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Hazel leant back, looking straight into his tortured blue eyes. 'Why not? As you said, you've seen me naked before.'
His hands shook as he turned away from her. 'But not like this, not like this!’ he moaned.
‘I don't understand.’ She looked dazed. 'What do you mean?' She tried to get up and collapsed back against the pillows. 'I don't know what the doctor gave me, but I don't seem to have any strength.’
'They were sedatives, and it looks as if they're starting to take effect. Oh God, what the hell can I do now? I have to get you undressed.'
But as soon as he touched her again she could feel her blood turn to molten fire, and she turned her body into his hands. 'Oh, Rafe, Rafe, I want you!'
He tried to push her away, but of their own volition his hands seemed to be straining her against him. Her hands moved up to caress his taut back through his shirt. 'Stop it, Hazel! You have to stop this,' he told her weakly.
'Kiss me,' her mouth was only inches away from his. ‘I want you to kiss me.'
'I can't. I can't, I tell you!'
She pouted. 'But you wanted to last night.'
He shook her. ‘Damn these drugs! It's making you act out of character.'
'In character, Rafe. It's just making it possible for me to say things I wouldn't have the courage to say normally. I want you, Rafe. I want you to make love to me like you did before I went away.'
He gave a twisted smile. 'You're going to regret saying that in the morning.'
Her eyes brightened. 'Then you'll stay with me?' She put his hand on her breast. 'You'll stay with me tonight?’
He wrenched his hand away and moved savagely off the bed. 'No, I won't' stay with you!' He threw the candlewick cover over her. 'Stop tempting me, for God's sake! Sara will be up here in a moment. What would I tell her if she found us together like this?'
She gazed at him with dreamy eyes. 'I don't know, what would you tell her?'
'It will never be put to the test, so I won't even think about it. If I can just get out of here I'll be fine.' Rafe ran his hand through his already tousled hair. 'Yes, that's it, I'll get out of here.'
She put out a hand towards him. 'Don't leave me, Rafe. Please, don't leave me!'
His face darkened. 'You have to stop this. Hazel. I've already said no, and I mean it'
'Mr Rafe!' Sara stood in the open doorway, the laden tray in her hand, a shocked look on her face. She came further into the room. 'You shouldn't be talking to her like that—she isn't well.'
Blue eyes raked mercilessly over Hazel. 'She's well enough,' he said abruptly. 'See that she gets undressed and into bed. I'm going to my study.' He looked briefly at Hazel, seeming to hesitate. 'If you need me you just give me a call.'
Sara was busy arranging the tray on the side-table. 'Now why would I be needing you, Mr Rafe? It won't be the first time I've put Miss Hazel to bed when she hasn't been well.'
'I didn't necessarily mean you, Sara,' he said deeply, his eyes never leaving Hazel's flushed face.
'Changed your mind, Rafe?' she challenged.
He met that challenge. 'Maybe.'
'Later?'
'I—i------' He took a deep breath. 'No! No, not later. Never!' He slammed the door behind him,
Sara looked after him in surprise. 'Now what's eating him?' she mused slowly.
Hazel yawned. 'Don't worry about Rafe, you know how moody he can be.' She sat up, and the cover fell away from her bare breasts. 'Oops!' she laughed self-consciously, yawning tiredly. 'I can't seem to keep awake.'
Sara pulled the cover quickly back over her. 'You surely didn't let Mr Rafe see you like that?' she showed her shock.
The tablets were making Hazel feel slightly drunk as she tried to stay awake. 'Of course he did, Sara. He was helping me undress.'
'He------Oh, surely not?' Sara gave a nervous laugh.
'Mr Rafe wouldn't do a thing like that. Now are you going to have your soup?'
'Mm,' Hazel gave a sleepy smile. 'Then I really shall have to go to sleep.'
Sara watched over her as she drank the soup, and then helped her into her nightgown before picking up the tray. 'Mr Rafe wasn't really helping you undress, was he?' she asked uncertainly.
Hazel snuggled down into the pillows. 'If you say not, Sara,' she murmured, already drifting off to sleep.
'But was he?' Sara persisted.
'I suppose not.'
She didn't hear Sara leave the room, her mind was already drifting off into a hazy world where Rafe was holding her in his arms, his lips bringing her to vibrant pulsating life.
When she woke up it was very dark and for a moment she thought she was alone; the pain in her head was excruciating. She saw a movement in the corner of the room and sat up to see what it was, then cried out as the pain shot anew through her head.
A dark shadow loomed up beside the bed. 'Rafe?' she asked tentatively.
