Authors: Charlotte Lamb
'And your rent? What's that?'
Anna as calmly replied and was surprised when he swore. She stared blankly at him then. 'Why are you so angry? Try and find anywhere cheaper, mister! That is the bottom of the market, let me tell you, I'm lucky to have got it.' She made a little face. 'And today's rent day and I haven't got the money, so when I go to work tomorrow my landlady's going to be lying in wait for me and I shall have to think fast and talk fast to stop her chucking me out.' She didn't sound too worried. Ever since she moved in there she had had the same running battle with Mrs Gawton; she always paid her rent within a day or two and she felt sure the woman would give her the usual time to find the money. Seeing the dark frown on Laird's face, she went on lightly, 'Don't worry, I'll get the money. I've asked for an advance on my salary and they'll give it to me, they always do in the end.'
'It sounds to me as if you permanently live ahead of your income,' Laird said grimly.
'Who doesn't?' Anna looked sideways at him, her mouth curling. 'Present company excepted, of course. You obviously don't have to live hand-to-mouth, lucky you; some of us aren't so fortunate." Her green eyes mocked him. 'Maybe it was time you learnt how the other half lives—I'm broadening your education.'
'Thank you,' he drawled, watching her with narrowed eyes. 'Let me do the same for you.'
Anna had forgotten her suspicion and doubt of him over the last hour, her worries lulled by the food and the way they had talked. She wasn't prepared for his swoop, she just stared helplessly at his face as it came down towards her, her eyes focusing on his hard mouth.
As it touched her own she stiffened in shock, as if she had touched a bare wire and had had a massive jolt of electricity sent through her veins. His arms "'closed round her, pulling her down with him as he sank backwards on the couch, his mouth moving coaxingly on her lips, parting them, the kiss a heated intimacy against which Anna found she had no defences.
She didn't even know she had shut her eyes at first; she thought that the velvety darkness into which she fell was one consequence of that kiss. She was shaking violently, her hands clinging to his shoulders and her ears singing with a strange music. It didn't occur to her that it was the sound of her blood running far too fast, but she found the wild responses of her body to his lovemaking increasingly disturbing.
It was the first time a man had ever kissed her,
;
except as a stage exercise. Whenever anyone had tried in the past she had firmly repelled them, never tempted to experiment with any of the men she had met. The married ones she froze with a few biting words; the others more gently but just as decisively. Anna had no room for love in her scheme for living; perhaps if she had tried the occasional fling she might not have been so completely dazed by what Laird was doing to her.
Her inexperienced mouth trembled as his lips finally released it, but Laird didn't move away. He raised his head and stared down at her, and Anna opened her eyes to look at him in confusion, very flushed. She found she was seeing very hazily; his hard-boned face just above her seemed much further away, veiled in mist, yet even so she glimpsed the arrogant satisfaction in his eyes and the curl of his mouth, and a wave of rage swept to her head.
'Don't think . . . ' she began, and Laird put a hand over her mouth, stifling the words.
'Neither of us is going to do any thinking,' he promised ominously, and before she had a chance to bite him she felt his mouth moving along the side of her throat and the pleasure she felt drowned all her protests. His hands slid under her sweater and she moaned as they cupped her breasts silkily, the warmth of his flesh burning into her own. Her stupid eyes had closed again, her body quiescent as he caressed it.
'Put her down, your supper's ready,' grated Parsons from the door, and Anna turned dark red in embarrassment as Laird sat up, one hand impatiently pushing back his ruffled black hair.
'Don't you ever knock before you come into rooms?'
'I did. You was too busy to hear me,' Parsons retorted. 'Now come and eat that caviare while the toast's hot.'
'I should have left you in the gutter where I found you,' Laird muttered, getting off the couch.
'That's nice, after I've spent an hour slaving away over a hot stove,' grunted Parsons, stumping out of the room.
Laird looked down at Anna who was straightening her clothes with shaky hands, her eyes averted.
'There's no need to look like that,' he said flatly. 'Parsons is very discreet.'
She slid off the couch, hot-cheeked and icily angry with herself, with him. 'I'm sure he is—he'd need to be if you're always bringing your women up here! Can I have my coat, please? I'm leaving right now.'
