Common sense told her that she really ought to go upstairs and get into bed, where she could bury her head under the bedclothes and blot out the storm, but she felt strangely reluctant to leave the kitchen;
almost as though something was making her stay, making her wait--for what?
For Carter.
She took another quick gulp of the wine, trying desperately to ignore what her own brain was telling her.
Of course she wasn"t waiting for Carter. Why on earth should she be?
He meant nothing to her, nothing at all, other than the fact that he might be trying to destroy her parents" business. That was her only interest in him, of course it was. And if when he had kissed her she had just happened to react. well, then all that proved was that--that he was an extremely seductive and dangerous man, she thought bitterly, staring in some confusion into her almost empty gla.s.s.
Had she really drunk that full gla.s.s of wine? She could only remember taking the first two gulps. Now the gla.s.s was virtually empty. It was true that there was a delicious warm feeling in the pit of her stomach, she acknowledged, focusing with some difficulty.
It was also true that her headache had started to recede a little.
Perhaps if she had a little more wine it might go altogether. It seemed extraordinarily difficult to fill up her gla.s.s. For some reason it kept on moving. In fact the entire room was swaying very gently around her, almost as though they were at sea. The threatening crash of the thunder was getting closer. The storm was going to pa.s.s right overhead, Elspeth recognised, shivering as her fear broke through the wine-induced haze. She heard someone moaning, a sharp, high-pitched sound, and stared wildly round the kitchen, wondering if she had imagined the noise--and then realised that she herself had made it.
In the corner, Jasper the parrot was whistling to himself, apparently oblivious to the storm. Elspeth winced as lightning tore jaggedly at the sky, and quickly took another deep gulp of her wine. It certainly seemed to be helping; she certainly felt less terror than normal. Her fear was still there, but the wine had distanced her from it. Was she perhaps just a little bit tipsy? she asked herself uneasily, suddenly aware of how very uncoordinated her movements had become. Surely not.
She very rarely drank, and she certainly never got--tipsy. But perhaps she had better not drink any more. Peter didn"t approve of women who drank. Tears of self-pity filled her eyes and slid down her face. She tried to brush them away and missed.
The storm was getting closer--too close. She was just beginning to feel the old familiar terror gathering force inside her, when the back door suddenly opened and Carter came in.
She tried to stand up, which she told herself later was her first big mistake. Why on earth she thought she ought to stand up, she had no idea, only that it seemed as though Carter was towering over her, glowering down at her, as he looked first at her tear-blotched face and then at the gla.s.s and bottle.
"What the devil...?"
Sensitive to his anger, Elspeth immediately flared up. What right had he to dictate to her what she could or could not do? She told him so in a husky, confused sentence which somehow or other became very jumbled and which she hastily concluded, saying crossly, "And anyway, why shouldn"t I have a gla.s.s of wine if I want one?" Not for anything was she going to tell him why she had drunk it.
"A gla.s.s," Carter retorted scathingly.
"You"ve d.a.m.n near drunk the whole bottle. Have you no idea how potent that stuff is? My G.o.d. What would your precious Peter say if he could see you now."
To her own horror Elspeth felt huge tears start to roll down her face.
"He isn"t mine any longer," she choked back at him.
"It"s over."
There was a moment"s silence, and then Carter demanded grimly, "What?"
"You heard me," Elspeth told him recklessly.
"It"s over. Peter and I are no longer. It seems that his mother"s wishes are more important to him than mine; that he"d rather spend the weekend with her, entertaining her friends, than here with me. And he knew how much I wanted him here. How important it was to me." She sniffed and then winced as lightning forked across the fields, her whole body stiffening as she stared outside, unable to drag her terrified gaze away.
"Elspeth." Carter"s voice suddenly changed, lost its impatient, angry tone and instead, incredibly, be came gentle, tender almost.
"It"s all right, the storm won"t hurt you. You"re safe in here.
Look..."
Elspeth turned her head and tried to focus on him, struggling to bring her thoughts to some kind of order, trying to clear the drink-induced miasma from her brain.
"I know you"re frightened of storms," Carter was saying quietly.
"Your mother told me." He saw her expression, and his own mouth suddenly became very grim. Tor G.o.d"s sake, what kind of man do you think I am?
Don"t you think I have any compa.s.sion, any understanding? It"s been a bad day all round for you, hasn"t it? First Peter, and now this. " He reached out and touched her face gently with his fingertips and she had an insane desire to lean into him and on to him, to simply let him take charge, to... " Look, why don"t you go upstairs and get into bed. I"ll bring you up a cup of tea. I can understand why you did this," he added wryly, picking up the wine bottle.
"But it really isn"t the answer."
Did he actually think she had deliberately got drunk?
"It was a mistake," she told him huskily.
"The gla.s.s. I didn"t realise..."
Her thoughts had become extremely muddled-chaotically so, and she was finding it impossible to concentrate on anything other than how wonderful Carter looked, and how much she would like him to take her in his arms right now and kiss her the way he had done before. He was looking right at her and with such a strange expression on his face that for one moment she thought she had actually given voice to that desire, but then she heard him saying curtly, "I think we"d better get you upstairs, and then--" Just as she was protesting that she could manage, the thunder rolled noisily overhead, followed by the unmistakable sound of gla.s.s breaking.
"d.a.m.n--that must be one of the greenhouses. I"d better go out and check the damage. You stay right where you are," he told Elspeth as she tried to get up.
"I"ll be as quick as I can."
He heard her gasp as lightning forked brilliantly outside and turned to look at her.
"Elspeth."
She shook her head, fighting to clear her fogged brain.
"I"m all right," she lied huskily.
"You go and check on the greenhouse." She"d never forgive herself if more damage than necessary was caused through her inability to cope with her stupid fear. She could see that Carter was reluctant to leave her, but they both knew that the greenhouse was more important than her dread of the storm.
"Well, stay right where you are," Carter told her a second time, as he opened the back door.
"I"ll be as quick as I can."
But once he was gone, she couldn"t stay in the kitchen any longer--and besides, what did she need his help for? All she needed was to be somewhere dark and safe. Somewhere where the storm couldn"t reach her and where she could give in to the need to dose her eyes.
It took her quite some time to weave her way across the kitchen and to open the door, but at last she managed it, climbing the stairs with slow precision and then making her way very carefully along the landing to her bedroom.
She found the bed without having to switch on the light, and then paused, hesitating before dropping down on to it, frowning in concentration as she fought with the zipper on her jeans, finally managing to struggle out of them and to remove her top. Her underwear quickly followed and was left to lie carelessly on the floor, something she would never normally have dreamed of doing, but her head was spinning so much and she felt so very, very tired.
In fact, in the act of searching for her nightdress she stopped and yawned hugely, promptly forgetting what it was she had been about to do as she half climbed and half stumbled into the middle of the bed, only just managing to push back the duvet, and then quickly burrowing beneath it, pulling it right up over her ears and using it to blot out the sounds of the storm outside.
"Elspeth. Elspeth, wake up."
Someone was shaking her, trying to wake her up,
when she didn"t want to be woken up. She said as much, protesting sleepily, and then abruptly making the delicious discovery that the hands firmly trying to shake her awake were attached to arms, and that those arms felt absolutely wonderful beneath her exploring fingertips.
smooth, hard, and so very strong, she could even feel the muscles in them contracting beneath her tentative exploration, an awareness that made her feel extremely powerful and rather triumphant until she realised that they were being moved away from her.