Courtney didn’t know which side she despised the most, or even why. She sat miserably listening to the electric silence which descended whenever Blair appeared, watching them watching him, and realising that charmed circle of girlhood had gone for ever.
Then she found they were watching her and speculating, and that was the worst of all.
‘You never mentioned him,’ Anna Harper said one afternoon, when they were all by the lake. ‘Not once.’
Courtney shrugged, feeling awkward. ‘It never occurred to me.’ She tried to explain several times that to her he was simply Blair, Uncle Geoffrey’s nephew, and a thorn in her flesh, but she knew they hadn’t believed her.
‘He behaves as if we’re invisible!’ someone else wailed.
Kate Lydyard, who was trailing her fingers in the water, smiled, her eyes going slyly to Courtney. Kate was the oldest in the group, already eighteen, with an extra confidence and self-assurance. Courtney had always admired her, and her cool blonde good looks, but since Kate had been at Hunters Court, she had discovered she didn’t really like her very much.
Now Kate moved her hand sharply, sending a spray of glistening droplets into the air. She said softly, ‘That’s because he’s waiting for Courtney.’
They were all looking at her, suspicious and envious at the same time.
She said sharply, ‘Then he’ll wait for ever.’ Her voice rang clearly through the warm afternoon. She saw a movement on the terrace and shading her eyes realised that he was there. She could have screamed with vexation, but consoled herself with the reflection that he was too far away to have overheard the entire conversation, so that her final comment, if he’d picked it up, would have been meaningless. At least she hoped so.
But later when they met in the drawing room for tea, she wasn’t too sure. Each time she glanced up, Blair seemed to be watching her, and while there was amusement in his eyes, there was speculation too, which she found frankly alarming. She was beginning to wonder whether her words of angry refutal to Kate hadn’t lit some kind of slow fuse, and ask herself what she could do to evade the inevitable explosion.
But as time passed and nothing happened, she told herself on a rising tide of relief that she had been mistaken, that she’d read altogether too much into the situation.
Blair left the next day, and by the end of the week her party had broken up too, somewhat to her relief, she realised unhappily. The golden days had taken on an acid tinge, although some of the old camaraderie had returned following Blair’s departure. Things would improve, she thought optimistically, when they all met again at school in September.
A few days later, she had been in the rose garden cutting some blooms for her father’s study, when some sixth sense warned her that she was no longer alone. She looked warily over her shoulder and saw Blair standing in the arched gateway watching her. She met the cool, assessing glance he sent her with an uneasiness she was incapable of concealing.
‘What a charming picture.’ He walked unhurriedly towards her. ‘The young English maiden among the roses.’
There was nothing she could take exception to or even deny in his actual words, but the jibing tone in which they were uttered was a different matter. She turned away deliberately, flushing with annoyance, totally on edge. He’d never sought her out like this before—so why …?
She went on cutting roses and putting them in her basket, almost at random, only too aware of Blair at her shoulder, wishing there was something other than the murmur of the bees to break the tension of the silence between them.
At least he said, ‘How old are you, Courtney?’
She shot him a startled look. ‘Seventeen.’
‘Then I’m a year out,’ he said. ‘I’d have said sixteen.’
‘In other words, I’m young for my age. Thank you so much!’
‘That’s not what I meant at all,’ he returned. ‘There’s a well-known saying about being sixteen which I’d say applies to you. And before you start bristling, it has nothing to do with the age of consent,’ he added, his mouth twisting in the mockery which always caught her on the raw.
‘I know the saying you mean,’ she said tightly. ‘It’s a bit old hat these days, surely. We are in the nineteen-eighties.’
‘Only just. Although what difference the decade we live in is supposed to make I fail to understand. If it was the year 2001, it wouldn’t make you any less nervous. And it confirms what I just said.’
‘What do you mean?’
He took the basket from her slackening grip and put it down on the gravelled walk. The hazel eyes weren’t laughing now. They were curiously intent, and Courtney swallowed, aware of the oddest aching sensation in the pit of her stomach.
He said quietly, ‘That this has never happened to you before.’
His mouth on hers was warm and firm and incredibly sensuous. She stiffened instinctively, her hands coming up in open panic to thrust him away, but he made no attempt to draw her into a closer embrace. And before she could marshal her thoughts sufficiently to decide on some form of protest, the kiss was over.
‘How dare you!’ she almost choked.
He smiled down at her lazily. ‘You’ll find I dare quite easily. For ever is a long time, Courtney. I merely decided I’d waited long enough.’
So he had heard, and drawn totally accurate conclusions. She breathed inwardly, but refused to let him guess. She shrugged.
‘I presumed you feel you’ve made some kind of point. Please don’t expect me to be grateful.’
‘No, I won’t do that.’ He handed back the basket, his smile widening into a grin. ‘I’d prefer something warmer in the way of emotion than mere gratitude.’
‘What a shame,’ she said too sweetly. ‘I think you must be confusing me with some of my friends.’
‘Now what do I infer from that? That you’re immune?’
A glint in the hazel eyes warned her in time that affirmation might be reckless. Her thoughtless words to Kate Lydyard had already provided him with one challenge; she didn’t want to compound the offence. Besides, she wasn’t altogether sure any more that she could plead immunity or even indifference. She was still shaking inside, and her mouth felt soft and tremulous. She tried to explain away her acute vulnerability by telling herself she was ashamed because Blair had so easily guessed her total lack of any kind of experience, but she knew it wasn’t as simple as that. She had a confused feeling that nothing might ever be simple again.
She couldn’t think of a single thing to say, and when she saw him move, take a step towards her, she panicked, backing away straight into a rose bush. The thorns caught her in an instant, fastening themselves into the thin cotton blouse and the brief denim skirt.
She said, ‘Oh, hell!’ in a low, furious voice, and twisted trying to free herself.
‘Keep still,’ Blair directed. ‘You’ll tear your clothes, if not your skin, if you struggle like that.’
His hands were sure and expert as they released her, but she was in an agony of tension, and not because she was afraid of being scratched by the murderous thorns.
When he had finished, she said, ‘Thank you,’ staring down at the neatly raked gravel at her feet.
He said mockingly, ‘That really caused you some grief, didn’t it, Courtney?’ He sighed with a trace of impatience. ‘But you don’t have to worry. You’re not going to be rushed into anything you’re not ready for—I promise you that.’
Her heart began to thud slowly and uncomfortably, as she tried to make sense of what he’d just said. Why did he talk about promises, and about not rushing her? He couldn’t pretend that one sunlit kiss had made any real