A Question of Marriage Read online

  ‘I have yet to resort to leading a girl down the garden path,’ he denied, ‘although the opposite may not be true.’

  Aurora blinked and wrinkled her brow. ‘You have a problem with girls leading you down the garden path?’

  ‘Occasionally.’

  They danced in silence for a while as Aurora digested this. She wasn’t sure if he was serious, although it was not hard to imagine him cutting a swathe through the female population. She said, eventually, ‘How old are you?’

  He looked briefly taken aback. ‘Thirty-seven, why?’

  She smiled wisely. ‘Then it’s about time you got yourself a wife, I would think, not only to keep you on the straight and narrow but to discourage women from making fools of themselves over you.’

  ‘Are you suggesting yourself for the position?’ he came back smoothly and with a mocking little smile playing on his lips.

  ‘Not at all,’ Aurora replied airily. ‘I plan to have a lot more fun and adventure before I embark on marriage, domesticity and maternity.’

  ‘And do you think these things work to plan?’ he queried, rather dryly, she thought.

  ‘For me they do—so far, anyway!’

  ‘How nice,’ he commented, and said no more for a time.

  But it was not long before Aurora realised, as they danced, that it was far easier said than done to remain impervious to this man. He danced well, holding her lightly and certainly not imposing any unwelcome familiarities on her. In fact he was being a very correct partner—but that could be a mockery, she found herself thinking darkly.

  There was certainly a quizzical gleam in his eyes from time to time as he so carefully observed the proprieties. Almost as if he knew exactly, damn him, how wonderful he was to dance with even so correctly. How easily his well-knit body moved to the rhythm—how impossible it was not to feel rather stunningly aware of him even held so lightly in his arms.

  ‘You were thinking?’ he murmured, his dark eyes resting wickedly on her flushed face, after he’d twirled her expertly so that her skirt belled out beautifully, and brought her back safely into his arms.

  ‘That’s for me to know and you to ponder upon,’ she replied, and was annoyed to hear herself sounding defensive.

  ‘Then I’ll tell you what I was thinking, Miss Anonymous. That we dance so well together, there are certain other—activities,’ he said, barely audibly, ‘we should be able to lend ourselves to excellently.’

  Aurora took a breath and felt her cheeks redden, but she was unable to prevent herself from replying in kind as anger also coursed through her veins. ‘Really?’ she said gently. ‘I should warn you that I don’t take my clothes off on first encounters.’

  He took the opportunity to look right through her clothes, then raised a lazy eyebrow at her. ‘A pity, but it might create a riot here and now, wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘Perhaps I should rephrase,’ Aurora started to say.

  He laughed softly. ‘Perhaps. That is cutting to the chase rather rapidly.’

  ‘You started this,’ she reminded him, trying valiantly to sound cool and unflustered, although she was kicking herself mentally.

  ‘I may have,’ he agreed, ‘but I was thinking along the lines of extending the pleasure we take in dancing with each other…’ he paused and looked down at her significantly until she had to look away with a mixture of embarrassment and self-directed ire ‘…to another, quite lovely level that wouldn’t, however, require us to undress.’

  Aurora missed her step and marvelled bitterly at the ease with which he redirected her to the rhythm. And it was impossible not to silently contemplate another ‘lovely level’ with this man, right there as she was, in his arms, with their bodies touching when the music brought them together.

  It should be impossible, she mused. She was not an impressionable girl, she was not particularly naïve, but she had the distinct feeling that this man had somehow got past her defences with his mixture of intriguing looks, his arrogantly bored air and his exquisitely polite handling of her that, at the same time, had activated all sorts of reactions in her. Nor did his approach—guaranteed, one would have thought, to prove she was being ‘toyed’ with—stop her from wondering what it would be like to be somewhere private with him.

  What would happen? she even found herself wondering. Would she allow herself to be kissed—the next level he appeared to have in mind? Would she be able to resist if he was as good at it as he was to dance with?

  She stopped dancing abruptly and looked at him lethally. ‘All right, you’ve had your bit of fun. I think we should part company now.’

