Newlyweds of Convenience

CHAPTER EIGHT

HIS fingers closed around hers and he swung her without haste onto the floor before drawing her towards him, his palm warm against the small of her back. Quivering with tension, hazy with his closeness, Mallory stared fixedly at his shoulder and concentrated on not swaying any closer, but it was hard when the haunting music wove itself around them like twine and tangled up her senses until every nerve in her body screamed at her to give in and lean against him, to rest her face into his throat and press her lips to the pulse beating below his ear.

Torr’s fingers were tight around her hand, his mouth against her hair. The music swirled round them, cutting them off from the rest of the room so that there were just the two of them, moving so slowly together they were barely dancing at all.

Mallory’s heart was thudding, her mouth dry. The other dancers might have whirled away into a blur, silently circling the still centre where she danced with Torr, but she was preternaturally aware of everything else-the shape of the buttons on his shirt, the roughness of his jaw, the scent of his skin, the feel of his hand-and she could feel herself dissolving with desire so strong that it terrified her.

There was a last, long note and the music stopped. Around them, Mallory was vaguely conscious of a spatter of applause, but she was still swaying with Torr and she had begun to hope that he wouldn’t let her go after all when he stopped moving, dropped her hand and stepped back, his face utterly expressionless.

‘It’s time to go,’ he said.

They drove home in a silence that jangled and jarred in the close confines of the dark car. Mallory’s pulse was booming. Her hand felt as if it were burning, and the small of her back tingled where he had held her.

It’s up to you, he had said.

She could ask him if she wanted to…and, oh, she did want to! She just didn’t know how she was going to find the words or have the courage to say them. Make love to me. Heat flooded through her at the mere thought. Could it be that easy? Would she have to explain, or persuade him? And what if he said no?

It wasn’t fair, thought Mallory feverishly, shifting restlessly in her seat. She shouldn’t have to ask her own husband to make love to her.

They were almost there, she realised in a panic as the car bumped down the rutted and potholed track. She was going to have to decide. Perhaps it would be better not to say anything? She could wait until they were in bed and then make a move. Torr would get the idea without the need for a long discussion.

But what if he said no, or pushed her away? Mallory cringed at the thought. It would be mortifying. Much better to be straight. At least that way she could keep her pride intact, if nothing else.

Kincaillie was illuminated in the headlights as they bumped to a halt at last. Torr cut the engine and switched off the lights. It was a still night and the silence was absolute, and for a moment neither of them moved or spoke.

Mallory inhaled slowly. It was now or never. ‘You know our agreement?’ she began, but her throat was so thick that her voice came out humiliatingly high and squeaky.

‘The one we’ve already revised twice?’ said Torr, unclipping his seat belt.

‘Yes.’ His tone was daunting, and she eyed him uncertainly through the darkness.

‘You’re not proposing to renegotiate now, are you?’

‘Well…’ Mallory hesitated. ‘Just one bit.’

Torr had his hand on the door, but he stopped at that and turned back to her, suddenly intent. ‘Which bit?’

‘The bit about not touching,’ she said awkwardly. ‘We agreed our marriage wasn’t about sex or passion-’

‘Or love,’ he reminded her, and she swallowed.

‘Or love,’ she agreed.

‘And which of those did you want to renegotiate?’ Torr’s voice was characteristically acerbic, and Mallory was very glad that he couldn’t see her blushing in the darkness. This was awful, but she had gone too far to stop now.

If she could.

‘The first one.’

‘Sex?’

‘Yes.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I…er…I was wondering…if…if you’d think about…’

Torr let out a short breath that might have been a suppressed laugh or a snort of derision, and she bridled. Did he think this was easy for her?

‘I think you know quite well what I’m trying to ask you,’ she finished tartly.

His expression was unreadable in the darkness. ‘You want to make love?’

‘Yes,’ said Mallory again on a breath. There, it was said.

There was a sizzling pause that went on for so long that she lost her nerve after all and rushed into speech. ‘I mean, when I say make love, it’s not about love,’ she tried to explain.

‘No, indeed,’ said Torr dryly.

