Guilty Love (Completed)

Chapter Fifteen

The sunset was spectacular, lighting the landscape with a glowing warmth that riveted her attention. The world was beautiful, she had never realised before just how beautiful, all her senses seemed to have been sharpened by coming so close to death. The sky was awash with colour, gold, rose-pink, tender blue, the soft white of clouds.

Her eye followed the rolling green fields to a distant spur of blue-hazed hills, then came back to the hedges they passed, riotous with wild flowers. Dreamily she noted them flash by: pinky-purple foxgloves, as speckled as a snake inside the long bell shape, climbing dog rose, abundant with fragile, very pale pink-roses; deep scarlet poppies with blue-black centres, shedding their petals on the road, the lacy, creamy sprays of meadowsweet filling the air with a fragrance like honey, and rose-baywillow-herb which had once brightened the bomb sites of London during the summers of the last war and still grew wherever it could find  a space on waste land.

Ritchie made no attempts to talk to her. He sat staring out of his own window, one long leg crossed over the other, his arm folded too. She wondered what he was thinking. Whatever it was, it wasn't making him happy. His face was grim.

By the time they got to the Green Man, the pub car park was filling up with cars. It was a favourite night spot for townsfolk who liked a drive out to the country on long, hot summer evenings to have dinner, or sit in the beer gardens behind the pub, drinking and talking and listening to music from the bar.

"It quitens down at ten-thirty, when the bars shut," Ritchie promised as they went up to their own room. "I've managed to get a table in the restaurant, so how about eating in half an hour? Can you be ready by then? I don't know about you, but I want to have a bath first, I feel as if I've been down a coalmine,"

She gave a faintly hysterical giggle. "You look it!" His eyes had smudged rims, black smoke dust was etched into the lines on his face. His expression lightened for a second and he grinned. "You don't look much better yourself! Don't take too long in your bath, though. I'll tap on your door when I'm ready to go down."

She didn't have a change of clothes with her, and her white blouse was filthy, so when she had her bath, she only put her red jacket on, buttoning it up to the neck. She washed her blouse out then, and hung it over the bath to drip dry during the night. Just as she finished doing that, Ritchie tapped on the door and she joined him.

He ran a comprehensive glance over her, his black brows arching. "Well, you look a lot better now, but aren't you hot in that jacket?" "My white shirt was much too dirty to put on again, and I haven't got anything else to wear." He grimaced. "Of course! Stupid me! If you'd mentioned it I could have helped-- I could have lent you a clean shirt." His grey eyes teased. "Of course, it would have been much too big on you, but it would be cooler than that jacket! Shall I go and get one now?"

She shook her head. "I'm fine-- but if I could borrow one later I'd be grateful. That is...., if you don't mind if I..." She broke off, slightly flushed, and his eyes narrowed. His quick mind worked it out. " To sleep in?" A derisive little glint showed in the grey eyes. "You don't like sleeping in the nude?" As her colour deepened he softly said, "I"ll get you a shirt on our way to bed"

She didn't like the way he said that and stiffened, but then he added calmly, "Well, let's go and eat."

The restaurant was only half full, the service swift. Within an hour they were drinking their coffee because neither of them wanted a dessert. Ritchie looked drawn and pale, but his mind was still working, deciding what to do the next day.

"First thing in the morning, we'll report to this police station, give a formal statement, and then I'll drive you back to the office. I'll have your car picked up by one of my men later in the day."

She was used to him taking decisions for her, but she quietly suggested, "Wouldn't it be easier if I drove myself to the police station, and then on to the office." "No," Ritchie firmly told her. "You may still be in shock tomorrow-- there's often a delayed effect from these things. You'd better not risking driving."

"What about you?" she argued, her eyes wry. "Why shouldn't you have delayed shock too?"

"I'm used to moments of crisis, they happen all the time in my business. I've been blown up before, when some clown made a mistake setting fuses on a demolition job. I was deaf for days after that. But I'm tough." His grey eyes brooded on her, then he said huskily, "Whereas, you're so fragile you look like thistledown, I don't want you getting blown away."

She lowered her eyes, flushing, oddly breathless. Ritchie looked at his watch. "Well, we'd better get some sleep-- ready?" She nodded and got up. When they got upstairs, Ritchie told her to wait while he went into his room in search of  the clean shirt he had promised her. He reappeared with a clean, neatly pressed shirt in his hand, a new toothbrush still in its case, a tube of toothpaste. "Anything else you need?"

"No, thank you, I shall be fine."

"Well, goodnight Linzi," he said softly. "Sleep well." Her voice husky, she said, "You too, goodnight."

He leaned down and before she could move away, he lightly brushed a kiss across her mouth. It was nothing like the passionate kiss he had given her after the helicopter crash, in fact, it was gentle and soothing rather than sexy, but Linzi found it almost as disturbing. She might find it moving and comforting, but she had no right to Ritchie's tenderness. She belonged to another man.

But she was too tired to think about that tonight. She was undressed and in bed, wearing Ritchie's crisply laundered shirt, within another five minutes. Within ten she was asleep, but during the night she had troubled dreams.