The Second Bride (3 page)

Jo digested this in silence. 'But surely you will marry again, one day?' she asked eventually.

'Who knows?' Rufus looked at his watch. 'It's late. I should go. But I dislike the thought of leaving you alone here in the dark.'

'I'll be fine,' Jo assured him, though in her heart of hearts she wasn't relishing a night alone in the big old house without a light. But she wanted Rufus to stay longer for more reasons than a mere fear of the dark.

'I'd prefer to wait for a while,' said Rufus abruptly.

'Then by all means do.' She smiled a little. 'One of the advantages of my particular lifestyle is not having to get up at the crack of dawn if I don't want to.'

Rufus subjected her to a long, dissecting scrutiny. 'You've changed a lot in a year, Jo. You look older.'

'Gee, thanks! Maturity setting in,' she said flippantly.

'I put it badly. You always looked years younger than Claire, though I knew you weren't.'

'A year younger, to be precise. We're both September birthdays, but she was the oldest in the class and I was the youngest.'

'And the cleverest, too, according to Claire. I was given chapter and verse about your exam results.'

'No wonder you took a dislike to me!' Jo pulled a face. 'I don't know about the cleverest, but I was certainly the cheekiest. At home everyone was encouraged to have their say, even the youngest like me. At school this was a disadvantage. I was always being told to stop talking, behave myself, sit up straight, and so on. Claire was so different in every way—pretty as a picture, popular with staff and classmates, and as good as gold, always.'

'Always,' he agreed, then smiled crookedly. 'You know, it's good to have her name crop up naturally; I'm grateful for your forbearance, Jo. A late-night visitor must be the last thing you need after your stint at the Mitre. I caught sight of you there and acted on impulse.'

'Impulse isn't something I associate with you, Rufus.'

'No,' he agreed. 'Not my style. Not that you have the least idea of what I'm really like.'

'You always disapproved of me—admit it!'

Rufus shook his head, frowning. 'I didn't, you know. Though I admit I couldn't see why you and Claire were so close. Two more contrasting types would be hard to find.'

'True. But somehow we just gelled from the moment we met, that first day in school. Where appearance was concerned, it was a different story. When we were in uniform it wasn't so bad, but out of school hours the contrast was painful.'

'Clothes don't interest you?' he asked curiously.

Jo shook her head at him. 'Of course they do. I'm a normal female, Rufus!'

'You always wore jeans a lot. I hardly
recognised
you tonight.'

'If that's a compliment, thank you,' she said tartly, then glanced down disparagingly. "This is the type of gear I stick to for my job at the Mitre. Tailored shirt, respectable dark skirt, discreet make-up, hair braided back.'

'Otherwise the punters get familiar?' he queried drily.

She nodded. 'It's been known.'

'But do you keep all men at arm's length, Jo?'

'No, not at all. I have several men
friends,'
she said with emphasis. 'Not lovers, boyfriends or prospective husbands. Just friends.'

'If you were any other woman I wouldn't believe you,' said Rufus in a considering tone, as though he were weighing up some legal problem. 'Personally, I've never been a believer in truly platonic relationships between the sexes.'

'No,' she said coolly. 'A man like you wouldn't. Nevertheless, it's perfectly possible, I assure you.'

'From your point of view, perhaps. I doubt if the men in question agree.'

'Whether they do or not they keep their opinions to themselves,' she said flatly. 'I've no intention of falling in love. Ever. I'm just not the type to get wrapped up in a man the way Claire was in you. You were the centre of her universe. Her life revolved around you. I can't imagine feeling like that about any man. The only other male she was ever interested in was her horse—' Jo went cold, cursing her unruly tongue. 'Oh, Lord, I'm so
sorry,
Rufus.'

'Don't be. It's the truth.'

Jo sighed. 'Well, as we're on the subject, I could never understand how her horse came to throw her. Claire was such a good horsewoman.'

