliot was silent for a time, then he said, 'OK, forget I ever mentioned it. The

deal is this—you stay here in return for my silence. Because while it

wouldn't cause Grantham any great grief to know I'd seduced you, it would

hurt him deeply to see you walk away.' He paused. 'And I'll play my part,

Natalie. I'll make a conscious effort not to touch you, or—intrude upon your

personal space in any way. Will that satisfy you? The other night is—closed,

finished, forgotten. A temporary aberration on both sides.' He looked at her

watchfully. 'Well, shall we declare a truce—for Grantham's sake?'

Natalie said in a muffled voice, 'I don't seem to have a great deal of choice.'

She moved behind her desk and sat down. 'Do you have anything else to say,

because I have work to do—and I'd rather like to be alone.'

His glance was cynical. 'What you'd really like is for me to vanish from the