A Masterful Man

Candice and Lavinia, we worked out that you'd got a letter that had upset you that day. I thought that the two people who were most likely to have upset you were either Darren Smith-Hastings or Paul Grainger. So I started with Smith-Hastings.'

Davina stirred, but he ran his fingers down the side of her face very gently. 'I was a bit amazed at his reaction-well, first of all he flatly refused to see me so I had to…employ certain methods; I did a bit of ranting and raving to his secretary until she let me in. Then he looked as wary as hell and the first thing he said was, 'It's over, Warwick, you can have her. We've done a deal.'' He stroked the side of her neck. 'I asked him to elucidate. He said, 'I'm sure she's told you all the dirty details herself.' I said I'd like to hear them from him; nevertheless. I think,' he said slowly, 'he realised when he'd finished how close I came to throttling the life out of him. I don't think he'll ever forget it.'

Davina moved her cheek against his shirt and closed her eyes at the wonder of the feel of his fingers on her skin.

'So, now you're wondering, I would imagine, why I didn't come straight to you?'

'No,' she murmured. 'I mean…'

He kissed the top of her head. 'It was all Loretta's fault. She told me I'd been rushing you and probably frightening the life out of you myself. I knew something I'd been doing hadn't been working. So, I thought, once again, perhaps I can wait, perhaps I should wait-that you wouldn't have done what you'd done unless… So I came home, but these last few days have been pure hell. I can't sleep, I can't settle to anything; I know I wouldn't have lasted much longer.'

'Steve,' she said softly, and put her hand to his face, 'I love you-'

But he said imperatively, 'Hang on. There's more. You see, I knew it all myself, I didn't really need Loretta,' he said drily, 'to spell it all out for me. I knew that after a ghastly experience like that, you were hurt and humiliated and afraid of men. What I couldn't do-' his voice dropped ' -was give you the time you needed. Oh, I tried a couple of times, only to find I couldn't wait; I'd never wanted a woman so much, I'd never lived with the fear that I mightn't be able to have her, not only to hold, but to love in all senses of the word-and it drove me in a way I'd never known, even for me. But I did try to hold off, in a sense. I said and did some things all designed not to pressure you. And to hide from you,' he said grimly, 'the fact that what had happened to me was a bit like being hit on the head, and that every day it was becoming clearer to me that I couldn't let you go; that I was exactly the kind of man you thought you feared most, who would want to dictate to you and…well, I suppose you know what I mean.'

'Steve-'

He kissed her and said, 'Let me tell you all, my darling; I don't want there to be any misunderstandings between us again. One of my stratagems,' he said, with a sudden weary little smile, 'was not to let you think I was trying to push you into marriage. I thought I could do that better by showing you how inevitable it had to be. You said to me once that you'd thought it would be high drama when we slept together, if we ever did-I tried to make it something that was warm and tender and fun and something you could see lasting us a lifetime. I tried,' he said very quietly, 'despite the fact that wanting you was the most intense thing that had ever happened to me, to play it down, to…' He shook his head.

'You did-you made love to me so wonderfully it… made me forget everything else that had ever happened to me.'

'But it didn't make you believe-and the way you were sometimes led me to think I never could make you believe. That's what drove me the day you left, drove me to do the things I did and say the things I did. I knew something had gone wrong and I knew I should have been there with you, but…well, when exactly what I feared might happen apparently had happened, I lost my head and reverted true to type, I guess. I also knew I only had one shot left, the one I was deathly afraid of playing and it was this-if you do ever marry me, Davina, I'll never let you go. But that's the problem: that's not only the kind of man I am but the way you affect me. I probably don't have to tell you that; you may have worked it out for yourself. I'm the one kind of man you told me so often you could never-'

'Steve.' And this time her voice was low and husky but insistent. 'Let me tell you what I've worked out. I've worked out that I'll have a terrible life with you.' But a smile curved her lips as he tensed and she went on softly, 'I know you'll go to any lengths to get your own way, but you see, there's not a lot you'll have to fight me about now. I think we're in some agreement about the basics such as-the fact that I can't live without you. I'm lost and lonely, there's this awful ache within me that only you can stop; I believe now, Steve, and it was me I was fighting more than anything and there was only one way I could resolve it, which I've done now…'

He stopped her right there, and as he kissed her and held her she felt his heart beating against her breasts in a wild, exalted way that matched her own.

'A lot of people will still tell you you're mad,' he said some time later as she lay flushed and breathless in his arms, thoroughly kissed and still held as if he was afraid to let her go.

She slid her fingers through his tawny hair and down to those lines beside his mouth. 'Some people have told me the opposite.'

He raised a wry eyebrow. 'I can't imagine who, if you discount Lavinia-she's not altogether unbiased.' 'Well, let's see. There's Maeve. She told me the day we first met that you were a lovely man-' her lips trembled '-a bit hard to handle maybe, but really, no wife could ask for more. In the way of washing and ironing machines.'

He laughed and said wryly, 'My one fan.'

'No. There's Candice. She even stood up for you one day when Lavinia and Loretta were-commenting on how difficult you could be.'

He grimaced. 'I can imagine. Candice will be thrilled by this turn of events, by the way.'

'I'm glad. I felt terrible about walking out on them, too.'

'I wouldn't,' he said with a wicked little smile. 'You achieved more harmony between Loretta and Lavinia by getting them to gang up on me than I would have believed possible. They're still ganged up, incidentally' 'Loretta also told me to… well, think twice about you.' 'Loretta,' he said a shade drily, 'will be impossibly smug now.'

'But she also told me that you were an…all-or-nothing man, one of those masterful types, perhaps, but…' She smiled into his eyes.

'Now, that,' he said slowly, 'I have to agree with, the all-or-nothing bit.' He stopped, then went on in a deep, quiet voice, 'I had these fantasies. Of you, with no shadows in your eyes, in this house, in the sunlight with me, the rain, whatever… I thought of kids: a girl who looked like you and could twist me round her little finger as well as trust me to always have her best interests at heart; a boy I could pass on to not only everything I love about this island but the love and respect I had for his mother. I couldn't get them out of my mind.'

'Oh, Steve,' she whispered with sudden tears in her eyes and buried her face against him.

'No more tears?' he said later, as they lay side by side in his bed, loosely entwined.

'None.'

'You're so beautiful.' He traced the outline of her body from her waist to her hip and thigh.

'And you do things to me-I probably don't have to tell you about.'

'You could show me.'

'OK.' And she freed herself, but only briefly. 'There, how's that?'

He moved beneath her weight and slid his hands down her back to the curve of her bottom, and looked into her eyes with just a suggestion of the old wicked glint she knew so well. 'You have me entirely at your mercy,' he also said softly. 'If I moved, I'd be…lost.'

She pressed her breasts against his chest and wrapped her arms around him. 'Don't move. I'd be lost, too, you see. What I'm really trying to tell you is how much I love you.'

'Ah. But, if we… got lost together, would that not be an affirmation of our love?'

She laughed down at him, and he caught his breath. 'What?' she queried, sobering.

'They're gone,' he said with an effort. 'The shadows in your eyes are-gone.'

She relaxed. 'Because you made them go-Steve?'

'Yes?'

'I don't think I can last much longer…'

'I'm so glad,' he said with an intensity in his voice and his arms, 'because I was going to try to tell you how much I love you, but now I'm going to have to show you.'