Passionate Possession

Passionate Possession PENNY JORDAN He Had Misjudged HerLucy Howard didn't like arrogant men, and Niall Cameron certainly came into that category for her! He didn't even know her, but he quite happily jumped to all the wrong conclusions. She was rich, spoiled, uncaring and just the sort of woman he disliked most.Not that Lucy cared what he thought of her. She wasn't interested in stealing someone who was already committed to a long-term relationship with another woman. But Niall didn't seem to have any such scruples…. Celebrate the legend that is bestselling author PENNY JORDAN Phenomenally successful author of more than two hundred books with sales of over a hundred million copies! Penny Jordan’s novels are loved by millions of readers all around the word in many different languages. Mills & Boon are proud to have published one hundred and eighty-seven novels and novellas written by Penny Jordan, who was a reader favourite right from her very first novel through to her last. This beautiful digital collection offers a chance to recapture the pleasure of all of Penny Jordan’s fabulous, glamorous and romantic novels for Mills & Boon. About the Author PENNY JORDAN is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular authors. Sadly, Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixty-five. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of one hundred and eighty-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan’s characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal. Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books. Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be-published authors. Her significant contribution to women’s fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Passionate Possession Penny Jordan www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk) CHAPTER ONE ‘OF COURSE I haven’t met him yet, but, from what Don has been telling me about him, he’s going to prove a marvellous asset to us locally. I mean, all that money, for one thing. It’s a pity he’s involved with someone, though. Not that they’re married, but they are living together, at least they will be once she comes back from New York. Apparently she’s over there on some kind of secondment. I’m arranging a small dinner party…just eight or ten of us, to introduce him into the local community, and of course we’ll want you to be there. Lucy, are you listening to me?’ Lucy forced herself to smile. ‘Yes, of course I am, Verity. You were telling me about Don’s new client.’ ‘Yes, I was, but I don’t think you were listening properly,’ Verity complained. ‘I suppose you’re still worrying about that stupid old man. Honestly, Lucy, why don’t you simply sell the place and—?’ ‘I can’t sell it because he’s a sitting tenant,’ Lucy interrupted her patiently, ‘and I haven’t got the money to do the repairs that are needed.’ ‘He must know that. I’ll bet that’s why he’s complaining.’ ‘He’s complaining,’ Lucy corrected her gently, ‘because he has every right to do so. The house is in a bad state of repair, but I can’t use it as security to borrow money against to have it seen to and I don’t have any other way of raising any money. Unless I sell my flat.’ ‘But you can’t do that,’ Verity protested. ‘Where on earth would you live?’ Lucy shook her head. Verity was kind-hearted enough, but she was also a rather self-centred and slightly spoiled woman who had never had to confront any major kind of financial problem in her whole life. Lucy knew she did not really understand her own position, and if it had not been for the fact that Don, her husband, was Lucy’s boss, coupled with the other fact that in her grandparents’ time Lucy’s family had been rather well-to-do and very well known in the neighbourhood, Lucy doubted that she would have been accepted socially by Verity. Now both Lucy’s grandparents and her parents were dead, and all that was left of the assets her family had once owned locally was the small, very run-down cottage property which Lucy had recently inherited from a several-times-removed cousin. Lucy had been appalled when she had first heard the news from her cousin’s solicitor. She knew the cottage, of course, but she had assumed that her cousin had sold it long ago to its long-time tenant. The news that she had not done so, and that she, Lucy, was now its owner and responsible for its appalling state of repair, had stunned her. She had tentatively suggested that old Mr Barnes might wish to consider buying the cottage, but the letter she had received direct from him had made it plain that he had no intentions of doing any such thing…of wasting his money on repairing the cottage when it was her responsibility to do so. Lucy had taken what advice she could, and as far as she could see there was no way out of the situation. She was undisputedly the owner of the cottage. If she had been the type to give way to tears she would have given way to them then. She had struggled so hard to repair her life since the dreadful accident in which her parents had lost their lives. She had been seventeen then, with her whole future ahead of her. Her parents weren’t wealthy, but with careful management they had decided that it would be possible for them to send Lucy to university. With their death that had become impossible. Her father had been a lovable and loving man, but a rather impractical one. He had not been