The Engagement Deal (12 page)

‘You’re incredible.’

It didn’t sound like a casual compliment; it had more bite, more
guts
to it. As her eyes flickered open, she didn’t doubt for one minute his husky sincerity. His eyes captured and held hers as he reached down and firmly parted her pale thighs. He slowly ran his fingers along the inner aspect of her legs from ankle to thigh, making her moan with pleasure. When he came to the damp curls at the apex of her legs and he touched her there, her low cry became sharp and feral and her arched body cleared the bed for that split second when every muscle in her body tightened and screamed out for fulfilment.

His head was against her breasts, teasing each aching inch of flesh with long, tantalising strokes of his tongue. As he suckled, his hands slid between her aching thighs and she was just too stunned by the force of her own response, her own pleasure and need, to do anything but sob his name.

‘Niall…I…I need…’ Her hands clutched at his sweat-slick shoulders, sliding over ridges of hard muscle.

‘It’s all right, my lovely little witch.’ Despite the stamp of desire that drew the olive skin hard against his prominent cheekbones, there was surprising tenderness in his face as he caught her chin in one hand and angled her face up towards him.

‘I need the same…Feel.’ He guided her hand towards the proof of this claim. Her hand curled greedily over him. The zipper of his trousers dug into the bulging ridge of his arousal, making it hard for her to release. He made no attempt to help her and this somehow heightened her frenzied clumsy desire.

‘Oh, God!’ she gasped when she’d succeeded. ‘You’re…’ Her eyes felt hot and heavy and they were transfixed. It probably wasn’t the done thing to stare, but she couldn’t seem to stop.

His grin had a wolfish cast as he kicked his boxers free. ‘Hurting. I’m hurting, Holly.’

‘I think I know a cure.’ Heart in her eyes, she held out her hand.

Niall retained the grip on her hand as his body covered hers. Her fingernails dug into his palm as, with a powerful but controlled thrust, he slid inside her.

‘Don’t stop!’ she pleaded, as her body welcomed the extraordinary feeling of fullness.

His laugh was strained as the taut line of his clenched jaw. ‘Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t!’

Holly stared up at the elaborate hangings above her head. She was very,
very
glad he hadn’t stopped. There was still a deep warm glow where he’d been, low down in her belly, and tiny aftershocks that were faint echoes of that wild cascade of deep rippling contractions still fluttered every so often.

‘You’re not asleep?’ A hand lifted the heavy damp hair from the nape of her neck.

It was the first time he’d spoken since he’d said her name. Even the memory of that wild triumphant cry could bring the fine downy hairs over her body erect.

She lifted her head from his chest and smiled, a sleepily content look. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Not sleepy.’ Holly gently teased the dark hairs across his chest, before she rolled onto her back and stretched, a smile of smug complacency on her full lips. She had something now that nobody could take away from her; her lips firmed into a defiant line. ‘How about you?’ she challenged recklessly. What am I asking for, she wondered, marks out of ten?

Niall grinned and rolled onto his belly. Head on one side, he subjected her to a thoughtful look which made the colour start to bloom hotly in her cheeks. Why did I ask that? The man had probably lost interest. That’ll teach me to get pushy!

He traced a line from the base of her flat belly up through the gentle valley between her breasts, until it came to the pulse spot at the base of her neck. The fascinated expression on his face suggested he’d not lost interest, after all.

‘It just so happens that I’m not tired either.’

‘It makes me very happy to hear that,’ she confessed with a sultry smile of approval.

‘I’m about to make you a lot happier,’ Niall predicted confidently.

‘T
HEY
can’t have gone far, Jude,’ Chris Appleby reassured his wife with a comforting air of certainty.

‘They obviously got tired of waiting for Niall when he didn’t come down to breakfast.’ Her face white with anxiety, Jude’s words were addressed to her brother, but her glare and likewise her animosity were reserved for Holly.

Jude’s attitude had made it quite clear the second Holly had entered the room, blissfully unaware up to that point that Tom and his cousin hadn’t been seen for two hours, that she blamed Holly for her brother putting his personal pleasure ahead of his paternal responsibilities.

