The Independent Bride Page 13

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and check the diary. We’ll fix a time and I’ll come and find you, if you give me the address. It’s just the day for the river.’

  He didn’t say it was just the day for seduction, and she had no idea whether it was part of the package. As she followed him back downstairs Pepper made a discovery. She didn’t care. She would go out with Steven Konig and she would take her chances!

  His office was a strange mixture of high tech—computers and scanners abounded—and Jane Austen, Pepper thought. There was a massive fireplace and some beautiful rosewood occasional tables. And the books were all leatherbound and old.

  Steven ignored these anomalies. ‘What is my day looking like, Val?’

  The perfect secretary called a page up on the screen without so much as glancing at them. That woman doesn’t like me, thought Pepper. She put up her chin. Tough!

  The woman ran off a list of appointments. It sounded as if Steven Konig ran the country. What was worse, the subject of each meeting was completely incomprehensible to Pepper.

  I’ve fallen in love with a genius, she thought, depressed. Oh, great. Just what I need. An A-list brain with hormone enhancements.

  She had no time to think about it. Steven was saying, ‘Lunch?’

  ‘The Dean again.’

  ‘Blow the Dean away,’ he said. ‘Tell him sorry, but this is a once in a lifetime day.’

  Pepper’s spine did that zap-to-attention thing again. She thought, I don’t believe he said that. A once in a lifetime day? No man has ever thought he would have a once in a lifetime experience with me. It has to be some obscure British joke. This sort of thing just doesn’t happen to me.

  But Steven was looking across the untidy office straight into Pepper’s eyes. His eyes were eager. Surely that couldn’t be a joke?

  ‘How do you feel about that?’

  He sounded uncertain suddenly. Pepper felt her knees buckle.

  ‘Come on the river with me?’ he said softly. ‘I’ll even read to you.’

  So that answered the seduction question. She knew exactly what he was asking. No one had ever asked her like that before, right out in front of other people, speaking a private language that was meant for her ears alone. Her blood drummed.

  The perfect secretary seemed unaware of the tension. How could she miss it? thought Pepper. It was there in the room, as strong as the smell of coffee or the sound of thunder.

  But the perfect secretary was saying disapprovingly, ‘When will you be back, Master?’

  ‘No idea.’ He didn’t take his eyes off Pepper.

  Her thoughts scurried. I don’t do this sort of thing, she thought. I feel beautiful. How can he make me feel beautiful just by looking at me? I know I’m not beautiful. But when he looks at me like that…

  ‘And what about Windflower?’ said the perfect secretary, oblivious.

  ‘Windflower has a sleepover, thank God.’

  He was talking to Val but he did not take his eyes off Pepper. Then his mouth moved, as if he was kissing her skin, and normal service blew apart in a surge of pure lust. Pepper felt herself go hot, cold, then hot again. A voice in her head said, This could be dangerous to your health. To say nothing of your sanity. But this was not a day for listening to voices in her head.

  Steven said, ‘If I walk you to the covered market, can you pick up a picnic for us?’

  Pepper nodded.

  ‘I’ll bring the wine.’ His smile widened suddenly. ‘And the reading matter.’

  Libidinous literature? Help!

  Pepper could not help herself. She blushed to her eyebrows.

  Steven beamed.

  CHAPTER SIX

  HE WALKED her through the centre of town at top speed, pointing out landmarks as he went.

  ‘Regency terrace. Tudor church. Medieval college. Best bookshop in the world. Biggest salt cellar in the world masquerading as a library.’

  Pretty soon Pepper was breathless and her eyes began to pulse. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I was never designed for competitive walking. And my brain is going into overload here. Please can we stop? That way I can breathe and you can tell me what on earth you’re talking about? Salt cellar?’

  He didn’t actually stop, but he did take her elbow and walk her through a dark arch out into the sun. Then he stopped.

  ‘The Radcliffe Camera,’ he said, bowing towards a domed and columned building.

  Pepper gasped. It was one of the loveliest buildings she had ever seen. The dome glinted in the sun, atop toast-and-honey brick and slender Doric columns.