properly insured; the house had had a large mortgage, and Lucy had quickly come to realise that her tiny inheritance was nowhere near enough to support her through university. At first she had been too shocked, too filled with grief to think of the future…of her future, but, kind though everyone was, there had eventually come a time when Lucy had realised that she could not go on living with the family friends who had taken her in; that the pitifully small amount in what was now her sole bank account was not going to last forever and that it was time for her to make plans for her future. She had taken a secretarial course, one that concentrated on the basic secretarial skills and computer familiarisation. It had been an expensive intensive course, but very worthwhile, giving her a thorough grounding in those basics. To them she added the languages she had learned at school and then polished at night school, so that she was proficient in both German and French. Initially she had planned to look for work in London, but, excellent though the salaries had seemed, she had soon realised that with the very high cost of living she would barely be able to manage, and so instead she had taken a junior typist’s job locally, and, taking her solicitor’s advice, she had used her small inheritance to buy a tiny one-bedroom flat in a conversion development being built on the outskirts of the town in what had once been a large Victorian house. That, she now acknowledged, had been one of the best pieces of advice anyone could have given her. There was certainly no way now she could ever have afforded to buy even such a modest property of her own at present-day costs. Don paid her well, she lived comfortably, ran a small compact car, took her annual holidays abroad, entertained her friends, and even occasionally splurged on good clothes, but there was no way she could find the many thousands of pounds required to repair Cousin Emily’s run-down cottage. Her only savings were the small insurance pension she had started on her twenty-first birthday, and the few hundred pounds she had in her building-society account. Lucy did not consider herself poor nor hard done by; after all, she had a good and very pleasant job, working for a man she liked and who made it plain that he valued her professional skills. She had good friends, enough money to get by on, and she had her health. She also had her pride, something she had discovered in those awful months after her parents’ death, when she had abruptly come to hear herself being described as ‘that poor child’, and had realised sensitively that people felt sorry for her; that in some way they blamed her parents for not making better provision for her. There had even been whispered conversations about how dreadful it was that a family which had been so prominent locally and been so wealthy should have fallen so far, almost as though her poor parents had been responsible for the disappearance of that wealth, which Lucy knew was not the case at all. She had longed to defend her parents, to tell their friends that neither her father nor her mother had considered money to be of prime importance, but at seventeen they were still treating her like a child. She had resolved then to find a way of standing on her own two feet, and now her independence, as well as being something she privately cherished, was so much a part of her that occasionally the braver of her friends would tease her a little about it. Perhaps she was a little over-independent, overdetermined to prove she could manage, but her friends had never been in her situation, had never discovered almost overnight that they were no longer a loved and protected only child with caring parents, but completely alone in the world with only themselves to rely on. If anyone had asked her Lucy would have answered quickly, and she believed honestly, that at twenty-six she was completely over the trauma of losing her parents, and of the consequent discovery of her vulnerability emotionally and financially, but the shock of discovering all the problems attached to her unexpected and unwanted inheritance had shaken that belief. She felt vulnerable and afraid again, so much so that she had broken one of her unwritten rules and had confided her dilemma to Don. As an accountant, he had warned her of the problems she was likely to face in view of the property’s run-down state and its sitting tenant; as a friend, he had consoled her as best he could, and unfortunately, as a husband, he had discussed the situation with Verity. Not that Lucy had expected him not to. Verity, after all, was a good friend, but she was a terrible gossip, and Lucy suspected that there could be very few people who did not know about her problems with the cottage now, thanks to Verity. The trouble with Verity was that she did not have enough to occupy her time or her mind. Their two sons were away at public school, and Verity spent most of her time either shopping or gossiping. She also had a tendency to embroider the facts, and Lucy tensed now as she heard Verity exclaiming sympathetically and indignantly, ‘It’s all Eric Barnes’s fault…trying to make all this trouble for you…he’s been living in that cottage for years. He should have complained to your cousin.’ ‘He did,’ Lucy told her patiently. ‘But Emily was virtually senile. I doubt she even read his letters, never mind understood them. I used to go and visit her, you know. The people in the home were very kind, but she barely recognised them, let alone me.’ ‘But there must be something you can do,’ Verity consoled. ‘Yes. There is. Sell my flat,’ Lucy repeated grimly. She got up, putting her fragile china teacup down. Don was away on business, and she had called round with some papers she had been translating for him. Don had several clients who were investing in properties in France, and it fell to Lucy to translate the correspondence received from France concerning these properties. ‘Oh, you don’t have to go yet, do you?’ Verity complained. ‘I haven’t finished telling you about Niall Cameron. You’d never guess he was Scotch.’ ‘A Scot,’ Lucy corrected her automatically. ‘Scotch is a drink.’ ‘Scotch…Scottish…what does it matter?’ Verity demanded slightly petulantly, adding quickly, ‘Anyway, as I was telling you, he’s incredibly wealthy. Apparently he’s built up this huge business to do with computers, and he’s opening a factory not far away on that new industrial park just outside Tetfield. He’s bought Hawkins Farm as well—’ ‘Yes, Verity, I do know,’ Lucy interrupted her, adding wryly, ‘I work for Don, remember.’ ‘Yes, but you were away when it happened. You haven’t even met him yet.’ ‘No,’ Lucy agreed. She didn’t particularly want to meet Niall Cameron either, she decided with distaste. He sounded the type of man she most disliked. Arrogant…full of his own importance, forever boasting about his achievements. She was glad she had been away when he had moved to the area, although it seemed that she wasn’t going to be allowed to put off meeting him much longer, not if Verity had her way and organised this dinner party. ‘I wish Don would buy us a property in France,’ Verity was saying poutingly now. ‘All our friends are doing it. I mean, you pick up the most marvellous things over there for next to nothing. The Martindales have bought the most fabulous ch?teau…with fifteen bedrooms.’ ‘And no bathrooms nor any running water,’ Lucy told her wryly. She knew. She had been over in France for the last month, working for Don, acting as both his representative and a translator for those of his clients who were involved in buying French properties. It had been a hectic six weeks, demanding and challenging; she had enjoyed the work, although sometimes she had found the attitude of Don’s clients hard to understand. Many of them seemed to have no conception at all of what the purchase of their French properties was going to involve. In many cases the properties themselves were virtually derelict, and yet the new owners were talking happily of summers spent lavishly entertaining the friends they expected to come hurrying over from England to admire and envy their newest acquisitions. It was true that there were some who genuinely seemed to know what they were getting themselves into and who seemed to be prepared to make all the adjustments they would need to make to be able to live in such rural communities. For the most part, though…She sighed a little to herself, remembering the look on the face of one woman when she had discovered that her fourteenth-century farmhouse had neither any sanitation nor any electricity, and that when it rained the lane to it became a marshy bog through which their immaculate Daimler saloon could not possibly travel. ‘I must go,’ she told Verity. ‘Oh-ho…got a date tonight?’ Verity asked archly. Lucy forced herself to smile. ‘Tom’s taking me to the theatre,’ she told her. ‘Tom Peters. He’s divorced now, isn’t he?’ ‘Yes,’ Lucy agreed quietly. She and Tom were old friends, and she knew how much he had suffered during the break-up of his marriage. She liked him and felt sorry for him, but friends were all they were. Lucy was as cautious with her emotions as she was with everything else. She was afraid to fall in love, one of her boyfriends had once accused her. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps the loss of her parents, coming when it had, had somehow instilled in her an inability to take the kind of emotional risks that went with loving someone. Or perhaps it was her own nature she feared; the knowledge that beneath her calm surface ran very deep and intense emotions and passions. As she walked towards the door she gave a small shrug. She was twenty-six years old and she enjoyed being single; what was wrong with that? She wasn’t the kind of woman who needed to have a sexual relationship in her life; she preferred men’s friendship to their sexual advances, and was always very firm about making that quite plain. She had had one or two problems at first in France in that regard, but a cool smile and the information that she never, ever mixed business with pleasure had soon solved them. Her car was parked next to Verity’s Mercedes coupe?. ‘What on earth made you choose a car that colour?’ Verity demanded as she came out to see her off and frowned over the plain grey body of Lucy’s small Ford. ‘I liked it,’ Lucy told her. ‘It’s discreet and practical.’ She smiled as she spoke, knowing that Verity would not understand. Verity was a creature of colour, an extrovert who demanded to be noticed. Lucy was not like that. She liked to blend into her background, not stand out from it. She smiled a little over the difference in their appearances. Verity was wearing a scarlet suit, and her make-up was equally vivid. She, Lucy, was wearing a cream silk shirt worn outside a camel-coloured straight skirt. Her toffee-brown hair was cut neatly to her shoulders, its straightness enhancing its healthy shine. Her make-up was minimal and discreet; her pale matt skin needed no foundation, just a hint of blusher along her cheekbones to bring them warmth, a touch of grey shadow around her eyes to emphasise the elegance of their almond shape. That they were a particularly vivid shade of turquoise blue was something that had always made Lucy feel slightly uncomfortable; hazel or, better still, grey eyes would have been far more in keeping with the image she chose to project. Turquoise was somehow far too theatrical, far too noticeable. Her lipstick was a discreet peachy pink. She wore the minimum she could get away with because her mouth was, in her eyes, a little too large, her lips rather too full. ‘Why is it that you always manage to look sexy without even trying?’ one of her friends had once complained. Lucy had been horrified by her question and still sometimes rather anxiously searched her reflection in the mirror, looking uncomfortably for this supposed sexiness, which thankfully was not apparent to her. She got into her car and started the engine, a serene-looking woman who rarely allowed others close enough to her to guess what that outward serenity sometimes cost her. Her flat was on the opposite side of their small local town to where Don and Verity lived, but, instead of taking the more direct route through the town itself, Lucy turned the car towards the open countryside. The cottage she had inherited from her cousin was well outside the town, all that was left of the several good-sized farms and their lands that had once been owned by her family. The big house, the house built by her great-great-grandfather, had been demolished shortly after the war, but, from what she had seen of it from photographs, there was no reason to regret its destruction. It had been a rather ugly and over-large building which her father remembered as being extremely cold and uncomfortable. The cottage must have originally been a part of one of the farms and had probably been built to house a farm labourer and his family. It had a good-sized garden, now completely overgrown and something of an eyesore. That had been another of Eric Barnes’s complaints. Her cousin, as his landlord, should have done something about the garden, he had told her when Lucy had visited him in an attempt to try and explain to him her situation. It had not been a pleasant meeting. Eric Barnes was, in Lucy’s opinion, a misogynist. He had been aggressive and unpleasant towards her, making all sorts of impossible financial demands, but against her immediate dislike of him was the fact that the cottage was in a disgraceful condition. The roof leaked, and one bedroom was virtually uninhabitable because of this. The house had no proper heating; just an ancient stove in the kitchen and open fires in the other rooms. The bathroom had horrified Lucy as she had surveyed the fungus-and mould-tainted walls and the cracked, grimy tiles. And as for the kitchen…She suspected it was probably a health hazard, but this was as much Eric Barnes’s fault as the cottage’s. He had seen the swift look of distaste she had not quite been quick enough to hide when she had seen the greasy grey water in the washing-up bowl, the remains of food on a table which had looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned in weeks, and he had immediately jeered at her, taunting her, making totally invalid comments about her supposed wealth and her family’s position, even threatening to reveal her negligence to the local Press. Lucy had been taken aback by his vindictiveness. She had come fully prepared to apologise for the state of the cottage and to explain to him her own position, but his attitude had made this impossible. Since then she had learned that he had the reputation of being a very difficult old man, who apparently conducted a series of running battles with all the local care agencies, alternately demanding their services and then rejecting them with a barrage of unfair complaints. ‘He just likes causing trouble; he’s that kind of man,’ someone had feelingly told Lucy, but none of that altered the fact that the cottage was not really fit to live in, nor that it was her responsibility. Her solicitor had gently pointed out to her her obligations as a landlord, adding that, because of her cousin’s mental health, it would have been impossible for any real case to have been brought against her, but that Lucy was not similarly protected. ‘But what can I do?’ she had asked helplessly. Her solicitor had shaken his head. They both knew there was nothing she could do. Not unless she sold her own home. Lucy slowed down as she approached the cottage. It was set back from the main road in its tangled, untidy garden, surrounded by green fields. It should have looked a pleasant spot, but instead… Lucy sighed as she surveyed it. Upstairs a window yawned emptily where apparently the distorted frame had fallen out in the winter storms. The black polythene which had been used to cover it did not present an attractive sight. The remainder of the window-frames were warped, what paint there was left on them blistered and flaking off. Grimy net curtains covered the downstairs windows. There was an ominous bulge in the wall at the side of