Newlyweds of Convenience

‘You can relax now. The terms of our revised agreement are quite clear,’ he said in a mock businesslike tone. ‘No sex. No passion. No excitement. And no touching other than in the interests of warmth. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’

‘Er…yes,’ said Mallory, and then was appalled at how doubtful she sounded. Because that was what she had wanted. What she still wanted.

Wasn’t it?

‘Yes,’ she said again more firmly.

‘Well, now we both know where we are, we can get comfortable and go to sleep,’ said Torr.

If only it were as easy as that! The longer she lay there, the less comfortable Mallory felt. It was all right for Torr, who seemed to be able to fall asleep without any problem, but how could she relax when her mind was still fizzing? When, instead of feeling reassured by Torr’s matter-of-fact attitude, she was letting her thoughts start to drift perversely in quite the wrong direction? When she couldn’t seem to stop herself wondering what it would be like if they had an exciting, passionate marriage after all?

What would it be like if they could touch each other? If they did touch? If they couldn’t keep their hands off each other? Mallory screwed her eyes tightly shut in an attempt to blank out the picture that was forming in her mind with alarming clarity, but it was no good. She saw herself turning within Torr’s arms so that she could let her hands drift over his flank, under his T-shirt to feel his warm, smooth flesh, down to the bottom of his spine. She saw him smile in response and kiss her throat the way he had kissed her last night, but this time he didn’t fall back into sleep. He didn’t stop. His mouth was travelling tantalisingly downwards, his lips slow and sure along her clavicle, at her breast…

Startled-no, shocked-by how clearly she could imagine it, Mallory sucked in her breath. Her heart was thudding and deep inside her a long-buried hunger was uncoiling with terrifying speed-as if Torr really was kissing her, if his hands really were exploring her possessively.

This was crazy! What was she doing fantasising about Torr? She had only just got round to thinking of him as a friend, let alone as a husband, a lover.

Lover. The thought stopped the breath in her throat. She wasn’t ready for that. She had never been able to imagine wanting anyone but Steve to touch her, but there was no denying that her hormones were stirring.

It must be the situation, Mallory tried to reassure herself. It was nothing to do with Torr himself, and it didn’t mean anything. It was just that it was hard not to think about what might happen when a man and woman lay closer together in the dark.

Not that Torr appeared to have any difficulty in putting it out of his mind. What was it he had called her once? A marble statue. If he still thought of her like that it was no wonder he had made no effort to persuade her to change her mind.

Which was good, of course, she remembered hurriedly. If Torr wanted her, it would be hard to resist him in this bed. If he rolled her beneath him, if his palm was warm against her leg, if it slid tantalisingly up her calf, gentle behind her knee, smoothing over her thigh. If his lips teased down her throat, if his body was hard and his hands possessive.

And she would want to resist him…wouldn’t she?

Mallory’s mouth was dry, and she couldn’t prevent a slow shiver of something perilously close to anticipation.

‘It’s not that cold,’ Torr tutted through the darkness, but his hold tightened anyway.

Mallory swallowed hard. Cold was the last thing she felt right then!

‘It takes me a long time to warm up,’ she muttered, which was the best explanation she could come up with when her pulse was booming so distractedly.

‘You can say that again,’ said Torr, but so quietly that Mallory wasn’t sure that she was meant to hear him.

By the time they left for Inverness Mallory’s list had grown so long that they did indeed take the trailer. The kitchen and bathroom had both been cleaned beyond recognition, and she was starting to look at them with a designer’s eye.

The kitchen especially could be a lovely room, Mallory had realised with pleasure. Cleaning the windows alone had had a startling effect. She had explored some of the rooms upstairs, where she had found a whole stash of curtains that had been folded and put away. Most were damp and dirty, but all some needed was a good wash, and she was glad that she’d brought her sewing machine with her. She planned to adapt a pair for the bedroom, and use the material to make blinds for the kitchen too. Batons and cords were on her list to buy in Inverness.

Once the kitchen and bathroom were ready for painting, Mallory had turned her attention to the kitchen garden. She’d been there with Charlie one day when she had recognised a blackcurrant bush, half strangled by the tangle of undergrowth. She had found some straggly rosemary too, and had begun to wonder what other plants had survived the years of neglect.

‘This would have been a thriving garden once,’ Torr had said. ‘Kincaillie was a busy place in its heyday in the nineteenth century. Judging from the stories my grandfather used to tell, there were lots of servants, and the family used to have house parties and shooting parties. All those people had to be fed, so presumably a lot of the fresh fruit and vegetables were grown here.’

It was hard to imagine Kincaillie alive with people and laughter, Mallory had thought, surveying the tangled garden, but she’d poked around in the outbuildings and found a rusty old fork. Once she had started to clear, she’d found all sorts of fruit bushes and old raspberry canes. Apples and pears were pleached along the south facing wall, and there were great clumps of rhubarb gone to seed.

Having never had more than a pretty little courtyard garden in Ellsborough, Mallory hadn’t thought of growing vegetables before, but now she was seized with a most unlikely enthusiasm for it, and had added gardening tools and an instruction book to her list.

Between cleaning and exploring, and walking Charlie and making plans, it was amazing how quickly the fortnight had gone. Astounding, too, how quickly she was getting used to Kincaillie. There was surprising satisfaction to be had in steadily clearing and cleaning their living quarters, and Mallory was positively looking forward to painting the rooms now that she could see their potential.

She was even beginning to contemplate the much bigger task of starting work on the rest of the castle with interest rather than horror. She was finding her way around, and it now seemed quite ordinary to pick her way across weed-infested flagstones, up and down worn stone stairwells and past rusting suits of armour.

Every day she and Charlie explored a little bit further outside, although they stuck to the shore as much as possible. Mallory told herself it was because she didn’t want to get lost, and because Charlie was so happy by the sea, but the truth was that the looming mountains still frightened her. They were so big and so bare, and they made her feel very small. She was always glad to get back to the familiar kitchen.

So, while it would be too much to say that she was feeling at home, she was definitely feeling more positive. Perhaps she wouldn’t have chosen to spend a year at Kincaillie under normal circumstances, but the prospect was certainly less bleak than it had been when she’d arrived.

Things were much easier with Torr, too. Just as she had hoped, the hard physical work gave her less time to think about Steve, and sometimes it was possible to think that her shattered heart might even be slowly healing. Torr had showed her how to use the range, and they took it in turns to cook in the evening, with Charlie getting under their feet and music in the background. Afterwards they sat by the fire like a staid married couple, and talked easily about everything except the state of their marriage or life before they came to Kincaillie.

It all felt very normal.

The only thing Mallory couldn’t get used to was sleeping with Torr. Tired as she was at the end of every day, she was always reluctant to leave the fire for the bedroom. It was more than the cold, though. In spite of their agreement, the more times they shared the bed, the more awkward it felt-or that was how it seemed to Mallory, anyway. Somehow it had been easier when they were hostile to each other.

Torr always offered to take Charlie out for a last run while she got ready for bed, so she was huddled up under the duvet and piles of blankets before he came in. And then the conversation which had been easy by the fire in the kitchen suddenly dried up, and there wasn’t quite enough oxygen in the little room.

Mallory tried to get over it by being as matter-of-fact as Torr himself, but she was excruciatingly aware of him every time they settled themselves close together, and it made her so tense that she found it difficult to get to