That Kind Of Man

‘Are you okay?’ Nick’s deep voice seemed to come from out of nowhere, and Abigail forced herself back to the present with an effort.

‘I suppose so.’ She nodded her head stiffly. That dream-like feeling had washed over her again, and all her reflexes seemed to be on auto-pilot. It seemed easier to cope when she felt that way.

‘You’ll feel better now that the funeral is over.’ His eyes were fixed on her face, like a doctor waiting for a reaction from a patient.

‘Yes,’ she replied. But will I, she wondered? Would she ever feel better again?

‘You look tired, Abby,’ he observed neutrally. ‘Exhausted, in fact.’

‘I am.’

‘Then rest,’ he urged. ‘At least until we get back to the house.’

Her normal response to him—if any of her responses to Nick could ever be described as normal—would have been to tell him to mind his own business. His high-handedness was something she usually resented. But he was right, she was too exhausted—even to resist him.

Abigail tried to lean her head back, but the hat she wore prevented her from doing so. She lifted her hand and removed first the pin securing it and then the black, wide-brimmed, rather exotic creation from her head.

She never wore hats as a rule, she found them too constricting. She had chosen this one today because Orlando had loved hats, the more outrageous the better. And she had failed him in so many ways as a wife. The least she could do was to don a fancy hat in his honour—to play the part he would have wanted her to play at his funeral.

But it was such a relief to remove it. She tossed it on the seat beside her and shook her head vigorously, allowing the thick, straight honey-coloured hair to fall down unfettered around her shoulders.

Nick was watching her, his eyes narrowed as the bright hair spilled down in contrast against the black suit, and it was several moments before he spoke. ‘You didn’t contact me directly when Orlando was killed.’

It was as much a question as a statement, Abigail acknowledged. Almost an accusation, too. She absently pushed a lock of hair off her pale cheek. ‘I didn’t see the point. I knew that you’d read about it in the papers. We haven’t exactly been living in each other’s pockets since my marriage, have we? Or before it either, come to that. And you never bothered to hide your dislike of Orlando.’

‘The feeling was entirely mutual. Orlando made no secret of his aversion to me, you know.’

Stung into defence, Abigail sat up in her seat. ‘He, at least, had a reason for disliking you!’

‘Oh?’ The green gaze was unperturbed. ‘And what was that? Envy of my material status? Because if there was ever a man who demonstrated avarice like it was going out of fashion, then it was Orlando.’

‘Why, you ... you ... unbearable brute!’ Abigail only got the words out with a monumental effort. ‘How can you speak so ill of the dead!’

‘I said the same when he was alive, and to his face,’ Nick contradicted coolly. ‘The reason Orlando hated me was because he was a failure and I wasn’t. And because he knew that if I’d stuck around I might just have been able to knock some sense into your pretty but dense little head and stopped you marrying him.’

Disbelief stirred in the depths of Abigail’s eyes, so dark blue that they looked like ink. ‘You really think you would have been able to stop me marrying him?’

He shrugged. ‘It was a pity that he managed to talk you into a register office wedding which could be performed relatively quickly.’

‘That made a difference, did it?’ she challenged.

His eyes glittered. ‘Of course it made a difference. You see, I had rather counted on your love of the big occasion coming to the fore, Abigail. You aren’t your mother’s daughter for nothing. And if you had opted for a church wedding and all that it entailed, then it would have given me plenty of time to have changed your mind.’

Abigail gave a bitter laugh. ‘And you bother asking why I didn’t contact you after Orlando died? I can only wonder why you turned up today at all.’

‘Because I’m the closest thing to a relative you have,’ he pointed out coolly.

‘I know,’ Abigail’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. ‘And aren’t I the lucky one?’

‘Aren’t you just?’ he agreed mockingly, and stretched his long legs out in front of him.

She had been trying very hard not to look at him too closely, and she didn’t want to ask herself why. But that unconsciously graceful stretch made her acutely aware of his physical presence and she found herself unable to tear her eyes away from him.

Even among very good-looking men Nick had always stood out from the crowd. Over the years Abigail had tried to analyse his particular appeal, and once again she attempted to be objective as she watched him covertly from beneath the thick, dark sweep of her eyelashes.

