And then Kelt got out, lithe and long-legged, powerfully magnetic and urbane in a short-sleeved shirt that echoed the steely colour of his eyes, and casually elegant trousers, and the bitter, heart-sick memories vanished, replaced by a reckless excitement.
When he opened the gate she went hastily out into the serene evening. The bach might be his, but she didn’t want to sense his dominating presence whenever she walked into the living room.
She knew she looked good. For an hour that afternoon she’d pored over her scanty wardrobe, startled to find herself wistfully remembering her favourites amongst the designer clothes she’d worn in her old life.
In the end she’d chosen a modest dress she’d found in a shop in Tukuulu’s small capital city. Although it was a little too loose on her, the clear salmon hue burnished the gold of her skin and the warm highlights in her dark hair.
Tempted to go without make-up, she decided after a critical survey of her reflection that a naked face might make her look conspicuous, and her security depended on blending in. So she compromised on lipstick a slightly deeper shade than her dress, and pinned her badly cut hair off her face with two frangipani clips made from the moonbeam shimmer of pearl shell.
Kelt waited for her beside the gate. Her shoulders held a little stiffly to hide an absurd self-consciousness, she walked towards him, sensing a darker, more elemental level beneath his coolly sophisticated exterior. Trying to ignore the smouldering need in the pit of her stomach, she saw him as a warrior, riding his big bay gelding into battle…
Not, she thought with an inner shiver, a man to cross swords with.
With a carefully neutral smile she met his gaze, and in a charged moment her wilful memory sabotaged the fragile veneer of her composure by supplying a repeat of how it had felt when he’d carried her—the powerful litheness of his gait, the subtle flexion of his body as he’d lifted her, his controlled strength…
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