Tall, Dark & Scandalous

CHAPTER SIX

‘I’M GOING back to my study to work.’ Jordan reached for his cane to stand up from the table where they had just sat in total silence eating the warming soup.

It had been an uncomfortable silence. A silence full of awareness. Mental. Emotional. But most of all physical.

Jordan still had no explanation at to why he was even attracted to the determined and difficult physiotherapist. He had never been attracted to green-eyed redheads of medium height and medium build before now. He had certainly never found argumentative women in the least appealing.

Stephanie McKinley was all those things and more.

The ‘more’ being her mulish stubbornness in refusing to leave Mulberry Hall!

Well, just because she wouldn’t leave there was no reason for Jordan to have to stay in the same room as her. ‘I don’t want to be disturbed for the rest of the afternoon, but you can come and get me when dinner’s ready,’ he said autocratically as Stephanie stood up to clear the table.

‘Yes, My Lord.’ She turned to give him a mocking curtsy. ‘Certainly, My Lord.’

Jordan drew in a sharp breath even as his gaze narrowed on her suspiciously. He had assumed earlier that she knew nothing about the history of the St Claire family. She had certainly given no indication when they’d talked earlier that she had connected Jordan’s family with the Dukes of Stourbridge, or that she knew he really was a lord in truth.

There was no indication of that knowledge in Stephanie’s mischievous expression now, either—only a glint of mocking laughter in those expressive green eyes to go with that curtsy she had just given him.

Jordan relaxed. ‘If I really were a lord, and this were a few hundred years ago, then I would have put you out onto the streets to starve by now for your insolence.’

She gave a rueful shake of her head. ‘Then how lucky it is for me that the time of the feudal overlord is long gone.’

Perhaps someone should have mentioned that to Jordan’s older brother? Lucan was no more inclined to use his title than Jordan and Gideon were, but there was still no doubting that Lucan was every bit as arrogant as their aristocratic ducal forebears were reputed to have been!

‘Yes, lucky for you,’ Jordan agreed dryly. ‘As for dinner—I believe you said that eating a healthy diet was a necessary part of my treatment?’ he reminded her.

She smiled slightly. ‘Do I take it from that comment that it’s your intention to agree to accept only the parts of that treatment which suit you?’

‘Of course.’ He looked at her down his gorgeous nose.

Stephanie had never met anyone quite like Jordan St Claire.

Never before had she wanted to slap a man at the same time as she so desperately wanted to experience the passion of his kisses!

She sighed. ‘I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that.’

‘You aren’t afraid at all, Stephanie,’ he contradicted her flatly.

He had no idea! ‘What work are you doing in your study?’

‘None of your damned business,’ Jordan said evenly.

So much for trying to change the subject to something less controversial!

The real problem for Stephanie was that even when they weren’t engaged in one of these irritating conversations she was still aware of everything about him. Even sitting down and eating lunch with him had been something of an ordeal in self-restraint.

She had found herself looking at Jordan’s hands far too often as he ate, easily able to remember those hands caressing her back earlier. Igniting that fire of longing inside her…

Oh, God! she thought, almost groaning aloud. Maybe she should just leave here, after all? Admit defeat and just go. Before she was tempted into doing something she would most definitely regret.

No, she couldn’t leave.

Between the two of them, Richard and Rosalind Newman had been making Stephanie’s life in London a living hell. She simply refused to let her awareness of Jordan force her into returning until Joey could assure her that particular nightmare was over.

‘Is there anything you want me to pass on to Lucan when I speak to him later this afternoon?’ She arched challenging brows.

Jordan scowled back at her. ‘I very much doubt that my big brother expects you to give him an hour-by-hour report on my progress.’

‘Or otherwise,’ she shot back.

‘Or otherwise,’ he confirmed

‘No, probably not,’ Stephanie accepted lightly. ‘But as I have nothing else to do this afternoon…’

Jordan knew the little minx was challenging him. Attempting to hold the threat of Lucan’s displeasure over him. A totally useless threat as far as Jordan was concerned. ‘I ceased being in awe of my brother the moment I realised that he has to go to the bathroom like the rest of humanity.’

She grimaced. ‘I really didn’t need that image, thank you very much!’

Jordan shrugged. ‘Believe me, it’s a good leveller in almost any circumstances.’

‘In Lucan’s case, it’s one I could well do without.’

‘Suit yourself,’ Jordan drawled. ‘I usually like to eat dinner about seven.’

‘When you bother to eat at all.’

He gave a mocking smile. ‘As you’ve insisted on staying here, I expect to eat regularly and often.’

Stephanie wasn’t totally sure which appetite Jordan was referring to, but she had her suspicions…

She had worked with dozens of patients over the last three years. Young. Old. Female as well as male. Some of them had been extremely difficult to work with, yes—those were the cases she specialised in, after all—but none of them had been as impossible as the man standing in front of her now.