No one could deny that he had a superb physique. He was lightly tanned and muscular, without an ounce of spare flesh lurking on that impressive frame.

But loads of men had good bodies, she reasoned. Orlando, her late husband, had possessed a magnificent physique, which he had shown off whenever possible by wearing the most clinging and revealing clothes he could get away with.

And that, supposed Abigail, was the difference. Nick didn’t emphasise his shape; he didn’t have to. It would have been glaringly obvious to even the most unobservant person that Nick had a body to die for—even if he’d been swathed in sackcloth. The loose-cut suit he wore now, for example, merely hinted at the flat, hard planes of his abdomen and the heavily muscled thighs which lay beneath, and Abigail felt an uncomfortable awareness of his proximity tickling away at her nerve-ends.

But it was his face which had always drawn women to Nick, and it wasn’t just the pure, clean lines of his classically even features which attracted them. Or the curiously sensual curve of his mouth, its softness so at odds with the hard, jutting jaw which lay beneath. No, it was something beyond mere beauty which had held so many women in thrall.

His eyes were as alive and as green as grass, framed by lashes so thick and black and lush that just looking at them felt sinful.

But it was more than that. His eyes were watchful and wary, too. At times they seemed almost calculating—although calculating what, it was impossible to say. His eyes held secrets.

And that was the main attraction, Abigail conceded reluctantly. Nick Harrington was like an intricate puzzle that you could spend the rest of your life trying to get to the bottom of.

The sensual mouth had curved into a slow, humourless smile. ‘You’ve grown up, Abby,’ he observed, with a touch of wry surprise. ‘That was a pretty thorough inspection you just subjected me to.’

Her mouth thinned slightly as she met his curious green gaze. Grown up? How right he was. Marriage to Orlando had made her grow up in a big way. ‘And does it bother you?’ she queried coolly.

‘A beautiful girl giving me the once-over?’ he mocked. ‘Who in their right mind would object to that? Though to be scrupulously fair, Abby, I really ought to return the compliment. Oughtn’t I?’

For a moment she was confused, and then, with a rapidly thudding heart, she saw exactly what he meant.

He let his gaze linger from breast to hip, on the long line of her legs which were outlined by the thin material of her black skirt. His eyes roved over her with such a careless, almost insolent appraisal that Abigail found herself blushing furiously, and fastened her hands tightly onto the lapels of her jacket as though she were holding onto a life-jacket.

Because he had never looked at her like that before. As man to woman. For many years she had secretly wanted him to, but now that it was happening she found it curiously unsettling. And insulting.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Nick!’ she snapped angrily. ‘I know that ogling women probably comes as easily to you as breathing—but it isn’t really an appropriate time to ogle me, is it? Or have you always found widows easy prey in the past?’

That hit home. But as soon as the words were out of her mouth Abigail regretted them, her heart sinking with some nameless fear as his mouth became an ugly line and the light of retaliation flared in his eyes. ‘If we’re talking appropriate behaviour,’ he mocked, ‘then I’ve yet to see your tears, Abigail, dear. I’ve rarely met a widow who was so composed. Or who showed quite so much of her beautiful, black-stockinged thighs.’

‘It was the only black suit I had!’ she said defensively.

‘Which just happens to mould every sexy curve of that beautiful body?’ he mocked, with cold laughter in his eyes.

‘Any more of this and I’m getting out and walking,’ she threatened, wondering if he had any inkling of just how her body was betraying her by responding to that erotic criticism.

‘Not in those shoes, you aren’t, sweetheart!’ And the laughter was switched off as he glanced down at the delicate, black patent leather concoctions which were strapped around her narrow ankles. ‘Unless you’re planning to spend the rest of the day in the local casualty department, that is.’ He gave her another appraisal, but this time there was none of the lazy approval which had made her heart race like a train. This time his eyes were impartial. And disapproving.

‘What the hell have you been doing to yourself?’ he demanded. ‘Why are you so thin?’

Abigail glared. ‘Most women in the western hemisphere are striving for cheekbones, Nick!’ she retorted. ‘Don’t you know that you can never be too rich or too thin?’

‘Slenderness should not equal unhealthiness,’ he replied.

‘I am not unhealthy!’