‘We both know our marriage isn’t about that,’ she reminded him. ‘That hasn’t changed. We’ve both been hurt. I know you’re still in love with someone else, just like I am, but since it’s just the two of us, and we’re here on our own, maybe we could give each other some comfort? It would just be a physical thing. Neither of us wants anything more than that, but-’

‘OK,’ Torr interrupted her.

Thrown, Mallory could just stare at him. ‘OK, what?’

‘OK, let’s go to bed,’ he said, already opening his door.

Not quite the response she had imagined, it had to be admitted.

‘Er…fine.’

Well, what had she expected? Mallory asked herself, deflated by Torr’s prosaic tone. To be swept into his arms with a passionate declaration of love? She was the one who had said that it would just be a physical thing, so it was stupid to feel so disappointed when he was prepared to treat it exactly the same way.

No, she had what she wanted. A little more enthusiasm than ‘OK’ might have been nice, but she was hardly in a position to quibble.

Squaring her shoulders, Mallory reached for the handle, but Torr was already there, opening the door, and her heart gave a great leap when she saw that he was standing very close. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she could make out the planes of his face and the gleam of his eyes, but his expression was as unreadable as ever.

Very slowly, she swung her legs round and made to jump down, and he put out a hand to help her. Mallory was never sure quite what happened then. One moment she was starting to step down from the car, the next she was in Torr’s arms, and his mouth came down on hers, and she shattered in a dazzle of relief.

Torr pressed her against the car until the metal dug into her back, but she didn’t care. Why would she care when his kiss was hard and hungry and she could kiss him back at last? Who would have thought that stern mouth would feel so exciting, those lips so warm and sure? Mallory melted into him, gasping with pleasure and the sheer relief of being able to touch him and taste him and feel his hands moving possessively over her.

‘I’ve been wanting to do this all evening,’ Torr whispered unevenly against her throat as she arched her head back, her fingers tangled in his hair, and smiled.

‘Why didn’t you say?’

‘I told you I wouldn’t touch you,’ he reminded her, sliding his hand beneath her shirt and making her quiver as he spread his fingers over her bare skin. ‘I’m a man of my word.’

‘So you didn’t mind renegotiating our deal?’ Mallory managed to tease him even though her voice was ragged with desire.

Torr kissed his way back along her jaw to her mouth. ‘No,’ he said, and smiled against her lips. ‘I didn’t mind. Let’s go inside and discuss the details.’

Mallory’s legs were so unsteady that she wasn’t at all sure that she would be able to walk at all, but somehow she made it to the kitchen, where the atmosphere was immediately defused by an ecstatic Charlie. He bounced over both of them, delirious with delight at their return, even more exuberant than usual, as if sensing that for once his mistress’s attention wasn’t entirely on him.

‘I’ll take him out,’ said Torr, resigned.

So Torr took Charlie into the kitchen garden and Mallory went to clean her face and brush her teeth, just as they did every night.

But this night was different. Tonight when Torr came in they would make love. Mallory could feel her body pulsing with anticipation as excitement buzzed beneath her skin. She could still feel the heat of his hands on her, the wicked pleasure of his lips, and she shivered at the memory.

It was amazing to look in the mirror and see that she looked just as normal. Her skin a little pinker, perhaps, her eyes darker and more dilated, but nothing else to indicate that inside she was simmering, shimmering, burning with desire.

If only she had something flimsy and sexy to slip into now, but it had never occurred to her to bring anything like that with her.

It had never occurred to her that she would want to wear anything like that for Torr.

How had it happened? Mallory wondered. When had she started to desire her own husband? Since when had the mere thought of him touching her been enough to stop the breath in her throat?

There was no way she was putting on her long johns tonight, but it was too cold to undress completely, so when Torr came in Mallory was sitting on the side of the bed in a pool of soft yellow light from the bedside lamp, still dressed in her skirt and the silky blouse. Her eyes were huge and dark, and her hair spilled in a cloud to her shoulders.

He stopped at the sight of her, then went to sit next to her, not touching. He didn’t even look at her. ‘Have you changed your mind?’ he asked, and his voice sounded tight.

‘No.’

The tension in Torr’s shoulders relaxed and he turned to look at her. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ said Mallory. ‘Do you want me to beg?’

Laughter filled his eyes at last. ‘Would you?’

‘If you don’t kiss me right now, then, yes,’ she said.