Her mouth firmed. ‘At the risk of repeating myself—I am not here for your amusement.’

‘Repeat yourself all you like, Stephanie,’ he said. ‘The only things you can do for me at the moment are feed me or amuse me. I’ll leave it up to you which one you want to do at any given time…’

Stephanie stared at him furiously for several seconds. ‘Oh, just go away, will you?’ she finally huffed irritably. In all of her daydreams, all her fantasies about actually meeting Jordan Simpson, Stephanie had never once imagined herself telling him to go away!

‘I’ll take that to mean that you want time to think about what to cook me for dinner,’ Jordan said.

Stephanie shot him another frowning glare, only breathing a sigh of relief once he had left the kitchen. She heard the sound of him whistling tunelessly to himself as he walked down the corridor and then shut the study door behind him seconds later.

There had to be a way for Stephanie to get through to Jordan—to make him accept the professional help Lucan had hired her for. She just had no idea what it was!

‘Comfortable?’ Jordan asked sarcastically later that evening, as he entered the sitting room to find her curled up comfortably in one of the armchairs, the only illumination in the room coming from the warm and crackling fire she had lit in the hearth.

‘Very, thank you,’ she answered, and she sat up to swing her bare feet slowly to the floor, still wearing the dark green sweater and fitted jeans she had changed into earlier. ‘It isn’t seven o’clock yet, is it?’

Jordan’s jaw tightened, and his eyes hooded to conceal their expression as he took in how the firelight picked out every amazing colour in Stephanie’s plaited hair. ‘I’ve worked long enough for now. How was your afternoon?’ He leant heavily on his cane as he came further into the room, the pain in his hip and leg from sitting down all afternoon making his tone harsher than he’d intended.

‘Boring,’ she admitted.

He raised dark brows. ‘Boring?’

She gave a shrug. ‘I’m simply not used to sitting around all day having nothing to do.’

Boredom was something that Jordan knew a lot about, after the weeks he had spent in hospital in the States before coming here. ‘There’s lots of books in here you could have read. Or you could have gone for another walk. Or another swim,’ he added dryly.

Stephanie gave a pained wince. ‘I’m not going back in the pool until you do.’

‘Then you’ll be waiting a long time,’ Jordan rasped, scowling as moved awkwardly to drop down into the armchair opposite hers, sighing in relief to be off his hip once again. He dropped his head back against the chair to turn and look at her. ‘Do you ever wear your hair loose?’

Stephanie put a self-conscious hand up to the slightly untidy plait. ‘Not really.’

‘Then why bother to keep it long at all?’

‘I—I’ve never really thought about it.’ She frowned, very uncomfortable under the scrutiny of that piercingly narrowed gaze.

Jordan looked predatory in the firelight, his eyes an amber glitter, every sculptured angle of his face thrown into sharp relief: the harsh slash of his cheekbones, the long aristocratic nose, his hard, sensual mouth, and the strong lines of his jaw darkened by a five o’clock shadow.

Stephanie sensed a waiting stillness about him. A coiled expectancy much like a jungle cat poised to spring. With Stephanie as its prey!

She stood up abruptly, needing to escape from all that leashed power for a few minutes, at least. ‘Would you like a glass of wine before dinner?’

Jordan gave a brief smile. ‘I thought you would never ask.’

Stephanie paused in the doorway. ‘You’re in pain again, aren’t you?’ She could see by the deepening of the grooves beside his eyes and mouth and the weary droop of his head that he was inwardly battling to keep that pain under his control rather than letting it control him.

He shot her a hard look. ‘Just get the damned wine, will you?’

She bit back her own angry retort, knowing by the dangerous glitter in Jordan’s eyes that now was not the time to argue with him on the subject of the pain he was suffering. Or the unsatisfactory method he chose to dull that pain. ‘Would you like red or white?’

‘That all depends what you’re making for dinner.’

She shrugged. ‘I have potatoes and lasagne baking in the oven, and a salad made up and stored in the fridge.’

‘Red, then. Just go, will you, Stephanie?’ he urged fiercely as she still hesitated in the doorway. ‘When you come back I promise to try and do my best to make polite pre-dinner conversation.’ The harshness of his expression softened slightly.

She looked sceptical. ‘About what?’

‘How the hell should I know?’ His snappy impatience wasn’t in the least conducive to polite conversation! ‘It’s been so long since I tried that I think I’ve lost the art of small talk.’

Stephanie wasn’t sure he’d ever had it!

Even as the charming and magnetically handsome Jordan Simpson, he’d been known as a man who didn’t suffer fools gladly—a professional perfectionist, with little patience for actors less inclined to give so completely of themselves.