‘No?’ He turned her face towards him and cupped it in his strong, brown hand and Abigail felt, suddenly and frighteningly, terribly, terribly vulnerable. ‘Then why are your cheeks so pale? Your face so pinched? I don’t know about interesting hollows, Abigail—they’re more like bloody great ravines in your case!’ He let his hand drop.

‘Orlando was an actor!’ she said, as if that really mattered. ‘And he liked me to look good!’

‘A thin, pale, pretty little accessory—the compliant little doll,’ he mused reflectively. ‘So, no change there, then.’

‘It wasn’t like that!’

‘No? Then why don’t you tell me what it was like? Tell me about your relationship with Orlando.’

‘No!’ she declared heatedly, aware that he had unwittingly touched on the rawest nerve of all. ‘Why on earth would I want to tell you anything?’

‘Because confession is good for the soul, didn’t you know that, Abby?’ he purred, and now his green eyes were as watchful as a cat’s. ‘Wasn’t marriage everything you dreamed it would be? Did the delectable Orlando fall in your expectations of him?’

And this, too, hit home—far more accurately and woundingly than he could ever have imagined. Abigail’s mouth trembled violently, pain and anger overwhelming her as she met the mocking question in his eyes.

‘You have no right to talk to me that way, Nick! To ask me questions like that! Especially not today,’ she finished on a shudder.

His face was quite expressionless. ‘Oh, but that is where you are wrong, Abby. I have every right,’ he answered, with a smooth assurance which made her want to lash out at him.

She drew a deep breath. ‘And why’s that?’

‘Because your stepfather trusted me. He appointed me executor of his will—’

‘Nick,’ interrupted Abigail. ‘Philip died well over a year ago. You fulfilled all your obligations as executor then. I inherited Philip’s estate—end of story. We are no longer bound by even the most tenuous of ties. We need never see each other again.’

‘No, I don’t suppose we do.’ He gave her a long, considering look. ‘But here I am.’

‘Here you are,’ she said dully, a sharp pang of apprehension overwhelming her as she tried to imagine never seeing him again.

There was silence in the car as it purred through the narrow, frosty lanes, and Abigail tried to tell herself that the unsettling feelings his appearance had provoked were simply a reaction to her husband’s death. And a reminder of her youth, of simpler times, when the outside world had not seemed such a big and hostile place. Because I was cosseted and protected from it, Abigail recognised as she stared at the ploughed fields, where frost like icing sugar glittered thickly.

‘What made you decide to sell all the shares that Philip left you?’ asked Nick suddenly.

The question was so unexpected that Abigail started as though he had tipped icy water over her head. ‘How did you know that?’

He gave her an impatient look. ‘Oh, come on, Abby—I know you wouldn’t exactly qualify as businesswoman of the year, but you can’t be that naive! If shares are floated on the stock market, then it isn’t exactly a state secret, is it?’

‘N-no,’ answered Abigail uncertainly. She would just as easily have ridden a rocket to the moon as been able to talk with any degree of knowledge on the subject of stocks and shares; she had left all that kind of thing to Orlando. Because that, more than anything, had kept him off her back. In more ways than one. A dull flush crept into her cheeks.

‘It just surprised me, that’s all,’ said Nick, giving her a shrewd look. ‘Just as it surprised me that you sold the New York apartment earlier in the year,’

Abigail tasted the bitter flavour of memory in her mouth, the utter chaos of the last year coming back to torment her. ‘Yes, the New York apartment,’ she echoed, in a hollow kind of whisper. ‘Sold.’

‘There’s no need to sound so horrified.’ Nick threw her a strange glance. ‘You knew all about the sale, of course?’

‘How could I not know?’ she queried. ‘It was my flat, wasn’t it? And my inheritance.’

His dark, enigmatic face looked almost pitying. ‘Poor little rich girl,’ he murmured, and turned his dark profile to the car window to survey briefly the English winter landscape. The fat flakes of snow had multiplied and now there were whole armies of them, swirling down to settle on the iron-hard ground.

‘In theory it was your inheritance,’ he continued relentlessly. ‘But when you married dear Orlando, of course, what was yours became his, and what was his became yours. That’s what I love about marriage,’ he added sarcastically. ‘The total trust involved.’

