CHAPTER EIGHT
WITH DOTTIE’S HELP, Prudence placed baskets for her elderly dogs, Sooty and Minnie, into a cosy back hall and settled them there, since the cook had made it clear that he was no fan of four-legged animals in the kitchen quarters.
The older woman was defensive on Prudence’s behalf. ‘Oakmere is your home. You should just tell that fancy chef that he has to put up with the dogs!’
‘The kitchen’s his territory now and thank goodness that it is. I hate cooking,’ Prudence reminded her equably. ‘Not everyone approves of animals indoors.’
Prudence had never lived without at least a couple of dogs at her heels. She was keenly aware, however, that Nik had grown up without pets and was not accustomed to sharing accommodation with them. Dottie took her leave. Prudence was eager to explore the house and see how the renovations were coming on but it was getting late. Still muddy and more than a little bedraggled from the evening routine of watering and feeding, she hurried upstairs to shower and change before dinner. She also felt incredibly tired and thought that perhaps it was time she had a medical check-up. After all, she reminded herself, her menstrual cycle still seemed to be out of kilter and that was unusual.
Twenty minutes later Prudence emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel and with her wet hair combed back from her brow. Nik was stationed by the tall bedroom windows. Her eyes lit up and eager words about how well the sanctuary had fared during her absence were bubbling on her lips. But when Nik swung round, she saw the grim darkness of his gaze and the forbidding cast of his strong, dark features and her tummy flipped in alarm.
‘What’s up? What’s happened?’ she questioned.
In answer, Nik tossed the packet of pills at her feet.
Prudence gulped and folded her lips, her guilt and dismay unconcealed. ‘Oh, dear…’
‘Is that all you’ve got to say to me?’ Nik countered grittily.
Prudence floundered and sidestepped that direct question. ‘The packet was in my handbag…how did you get hold of it?’
‘I tripped over your bag in the limo and it fell out.’
Her colour high, Prudence stopped trying to evade the confrontation. She drew in a steadying breath. ‘I had already decided to stop taking them-’
‘And when did you take that momentous decision?’
Prudence reddened because she knew that her answer would not impress him. ‘Last night…’
His thunderous aspect remained undiminished. ‘When did you organise contraception?’
She told him.
‘So, you’ve been lying to me from the minute that we began living together as husband and wife.’
Prudence squirmed but sought to defend herself. ‘That’s a very emotive way of putting it-’
His dark gaze flashed gold and his dark, deep voice was dangerously quiet. ‘And how would you suggest I put it?’
‘As it
‘That’s not relevant-’
‘It is. I made that decision in the past-’
‘What’s at stake here is trust,’ Nik delineated.
‘Yes, but the circumstances-’
‘Don’t count.’ His lean, bronzed face was unyielding. ‘You should have told me you were using birth control. That was a matter for us both to discuss. But then that isn’t what this is about, is it? You preferred to go behind my back and deceive me.’
Prudence could feel the outrage he was containing. It was there in the rigidity with which he was holding his lithe, powerful body, in the burnished gold in his eyes and the prominence of his hard, classic cheekbones. She wanted to scream with frustration and regret. Everything had been so wonderful, so perfect, and the future so promising. He need never have known that she was taking those wretched pills. Why on earth hadn’t she immediately disposed of the evidence?
In the midst of that train of thought, she was shocked by other, sneaky ideas travelling through her head. Hadn’t she always believed in complete honesty? What had happened to that? Nik had come back into her life and Nik was more important to her than anything else. That was why she had fallen off the straight and narrow path so fast her head was still spinning. She had wanted to preserve their relationship, not tear it apart.
‘In spite of all the time we were together in Italy, you said not a word about the fact that you were using contraception,’ Nik ground out in the rushing silence.
‘I didn’t think about it, not properly,’ Prudence said defensively. ‘I’ve just been so busy being happy with you-’
‘Really…happy?’ Nik framed in his slick, dark drawl that could be so incredibly sardonic in tone. ‘It was a great act. You wanted a baby, but there was no damned way you were about to risk that baby being mine!’
‘That’s not true and I wasn’t acting-’
‘A couple of months ago, you were willing to go to a sperm bank and choose a stranger to father your child… but I wasn’t good enough-’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ she gasped. ‘I just wasn’t ready to talk about this with you-’
‘You weren’t going to tell me at all. Do you think I don’t realise that?’
Prudence was so tense that her spine was hurting. ‘You’re not being fair, Nik-’
‘How fair were you?’ Nik countered in a wrathful undertone, his impassive facade starting to crack to reveal his cold, seething anger. ‘How fair were you being when you let me believe that we were trying to start a family? I wanted that child for your sake. I could have waited. I didn’t want a child until I realised that that was your biggest dream. Is this how you repay me for trying to give you what I thought you wanted? With lies and deception?’
And that was the precise moment that Prudence truly grasped how much damage she had done to their marriage and she was horrified. The halter she had had on her own emotions snapped beneath that pressure. ‘What choice did you give me at the beginning? I had no idea what to expect from you,’ she protested. ‘You forced me to make our marriage real and I had to protect myself as best I could. I had to think ahead-’
‘
Her sense of panic increased, for she felt as though she was being boxed into an ever tighter corner. ‘No, of course not. But I didn’t know how things were going to turn out between us before we went to Italy and that’s why I started taking birth-control pills. I couldn’t take the risk of falling pregnant. If I’d had a baby with you, it would have given you even more of a hold over me.’
‘You could have told me that upfront-’
‘I didn’t think about it at the beginning and, by the time I did, it seemed too awkward and controversial-’
His lean, powerful face had hardened. ‘Maybe it gave you a kick to put one over on me.’
Prudence was too worked up to pick and choose her words. ‘Yes, once or twice it did…’
Beneath his bronzed skin, Nik lost colour at that unexpected admission. He rested raw dark eyes on her, aggression leaping from every taut inch of his magnificent body. ‘You are not the woman I thought you were-’
Prudence felt her tummy flip as if she was teetering on the edge of a dangerous chasm. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have admitted that and I’m certainly not proud of it but I have feelings, too. I was very angry with you at the start, but I was scared as well-’
‘Scared?’ Nik interrupted wrathfully. ‘You have never in your entire life had cause to be scared of me!’
‘How about when you told me my animals could go hang if I didn’t agree to give our marriage a trial?’
Nik shrugged an elegant shoulder and spread expressive lean brown hands in denial of that reminder. ‘It was just an empty threat, part of the negotiations. I knew right from the start that you would give in. Believe me, I would never have allowed any harm whatsoever to come to your animals.’
‘I’d like to say that I believe you, but I can’t. You’re not the world’s most compassionate person, Nik. Once I wouldn’t accept that side of you. I idealised you and it was very foolish of me,’ Prudence confided unhappily. ‘After all, your reputation always said you were a bastard…and when I crossed you, I discovered that you were much