‘I’d better get on with it, then,’ said Torr, reaching for her, and she sighed with release as they sank back onto the bed together, and there was no more talking for a very long while.

‘I’ve brought you some tea.’

Mallory stirred and surfaced to see Torr setting a mug down on the bedside table. Drowsily aware of a sense of well-being, she watched him straighten the mug and sit down on the side of the bed, but it wasn’t until he looked at her that she remembered just why her body was in the grip of such lazy satisfaction. Instantly, memories from the night before tumbled through her mind in a giddy rush that sent the colour surging into her cheeks, and suddenly, stupidly shy, she made her eyes skitter away from his and flicker frantically around the room, unable to settle on anything. She wanted to look at Torr, but didn’t dare.

‘I don’t usually get tea in bed,’ she said, unable to think of anything else to say.

‘I don’t usually wake up feeling as good as I did this morning,’ Torr countered, and Mallory’s throat dried.

Unable to resist any longer, she glanced at him, and this time she was trapped by his steady blue gaze, imprisoned by the awareness that tightened around her in the humming silence, until she managed to wrench her eyes away at last and reach for her tea with an unsteady hand.

There was a pause.

‘So,’ said Torr conversationally, ‘how’s our new agreement working out for you? Are the new terms satisfactory?’

Startled, she looked at him again, and saw that he was smiling, and all at once the tension drained out of her. Relaxing back against the pillows, she smiled back at him.

‘Very much so,’ she said.

‘That’s good.’ His smile deepened, and Mallory felt her heart squeeze at the warmth in his eyes. ‘I quite like these new terms myself.’

‘Only quite?’

Torr leant forward until he was very close, then took the mug from her hand with slow deliberation and put it back on bedside table. ‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘I like them a lot.’

‘How much?’ she asked him, teasing, as she wound her arms around his neck and pulled him down onto pillows with her, and Torr’s soft laugh sent a shudder of anticipation down her spine.

‘Let me show you,’ he said.

It was a very long time before Mallory remembered her tea. ‘It’s cold.’ She pretended to grumble, wrinkling her nose as she took an experimental sip.

‘And whose fault is that?’ Torr lay back on the pillows, dark blue eyes alight with warmth, almost unrecognisable from the grim-faced man who had married her. Had she changed in the same way? Mallory wondered. She must have done. The Mallory who’d first come to Kincaillie could never have imagined wanting Torr the way she had wanted him last night, the way she had wanted him this morning, the way she wanted him now. The idea of snuggling close to him like this, of talking and teasing, and being able to touch him and make him smile, would have been unthinkable.

And knowing that she could do it now sent a dangerous thrill through her.

‘Just checking that the new terms are still satisfactory,’ she said demurely as she slid back under the duvet, and a smile twitched at his mouth.

‘No more quibbling?’

‘Well…quibbling’s always fun,’ said Mallory, letting her fingers drift down over his stomach.

Torr laughed, but removed her hand firmly. ‘We haven’t got time to quibble today!’

‘I suppose not.’ Mallory squinted across him at the bedside clock and heaved a reluctant sigh. ‘We should get up,’ she said without enthusiasm. ‘I wanted to finish clearing the hothouse this morning so I can try growing some tomatoes.’

‘It’ll wait till tomorrow, won’t it?’ said Torr. ‘The sun’s shining,’ he went on. ‘I think we’ve earned a day off.’

Mallory was delighted. ‘What a lovely idea!’ She snuggled closer. The sun might be shining outside, but it took a long time for any heat to penetrate the massive castle walls. ‘What shall we do? Or shall we quibble about it?’

‘You’re a naughty girl.’ Torr rolled her beneath him and ran his hand possessively over her hip, dipping to her waist and then curving around her breast, making her arch and shiver. He pressed a kiss to her shoulder, at the junction of her throat, and she sucked in a sharp breath as every nerve in her body jumped at the touch of his lips.

‘I was thinking of something rather more active than quibbling,’ he whispered into her ear, and Mallory stretched luxuriously beneath him and smiled. She liked this game.

‘Like what?’ she asked huskily, hoping he meant what she thought he meant.

He didn’t.

‘Like climbing a mountain,’ he said.

Mallory’s face fell ludicrously, but once Torr had bullied her out of bed and up onto the hill she had to admit that she was enjoying herself.

