She heard him coming upstairs while she was in the bathroom and automatically she grasped her towel closer to her body as she stared at the closed door.
Something about him made her feel uncomfortably and unfamiliarly aware of her femininity, her sexuality, her vulnerability, and not just because of the way he had spoken to her and looked at her; it went deeper than that, a deep-rooted feminine awareness of his maleness which seemed to add something highly charged and very dangerous to the antagonism between them. She couldn’t remember ever reacting so fiercely, so passionately to any man before.
So passionately! She shivered, pulling the towel even more tightly around herself.
Her type of woman, indeed!
She grimaced as she let the towel drop, her glance drawn reluctantly to her body.
There was no truth in any of his accusations. How could there be? If her hair had been tousled it had simply been because she had just been woken up…by him. And if he had seen that unexpected—unfamiliar—hardening of her nipples, well, it wasn’t her fault that he had totally misinterpreted their message.
She tensed, her face flushing as unbelievably they repeated their earlier reaction. Unwillingly she glanced down at her body, her tension increasing as she saw how flushed the areolae were, how unfamiliarly provocative the outline of her breasts.
Hurriedly she picked up the towel, wrapping it tightly round her body with fingers that shook slightly.
When she went back downstairs, fully dressed, her hair pulled back off her face in what she believed to be a neat and suitably schoolmarmish style, but which in actual fact, instead of making her look severe, simply emphasised the delicacy of her bone-structure and the femininity of her features, there was no sign of Richard Field.
When she looked through the kitchen window, she saw that his car had gone. An indiction that he had decided to do the gentlemanly thing and leave? Somehow Livvy doubted it.
However, while he was gone it would be a good opportunity for her to ring Gale.
CHAPTER FOUR
LIVVY dialled her cousin’s number firmly, standing facing the window, determinedly keeping her fingers crossed that Gale would be in.
She was. Expelling a small sigh of relief, Livvy quickly told her what had happened. She could tell from Gale’s sharp intake of breath that her news had surprised her.
‘Did George tell you that he had arranged for someone to view the farmhouse?’ she asked her cousin.
‘No,’ Gale told her.
‘Gale, you must talk to him,’ Livvy told her.
‘Talk to him? I only wish I could,’ Gale interrupted her bitterly. ‘Robert has sent him away on business—again. George promised he’d ring me but he hasn’t done so as yet. His secretary says she can’t give me a number for him.’
Livvy could hear the anger and frustration in her cousin’s voice.
Was George’s desire to sell the farmhouse the cause of their marital problems, or, more worryingly, merely a symptom of some deeper conflict between them? Livvy knew her cousin well enough to know that she would not react well to any direct questioning.
Instead she said quietly, ‘Gale, I feel I’m in a very invidious position. This man, this friend of George’s has made it quite clear that as far as he’s concerned I’m virtually trespassing, since I’m here without George’s knowledge and since George is the owner of the property. In fact—’
‘That’s nonsense,’ Gale interrupted her angrily. ‘The farmhouse is as much mine as it is George’s.’
‘Morally perhaps, but technically…legally…’
‘There’s no way George would have not wanted you to stay, no matter how he and I…’ She broke off and added almost pleadingly, ‘Livvy, don’t let this man bully you into leaving. From what you’ve said about him it sounds as though he’s deliberately trying to drive you away. He’s probably trying to push George into letting the place go at way below its market value, panicking him into an unfair deal. I know that once I’ve had a chance to talk to him…make him see…
‘Stay there, Livvy, please.’
‘If you can’t get in touch with George, then surely neither can anyone else,’ Livvy pointed out to her.
‘No, perhaps not…apart from Robert Forrest, but I’d feel happier knowing you were there.’
Did she really have any choice? Livvy asked herself after she had replaced the receiver. And not simply because of what Gale had said.
If she left now, backed down now, wouldn’t it look as though she was giving in, running away…as though she didn’t have the courage to stand her ground and continue to confront him?
Her forehead puckered in thought, Livvy heard the sound of a car engine.