Pagan Lover by Anne Hampson Read Free Book Online Page B

anxiously,
    ‘Where is my wedding-dress?’
    ‘Does it matter?’ he queried in a casual tone of voice.
    ‘I—I don’t th-think it does. But I’d like to have kept it.’
    ‘What for? You will not be wearing it when you marry me.’ The inflexibility in his voice erased all the gentleness that had gone before. She wondered if it had been a momentary lapse because, looking at him now, with his features stern and forbidding, it seemed impossible that kindness could be one of his traits.
    “I don’t know what for,’ she admitted, glad that the sobs in her throat were subsiding, and she could speak without stammering. ‘I can’t think properly. I would like to keep my wedding-dress, though.’
    ‘A morbid sentimentality. It’s down among the fishes,’ he added heartlessly. ‘A pretty thing in its way, but not you at all. What made you choose a style like that?’
    ‘Because I happened to like it!’ she shot at him, feeling that if she tried to suppress her rising anger she would burst into tears again, because of what he had done with her beautiful wedding-dress. ‘A girl usually’ has the right to choose the style of her own wedding-dress!’
    ‘You liked it?’ He shook his head and frowned. ‘You will have to be educated,’ he told her decisively.’ ‘Your taste is incredibly unimaginative. You could look like a queen, given the correct styles and colours. Your hair will have to be cut,’ he decided as his eyes lit on it. ‘I’m not partial to hair quite as long as that. Did your fiancé like to bury his face in it, or something? For myself, it’s all right, but I‘d much rather bury my face in a warmer, more seductive place.’ His black eyes went to her breasts and a satirical light entered them as he saw the swift and painful rise of colour to her face.
    ‘You’re nothing but a beast—’
    ‘Careful,
Tara,’ came the’ softly spoken interruption. ‘It was only your knuckles that were rapped just now, but it will be somewhere very different next time.’
    Her colour deepened. If only she dared get up and leave the table! But caution kept her where she was.
    She said after a long pause,
    ‘The way you talk about clothes it would seem that you always dress your women to suit your tastes? Am I to be another puppet?’
    The words appeared to amuse him and she was puzzled as to the reason.
    ‘My taste is considered perfect,’ he rejoined casually. ‘As for my models being puppets—well, I suppose that in a way they are. It is I who pull the strings and they who dance for me.’
    Tara could only stare at him for several seconds, staggered by the man’s insufferable pomposity.
    ‘You’ll, never’ get me to dance for you,’ she retorted at last. ‘I’ve no idea what sort of women you’ve had, but they certainly lacked spirit!’ She was becoming more composed now, a circumstance for which she was glad, since at least she was not showing him a weak side of her character which was not true to form anyway. Her career as a nurse in a very large hospital had, if only to a small extent, given her a certain toughness she would never have come by otherwise.
    ‘They did lack spirit,’
Leon agreed, ‘which you do not, in spite of the copious tears you’ve been shedding. I believe we shall get along most successfully once you resign yourself to the fact that you’ve gained rather than lost by my action in abducting you.’ His hard Greek eyes fixed hers as he held out a silver basket containing crispy bread rolls ‘Freshly baked in the galley by Carlos,’ he told her. ‘That man can turn his hand to anything.’
    ‘Including taking illegal part in his master’s nefarious schemes,’
Tara just could not help retorting.
    ‘You, my girl, will get another rap over the knuckles if you don’t guard that venomous tongue of yours. How many more times do you need to be warned?’ His knife was in his hand, his eyes on her hand as it lay on the cloth. Hastily she moved it, an automatic