Holly didn’t think it could have been much more humiliating if they’d been asked to give a detailed account of what had been important enough to make Niall forget his promise to take the boys fishing this morning. To her guilty eyes, it seemed that everyone was looking at her with varying degrees of the same reproach.

How Niall must now regret carrying her back to their still-warm bed earlier. Suddenly, their early morning love-making had been transformed from something spontaneous and rather special into something grubby and sordid.

‘Leave it alone, Jude,’ Niall put in harshly.

Holly couldn’t decide if he was actually defending her from his sister’s wrath or just impatient that Jude was distracting them from the task in hand. He probably agreed with Jude! Why else did he seem to be avoiding her eyes?

‘They were last seen in the stables, right?’

‘Yes, your mother had just come back from exercising Blue Boy.’ George Wesley clapped his son on the shoulder. ‘Chris is right, you know; the little devils can’t have gone too far. I think half the problem,’ he reflected, ‘is that youngsters are just too coddled these days, wrapped in cotton wool. They need a bit of freedom without adults breathing down their necks. Why, when you two were young, you ran wild…
wild
! Do you remember the time when Niall here cracked his skull climb—?’

Maeve Wesley, whose memories of the occasion were composed almost entirely of sitting by her eldest child’s hospital bedside, waiting to see if his brain had survived the accident unscathed, didn’t share her husband’s rosy view of the occasion; she nodded warningly.

‘Yes, well, as fascinating as your ideas on childrearing are, my dear, I don’t think now is quite the time.’ She took hold of her husband’s hand and pulled him firmly back to her side.

‘We’ll divide up to search. If we don’t find them in the first half hour, we’ll fetch in reinforcements. You take the stables, Chris, and I’ll…’

Holly stood quietly to one side as Niall divided up the family and willing household staff into search parties. A surprisingly calm Tara was asked to keep a distraught Jude company; it seemed that Holly was the only one that hadn’t been included.

‘What can I do?’ She caught hold of Niall’s sleeve as he was about to sweep from the room. ‘Can I come with you?’

Holly winced; the breathless request smacked uncomfortably of entreaty. His eyes didn’t light up at the prospect of her sticking to his side like superglue—had she really thought it would? she asked herself derisively. It was obvious his thoughts were elsewhere. The rejection hurt but Holly didn’t resent his preoccupation; she understood it. His child had disappeared, so the man was bound to be a bit distracted. She ached to help alleviate his anxiety, but it was pretty obvious it hadn’t occurred to him to look in her direction to do anything of the sort.

‘You don’t know the area, Holly. It’s probably better if you stay here.’

Why should she mind being treated like an outsider? She
was
an outsider. Had she really thought sleeping with the man was some sort of magical formula? It wasn’t going to transform what they had into something more deep and meaningful, she told herself with scalding self-derision.

‘I’d probably slow you down.’ The empty feeling in the pit of her churning stomach had nothing to do with the fact she’d missed her breakfast.

Her presence wasn’t making things easier for Jude, so Holly quietly excused herself. She didn’t blame the other woman; it was only natural that she needed someone to condemn. Holly just hoped and prayed that the two boys would be found quickly, safe and well.

None of them had mentioned the disused quarry beyond the woods that lay to the east of the house and gardens—in fact, they’d all carefully avoided mentioning it—but she knew it must be at the back of everyone’s mind. She’d heard Ian Webster and Niall discussing the man who had died in a diving accident in the water-filled pit there, just the previous summer. It made Holly’s blood run cold to think of the two boys out there all alone.

It dawned on her about ten minutes later that she’d lost her way. God, that was all they needed on top of everything else, a house guest who couldn’t find her way back to her room!

Holly paused and sat down on a step while she tried to get her bearings. She peered up and down the long corridor but nothing looked familiar. She didn’t feel inspired to smile as she examined the framed set of original eighteenth-century political cartoons on the wall beside her. It was as she stood there wondering what to do next that she became aware of a noise that couldn’t be solely attributed to the sounds of an old house. Freezing, she strained her ears.