It was a bright, blowy day, and the wind chased billowing clouds across the sun so that the hillside was chequered with sunlight and swiftly moving shadows. Mallory had always found the mountains grim and intimidating before, and she had avoided even the lower slopes on her walks with Charlie, but today there was something exhilarating about being so high up, with Torr leading the way and Charlie beside her.

The air was sweet with the smell of heather, and birds called with thin, peeping cries across the hillside. Mallory was almost dizzy with the space and the bright light. There was a kind of energy up there, raw and primitive, and she felt bigger, taller, as if she were expanding with every step upwards.

It was steep walking, and by the time they reached the shoulder of the hill she was hot and puffed, in spite of the wind that had whipped colour into her cheeks, and glad to sit down on a rock for a while. Charlie drank thirstily from the small burn that gurgled busily down the mountainside and flopped, panting, at her feet.

Torr had brought a flask of coffee and some sandwiches, and Mallory ate ravenously. It was only a cheese and chutney sandwich, but right then it was the best thing she had ever tasted.

From her rock she could see Kincaillie, far below, and the sea glittering silver in the sunlight. Beside her, Torr drank his coffee, the wind lifting his hair and his eyes narrowed against the bright light. Mallory looked at his strong, brown hand, curled around the lid of the flask, and the memory of how it had felt against her skin that morning made her feel hollow inside.

He looked somehow right up here in the hills, she decided. There was something insensibly reassuring about his capacity for stillness, about his solidity and his strength and his self-containment. Steve had never been still, she remembered. He’d always been gesticulating or fiddling with a pen or fidgeting. It wasn’t that Torr had less energy than Steve. He was focused rather than flamboyant, his power more contained.

‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Torr, who had been watching her face without Mallory realising.

She turned her head to look at him. ‘Steve,’ she said after a moment. It was the truth, if not the whole truth.

‘Ah.’ It was Torr’s turn to look at the sea far below. There was a pause. ‘Are you having regrets about last night?’ The words sounded as if they had been forced out of him.

‘No.’ Mallory shook her head. ‘No, not at all. I had a good time last night.’ She hesitated. ‘I think we made the right choice, don’t you?’

‘That rather depends on which choice you mean,’ said Torr.

‘To make the most of our time together,’ she said, puzzled by the ironic undercurrent in his voice. What other choices had they made?

He kept his eyes on the view. ‘You mean before you go back to Ellsborough next year?’

‘Yes.’ Mallory could hear the note of doubt in her own voice. Sitting up here in the clear air, with the hills around her and the sea spread out like a glittering sheet below, her life in Ellsborough seemed very far away.

But of course she still wanted to go back to it. Last night had been wonderful, but that was because it was simply a healthy physical attraction, uncomplicated by love or need. That was how Mallory wanted it to be, anyway. She had been too hurt by Steve to risk her poor battered heart again any time soon.

‘We can enjoy now because we know it’s not for ever,’ she said, uncomfortably aware that she sounded as if she was trying to convince herself more than Torr.

But what else could they do? Anything might seem possible up here, but she couldn’t live up in the hills for ever. It wasn’t realistic to think about a future with Torr. Even if she had been able to face lifetime in Kincaillie’s ruins, how could she ever be really happy when she knew that he was still in love with someone else?

No, it would never work. Much better to stick to a physical attraction that would run its course and leave it at that.

‘We can pretend for a year,’ she told Torr, ‘but we can’t pretend for ever.’

‘Pretend what?’

‘That there won’t always be two people between us. Steve and the woman you love. We can ignore them for a while, but they won’t go away. Can you really imagine a future when you’re happy without her?’

There was a long pause. Torr sighed and upturned his mug to empty the last of his coffee into the heather. ‘No,’ he said eventually, without looking at Mallory. ‘No, I don’t think I can.’

The long walk seemed to have tired Charlie out, and for the next few days he was very quiet. He lost his appetite and was happy just to sleep in the long grass while Mallory carried on digging in the kitchen garden.

‘I hope that walk wasn’t too far for him,’ she fretted to Torr. ‘He’s always been so bouncy that I forget he isn’t a young dog anymore.’

‘Why don’t you get the vet to check him over?’