  ‘It looks like a classical temple set on top of a bread oven,’ she said involuntarily.

  Steven chuckled. ‘Yup.’ He slid his arm round her and drew her close against him. She was sure she could feel his heart beating against her shoulderblade, although he was wearing a jacket, shirt and tie now. Why did he feel so hot? ‘Like it?’ he said, and she thought she could feel his mouth against her hair.

  That had to be crazy. Hair had no nerves. It couldn’t feel.

  Concentrate on what’s in front of you, Pepper, never mind the heat-seeking missile to your left; you don’t know how to handle it. Think about architecture. You can do this.

  The building was certainly worth thinking about. It was set on a lawn in an open square and flanked by more of those honey-coloured walls. The perspective somehow made it seem smaller than it obviously was.

  ‘Love it,’ she said, with all the more enthusiasm because she was trying to ignore the way that every time he breathed in he seemed to pull her closer. ‘Do they leave the bicycles there so you know how big it really is?’

  ‘No, the bicycles come with the job description. It’s a reading room, mainly for undergraduates. Not science, sadly. I go in there sometimes, just to look at the ceiling of the dome. Better than a cathedral—especially with the sun on it. Lots of gold.’

  He released her and looked at his watch. He did not seem as if their closeness had affected him at all. Oh, God, it was that amateur imagination of hers going into overdrive because an attractive man touched her?

  I’m pathetic, thought Pepper, furious with herself. I ought to be stamped with a health warning: This woman can seriously misinterpret your actions.

  ‘Time to move along, if you’re not going to miss your meetings. This way…’

  The covered market was a Victorian structure, with wide avenues, high rafters and lots of ironwork. There were dozens of small booths. They seemed to be selling everything from tee shirts to fine wines. The wide aisles smelled of coffee, cheese and leather books.

  ‘Put together in the eighteenth century originally,’ said Steven, still in tourist guide mode. ‘You might call it the first shopping mall.’

  ‘I’m impressed.’

  She meant by his knowledge, but he misunderstood. ‘Oh, it’s pretty variable. There’s quite a bit of tat here. But some nice bookstalls as well. And the food is the best in Oxford. Buy whatever you like for the picnic. I don’t eat rollmops, but otherwise I’m an omnivore.’

  ‘I’ll remember that,’ she said dryly.

  He grinned. ‘I hope you’ll remember a lot more than that. I’ll see you at the Camera at noon.’

  He bent his tall head and kissed her cheerfully on the cheek. As if he had been doing it all his life. As if they were a couple. Then he was off, briefcase under his arm, whistling.

  Pepper stood stock still and tired to get her breath back. As if they were a couple. It almost felt as if they were.

  Or was that just her lack of experience showing again? Did Steven feel it, too? Or did he drop light kisses on the face of every woman he left to shop?

  All too probably, she told herself. Try and keep a hold on reality, Pepper!

  She rushed through her meetings. Oh, she made practical notes on the properties on offer. But she couldn’t wait to get back to the market, like a child going to its first party.

  Steven was right: the food was brilliant. She bought crusty bread that smelled
of the oven and was still warm; a collection of morsels from the delicatessen that looked like jewels and gleamed with olive oil and herbs; a great slab of local cheese that the shopkeeper made her try which filled her mouth with the firelight taste of walnuts; grapes; salad; and a great bag of cherries. It was going to be the best picnic of her life!

  And then she thought—But I look all wrong.

  She was wearing one of her trademark sober business suits. Fine for visiting the Master of an Oxford college. Just right for meeting with potential landlords. Absolute pits for a relaxed picnic on the river. Especially, thought Pepper, with a wicked tilt to her lips, if seduction was on the programme of attractions.

  Well, the market had everything. She would just have to buy something more appropriate.

  She ended up with a turquoise ruffled skirt, a strappy top bearing the message ‘Go for it’ picked out in sequins, and a pair of daisy-scattered beach pumps. The whole outfit cost less than one of her usual elegant shirts. Pepper shot gleefully into the ladies’ room and changed clothes faster than she had ever changed in her life.