Could the two boys still be in the house while everyone was searching for them outside on the sprawling estate? Well what did she have to lose? If it turned out to be a noisy case of death watch beetle, who’d be the wiser? Holly set off in the direction of the faint sounds.

The sounds, which grew more distinct, led her all the way up to the attics. Seeing a dusty footprint, Holly let out a sigh of relief—it was only a little larger than her own tiny foot.

‘Hello, is anyone there?’ she called out robustly. It had been a while since she’d heard anything.

She was rewarded for her efforts with a very definite cry. Worryingly, the cry had sounded suspiciously like
help
!

Her stubborn efforts were rewarded when she pushed open the third attic-room door. Like the other two rooms, these high walls also showed unmistakable signs of water damage. Unlike the other rooms, scaffolding had been set up down the far end of the room and the roof plaster had been stripped back to reveal the heavy ancient wooden beams of the vaulted ceiling.

Holly didn’t actually take in details of the ongoing fight against the ravages of time, her horror struck eyes were riveted on the two figures that made up the heart-stopping tableau on top of the platform fixed high up the partly erected scaffolding.

Tom was crouched down on his knees, his face red with exertion as he held desperately onto his bigger and heavier cousin’s sweatshirt, the neck of which was snagged on the top of the scaffold. The thin garment was the only thing stopping the boy plunging down to the ground; it was also in danger of throttling him. It pulled tight against his neck and Tom’s valiant efforts were pulling it even tighter. Holly felt sick as she saw that these efforts might free the sweatshirt and send the boy crashing to the ground.

Holly wasn’t conscious of making a decision; she was almost surprised to find herself seconds later halfway up the scaffold, shouting calm words of encouragement to the boys.

‘It’s fine, Tom, I’ll take over,’ she panted as she heaved herself over the edge of the platform.

‘Pull him up, quick, he can’t breathe!’ The youngster released his grip as Holly took his place.

‘I won’t let that happen.’ There was a determined set to her chin as Holly lay on her stomach—she tried not to look down, as she wasn’t too good with heights—and linked her arms under Daniel’s armpits. The child’s breathing became immediately easier. She found it reassuring that Daniel was recovered enough to start wailing loudly over his predicament.

Holly soon realised that at this angle she wasn’t going to be able to hoist the boy up over the edge of the platform. He probably weighed considerably more than she did and she just didn’t have the strength in her arms. The slight amount she’d managed to raise him had been enough to unsnag the jumper, so now she was taking all his weight. Her racing mind contemplated the few options open to her. Tom sniffed, and wiped a grimy hand over his tear-stained face. ‘What are you going to do now?’ He sounded completely confident that she’d know the answer.

It struck Holly that the confidence of a child was a heavy burden all on its own. ‘Daniel’s going to stop kicking, aren’t you, sweetheart?’ Another kick like the last one, and her arms were going to be wrenched out of the sockets. ‘And you’re going to go and get help. You can do that, can’t you, Tom?’

The boy was already shinning down the scaffolding with the agility of a little monkey.

‘Be careful!’ she yelled out.

‘I’ll be back!’ he called, just before she heard the door slam.

Oh, I hope so, I really hope so, she silently prayed.

‘I don’t like heights,’ the precariously suspended boy told her in a tremulous tone.

She repressed the urge to wonder out loud why, if that were the case, he’d climbed up here in the first place! From a professional standpoint she was happy to hear that, but for a slight hoarseness, there didn’t seem to be any lasting damage from his near-strangulation.

‘Why don’t you close your eyes?’ she suggested. She did the cheerful, isn’t-this-a-great-adventure note so well that anyone hearing her speak would be completely convinced she was having a ball!

By the time her grin-and-bear-it smile had turned into a grimace of pain and she knew in minute detail about every pet Daniel had ever owned—nervousness made him garrulous—the burning in the muscles of her shoulders had turned from red-hot needles of discomfort to white-hot knives of agony.