'You're going to taste a little caviare, first,' Laird said, taking her arm in an unbreakable lock, and she 'struggled uselessly as he pushed her across the room to the door.
'I've already eaten, thanks! I couldn't eat anything else.' Anna was scared; she had told Patti that she would be out of her league with Laird Montgomery, but it was as true for her. While he was kissing her just now she had realised that she was way out of her depth. Her senses still hadn't recovered from his onslaught on them; she had to get away from him before he had an equally disastrous effect on her feelings. He was the first man she had ever felt might do that; she had never had to guard her heart before, it hadn't been in any danger. Now she knew it very well might be—and she wanted to run as fast and as far as she could to get away from him.
He pushed her into the hallway and into another room on the far side, effortlessly controlling her in spite of her angry attempts to free herself.
'Parsons would never forgive you,' he informed her drily, pushing her down on a chair at the polished walnut dining-table.
It was laid for two, there were red candles burning on it, their soft light glimmering on silver cutlery and crystal glasses. A bowl of white roses made a centrepiece; Anna stared at them incredulously, remembering the wintry weather outside in the London streets. She put a trembling hand out and touched the smooth, cool petals; one broke off and fell slowly on to the wood, reflected in the gleaming patina.
'Just have a spoonful of this,' said Laird. 'Do you like caviare?'
'I've never tasted it,' Anna confessed honestly, looking down at the glistening black pearls on the plate between the small piles of chopped onion and the yellow and white crumbs of egg. She forked a little of each into her mouth, savouring the mingled flavours slowly while Laird watched, amusement in his eyes.
'Well?'
She swallowed. 'Interesting, I don't know if I like it—but it's different.'
'Different from what?' he asked, as if very curious about her reactions.
'Baked beans!' Anna's green eyes glittered in the candlelight; mockery dancing in them. It was funny, wasn't it? she silently asked him to agree. His life-style was so many light miles from her own; they came from different planets, but as she went on eating the salty, crunchy caviare she decided to let her senses have full rein just for an hour more. She might never have such an experience again; why push it away untasted? Her eyes wandered around the elegantly furnished dining-room again and she sighed with enjoyment. It wasn't going to be easy to go back to her shabby room after this, but tonight she would sleep with a full stomach.
Parsons appeared and whipped away their plates, substituting clean ones on which he laid wafer-thin veal in a delicate cream and mushroom sauce and some broccoli and pureed carrot.
Laird had poured champagne into a fluted glass beside Anna's plate, and she sipped tentatively, avoiding Parsons' eyes. No doubt he thought she would be sleeping with Laird tonight; how many other girls had he seen at this table, having candlelight dinners for two?
When he had gone she tasted the veal, expecting it to be. delicious and finding she was right.
'Did you really find him in a gutter?' she asked, and Laird laughed.
'Quite literally, yes. He was a chef at one of London's best hotels for years, I met him then, but when he started drinking heavily he lost his job and his wife left him for another man, taking their two children with her. Parsons went to pieces, I gather.
He was blind drunk for about two years when I met him again—he fell under my car and lay in the gutter, so stoned he couldn't even speak.'
He refilled her glass and Anna thirstily drank half of the sparkling wine. 'He's a terrific cook. How did you sober him up?'
'Sent him to a place I'd heard of,' he said, finishing his veal and leaning back to watch her. 'Could you manage a dessert, or have you had enough?'
Anna pushed her own plate away, giving him a little smile. 'I haven't eaten this much for years, but . . . what is the dessert?'
'I'm not sure.' He leaned forward and filled her glass again and she shook her head cloudily.
'Oh, no, I've drunk too much champagne already.'
He made no comment, sipping his own with his black lashes down against his hard-boned cheek. She watched him in the candlelight, her senses singing. Why had she thought he wasn't good-looking? She couldn't have been seeing straight. He wasn't the cinema heart-throb type, admittedly, but his face was intensely sexy. It radiated a magnetism she had never noticed in a man before; the clear-cut lines of it kept her eyes busy and her pulses busier. She liked the way his thick hair grew from a distinct widow's peak; his heavy-lidded eyes were mysterious, but it was his mouth she kept looking at again and again, remembering the demanding pressure of it, the heat it had built up inside her as it moved along her neck.