‘You cynical—’

‘Not to mention the fundamental inequality of the equation,’ he carried on relentlessly. ‘Orlando got half your substantial fortune, and you got half Orlando’s debts.’ He gave her a bland smile. ‘Or did you do the decent thing and get rid of them for him? It’s such a strain to begin a marriage with money problems pressing down on you, wouldn’t you say, Abby?’

‘Shut up!’ she yelled heatedly, turning in times of stress to the simple insults of their youth. ‘Just shut up, will you?’

‘Make me,’ he suggested softly.

She did not see the danger in his challenge. ‘Too right I will!’ Abigail lunged at him, hurling herself across the back seat of the car to land half on top of him, with her hands curled up into tiny fists.

She hit him over and over again, pummelling at the solid wall of his chest, calling him every name under the sun, scarcely aware of what she was doing or saying, until at last he captured both hands in one large, firm hand and held them away from him. She became suddenly aware that her face was very close to his, and that her heart was pounding inside her head. And that his lips were parted, almost as if ... as if...

The flicker of desire she felt was immediately obliterated by despair and Abby quickly shut her eyes. When she opened them again it was to find Nick staring down at her repressively, still grasping her hands tightly within his.

‘That’s enough, Abby,’ he told her sternly. ‘Understand? Enough!’

She shook her head, the thick, honey-coloured hair swaying wildly. ‘No! It is not enough!’ she retorted, her voice cracking with the strain of the last few days ... the last few months... ‘Oh, God, Nick...Nick...’

‘I know,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s all right, Abby. I know.’

‘No, you don’t!’ she wailed, as the memory of her marriage slammed home to crush her spirit yet again. ‘You can’t possibly know! No one can!’

‘I know that you need to cry,’ he told her, softly and very deliberately, and drew her into his arms. ‘I know that if you bottle it up much longer, then you’ll explode.’

‘Oh, Nick,’ she moaned, and, burying her face in his immaculate shoulder, Abigail dissolved into helpless, sobbing tears.

CHAPTER TWO

ABIGAIL did not move her head away from Nick’s shoulder, and he let her cry until there were no tears left, until her sobs became dry, exhausted gasps.

He took a large, beautifully pressed handkerchief from his pocket and silently handed it to her, but her hands were trembling so much from the flood of raw emotion that she could barely hold onto it. Abigail waved his hand away distractedly.

‘Here,’ he said, frowning. ‘Let me.’ His touch was almost gentle as he pushed stray strands of hair from her wet cheeks and then dried die tears away.

Abigail felt foolish and vulnerable. And Nick was the last person in the world she would have chosen to witness her breaking down in a full flood of hysterical tears.

‘Better now?’ he queried, after a moment or two.

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘Then let’s go.’ Nick rapped on the smoked-glass panel which divided them from the driver, and it was only then that Abigail noticed the car had pulled over onto the side of the road.

‘W-why did we stop?’ she sniffed as the car pulled away.

‘I didn’t think that you’d want an audience while you wept,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘And certainly not an audience consisting of that crowd up at the house,’ he added disparagingly.

Abigail blew her nose rather more noisily than usual. ‘They’re Orlando’s friends,’ she objected automatically, more because it was the habit of a lifetime, objecting to anything Nick said, rather than because she actually disagreed with him.

‘And yours?’ he quizzed softly. ‘Are they your friends, too?’

Abigail looked at him. ‘Not really, no.’

‘Oh?’

Abigail was beginning to discover that he was simply not the kind of man you could reproach for asking deeply personal questions—that was the trouble. Was it because he had known her for most of her life that he felt he had the right to probe? Or did he ask all women questions like this? ‘They’re not my type.’

He nodded his head, as though her answer came as no surprise to him. ‘I see.’ He glanced down at his shoulder to find a stray, glistening tear, and he ruefully brushed it away with one long finger.

The gesture touched her unbearably—but she didn’t for the life of her know why. And so that she wouldn’t make a fool of herself yet again, by blubbing all over him, Abigail said the first mundane thing which came into her head. ‘I’m sorry about your jacket.’

‘It’s just a jacket.’ He shrugged.

‘I’ll have it cleaned—’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ he interrupted grimly. ‘Stop talking as though we had just met at a cocktail party! I think I preferred you shouting and punching me to that.’

