Reluctant Wife(43)

The door opened and she glared across the room at Adam as he came in and closed it behind him. ‘Go away,’ she said huskily, and pushed her hair which she’d not had time to brush off her forehead, dropping drifts of delicate colour around her—ivory, cyclamen. pale grey.



‘What do you think you’re doing?’



‘What does it look as if I’m doing? I’m packing and I’m leaving. I may not be the kind of wife you thought you could make me into, and while I take some of the responsibility for that, I don’t have to be insulted in front of other people or accused of the things you’ve accused me of this morning. Everyone’s allowed one mistake in their lives, Adam, and I’m obviously yours. Why don’t you just admit it and let me go? You can keep Nimmitabel as payment for all you’ve done for me, but.



She stopped and backed away a step as he came right up to her, and wrested what she had left in her arms away. ‘Adam,’ she said hoarsely.



‘You’re going nowhere, Roz,’ he said quietly.



‘I am! You can’t stop me…’



‘Oh yes, I can.’ He took her into his arms and she struggled desperately and with tears pouring down her cheeks, but with futility, until her strength ran out abruptly and she could only lean against him helplessly, shaking and crying. He lifted an hand and pushed her hair away from her hot, wet cheek, then picked her up and carried her over to the bed.



‘N-no … she stammered.



‘What did the doctor have to say yesterday?’ he asked, surprising her into immobility as he put her down, pulled the pillows up behind her and pushed the suitcase off so he could sit down beside her.



‘What does it matter?’ she asked bitterly.



‘Tell me, Roz.’



She read the determination in his eyes. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. It’s all in my mind, in other words.‘



‘Well, that’s good news.’



She smiled ironically. ‘Always assuming I can get into the right frame of mind, not to mention your bed … but perhaps I shouldn‘t have said that‘? I’m sure it could constitute an ulterior motive, another one …’



She stopped abruptly, then sat up and snapped in a furious, goaded undertone, ‘Don’t laugh at me, don‘t you dare!’



But he was, silently, and when she launched herself at him he caught her wrists and lay down with her.



‘I don’t understand you, I. really don’t,’ she gasped. ‘You say I’m not being a good wife, but when I try and change that, all you can think … do … is look, for reasons to doubt it and become quite horrible. When you’re not laughing at me, that is. As if—as if you expect it all to be perfect, but how can it ever be that? I’m sure even marriages made in heaven are hard to maintain in perfection without … oh, I don’t know why I bother!’



Roz stared at him, her eyes darkened to sapphire, her mouth clamped tightly shut and her breasts rising and falling visibly beneath the thin pink cotton of her blouse.



Adam returned her gaze meditatively and in a way that suddenly made a trace of pink steal into her cheeks. He said presently, ‘It’s a curious thing, Roz, how I like you when you’re angry. It didn’t know I would, or that I could make your so very angry—or that we could come to be so much at cross-purposes. Particularly over this,’ he added significantly, and released her, wrists to touch her mouth with his fingers.



‘What?’



He smiled ‘slightly. ‘This… His fingers moved down to her chin and he tilted her head back slightly and claimed her mouth with his.



For a moment Roz was frozen with disbelief, then flooded by a determination to treat this incredibly blatant demonstration of male chauvinism with the contempt it deserved—utter passivity. Only something went strangely wrong, because in the end she found herself kissing him back, and although it was an oddly angry sort of way, it was, she realised dimly, in a more intimate way, than she had ever kissed him before.



Adam lifted his head at last, but she kept her eyes closed in case he was laughing, again, and flinched as he drawled softly, ‘Well, well! That was at little … surprising. Roz?’



Her lashes fluttered up and her mouth trembled. But there was no sign of amusement in his eyes, rather a dark, narrowed look as he was trying to see through to her soul. Then she felt his fingers on the buttons of her blouse and her lips parted as he undid three or four and pushed the pink cotton aside to frame her naked breasts.



Roz put a hand to grasp his wrist, but he shook his head slightly and said quietly, ‘I only want. to look. It’s been …’ he stopped,