As Jordan St Claire, a man well away from the public limelight, he didn’t even attempt any of the social niceties, but was either caustic or mocking. That mood depended, Stephanie was fast realising, on the degree of pain he was in at the time. Right now she would say he was in a lot of pain.

‘I’ve never particularly enjoyed the shallowness of small talk, either,’ Stephanie told him.

‘Then I guess we’ll both have to work at it, won’t we?’ Jordan closed his eyes to lay his head back against the chair, his expression harsh and unapproachable.

Or just pained…

Stephanie was becoming more convinced by the moment that his hip and leg were more painful than usual this evening. She could see the effects of that pain in the dark shadows beneath those gold-coloured eyes, and in the way his skin stretched tautly over those high cheekbones and shadowed jaw. No doubt wine helped to numb that pain for a while, but it wouldn’t take it away completely.

Even though she didn’t think drinking wine was the answer, she knew that Jordan accepting some sort of help to manage his pain was better than no help at all. So she turned on her heel and sped off to get some.

‘Here you are.’ Stephanie returned from the kitchen a few minutes later to hand Jordan one of the glasses of red wine she’d brought, and placed the bottle on the table beside him before carrying her own glass across the room and resuming her seat near the warmth of the fire. ‘So, what shall we talk about?’ she prompted after a few minutes of awkward silence.

Jordan had sat up to drink half the glass of Merlot in one swallow, knowing from experience that it would take a few minutes for the alcohol to kick into his system and hopefully numb some of the pain in his hip and leg. ‘Why don’t you start by telling me about your family?’ He refilled his glass as he waited for her to answer.

She raised surprised brows. ‘What do you want to know about them?’

‘You’re really hard work, do you know that?’ he growled.

‘And you aren’t?’

‘You already know about my family,’ Jordan pointed out. ‘Two brothers, both older than me, one by two years, the other by two minutes. End of story.’

‘What about your parents? Are they both still alive?’ Stephanie sipped her own wine more slowly.

‘Just my mother. She lives in Scotland,’ Jordan answered curtly.

Stephanie seemed to expect him to say more on the subject. But Jordan had no intention of saying any more. He wasn’t going to tell her that his mother, the Duchess of Stourbridge, was desperately awaiting the marriage of her eldest son so that she could step back and become simply the Dowager Duchess. That she was impatiently waiting for any of her sons to marry and provide her with the grandchildren she so longed for. As none of those three sons had ever had a permanent woman in his life, let alone thought of marriage, she was in for a very long wait indeed.

So instead Molly doted on her three sons. In fact if she had her way she would be down here right now, fussing over Jordan. Much as he loved and appreciated his mother, that was something he could definitely do without!

‘Your turn,’ he invited Stephanie dryly. ‘Start with your grandparents and work your way down,’ Jordan prompted as she hesitated.

She gave an awkward shrug. ‘I don’t usually discuss my private life with my patients.’

‘I thought we had agreed that I’m not your patient?’

‘Then what am I doing here?’

‘Who the hell knows?’ Jordan heard the aggression in his tone, and regretted it, but the wine was taking longer than usual to numb the pain this evening—to the point that he was gritting his teeth together so tightly he was surprised he could talk at all!

Stephanie gave him a reproving frown. ‘Very well. All four of my grandparents are still alive. As are both my parents. I—’

‘I wasn’t asking for a roll call,’ Jordan sighed. ‘Look, Stephanie, this is how it goes, okay? I ask you a polite question, you give me a pleasant answer. With details. Voilà—small talk.’

Stephanie knew what small talk was. She just didn’t have any patience for it. ‘My paternal grandparents moved to Surrey when my grandfather sold his construction business five years ago. My maternal grandparents live in Oxfordshire—my grandmother is a retired university professor, and simply couldn’t bring herself to move from the city where she had taught for so many years. My mother and father live in Kent and run a garden centre together.’

‘Better.’ Jordan nodded approvingly.

‘I have one sibling. Joey. She—’

‘Joey is a she?’

‘Short for Josephine,’ Stephanie supplied with a smile, relieved to see that some of the pained tension was starting to leave Jordan’s face. ‘But anyone calling her by that name had better be prepared to receive a black eye or worse!’

‘Worse?’

‘She put a frog down the shirt of a boy at school when he dared to tease her by chanting her full name,’ she remembered affectionately.

‘And the black eye?’

‘A man she dated for a while at university.’ Stephanie shrugged. ‘Needless to say they didn’t date again after that.’

‘No, I don’t suppose they did,’ Jordan chuckled softly as he felt his muscles starting to relax from the effects of the wine and the soothing firelight. ‘So how old is Joey and what does she do?’

‘She’s a lawyer.’

‘Aged…?’

‘Late twenties,’ Stephanie answered evasively before taking a sip of her own wine; she had known exactly where this conversation was going the moment Jordan asked to know about her family!