Rosanne leapt to her feet, certain that she would betray herself if she didn’t allow herself the distraction of movement.
‘That’s all very sad,’ she stated tonelessly, walking to the nearest window and gazing sightlessly out through it, ‘but it really has no bearing on the fact that Mrs Cranleigh—’
‘You’re a cold-hearted little bitch, aren’t you?’ demanded Damian Sheridan, beside her before she was even conscious of his having moved and grasping her painfully by the shoulders to swing her round to face the scowling darkness of his features. ‘I’m nowhere near finished with what I have to say. Hester Cranleigh is one of the most decent women I’ve ever known and she has remained so despite all the dirt life has thrown up at her! I was fifteen when my parents were killed in a road accident, and it was Hester who returned here to live so that there would be a loving home for me to come back to during my school holidays and later from university. It was Hester who did all in her power to help fill the gap left by my parents’ death. And it’s Hester I’ll protect from any more hurt with my last breath, if needs be!’
Rosanne’s eyes dropped from the fury blazing in his. She had spent so long psyching herself up for this...yet now she was here she was encountering obstacles she could never have envisaged. She would do everything in her power to hurt the woman who had deprived Faith and Paul of even knowing of the existence of the daughter they had so mourned; and for depriving her paternal grandmother of the granddaughter she would have adored; and, most of all, for having cheated Grandpa Ted of all but two years of the life of the granddaughter for whom his unstinting love had been like the elixir of life. And for that, she was certain, this beautiful, passionate Irishman would do all in his power to destroy her.
‘Has it never occurred to you that she might not want this protection you so threateningly offer?’ asked Rosanne quietly. ‘After all, undertaking this biography was Mrs Cranleigh’s choice ultimately, despite it having been her husband’s wish. And she must know better than anyone what the research will entail emotionally.’
His hands dropped from her shoulders, then he took a step nearer the window and rested his forehead against the glass.
‘Paul Bryant—that was the name of the man Faith ran away with,’ he muttered hoarsely.
The man she had married almost two years previously, Rosanne wanted to cry out to him.
‘So why, of all places, would Hester choose a publishing company of that same name?’
‘Perhaps because of that name...I just wouldn’t know,’ replied Rosanne. Grandpa Ted had never shown any animosity towards Hester, but neither had he shown any desire to contact her—the decision as to whether or not to delve into the darkness of Rosanne’s maternal roots was one he had made plain was hers and hers alone. But one thing she now remembered so vividly was how her grandfather’s bitterness and loathing had always been concentrated solely on George Cranleigh.
‘Perhaps!’ he exclaimed with harsh bitterness, turning from the window and facing her. ‘I’m wasting my breath trying to change your mind, aren’t I?’
‘Yes, you are.’
His eyes flickered over her slim figure with cold distaste.
‘You realise, don’t you, that, this being my property, I can have you slung off it whenever I choose?’
‘And I suppose you choose now,’ stated Rosanne, refusing to acknowledge that her immediate reaction, if it came to that, would be one of colossal relief.
‘No—as it happens—I don’t choose now,’ he drawled, his look now one of deliberate offensiveness as his eyes lazily perused her body. ‘As long as you agree to my conditions.’
‘It depends what they are,’ replied Rosanne, colour rising treacherously in her cheeks as she wondered what she would do if the blatant sensuality of the message in his eyes had any bearing on those conditions.
‘Hester’s grown quite weak of late and she’s virtually bedridden now—so you’ll be working very much on your own,’ he stated brusquely, blanking the heat from his eyes. ‘I take it that your job here is to sift through the papers for relevant material?’
Rosanne nodded, feeling edgy and uncertain. Perhaps the strain was getting to her already...perhaps she had only imagined that arrogant sexuality in his eyes.
‘But it’ll be Hester sifting through your findings to decide what really is pertinent,’ he continued.
Again Rosanne nodded.
‘You will report to me, on a daily basis, with all your findings in clear note form...and you will do so before you have any contact with Hester regarding your day’s work.’
‘You think I’m likely to unearth things—’
‘What I think is immaterial,’ he interrupted impatiently. ‘Do you agree—or do you leave?’
‘Obviously I have no choice if I’m to do my job,’ she retorted angrily.
‘With a brain as quick as yours you’ll go far, Ros,’ he murmured sarcastically. ‘What’s that short for—Rosamund?’
Rosanne eyed him warily, then shrugged non-committally.
‘Rosamund—it doesn’t suit you in the least,’ he murmured, suddenly giving her a smile that seemed to reach out and warm her with its dazzling brilliance.
‘That’s why I prefer Ros,’ she muttered, conscious of the colour rising yet again in her cheeks. For whatever reason, and she couldn’t for the life of her even begin to guess why, Damian Sheridan had decided to switch on the charm. The fact that her every sense was responding to that charm as though plugged into high-voltage electricity was something she found profoundly disturbing...which only went to show the terrible tension she was under, she reasoned with edgy uncertainty.
‘Ros,’ he murmured, almost caressingly, then tilted his head to one side, frowning slightly. ‘It’s funny, but suddenly you remind me of someone.’ He reached out, taking her chin in his hand and angling her face towards the light from the window. ‘I can’t think who, just now...but it’ll come to me.’
‘When will I be able to see Mrs Cranleigh?’ asked Rosanne hoarsely, her beleaguered mind unable to decide which was having a more devastating affect on her—his troubling words or his equally disturbing touch.
‘When she’s feeling up to it, she likes to have tea in the blue drawing-room...the one that’s now green,’ he murmured, his hand a charged warmth against her skin.
She was still trying to decide whether she would only make a complete fool of herself by asking him to remove his hand when he pulled her against him with a swiftness that left her mind still grappling with the problem of his hand. And her mind was still several steps behind when he lowered his head to hers and kissed her. It was a kiss not only completely unexpected, but one so electrifyingly exciting, so disconcertingly assured of its welcome, that her lips momentarily parted, not so much in acquiescence, but with eager spontaneity to the demands of the mouth coaxing them open with practised ease.
It was the movement of her own hands, spreading for no other reason than to revel in the solid expanse of chest beneath them, that sent a jolt of confounded awareness through her.
It brought her little comfort that, the instant her hands began pushing against him in protest, he immediately released her. And it brought her even less comfort to hear the soft rumble of laughter growling from deep within him as she let out a belated gasp of outrage.
‘For a while there I’d thought I’d found a woman with guts enough to say, “To hell” and give in to her instincts,’ he chuckled.