Mallory made a face. ‘I could, but he does hate going to the vet. He’s an awful baby about it. If he doesn’t get better soon, though, I will.’

Fortunately, the mention of the vet seemed to rejuvenate Charlie miraculously, and the very next day he seemed back to his old self. Mallory took him down to the beach and was reassured to see him bounding into the waves.

‘I think he’s fine,’ she said to Torr that evening, much relieved.

Privately she had wondered if Charlie was jealous that a large part of her attention had shifted to Torr, and she made a point of making an extra fuss of the dog, which made him very happy. When his tail was thumping and his eyes closed in ecstasy as she pulled gently at his ears, it was hard to believe that there was anything wrong with him at all.

The niggling worry about Charlie aside, Mallory was happier than she had been since before Steve left her. They were enjoying a spell of fine, dry weather, and it was impossible for her spirits not to lift when the sky was bright and blue and the air was soft and the sea glittered in the sunlight. The roofers were making progress, and with Dougal’s advice she was beginning to see some results in the garden. Mallory would never have believed that the back-breaking work of clearing and digging and planting could be so satisfying.

And then there was Torr.

Sometimes she felt quite dizzy when she looked at him. He might just be up on the scaffolding, talking to the builders, or filling the kettle, or brushing the dust from his hair at the end of the day, but the sight of him would make her heart flip and send the oxygen in a giddy rush to her brain.

And that was nothing compared to how her body reacted when he pulled off his clothes at night and reached for her with a smile. The very thought of that was enough to dry the breath in Mallory’s throat and set her senses churning and clenching with desire.

She was in lust with her own husband, Mallory acknowledged to herself. Embarrassingly so, in fact.

At least she wasn’t in love with him. That really would be embarrassing. Mallory was careful not even to contemplate the possibility. They had been through all this before, in any case. She knew that Torr’s heart lay elsewhere, and the thought of falling in love and exposing herself to being hurt again was terrifying. It left her feeling edgy and vulnerable. Don’t even go there, she warned herself sternly.

So Mallory kept a careful guard on her heart and told herself that she was happy to live day by day.

She was less happy when Torr informed her one evening that Sheena Irvine would be coming down from Inverness to see how the work was progressing.

‘We’d better give her a decent lunch,’ he said.

Mallory pursed her lips. ‘Why can’t she have a sandwich like the rest of us?’

‘Because she’s coming just for a day. It’ll be a long drive for her.’ Torr looked thoughtful. ‘I suppose we could clear out a room for her.’

‘I’ll make lunch,’ said Mallory quickly. She didn’t want Sheena staying the night! ‘I’ve got to go into Carraig anyway tomorrow, so I’ll get something there.’

‘Well, see if you can find something a bit more exciting than a sandwich,’ he said.

Why was he so determined to make a fuss of Sheena? Mallory wondered sourly. Remembering how blatantly Sheena had flirted with Torr, she had a good mind just to buy a tin of sardines and some sliced bread. On the other hand, perhaps this was a good opportunity to remind Sheena that Torr already had a perfectly good wife. She might not be able to climb a mountain, but she knew how to entertain. That was one of the reasons Torr had married her, after all.

So Mallory made fresh soup and a lemon tart, and she bought bread and cold meats and cheeses at the shop in Carraig, which had a surprisingly good deli section. It wasn’t the most exciting lunch in the world, but it looked appetising when it was all spread out on the kitchen table.

Not that Sheena noticed. She was too busy gushing to Torr about what an exciting project Kincaillie was. ‘You’ve done a marvellous job already, Torr. It’s going to be wonderful when you’ve finished with it,’ she enthused after he had shown her round. Mallory had been left in the kitchen to get lunch ready.

‘I’d love to live somewhere like this.’ Sheena sighed wistfully. ‘Such history! And those mountains on your doorstep! You could climb every day. It’s paradise, isn’t it?’

Mallory cut the lemon tart viciously. Why didn’t Sheena tie herself up in a ribbon and offer herself to Torr with a label reading ‘suitable wife’? And look at Torr, nodding away and smiling, obviously delighted to have found someone who shared his feeling for Kincaillie! Had either of them even noticed that she was there? Perhaps they thought the soup had made itself and the tart had appeared by magic.

