man: categorically and formidably a man. He was wildly dark, darker than Cato, even, with thick, muscular shoulders and hard black eyes. His face was brutally beautiful, a passionate structure beneath the shadow of a beard. His hair was a liquid, livid sable. He carried the scent of damp forest glades and burning wood.
Olivia stood. The mangled attempt at a bandage spooled to the floor.
‘Anyone would think you weren’t pleased to see me,’ Cato sneered.
‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ said Charles.
Cato pushed back the bench with an alarming scrape and sprang to his feet, his palms spread wide on the wood. ‘I hope you’re pleased with yourself,’ he spat. ‘Letting the place go to rack and ruin, risking a young girl’s life!’
The jet eyes landed on Olivia. ‘What happened?’
‘Nothing.’ The girl spoke up. The wound had started to prickle with crimson and she clutched it to keep it hidden.
‘I’ll call for a taxi, shall I?’ Baps retreated, pulling Caggie after her.
‘We almost had a death on our hands,’ Cato hissed, ‘thanks to you and your lackadaisical attitude. Even after all these years do I still need to tell you how to run your affairs, old boy? Olivia here nearly wound up as road kill—if I hadn’t been so deft at negotiating that canyon of potholes who knows what might have happened?’
Charles was unmoved. ‘She looks all right to me.’
Susanna was gratified that, despite his brother’s looks, the Lomax charm had all gone in Cato’s direction.
‘I’m Susanna,’ she said, giving him her most winning smile.
He didn’t take his glare from Cato’s. ‘Would it be too much to hope you might arrive, for once, without the usual dose of drama?’
‘Please,’ Cato swiped back. ‘You’ve been thriving on drama for the past fifteen years.’
‘There’s only one of us who’s thrived.’
‘Is that so?’
‘That’s so.’
‘Do get over it, Charles,’ he blasted. ‘The rest of us have.’
Baps appeared, fingers knotted nervously at her waist. ‘A car is on its way.’
‘Thank you.’
Charles’ voice was shiveringly intense, deep and soft as the most exquisite of fucks, and Susanna was overcome with the desire to fling herself between the two brothers and have them each ravish her ferociously over the kitchen table, at the centre of which was a lamb casserole that was rapidly getting cold.
And then, something extraordinary happened. On Olivia’s way past, he seized her wrist and brought it towards him. The speed and seamlessness of the movement was utterly spellbinding. Wordlessly he pressed a rag against her skin and wound the lint, quickly, once and then twice and then it was done. It was horrifically sexy.
Bewildered, mumbling her thanks, Olivia shot from the room.
Moments later the front door slammed.
‘I’m going to bed,’ said Cato.
‘What about supper?’ Baps objected. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’
Cato stopped at a level with Charles, the top of his head a fraction shorter than his brother’s. ‘I can’t think why, but I seem to have lost my appetite.’
A thread could have divided the men’s chests: Cato’s lifted and fell with the hot breath of combat; Charles’ was utterly still. The silent war raged on.
Cato broke it, lips curling round the bitter shape of a single word: ‘Goodnight.’
Susanna gazed longingly at the casserole as her lover slipped from the room. A bowl of crispy golden potatoes sat next to it, sprinkled with rock salt and rosemary.
‘Come along, Mole!’ came a distant, urgent summons.
With a brief, apologetic glance at Charles, she scurried after it.
Chapter Six
O N S ATURDAY MORNING Olivia wobbled up the muddy track to the Barley Nook stables, sandals slipping off the backs of her feet so that her ankle kept catching on the greasy chain. Her denim shorts were baking hot, and beyond the paddocks the green line of the sea was desperately tantalising. She stopped at the crooked gate and wheeled on to the verge,