  ‘Why? Didn’t you tell me you were into “fun” for a good while yet?’ His gaze rested pointedly on the curve of her breasts beneath her blouse, then flicked up to her eyes with a mixture of derision and irony.

  Aurora compressed her lips and took hold. Enough of this, she told herself. She’d come here for one reason tonight and it certainly wasn’t to get waylaid by a man, however gorgeous. Make that downright dangerous, she reflected with an inward little shiver. And as the music changed it presented her with the perfect escape.

  ‘Fun—oh, yes! Let’s see if you can really dance,’ she teased, and whirled herself out of his arms as the rhythm changed and she started to do the twist expertly along with the rest of the dancers.

  When it came to an end, everyone was hot and laughing and fanning themselves, but her partner took her hand and said, ‘Well? Do I qualify to get your name now?’

  ‘Tell you what,’ she suggested, ‘I really need to powder my nose. If you could find me a long, cool drink in the meantime, who knows?’ And she regained her hand and melted away into the crowd. A quick peep over her shoulder once she was inside told her that another woman had claimed him.

  All the better, she thought as she found her bag, unobtrusively scanned the staircase and, seeing it deserted, slipped upstairs. No one knew better than she that there was a downstairs powder room for just these occasions, but surely a guest in a supposedly strange house could be forgiven for going upstairs?

  And, in the proverbial twinkling of an eye, she’d let herself into her old bedroom. The room was in darkness but she waited for a few minutes, then moved forward cautiously, feeling for the bed and finding a bedside table. She had her hand on what felt like a lamp when the door opened and the overhead light went on. She froze, then swung round to see the man she’d danced with anonymously standing in the doorway.

  ‘So,’ he said with soft but unmistakable menace, closing the door behind him without turning, ‘I was right.’

  ‘I…I…’ Aurora stammered ‘…I…was looking for a bathroom. I couldn’t seem to find the light, that’s all.’

  He smiled grimly. ‘Again? I’m only surprised you didn’t bring your torch with you, Little Miss Spain, who didn’t want to tell me her name.’

  Aurora blinked and licked her lips. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ She backed away as he moved towards her, and sat down unexpectedly on the bed. ‘I don’t know what you’re doing here either. Please leave, and I’ll find the bathroom on my own.’

  ‘Give me one good reason for not telling me your name,’ he countered.

  She swallowed and thought frantically, then decided that the closer she could stick to the truth, the better. She tossed her hair with more spirit than she actually felt. ‘I don’t believe in being bowled over by men on first encounters.’

  ‘As in allowing yourself to be attracted to them even when it’s already happened?’ he suggested, with a wealth of satire in his dark gaze. ‘Or wearing provocative outfits,’ he added meaningfully.

  Damn, Aurora thought, that hadn’t been such a good idea after all; and could think of nothing to say, so she merely shrugged.

  ‘But tonight was our second encounter, wasn’t it?’ he drawled then. ‘Aren’t you forgetting the way we…bumped into each other at the top of the stairs the last time you invaded my home?’

  Aurora’s mouth fell open and her eyes were sudden
ly huge. ‘Your home! Who…who are you?’ she said in a strangled kind of croak.

  ‘Luke Kirwan,’ he replied, looking altogether taller, tougher and much more dangerous than she’d imagined earlier. ‘And you’re not getting out of here until you tell me what you’re so determined to steal from me, señorita.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘YOU can’t be!’ Aurora gasped, absolutely thunderstruck.

  He studied her narrowly. ‘Believe me, I am. And this is my house, in case you’ve devised a ploy to confuse things somehow or other.’

  ‘But…but…who’s the other one, then?’ she stammered.

  ‘Other what?’

  ‘The man you were standing with next to the piano—the man who looks just like a prof—’ She broke off and bit her lip.

  Luke Kirwan frowned and she saw him concentrate for a moment, then look fleetingly amused. ‘Jack Barnard?’ he suggested. ‘He’s my solicitor, but what has that got to do with any of this, señorita?’ he enquired coldly.