The side-light was cruelly flicked on. 'No, it's not Rafe,' Celia drawled. 'Is he in the habit of visiting your bedroom in the dead of night?'
Hazel pushed the hair off her face. 'Of—of course not. I just thought------!
'You thought I was my dear brother. I'm curious as to why you should think that.'
Hazel wasn't up to this verbal fencing. 'Rafe said I had to have someone with me day and night for a couple of days. I thought he------' she broke off lamely.
'I just thought you were him.'
Celia gave a taunting smile. 'It would hardly be proper for Rafe to be in your bedroom this time of night.'
'What time is it?'
'Just after three. You've been out for hours.' She poured out a glass of water from the jug on the bedside table, holding out two tablets with it. 'I was told to give you two of these when you woke up.’
Hazel swallowed the pain-killers gratefully and fell gently back among the pillows. 'It's nice of you to sit with me like this.’
Celia shrugged, going back to her sitting position near the window. ‘I didn't really have any choice in the matter, not if I didn't want to incur Rafe's anger.'
'That's never bothered you before,’ Hazel said wanly.
‘It doesn't bother me now, except that we had quite a row about you yesterday, and I don't want a repeat of it. He almost threatened to throw me out,' Celia added angrily.
Hazel's eyes widened. 'Not because of me, surely?'
Celia gave her a cool look. 'You came into it, you and that boy-friend of yours. Now go to sleep, Hazel, you bore me more than being alone does.'
'Oh.'
‘Yes, oh. You couldn't just quietly spend a week here and then just as quietly leave. Oh no, you had to have the whole house in an uproar. Well just because I'm here with you now it doesn't mean I dislike you any less, I'm just thinking of the fact that I have to live here with Rafe after you've left. And I don't intend falling out with him over a little slut like you.'
'How dare you!' Hazel choked.
'Oh, I dare,' Celia gave a cruel smile. 'I know all about you. Hazel, all about you and Rafe three years ago.'
'But you------What do you mean?' Hazel demanded weakly, feeling as if her world were crumbling beneath her.
'I know about the two of you down in the cabin three years ago, on the night of your birthday. I know all about that, Hazel.'
Hazel was deathly pale. 'How do you know?' 'Because Rafe told me,' Celia announced calmly. 'He told me how you had wantonly offered yourself to him and how he had lost control.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
'I don't believe you!'
Celia smiled again. 'But it's the truth, Hazel. I have to admit to feeling a certain amount of shock at the time, but after all, Rafe's only a man.’
Only a man, yes, but a man who had the power of life or death where she was concerned. And what Celia was telling her now was slowly killing her. Hazel swallowed hard. 'What did he tell you?'
Celia shrugged. 'He didn't need to tell me that much, just that it happened. I'd seen it coming for weeks, seen the way you constantly flaunted yourself in front of him, living in the same house as him made that all too easy for you. By the night of your party he didn't stand a chance.'
'I didn't manage it all on my own, you know,' Hazel said resentfully. 'Rafe was there too.'
'I'm not stupid, Hazel,' Celia snapped. 'But a man doesn't usually make that sort of move without a certain amount of encouragement. And you were certainly giving him that. Thank God you weren't pregnant!'
It wasn't what Hazel had been wishing earlier. 'Yes,' she agreed quietly.
'You would have had Rafe well and truly trapped then. As it is he's been filled with feelings of guilt for the last three years. He was your guardian and he felt he'd let you down in the worst possible way. Why do you think he had that accident?—because he just wasn't thinking, that's why!'
'But James said there was a leak in the petrol tank.'
'So there was. But you know how careful Rafe always was with regard to things like that, ordinarily he would have spotted the fault. It was pure carelessness on his part—and he's landed up scarred for life.'
Hazel licked her dry lips. 'You should have let me know about it, Celia. I had a right to know if Rafe was ill.'
Celia's eye gleamed with fierce dislike in the half-light of the room. 'As far as I was concerned you had no rights at all,' she said through gritted teeth. 'You caused his accident and you had no place at his side.'
Hazel shook her head. 'I think you're wrong to blame me. I don't think what happened between us bothered Rafe to that extent. I don't think he even thought about me once I left here—he never replied to my letters.'
'What could he say?' Celia scorned. 'That he was sorry? He'd already said that. He wanted you to make a new life for yourself in America, to perhaps find yourself a husband out there. But your letters didn't show any such inclination, which made Rafe feel even guiltier. Now you know why you had to come back here, why I cabled you. You have a week to prove to Rafe that you don't need him, and so far you aren't doing too well,' she added contemptuously.
