Sinful Nights(38)

You've certainly never gone out of your way to show yourself to me in a  good light have you?' Joel countered. In fact I sometimes think you  deliberately want me to think the worst of you Lissa. I've often  wondered why?'

He got up before she could make any retort, dropping light kisses on the two small blonde heads of his nieces as he did so.

Aren't you going to kiss Lissa too?' Louise piped up instantly. Daddy always kissed Mummy before he went to work.'

But I'm not going to work,' Joel explained, ruffling her curls. I'm  going downstairs to make some telephone calls. However, poppet, just to  please you.' He bent his head, and although Lissa cringed back as far as  she could, until the back of her head was pressed against the  unyielding brass of the Victorian bedstead, it didn't stop Joel from  kissing her, the torment of the warmth of his mouth moving softly  against her own making her shiver with shock and fear. When he released  her he was frowning and Lissa held her breath, wondering if she had  betrayed herself, and if he was now having second thoughts about  marrying her. He was a virile man; even she could see that and when he  discovered that  …  that she was neither prepared nor able to be a true  wife to him. Tell him, tell him the truth now an inner voice cautioned  …   but she couldn't  …  she couldn't lay herself open to the male mockery  and contempt she would see in his eyes if she did. And besides she would  lose the girls. No, after they were married  …  after they were married  she would tell him that she had changed her mind and that she could not  accept him as her lover. After all he would still have what he wanted  from her; the children and her service as a stand-in mother. For the  rest  …  well she doubted that he had had any thoughts of being faithful  to her in any case  …  Feeling a little uncomfortable because she knew she  was deceiving him, Lissa was glad when he turned his back on her and  walked towards the door. Once he was through it and had closed it behind  him she let out a shaky breath. Emma took her thumb out of her mouth  and stared up at her with golden brown eyes. A huge smile split her  solemn little face and she said firmly, Mummy.'    

 



 

Lissa had to dash away tears. Amanda had complained that Emma was slow  to speak because she had Louise to translate for her, and it seemed  prophetic that she should choose now of all times to start.

No, not Mummy,' Louise corrected her sister, Auntie Lissa  …  but you  can call her Mummy I s'pose,' she said kindly. Shall I call you Mummy  too  …  and Uncle Joel, Daddy?' she asked Lissa.

You must call us whatever you like Louise,' Lissa told her. She  suspected that by the time she reached school age Emma would not be able  to remember her parents, but Louise was old enough to do so and the  last thing Lissa wanted to do was to try to erase from her memory the  reality of her parents. The best thing to do was to let Louise feel free  to decide for herself and see what happened, she decided, trying to  occupy her mind with the girls' problems and not her own.

She left them playing together on the bed while she showered and  dressed, and then wearing comfortable jeans and a soft russet silk shirt  that toned with her hair, she shepherded them back to their own room.

Joel had put them in his own and John's old nursery, and while the  bedroom with its bathroom and study-sitting room was large and airy the  decor was more suited to two teenage boys rather than two small girls.  Making a mental note to talk to him about it, and to ask him about the  girls' toys and clothes, Lissa helped them to get dressed and took them  downstairs.

The sooner a proper routine was established, the sooner they would  overcome the trauma of their parents' death. Making another mental note  to enquire locally about play groups, Lissa headed for the kitchen,  suddenly conscious that Louise was hanging back, a worried frown  puckering her forehead.

Come on darling, you want some breakfast, don't you?' Lissa asked gently.

Mrs Johnson doesn't like us going in the kitchen,' was Louise's quavery  response. She says we're pests and that it's time Uncle Joel make some  proper arrangements for us.'

Listening to this artless confirmation that little pitchers did indeed  have long ears, Lissa repressed a quiver of anger against the  housekeeper. Surely the older woman could have made allowances, knowing  the circumstances surrounding the girls.