He looked up and she quivered, looking down, picking up her glass and drinking more champagne as if she had a mouth full of ashes.
Parsons returned and Laird asked him, 'Any dessert?'
'Crepes Suzette suit you?' growled the old man as if insulting him. 'Or isn't that good enough for yer 'ighness tonight?'
Laird looked enquiringly at Anna. 'Would you like some crepes Suzette?'
She couldn't resist them. 'Yes, please,' she said greedily.
When Parsons had noisily exited, Laird asked her with a crooked smile, 'Another first for you?' and she nodded.
Parsons cooked them at the table; Anna watched, fascinated, as if at a first night. The old man's gnarled hands were amazingly deft as he grated orange and lemon peel into the pan, stirred the sauce, slipped the delicate pancakes into it and added cognac and Grand Marnier, before setting light to it and standing back to let Anna admire the blueish flames for a second. She leaned forward, breathless, then the whole show was over, the flames doused and a triangular pancake sliding on to her warmed plate.
'Voila,'
said Parsons.
'Don't show off,' Laird told him, and the old man took his trolley of equipment and sulkily left the room.
At the door he paused to glare back, and Anna said, 'It's the most heavenly thing I've ever eaten, Mr Parsons.'
'I 'ope you 'eard that,' he told Laird with a sniff. 'Some people appreciate my cooking.'
'Leave the bottles,' Laird merely replied.
Persons came back to put them on the table in morose silence before slamming out.
Laird met Anna's reproachful stare with a grin. 'Argument is the breath of life to him, it reminds him of his wife. If he wasn't wary of me, he'd be back to a bottle of Scotch a day at my expense. As it is, I keep him down to the odd glass stolen when he thinks I'm not watching. He's too old to reform, now.'
'I think you're very mean to him,' Anna said, regretfully eyeing her last mouthful of crepe. 'How old is he exactly.'
'Seventy this year.' Laird watched her drain her glass, his eyes rueful. 'I think you've had rather too much champagne. A strong black coffee is what you need now. We'll drink it in the sitting-room. 'He came round and pulled back her chair as she began to get up. Anna turned her head to shake it at him, laughing.
'There's nothing wrong with me.' She clutched at his shirt as the room spun and Laird's arm went round her. 'Oh!' Anna moaned, shutting her eyes. The floor was heaving up and down as if it was alive and breathing; it was a nauseating sensation. 'I don't feel very well,' she groaned, leaning on him. 'I think I ate too much.'
'Hmm,' she heard him murmur, and after that there was nothing, her body slipping into a warm darkness.
She woke up with another groan, her head thudding as she turned over in bed.
A minute later she was rigid, lying there listening intently to the distinct and terrifying sound of breathing right behind her. Her foot shifted an inch and touched another foot, It was bare. So was hers. She shut her eyes again quickly, trying to convince herself she was dreaming. She tentatively moved her hand next; explored her hip and felt silky material. It wasn't a dream; she was wide awake in a strange bed wearing just her slip, and there was a man in bed with her. She knew who it was without needing to look, but she had to see with her own eyes before she would admit it could be true. She very slowly turned her head and in the shadowy half-light of a large bedroom she saw Laird Montgomery's dark head buried in the pillow next to her.
H
ER
heart beating so hard her breast seemed to shake with it, Anna began to slide her legs out of the bed. She didn't want to make any sudden movement which might wake the man sleeping next to her; she had to get away before he woke up, before she had to face those arrogant, mocking eyes and be forced to remember what had happened in this bed last night.
Her clothes lay on a chair by the window. She crept over to them and gathered them up, turning to steal towards the door. Laird Montgomery shifted his position, the regular sleeping breathing altered slightly, then he gave a deep sigh and Anna froze, watching the ruffled black hair with fixed attention. After another minute she felt safe to move again; she tiptoed across the room and opened the door, her teeth clenched with the effort of doing so without making a sound.
She dressed in the hallway, standing near the door in case she had to make a flying exit. Where had the old man put her coat? she wondered desperately, until she saw the cupboard at the end of the hall. She investigated stealthily and with a pang of relief saw her coat hanging in it.