She smiled at the exasperation on his face; for the first time in days she actually smiled. And then her heart missed a beat as his exasperation turned into a brief smile which matched hers.

‘I must look a sight,’ she said automatically.

Green eyes scanned her face, but the smile had disappeared and irritation had replaced it. ‘A bit,’ he answered tersely. ‘Your face is all blotchy and it’s obvious you’ve been crying.’

‘Gee—thanks,’ she answered drily. ‘When I need a boost in confidence, remind me to avoid you like the plague!’

‘Just what is it with you, Abby?’ he demanded softly. ‘You’re supposed to be playing the grieving widow, not a flaming fashion model! Can’t you function properly unless you know you’re looking beautiful?’

She gazed at him in amazement, more at the fact that Nick, Nick, had paid her some kind of compliment—even if it was a backhanded one!—than at his tone of voice. ‘Beautiful?’

He made a clicking sound of impatience. ‘Sorry,’ he said in a bored voice, leaning back carelessly against the seat and staring into space, ‘but I’m not playing that game.’

‘What game?’ she asked, genuinely confused.

His voice changed into a parody of a woman gushing. ‘Oh, heavens, Nick—surely you don’t think that I’m beautiful!’ His eyes hardened as his gaze roved over the pale oval of her face. ‘Particularly when the woman in question has the kind of face which could launch a thousand ships, if you’ll excuse the somewhat hackneyed expression.’

She didn’t have the energy to row. ‘Let’s drop it, shall we?’

‘With pleasure. Anyway, we’re here.’ Nick turned to glance out of the window as the car made its way up the sweeping gravel-drive towards the handsome Georgian house which she and Orlando had bought just after their marriage. They drove through the impressive gardens which were flanked by vast yew tunnels, and a flash of afternoon sunlight glinted off the distant lake.

Through the windows of the lighted drawing-room, Abigail could see people opening bottles and bottles of champagne, and she mentally steeled herself to confront them, wishing that she could order them out of her house and have the place to herself again. Time to lick her wounds and recover.

But tomorrow they would all be gone, she reminded herself. Tomorrow she would have the peace she craved.

‘It’s strange,’ Nick remarked as the car drew to a halt with a soft, swishing sound, ‘but I never imagined that you would end up living in a big, impressive pile in the English countryside, out in the middle of nowhere like this.’

‘Orlando wanted to,’ she found herself telling him. ‘And I liked it here, too,’ she added defensively.

His gaze was unwavering. ‘And did Orlando always get what Orlando wanted?’

Did he know? Had he somehow guessed? Was that the reason for the piercingly direct gaze which seemed perceptive enough to be able to read her mind? Abigail shuddered violently as shame and revulsion washed over her. There was no point in denying what was as obvious as the nose on her face. ‘He did, mostly,’ she managed. ‘He was well schooled in the art of persuasion, you know.’

‘Yes. So I believe.’ Nick looked down at her pale hands, knotted together and lying against the black skirt. ‘Abby, you’re trembling.’ He sounded appalled. ‘What on earth is the matter with you?’

She settled for her only credible source of defence. ‘Need you ask? It’s been a fraught day. A fraught week. And I’m not particularly looking forward to going in there and mingling with people I don’t even like.’

‘Then don’t do it.’

She gave him a sad little smile. ‘I can’t just opt out like that.’

‘Can’t you?’ he queried softly. ‘You can do whatever you want to do, you know.’

‘Only if your name happens to be Nick Harrington,’ came her dry response. ‘And we don’t all have your determination.’

This received the glimmer of a smile. ‘Come on,’ he said, and helped her out of the car with an old-fashioned courtesy which she was quite unused to. It had the effect of making her feel very warm and safe and secure. A girl could get used to being cosseted like this, thought Abigail with a wistfulness which was totally alien to her.

Her instincts had always taught her to be wary where this man was concerned, but instinct also told her that nothing could ever harm her while Nick was around. In a topsy-turvy world, he had a rare strength and constancy of character.

She watched him as he slammed shut the door of the limousine behind them and they slowly began to mount the pale blonde stone of the front steps.

Nick Harrington would, she thought, with a sudden, unwelcome pang of realisation, make some woman one hell of a husband.

They had almost reached the front door when she stopped and turned to face him. ‘You always give me such a hard time, Nick—’