  She rolled up her shirt and business suit into a bundle. Catching sight of herself in the mirror, she realised that was exactly what Izzy had done with her party finery last night. In fact, there was not so much difference between them right at this moment. Well, Pepper wasn’t fashionably slender, and her underwear was not eye-hurting lime-green. But for once you could tell they were cousins. And not just from the fiery hair.

  Quite deliberately, Pepper took what Izzy called a mirror moment. She had left her hair loose this morning—but surely when she’d left home it had not been that riotous cloud of electricity? It looked as if each curl and frond was soaked in sunlight, so that it was shot through with every colour of red from auburn to blood-crimson.

  And it was not just her hair. Her brown eyes looked wide and excited. Her mouth was voluptuously full, part-passionate, part-vulnerable. Pepper put up her fingers to her mouth in wonder. And wholly enticing. Oh, yes, she looked like the cousins all right. Seek and seduce with a vengeance!

  Emerging again, she paused, her grin fading.

  Okay, so seduction was on the programme of attractions. Steven seemed to think so—unless she was getting everything wrong. And now she seemed to be signing up to it, too.

  So I’d better be responsible about this, thought Pepper, sobered. All her previous romantic encounters had been with careful sons of her grandmother’s acquaintance. In that world men took unspoken charge of the practicalities. They would be affronted if you suggested anything else.

  But this was Britain. This was Izzy’s and Jemima’s country. Pepper had already seen that they did things differently here.

  Okay, this was uncharted territory for Pepper. She did not know what Steven would expect of her. But she had lived long enough with her cousins to observe some of the local habits.

  She tried to think what Izzy would do. One conclusion was obvious. Pepper made one last stop before she finished her shopping.

  ‘Another first,’ she said, soberly pleased with herself. She stuffed the packet of condoms into her handbag and headed for their meeting place.

  He proved to be expert on the river. The water around the boathouse was full of punts shunting backwards and forwards, bumping into each other and the bank. Steven, however, sent their boat snaking through the melee without incident. Once clear of the throng, he streaked them up the river, away from all the other boats.

  Pepper lay back among cushions and watched the powerful economy of his punting. She remembered what she had thought when she first saw him this morning, all tanned thigh muscles and sexily ruffled hair. She smiled.

  ‘Do you work out?’

  Steven grinned. ‘You say all the right things.’

  Pepper chuckled. ‘Customer satisfaction is the object at all times. So how often do you go to the gym?’

  He shook his head. ‘No gym. I run most mornings. And I try to go to the Budokwai once a week.’

  ‘Sounds serious. What do you do at the Budo-thing?’

  ‘Budokwai.’ He spelt it out. ‘Judo. Done it all my life. It’s very balancing.’

  She cocked her head to one side. ‘I thought it was about kicking the hell out of each other.’

  ‘Not judo. Judo is about managing the prevailing forces. You’re supposed to turn your opponent’s own strength against him.’

  ‘Pretty sneaky.’

  ‘But a great training for life.’

  There was a smile in his eyes. Pepper lounged at his feet, looking up at him, and that look in his eyes was like a kiss. More than a kiss. She stretched luxuriantly and watched his eyes flicker.

  Yes! she thought, exultant.

  Eventually they came to a quiet stretch of river and Steven slid the punt in to the bank under the shimmering curtain of a willow tree. He drove the punt pole into the riverbed, constricting the punt’s movement.

  Eventually the boat’s gentle rocking faded to nothing. The long willow fronds swayed and then, slowly, returned to perfect stillness. In the afternoon heat nothing moved, except water boatmen darting over the dark, diamond-flecked water. Even the birds were silent.

  Steven lay down beside Pepper.

  She tensed. Oh, Lord, here it comes. The full seduction by summer. I know I thought I’d signed up to it. But now it’s here, I’m not sure. It’s been too long…I wish I were twenty pounds lighter…I wish I knew more about him…I could get into very deep water here…Help!