  Aurora swallowed painfully and closed her eyes as she grappled not only with the folly of judging people on their appearances, but also having that prickling sense of déjà vu explained to her in this manner. She had been in Luke Kirwan’s arms before—not for long before she’d started to pummel and struggle with him, but long enough, obviously, for it to have imprinted itself on her subconscious.

  But, it suddenly occurred to her and she clasped her hands together tightly, if that was all he had to go on, a similar sense of déjà vu, then he didn’t have a leg to stand on…

  ‘I think I know what’s going through your head, my pretty,’ he drawled as her lashes flew up. ‘How do I know it was you at the top of the stairs the last time you tried to rob me? I’ll tell you. Same height, same petite figure, same…’ he paused and looked wry ‘…athleticism but, above all, same unique—as you told me yourself—perfume.’ His dark eyes glinted sardonically.

  Aurora’s lips parted and her eyes widened. Then she closed them again and barely stopped herself from saying caustically that, for a man groggy with some kind of virus, he’d taken in an awful lot about her and no one would buy it anyway!

  But he spoke again, and this time there was a grim warning underlying his words that caused her to tremble inwardly. ‘Of course, finding you creeping around my bedroom, when there’s a clear sign downstairs directing people to a downstairs bathroom, adds a lot more weight to my evidence, don’t you agree?’

  Aurora looked around properly for the first time. It had never occurred to her that the new owner would not use the master bedroom, but that was exactly what Luke Kirwan appeared to have done. Her old bedroom was now definitely, although luxuriously, furnished for a man.

  ‘I preferred the view from this room,’ he said, as if reading her thoughts.

  Damn, she thought again, and forcibly prevented herself from wiping her face.

  ‘Well, Mr Kirwan,’ she said after a moment’s thought, ‘I am sorry for inadvertently invading your bedroom but you’re mistaken. I didn’t see the sign downstairs so it couldn’t have been so very clear. As for all the rest of it, whatever it is, I…’ she tilted her chin and gazed at him imperiously ‘…I’m happy to forget about it if you would be so kind as to direct me to a bathroom. I’ll even leave your party then, since you cherish these amazing suspicions about me. In fact, nothing would induce me to stay,’ she finished proudly.

  He laughed softly as he took in the hauteur of her expression, the set of her small chin, her very straight back and the outraged bearing of her slender figure—even seated on a bed. ‘You’re a rather brilliant actress, aren’t you?’ he commented. ‘But the only thing that’s going to get you out of here is telling me who you are and why you’re here—’

  ‘I’ve told you that!’ she interrupted.

  ‘So you have. It doesn’t wash, though.’ He studied her comprehensively, right through her clothes again, in fact, so that she started to boil beneath that dark, insolently intimate gaze. ‘What is beginning to wash is something a little different,’ he continued leisurely. ‘Could you even be a groupie, señorita, who devised a rather novel way of getting through my secretary’s net?’

  Aurora’s mouth fell open. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about!’

  ‘No?’ The scepticism in his expression was chilling. ‘Never heard of student groupies? Girls? Believe me, it’s an occupation for some of them; it would appear to be the only reason they’re at university in the first place,’ he said with damning scorn.

  Several things suddenly came clear to Aurora, including his secretary’s manner and why he never answered the phone himself, but the shock of it all rendered her speechless.

  Giving him the opportunity to continue with lethal satire, ‘Why, yes. Heaven alone knows what bizarre scheme you’d concocted the other night—looking for something to steal from me to blackmail me into bed with you, perhaps?’ He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘But your actions tonight have been loud and clear—coyly refusing to tell me your name, being a seductively mysterious guest—and so on,’ he finished flatly.

  To be thought of as a coy, student groupie throwing herself at his feet in a rather ‘novel’ manner caused Aurora to lose her temper completely. ‘Look here—’ she bounced off the bed ‘—I’ve had enough of this. Will you get out of my way before I scream the place down?’

  ‘Scream away,’ he invited. ‘The only thing that will achieve is to have me call the police.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘In fact, you have a choice. I’ll leave you here for a period of sober reflection. When I come back, either you tell me the truth or I do get the police.’