'She must have lost her concentration,' said Rufus, the
Unes
deepening from nose to mouth. 'She was in a state that morning because nature had just informed her she wasn't pregnant. Every month it was the same, and there was nothing I could do to comfort her. To "blow the blues away", as she put it, she'd go off on that damned horse and gallop up on the heath until she felt better.'

'Yet she wasn't on the heath when it happened,' said Jo sadly.

'No.' His eyes darkened. 'She was just hacking along a bridle-path she'd used for years. Something spooked the horse—a squirrel probably, or a rabbit. Claire was thrown, the strap of her hat snapped and her head struck an outcropping of rock. Death,' said Rufus, his voice cracking, 'was instantaneous.' He shuddered. 'I was told to be grateful for that.'

'Don't.' Impulsively, Jo jumped from her chair and went to sit beside him, putting her hand on his. Rufus took it,
holding
it
so
tightly that she thought the bones would crack.

'I shouldn't have said that.' He frowned as he saw the glimmer of tears on her cheeks in the candlelight. 'Hell, I've made you cry. Jo, I'm sorry. Come here.' He drew her into his arms and held her close, her face against his shoulder.

'Do you know, I've never cried for Claire before?' she said, her tear-thickened voice muffled against his jacket. 'I longed to. But I never could.'

'Then it's time you did,' he said huskily, and smoothed a hand over her hair. The light, delicate touch snapped her self-control. Jo sagged against him, racked by sobs, and Rufus Grierson held her tightly, his own body taut with answering emotion as he waited for the storm to pass.

'I'm ruining your jacket,' Jo said hoarsely at last, and Rufus sat her upright and stripped the jacket off, before returning her to her place against his shoulder.

'Soak the shirt as much as you like,' he said gruffly, and Jo gave a strangled little sound, half-laugh, half- hiccup.

Rufus held her closer and patted her back, his hand warm through the thin cotton of her shirt. Eventually the hand stilled and lay heavy between her should-
erblades
and Jo tensed and tried to sit up, but the hand was like iron on her back, holding her solidly against his chest.

Jo raised her face in entreaty. 'Rufus—' She stopped, her heart thudding as her eyes met a look of such blind need that she trembled violently. Then his mouth was on hers, and she gasped and tried to push him away, but he held her fast, his mouth softening, coaxing, his tongue persistent. Her disobedient lips parted and, undermined by the rarity of her tears, Jo's resistance was nil when his arms tightened round her.

The heat from his body ignited her response in a way he
recognised
and reacted to, nurturing the flame with caresses which took her breath away. A shudder ran through him, and his hands and mouth moved over her with such sure, importuning skill that she was
defenceless
, not only before the driving force of his need, but before her own, incontrollable response to it.

She was where she'd always longed to be, and she shook from head to foot, vulnerable to his urgent, itinerant mouth and skilled, disrobing hands, with neither will nor desire to prevent the urgent male body when, at last, it sought the release denied it during the past lonely months. As they came together all the grief and pent-up emotions of the past year engulfed them, welding them together in a desperate need for consolation which quickly transformed into unimagined, overwhelming rapture and brought them rapidly to shared, gasping culmination.

Then the overhead light came on.

Jo wrenched herself free and dived for her clothes, her averted face scarlet with embarrassment as she fled, heart pounding, to the sanctuary of the bathroom. What, in heaven's name, had
possessed
her? She looked at herself in the mirror and shuddered, pulling on her clothes at top speed. Given the choice, she thought savagely, she would stay in the bathroom indefinitely, until Rufus took the hint and went away. But his manners were too good to allow him to do that, of course.

It was a good ten minutes before she felt sufficiently recovered to emerge from the bathroom, fully dressed, face repaired, tangled hair brushed free of its
unravelling
braid, to confront Rufus Grierson.

Instead of sitting on the sofa, superior and unmoved, without a hair out of place, as she'd expected, Rufus was in the kitchen, filling her kettle.

'You said you were yearning for tea,' he said calmly.