Uncle Joel got us a new nanny,' Louise continued confidingly, because  Nanny Jo's boyfriend didn't want her to come and live here with us, but  we didn't like our new nanny  … '

Lissa was not surprised that Nanny' Jo's boyfriend was reluctant to  allow his girlfriend to live virtually alone with a man of Joel's  calibre, even she was aware of his powerful, vibrant brand of  masculinity, but while other women were attracted by it, she was  repelled, she told herself, witness her revulsion when Joel had kissed  her. And yet there had been no violence, no domination in his kiss  …  If  anything the first touch of his mouth against her own had been almost  tender, coaxing  …  Shutting such dangerous thoughts away Lissa turned her  attention to the task of getting the girls' breakfast, secretly  appalled to discover how little there was in the way of food in the  kitchen cupboards. She was going to have to speak to Joel about his  housekeeper and she grimaced faintly at the thought.

She had just settled the girls at the comfortable farmhouse table with plates of toast and honey, when Joel walked in.

Any chance of a cup of coffee?' he enquired of Lissa, lifting one  eyebrow interrogatively. When she nodded assent, he sat down between the  two girls, deftly preventing Emma from dropping her toast sticky side  down on to her lap. Watching his easy confidence with the girls, Lissa  realised she was seeing a new side of him. In her mind he was and always  had been the sardonic contemptuous enemy of her youth; the man who had  torn from her all her romantic yearnings and dreams and tossed them back  to her blemished and made sordid by his totally unexpected intrusion  into the bedroom where she had been experiencing her first tentative and  innocent forays into the land of sensual pleasure. Had they been left  alone she knew that nothing more than a few fumbling kisses and caresses  would have been exchanged between Gordon and herself. For all his image  as the school pin-up, his worldly experience had not been more than  hers, and with the wisdom of age she realised that both of them would  have drawn back before they had gone much further, but the reaction of  her father and the disapproval of Joel, the stranger he had brought with  him to witness her shame and degradation, had made it seem as though  she were more of a nymphomaniac than a shy and rather naïve fifteen year  old experiencing virtually her first kiss. Now she could accept that  her parents had been over-strict with her, much more so than they had  been with Amanda, but Amanda had been the image of her mother while she  apparently, or so Amanda had once confided, was very much like their  father's sister  …  someone who was never mentioned at home, and who  apparently as a teenager during the War had led a rather promiscuous  life, eventually leaving home and disappearing. This explained some of  her parents' strictness and even possibly her father's dislike of her,  Lissa acknowledged, but surely if they had loved her as they undoubtedly  loved Amanda they would have seen-known-that she was not the wanton  creature they themselves had branded her.    

 



 

She could still vividly recall her shock and mental anguish at  discovering from another of the pupils that the school she had been sent  to was for naughty' girls. What have you done to get here,' the  latter had asked her.' Boasting, I'm here because I hate my new  step-brother.'

The nuns hadn't been actively unkind, indeed some of them showed an  extremely enlightened attitude towards their wayward pupils, but Lissa  had felt too out of step  …  too alien to respond to them. She had also  felt besmirched  …  dirty and degraded  …  defiled in a way that made her  recoil from any human contact.

Lissa?'

She came back to reality with a start, uncomfortably conscious of the  strange look in Joel's eyes as he looked at her. Where on earth have  you been?' he asked softly.

Just for a moment the concern she heard in his voice touched her and she  said huskily, To hell  … ' bitterly regretting her weakness when she saw  first shock and then caution enter his eyes.

It's too late now for backing out,' he told her harshly, revealing that  he had totally misunderstood her comment. I've already spoken to  Greaves and told him that you're marrying me.'

How possessive he sounded, Lissa thought wryly, almost as though telling  Simon they were to marry had given him a great deal of pleasure. I've  also spoken to our local vicar.' He saw her start of surprise and smiled  grimly. What were you expecting Lissa-a civil ceremony.' He shook his  head. My grandparents, my parents and John were all married in our  local church. We won't have a large wedding of course  …  in fact I've  arranged a very quiet ceremony; just the Vicar and a handful of  witnesses. His wife has offered to have the girls for the afternoon.  I've given out that we'd planned to announce our engagement on your  birthday, but that because of what has happened, we've brought the  wedding forward for the sake of the children.'