  ‘If you think I have any intention of staying here,’ she spat at him, ‘you’re mistaken!’

  ‘No, I’m not. I propose to lock you in, you see.’

  Aurora flew at him, prepared to scratch his eyes out, only to find herself caught in a grip of steel. ‘Let me go!’ she gasped through pale lips.

  ‘I’d rather let an enraged tigress go.’ He pinioned her hands behind her back. ‘I’ve also got something of a score to settle with you, Miss Spain. Let’s see if you kiss as well as you do—other things.’

  ‘I never kiss under these circumstances. I’m perfectly capable of biting, however,’ she warned through her teeth.

  He smiled crookedly. ‘What circumstances do you kiss under?’

  ‘I need to be in love or on the way to it, like any normal girl,’ she replied scathingly. ‘The last thing I can imagine with you, Professor. For one thing, you’re too old for me, for another the mere thought of doing it under duress turns me right off!’ Her green eyes were proud and defiant.

  ‘OK.’ He released her pinioned hands but transferred his hands to her waist. ‘In exchange for no duress, could I get a promise that you’ll keep your fists to yourself?’

  ‘I’m not promising anything!’

  ‘Then how about…’ there was the glint of wicked amusement in his dark eyes although he spoke gravely ‘…proving to me that I am too old for you?’

  ‘You must think I’m still in my cradle,’ Aurora retorted, ‘to fall for that old line!’

  ‘On the contrary, before I discovered you sneaking around my bedroom, I thought you were gorgeous, certainly of the age of consent—’ his gaze roamed up and down her figure ‘—and quite stunning.’

  Aurora’s lips parted and, before she could think of a suitable rejoinder, he drew her into his arms. She breathed once, jerkily, but, to her horror, the spell of Luke Kirwan once again began to weave itself around her. And no twelve-year age difference was going to save her, she realised—not that she’d said it as anything but a crushing, heat-of-the-moment snub.

  To make things worse, she also realized from the smile twisting his lips that her thought processes were about as easy for him to read as an open book. ‘Look,’ she began uneasily, ‘this is insane! You can’t just do it…’

  ‘I can and I’m going to, so save your breath
,’ he recommended. ‘Don’t tell me there isn’t the slightest curiosity on your side?’

  He moved his hands on her hips and she went to say something, stopped with her lips parted as all sorts of sensations started to run through her—and not only physical. Knowing that part of the dangerous attraction of this man for her was that she was playing with fire, for example. See if you can be unaffected by this, Little Miss Spain, she mimicked in her mind, because she had no doubt that was the gauntlet Luke Kirwan was throwing down. But it would be madness to take it up…

  He did it for her. He took advantage of her confusion to withdraw his hands from her hips and cup her face lightly at the same time as he captured her green gaze so that she was unable to look away. ‘Small, neat and stylish—whatever else it is you are, my would-be robber, and, I suspect, delicious. Let’s see.’ He lowered his head.

  Aurora trembled as his lips touched hers, but he said against the corner of her mouth, ‘I was right: sweet as a peach, señorita.’ And started to kiss her properly.

  The crazy part about it was that he made her feel as sweet as a peach while he kissed her lingeringly, but not only that. He himself felt so amazingly good it was almost impossible to remain unaffected. How did he do it? she marvelled as he ran his hands down her back and laid a trail of feather-light kisses down her neck. With great restraint, she answered herself. This was no stolen, victory kiss—he was far too clever for that, damn him, she thought.

  This was a skilled assault that made her skin feel like silk as those cool, dry lips wandered across it, and the way his hands found the curves of her body made her heartbeat triple. This was a man who made not one blunder while her senses rioted and she began to drink in the feel of him through her pores.

  His height, those broad shoulders, the interesting hollows of his face, which she found herself wanting to touch, the crisp cotton of his shirt, the hard, taut length of him that she was now resting against as he stopped kissing her, with not an ounce of defiance left in her but one embarrassingly girlish word on her lips—Wow!