Darcy gave herself a mental shake and shrugged off the self-pitying direction of her reflections. Whilst there wasn’t much point pretending that physically this man hadn’t seriously unnerved her, there was no point advertising the embarrassing fact—though no doubt he was used to women making fools of themselves over him. As the feeling was obviously one-sided, and they were going to stay strangers, there didn’t seem much point getting bogged down with uncomfortable self-analysis.
‘Well, obviously I don’t know what the Hall is like inside at the moment, but I would have—’
Reece was not used to explaining his actions, and he decided it was time to call a halt to her interminable speculation once and for all.
‘You do surprise me,’ his acid drawl interrupted. ‘I was under the impression the locals keep fairly up-to-date with all the developments around here. I imagined I’d discovered the net-curtain-twitching capital of Yorkshire.’
Two pink spots appeared on Darcy’s smooth cheeks; she sucked in an angry breath and crunched her gears. The faintly amused condescension in his voice made her see red. Why not just call us nosy yokels with nothing better to do than gossip and be done with it? She’d have liked to bop him one on his superior nose.
‘You’ll have to make allowances for me— I’m only home for the holiday, so I’m not completely up to speed yet.’
‘That accounts for it, then.’
Darcy’s eyes began to sparkle dangerously; the man had a very nasty mouth and there were limits to how much she was willing to make allowances for his delicate condition.
‘We’re nosy? That’s pretty rich coming from someone who was spying on me from up a tree!’ She hadn’t been going to mention it because of his injuries, but he was asking for it…
Reece, who hadn’t been in a situation that made him blush for years, felt his colour rise for the second time today.
‘I wasn’t spying.’
‘That’s what all the peeping Toms say,’ she cut back with a provoking little smile.
Reece gritted his even white teeth.
‘I’ve been demoted from sex maniac, then?’
‘You were eavesdropping!’ she exclaimed accusingly, a rush of colour flooding her cheeks. Her memory in playback mode, she tried to recall exactly how bad what they’d said had been.
‘It was hard not to, the way you were yelling.’
‘Yelling is better than spying,’ she countered with undeniable accuracy.
‘I was investigating the noise pollution,’ he gritted with the air of a man on the brink of losing his temper.
At that moment they approached a particularly savage bend in the road. His knuckles whitened as he braced his good hand against the dashboard.
‘Will you do me a favour and keep your eyes on the road?’ he pleaded grimly as her smouldering eyes showed a tendency to linger indignantly on his face.
‘It’s so hard,’ she confessed apologetically, ‘when there’s you to look at.’ She sighed soulfully, placing a hand momentarily over her strongly beating heart.
Actually it was getting increasingly hard to treat the fact she was a long way from immune to his raw brand of physical magnetism as a joke.
He shifted in his seat once more, as if trying to alleviate some discomfort, and his broad shoulders nudged against hers in the restricted space of the small car.
Darcy was conscious of a fleeting feeling of guilt that she was being so mean to someone who was injured and in pain. The other feeling the brief contact created was less fleeting and much more disturbing; the fluttery sensation low in her belly went into overdrive, and pulses had started hammering a loud tattoo in places she didn’t know she had pulses! Her palms felt uncomfortably damp as she grimly gripped the cold steering-wheel.
‘Ha ha.’ Reece’s nostrils flared as he watched the provoking little witch toss her bright head. ‘You were making a racket and I came out here for peace and quiet.’
She’d never claimed to be Kiri Te Kanawa, but a racket—charming! What a great confidence-boost just when she needed it.
‘If this is a sample of your usual behaviour I think I can guarantee you that,’ she promised him drily. ‘It’s true that in the country we do take an interest in what our friends and neighbours are doing; perhaps it can be intrusive sometimes…’ she conceded.
Reece found his wandering attention captured and held by the dramatic rise and fall of her well-formed bosom. The fascination bothered him—it was totally irrational: he’d seen bosoms a lot more spectacular. He worriedly recalled reading somewhere that head injuries could totally alter someone’s personality.
‘…but I’d prefer that to indifference…’
‘God!’ Reece groaned as if in pain and rolled his head from side to side in an effort to alleviate the increasing stiffness in his neck. ‘I knew I should have taken a taxi.’
‘My driving’s not that bad,’ Darcy muttered truculently. The fact he was treating the journey like a white-knuckle ride hadn’t escaped her notice.
‘I’m very grateful for what you’ve done,’ he ground out.
He sounded as if each syllable hurt.
‘Save it! I don’t want your gratitude.’ With an airy gesture that caused the car to lurch slightly towards the centre of the road she brushed aside his protest. ‘We may be nosy in the country, but we don’t step over sick people yet, or ask for payment when we pick them up!’
She shot a disgusted glance at his perfect, slightly bruised profile; anyone would think his movements were front-page news, the way he was acting!
‘I wouldn’t like you to run away with the impression I give a damn if you get triple pneumonia. I was just making polite neighbourly conversation to take your mind off your pain.’
‘I’m not in pain.’
With a lofty sniff Darcy dismissed this transparent untruth. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to.’ An expression of fierce concentration on her face, she stared unblinkingly through the rain-washed windshield.
‘No, I don’t, do I?’
Another five minutes and the hospital came into view. Even as he broke the silence, Reece couldn’t understand what made him do so.
‘I’m being a great deal of trouble.’
As much as he liked to give the impression he didn’t have one, it looked to her as if the cranky Mr Erskine’s conscience was giving him trouble—she was in no hurry to ease it.
‘Yes,’ she agreed sweetly.
Reece was gripped by an urgent and irrational desire to make those wilful lips smile once more.
‘And behaving like an ungrateful monster.’ His efforts were rewarded: her lips twitched.
‘Such perception.’
Truly kissable lips; shame about the sharp tongue that went with them. A nerve along the chiselled edge of his strong jaw began to throb.
‘I came here to escape Christmas…’
‘You should have said.’
‘Should have said what?’ he demanded in a driven voice.
Darcy drew up beside the Casualty doors with her engine running. ‘Christmas has bad associations for you, doesn’t it?’
He stiffened.
She had spoken on impulse; now she wished she hadn’t.