But Jo wasn't listening. Now Rufus' thick coppery hair had dried out a gleaming layer of silver lay over the surface, like a coating of frost on autumn leaves. The contrast with his bronzed face and dark eyes was dramatic.

He smiled a little. 'I didn't turn white with shock while you were in the bathroom. The process started when Claire died.'

Claire. A burning tide of
colour
swept up Jo's throat and face, then receded again below the blue and white stripes of her shirt, leaving her face sallow and
colourless
beneath a tan darker than Rufus
Grierson's
.

He switched the kettle on, then leaned against the kitchen counter, arms folded as he watched her
colour
recede. 'You are now racked with guilt and about to hurl recriminations at my head.'

Jo squared her shoulders. 'No. We're both adults, Rufus. We know that what happened was—was just a mutual need for comfort. You say you haven't slept with a woman since Claire died; tonight you were missing her more than usual, and when I cried you comforted me. I quite understand.' Which was true enough. She understood only too well. Her role in the proceedings had been as substitute for Rufus
Grierson's
beautiful, dead Claire.

Rufus went on gazing at her with the same, disquieting look.

Jo motioned him out of the way as the kettle boiled. She put teabags in a pot, poured in boiling water, put the lid on, then turned to look at him. 'Look, Rufus,' she said rather desperately, 'let's not beat about the bush. What happened tonight was the natural outcome of shared grief. The fact that we've never been—well, close before was irrelevant at that particular moment in time. It was your anniversary and you badly needed—'

'I didn't come here looking for sex,' he said with sudden, fierce distaste. 'It never entered my head. I just came to hand over the earrings and maybe talk for a while. As I did until you cried.' He frowned. 'Claire told me often that you never cried over anything, even as a little girl.'

'True. But I'm only human,' said Jo forlornly.

'So am I, Jo Fielding, so am I!' Rufus caught her hand in his. 'Are you waiting for an apology for what happened just now? I'd be lying if I said I was sorry.' His eyes held hers intently. 'Deprivation obviously had something to do with it on my part, as did our emotions for both of us. Nevertheless, what we shared together was no run-of-the-mill sexual experience. For me, anyway.'

'For me too,' said Jo, incurably honest. Her eyes fell. 'Which doesn't make it any easier. I feel so
guilty.'

'So do I.' He breathed in deeply. 'Even though I'm utterly certain Claire would understand.'

'Probably she would,' said Jo wretchedly. 'She always had a much nicer nature than mine. Though she might have understood more easily if it was someone else. Not me.'

Rufus made no attempt to deny it, and an awkward silence fell between them.

'I'd better go,' he said at last.

'Would you like some tea first?' she felt obliged to ask.

He shook his head. 'No, thanks. Goodnight, Jo.'

'Goodnight.' She walked with him to the door, feeling as gauche and awkward as a schoolgirl. 'Thank you for bringing the earrings. I'll take great care of them.'

Rufus reached a hand inside his jacket and took out his wallet. He took a card from it and gave it to her. 'This is my new address and telephone number. If you need me call me.'

Jo took the card without argument, but with no intention of ringing Rufus Grierson, ever. 'Goodbye, Rufus. The landing lights are automatic. They'll switch off once you've closed the outer door downstairs.'

He looked down into her eyes for a moment. 'Are you sure you're all right, Jo?'

She met the look squarely. 'Yes. I'm fine.'

To her surprise he took her by the shoulders and kissed her cheek. 'Goodnight, Jo. Take care.'

'You too,' she said huskily, and watched him as he went downstairs and out of sight. She waited until he'd reached the floor below, then locked her door, made sure all the candles were properly snuffed, picked up a cushion which had landed on the floor at some stage. She eyed it malevolently, then perched on a kitchen stool to drink the tea she'd made and sat staring into space, depressed and shaken, feeling as though life would never be the same again. At last she heaved a sigh and trudged off to have a bath, then groaned in frustration at the sight of Rufus
Grierson's
expensive raincoat hanging in the shower stall.