In the morning, this will all be a bad dream, she told herself, as she made the worrying discovery that even closing her eyes couldn’t cut out the shoal of red dots that danced before her eyes. I can’t let go, I can’t let go…

She was concentrating so hard that she didn’t hear the door burst open. One minute, her own laboured breathing had been the loudest thing in the room; the next, there was suddenly what seemed to be lots of people shouting. One voice seemed to separate itself from the general clamour.

‘Let go, Holly. Chris will catch him.’

‘I can let go?’ she heard herself ask Niall stupidly. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Absolutely.’

She did and there was a loud applause as Daniel was caught by his father. Holly, grinning foolishly, opened her eyes and looked down—mistake! Major mistake! The room spun wildly, and irrational terror froze her to the spot.

‘Come on down, Holly!’ she heard Thomas urge.

Holly tried to speak but nothing came out; she swallowed to lubricate her bone-dry throat.

‘I can’t,’ she squeaked.

‘Why not?’ Even though her eyes were closed, she knew this was Niall.

‘I don’t like heights. Actually,’ she confessed with a slightly wild laugh, ‘I hate them!’

There was a startled pause.

‘Don’t you go up, Niall. You’re too heavy,’ Chris said. ‘The whole thing looks like it could come down like pack of cards.’

I could have done without knowing that. Holly let out a faint whimper as she heard Niall snarl an angry response. She felt the metal structure vibrate as someone moved upwards. Niall never did listen to anyone. This time, Holly was glad of it.

The touch on her shoulder let her know she wasn’t alone. ‘I’m going to get you down.’

‘It’s much more likely I’ll make us both fall,’ she warned him. ‘I’m likely to do something stupid.’

‘So what’s new?’ he growled.

She was convinced she couldn’t move, but Niall was even more convinced she could and would. He was a very good persuader, surprisingly patient, but no soft touch; he took no notice when she said she couldn’t.

Her descent was painfully slow but eventually her feet were back down on terra firma. She lifted her head and Niall, who had been one rung below her all the way down, smiled. His hard mouth didn’t quiver; the smile was all in his eyes, and the warmth of those eyes made her breathless condition ten times worse.

‘Thank you.’ Her knees were shaking so hard that she felt obliged to hold onto him to steady herself. ‘I’m sorry I swore at you,’ she added with a selfconscious grimace. She hadn’t always appreciated his refusal to let her give up.

‘I’ve been called worse things, but rarely with as much conviction.’

‘She’s saved my son’s life and
she
says thank you!’

Holly’s head was still spinning when Jude grabbed her and almost hugged the breath from her lungs. From scapegoat to saviour in the space of a hour was a dizzying journey to make.

‘For pity’s sake, Jude, let the girl breathe,’ Niall rasped, impatiently detaching his sister from a very pale faced Holly.

Holly smiled her intense gratitude at him. ‘I know this is feeble but I think I might be going to…’

‘Did I faint?’ she asked a few minutes later.

A firm hand in the middle of her chest forced her back into a prone position. ‘You went down like a sack of spuds, but you probably weigh less.’

Just my luck, I didn’t even get to enjoy the ride, she thought, examining with covetous eyes the suggestion of well-formed biceps through the linen shirt he wore.

She was still feeling slightly hazy about the details of their rescue. ‘The boys were all right?’ She was in a sitting room she’d never been in before. By this house’s standards, it had almost cosy proportions.

Niall moved his head in soothing confirmation and Holly’s body sagged with relief. ‘Thanks to you.’ His deep voice was grim as he silently contemplated a far less pleasant outcome to the boys’ disobedience. ‘Hopefully they’re feeling suitably chastened, just now.’

‘I hope you haven’t been too tough on them.’ His fingers brushed her forehead and she felt them move lightly over her hair—it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant sensation. In fact…‘What are you doing?’

‘Cobwebs,’ he explained, holding up his fingers and blowing the dusty gossamer fibres from his fingers. ‘You’re covered in them.’