It went on like that for hours-Torr and Sheena nose to nose over the plans, while Mallory cleared up around them and wasn’t even asked for her opinion. By the time Sheena finally left, she was in a vile temper.

‘I think that went very well, don’t you?’ Torr made the mistake of saying when he came in from waving Sheena off.

‘Well, you obviously enjoyed it,’ said Mallory, who was taking out her feelings on the washing up, banging and crashing plates and glasses together.

Torr’s eyes narrowed at her tone. ‘I did,’ he said evenly. ‘Sheena’s got some really interesting ideas for what we can do here.’

‘Don’t you mean for what she can do with you?’ Mallory snapped, and he sighed.

‘You’re not still on that nonsense, are you?’

‘It’s not nonsense.’

With one part of her mind Mallory could recognise that she was behaving badly. She couldn’t really understand why she was so upset. Wasn’t she the one who had insisted that she and Torr couldn’t have a future together? Torr would be staying at Kincaillie, so she shouldn’t blame him for planning for a future that didn’t include her.

She shouldn’t, but she did.

She didn’t want to be jealous, but she was.

Confused, churning with uncertainty, Mallory took out her unease on Torr, who seemed so calm and certain of himself and what he wanted. She knew it wasn’t fair, but she couldn’t help herself, and knowing that she was being unreasonable just made things worse.

‘Sheena spent the entire day simpering at you, and you lapped it up!’ she threw at him. ‘You couldn’t wait to scurry off on your own together.’

Torr’s jaw tightened with exasperation. ‘You could have come with us. If you’d had any interest in Kincaillie, you would have done.’

‘I was busy making the special lunch you ordered, if you remember!’

Hurt more than she wanted to admit by the implication that she wasn’t interested in Kincaillie, Mallory tipped the dirty water out of the washing up bowl with such venom that it slopped all over her front.

‘Although I don’t know why you bothered,’ she went on, muttering under her breath at the mess. ‘Sheena wouldn’t have cared if we’d given her a bowl of Charlie’s food as long as she could sit and make eyes at you!’

Something raw and unpleasant had crept into the atmosphere, and by this time Torr was evidently having trouble keeping his own temper under control.

‘Don’t you think you’re being rather childish, Mallory?’

‘If you call it childish to object to Sheena flaunting her qualifications to be the next Lady of Kincaillie in front of my face. “This is paradise, Torr,”’ Mallory mimicked with an atrocious Scottish accent. ‘“I’d so love to live here, Torr. We could go climbing every day. Oh, and by the way, Torr, I’d be so much better a wife for you than Mallory, who’s only good for making lemon tart.”’

‘Why do you care, anyway?’ Torr demanded, losing the battle with his temper at last. ‘You’re going back to Ellsborough, as you keep saying. It won’t be anything to do with you. But now you come to mention it, I think you’re right. Sheena would make a perfect Lady of Kincaillie. She wouldn’t make a fuss about the conditions here.’

‘No, I dare say she wouldn’t have wasted a moment’s time cleaning the bathroom or getting rid of the spiders’ webs in the bedroom, would she?’ Mallory practically spat out. ‘What a waste of time, when you could have been running up and down mountains together!’

‘Well, it’s not too late,’ said Torr, his mouth a compressed line and a white shade around his mouth. ‘I’ll invite her down for the weekend when you’ve gone.’

When you’ve gone. Funny how three simple words could twist her entrails into a painful knot that made Mallory suck in her breath. How casually Torr had uttered them, as if it didn’t matter at all whether she was there or not.

‘It won’t just be a weekend,’ she said bravely, given the fact that she was trying desperately to keep her voice from shaking. ‘Once Sheena gets a foot in the door, she’ll be here for ever.’

‘I can think of worse fates than spending my life with an attractive woman who cares about the same things I do and who actually wants to be with me.’

Torr’s eyes were cold and his voice very hard. Mallory felt sick.

‘What about the love of your life? The one you were never going to get over?’

‘She’s not attainable and Sheena is,’ he said flatly. ‘Perhaps it’s time I gave up on that dream. It was never going to come true, anyway.’

‘I thought you never gave up?’ Mallory couldn’t resist goading him, and Torr looked at her for a long moment, his eyes unreadable, before he turned away.

‘There’s a first time for everything.’