  She held her breath until she shook with the effort of it. But all Steven did was put his hands behind his head and look up through the willow.

  ‘I’d breathe soon if I were you,’ he said, still staring upwards. ‘Or you’ll pass out.’ His voice took on an edge. ‘And then you don’t know what I might do.’

  Pepper gave a great explosive gasp and the boat rocked. She grabbed for the side and sat up, glaring at him.

  ‘What?’

  He still did not look at her. ‘All you have to do is say no, you know,’ he said in a conversational tone.

  Pepper ground her teeth. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What I say. You haven’t made up your mind yet.’ He withdrew his eyes from the sky briefly and gave her a long, level look. ‘I can live with that. I’d rather not have you lying there palpitating, though. I’m not about to ravish you against your will.’

  Ouch!

  After a moment Pepper said in a suffocated voice, ‘Am I so transparent?’

  He softened. ‘Hey, we’re both on a learning curve here.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She was really perturbed.

  ‘No sweat. We’ll work it out. For now, why don’t you just kick back and drink in the day?’

  Slowly, awkwardly, she lay down again. Her limbs felt as stiff as a china doll’s. But Steven did not make a move towards her and eventually she followed his eyes, up through the willow.

  The sun was spraying tiny rainbows off thousands of leaves. It was like lying in the heart of a waterfall. She closed her eyes, dazzled. Her breathing steadied a little.

  ‘Perfect,’ she heard him say dreamily.

  Eyes still shut, Pepper felt her hand taken. Held gently, but very firmly. And slowly, slowly, the tension went out of her. Her head quietened. And her heart—her heart began to open. Open to the sun; to murmurous not-quite-silence; to the man who would not ravish her against her will. Who was on a learning curve, too.

  Who was holding her hand as if they belonged together. And who wasn’t going to do anything else until she made up her mind…

  Pepper made up her mind. ‘Steven,’ she said softly.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hold me?’

  There was a moment when everything seemed suspended. A bit of Pepper was crouching inside her head with its hands over its eyes moaning, I can’t believe you just said that. But all the rest of her was waiting when Steven came up on his elbow, rather carefully, and bent over her.

  It was a long, surprising embrace. Pepper b
egan to realise just how little she had discovered about her own desires in all her previous experience.

  Experience? Huh! This was experience. Everything else before today had been sex by numbers. She realised that now. You followed the guidelines and you got pleasure. Steven could make her feel more with a fingertip to her parted lips than she had ever felt in her life before.

  Feel more? Who was she kidding. He made her want more! Want as she had never wanted before. And all without once losing his own immaculate control. Not even when she heard herself cry out in amazed delight.

  Oh, wow, am I into uncharted territory here.

  Burying her face in the curve of his shoulder, she clung to him. Slowly the convulsive trembling stilled. Slowly her pulses returned to normal. Delight remained, though. Delight in every atom of her body.

  Eventually Pepper stirred. ‘Kissing girls in a punt has to be a specialised skill,’ she said. ‘And, boy, have you got it!’

  Steven raised his head. ‘Why, thank you, ma’am.’

  She held herself away from him, dazed and trying not to show it. ‘Put in a lot of practice?’

  His arms tightened. ‘I could use some more.’

  Pepper searched his face. His kiss had left her tingling to her toes. But he seemed unmoved. Well, not unmoved exactly. Just not carried away.

  As if to underline Steven’s continued equilibrium, the punt swayed as serenely as a rocking chair. Steven’s expression was a potent mixture of laughter, pleasure and anticipation. All shared.

  Not dazed, though. She didn’t send him into orbit the way he sent her. Pepper Calhoun, come in. Your time is up!

  Regretfully, she sat up and tried to find her docking station on Planet Earth.

  ‘Hey, what about this picnic I brought? My self-esteem will be zero if we don’t eat.’

  He did not try to pull her back into his arms. Nor did he try to argue back. Surely he would have argued if he had been the smallest, tiniest bit dazed?

  But he didn’t. Instead he said, ‘And there’s champagne, too.’

  Pepper looked at him cautiously. ‘Is this a celebration?’