the cottage where apparently there were some serious structural defects, and on the other side a lean-to of sorts had been constructed with a corrugated-iron roof, which was now rusting and even holed in places. It was in there that Eric Barnes stored the coal for his fires, and he had complained to Lucy that the holes in the roof were making the coal almost too damp to use. In the garden, overgrown shrubs and brambles almost but not quite concealed several rusting piles of rubbish, items which Eric Barnes claimed had been in the house when he had taken up occupation. The wooden gate fronting the lane was hanging off its hinges and rotting. Her heart heavy, Lucy drove on. Even without its unpleasant tenant it would have been difficult to sell the cottage. Sell it! It would have been difficult to give it away in its present state, she admitted. Her hands clenched on the steering-wheel. She tried to force herself to relax. She was fine-boned and slim, but recently friends had begun to comment that she was looking a little too drawn, a little too fragile. That was the cost of her outward serenity, the fact that inwardly she worried and that that worrying cost her weight she could not afford to lose. It was almost six o’clock and she realised that her detour had meant that she was going to have to rush to be ready when Tom came to pick her up. She decided to take a short cut through the new business park. The mayor had opened it less than a year ago, and she had to admit that it was well designed and laid out, or at least it would be once the newly planted trees started to mature. Now, on a Saturday afternoon, it was relatively quiet. Most of the units were quite small; this was not a big industrial area, after all, and none of them was above three storeys in height. One of the largest units was the complex taken up by Niall Cameron for his software company. She had been a little surprised when Don had first told her about Niall Cameron. ‘Why on earth is he relocating down here?’ she had asked him. ‘Personal reasons,’ Don had told her. She presumed now, after listening to Verity, that those personal reasons must in some way concern the woman with whom he was living. Perhaps, since she was presently working in New York, her work took her abroad a good deal and they were reasonably close to the airport here, and Manchester Airport was expanding rapidly to provide most international flights. Without being aware of what she was doing, she had slowed down slightly as she had approached the Cameron complex. A brand-new Discovery was parked outside it. Lucy grimaced to herself as she surveyed its gleaming paintwork. It wouldn’t stay like that for very long if he actually moved into the farm. The lane to the farm was rutted and invariably muddy whenever they had any rain. She stiffened as she saw a man emerge from the building and walk towards the Discovery. He was tall, bare-headed and in his mid-thirties, his dark hair lifting in the breeze. Those immaculately polished shoes wouldn’t last very long in that state either, she decided sardonically as she watched him. He was dressed in city-smart ‘casual’ clothes—a leather blouson jacket, immaculately pressed trousers, a fine-checked wool shirt—all very smart and all very expensive. Her top lip curled a little. The right clothes, the right accent…Oh, yes, she could see why Verity was so impressed by him. He had stopped moving and he was, she realised with a small stab of disquiet, watching her. There was no reason why she should not be where she was, but for some reason she immediately panicked, putting the car into gear and almost stalling it as she did so, her face suddenly hot and flushed, her breath coming far too quickly. She didn’t like him, she decided as she drove jerkily away. She did not like him one tiny, little bit. CHAPTER TWO LATER on that evening as she sat beside Tom, halfheartedly paying attention to the play being unfolded below them on the stage, Lucy allowed herself to admit that her judgement of Niall Cameron was perhaps illogical. After all, he was not the only man to drive an expensive vehicle, to wear expensive clothes. Nor had she any reason to dislike him simply because he had moved to the area. Was it perhaps Verity’s breathless admiration for him that had jarred against her? It certainly couldn’t be his wealth; despite her own position, Lucy had no desire to be wealthy. Not to have to worry so much about money perhaps, but the luxuries money could buy…no, she had no envy of those. So why, then? Why had the man aroused such antagonism in her, both before and after she had seen him? ‘Not still worrying about the cottage, are you?’ Tom asked her during the interval. ‘Not really,’ Lucy fibbed. ‘Why?’ ‘You just seem rather preoccupied, that’s all.’ ‘It’s nothing,’ Lucy assured him, asking, ‘Isn’t it your Sunday for the children tomorrow?’ ‘Yes.’ Tom frowned. ‘Josy claims that seeing me upsets them too much. God, hasn’t she made me feel guilty enough already? It was her decision to go for a divorce, not mine.’ Lucy said nothing. She had heard the gossip about the brief illicit affair which had been the forerunner to Tom’s divorce. He was nice enough, but inclined to be rather self-indulgent and a little weak. At the moment he was too full of self-pity to be ready to admit that it was his own adultery which had led to Josy’s decision to divorce him, although Lucy suspected that there had been other problems in the marriage. She was not the kind of person who liked prying into the private lives of her friends. ‘God knows what I’m going to do with them. The kids, I mean. That damned flat is so small.’ Lucy watched him gravely. She suspected that Tom was already getting bored with playing the doting, misunderstood daddy. How long would it be before he found excuses for not seeing his children every week? How long would it be before he lost contact with them altogether? Lucy felt a small spurt of anger against him. His children loved him…needed him, and she did not doubt that he loved them, but she suspected that he loved himself more. She chastised herself for her thoughts. What right did she have to criticise? She had no children…no partner…she knew nothing of the stresses the break-up of a marriage could bring. Even so, without intending to, she heard herself asking quietly, ‘Is it really too late, Tom, for you and Josy?’ They had been so very much in love when they had married, Tom twenty-six, the same age as she was now, Josy just twenty. Now, five years later, they were divorced, claiming that they no longer loved one another. But they had two small children, whom they both did love. What was wrong with society, Lucy wondered bleakly, that there should be so much confusion and suffering? She remembered clearly the love she had received from her parents, from both of them, and how she had felt when she had lost that love, and she had almost been adult. ‘You don’t approve, do you?’ Tom accused her suddenly, surprising her with his unexpected astuteness. ‘It has nothing to do with me, Tom,’ she told him mildly. ‘No,’ he agreed wryly. ‘But you haven’t answered my question, have you? You know what your trouble is, don’t you, Lucy? You’re out of touch with reality. You live in this rarefied world where everyone does the right thing, where everyone is perfect and behaves properly. My God, is it any wonder that you live there alone?’ he added, savagely shocking her with the vehemence of his words. Words that hurt her, even though she didn’t show it. ‘Wonderful, wonderful Lucy,’ he derided. ‘You’ve never put a foot wrong, have you? You’ll never make a mistake, will you…you’ll never fall in love with a married man…break your marriage vows…? You’d never do anything that isn’t perfectly correct, would you?’ Lucy fought not to show how much his anger had shocked her. Raw emotion of this kind frightened her, making her remember how she had felt when she had first learned of her parents’ death. Since then she had learned to control her emotions, not to show them, and somehow being in the presence of someone who didn’t share that kind of control made her feel nervous and vulnerable. ‘I hope I would never do anything that might hurt someone else,’ she told him gravely. The look he gave her was bitter. ‘You don’t even begin to know what life’s about, do you?’ he challenged savagely. ‘Do you think I wanted to have an affair? Do you think I planned it?’ He was, Lucy recognised, under enormous emotional strain. She sincerely pitied him, but there was nothing she could do to help him. He might not have planned to be unfaithful, but surely there had been a point when he had known what was going to happen…a stage at which he could have chosen to draw back? ‘What happens if you fall in love with the wrong man, Lucy…a man who loves you in return but who’s committed to someone else…or do you simply think that that would never happen?’ he jeered. Thankfully the bell for the second half rang before she needed to make any response, but Tom’s words stayed with her, challenging her. She would never allow herself to fall in love with a man who was committed to someone else. It simply could not happen, she knew that, but somehow Tom’s words, his anger, had unsettled her. He had made her sound so…so cold and emotionless, which she wasn’t. Why should she be made to feel like that? To love a man who was hurting someone else, cheating on someone else, a someone else who had every right to his love and his loyalty, to be with her—no, she could never do that. To rob another woman of her lover, children of their father. She knew too well how it felt to suffer that kind of loss. They were both very quiet as Tom drove her home. When he parked outside the block of flats he apologised abruptly, ‘I’m sorry. It’s just…Well, it’s been one hell of a week. I wanted to see Josy…to talk to her, but she…’ He shrugged, and in the darkness Lucy could see the pain in his eyes. ‘I’m afraid I just took my frustration out on you.’ ‘What else are friends for?’ Lucy asked him lightly. He made no attempt to touch or kiss her, but then she had not expected that he would. They did not have that kind of relationship. Lucy had never encouraged her male friends and acquaintances to be physically affectionate towards her. Even with her first lover she had remained slightly aloof and distant in public. She smiled a little as she let herself into her flat. She had been almost twenty-one when she had rather gravely decided that she could hardly remain a virgin forever. She and Harris had worked together. He had been five years her senior, a rather studious and quiet biochemist. They had got on well together and she had persuaded herself that she was in love with him. They had planned to get engaged, but almost immediately that they became lovers Lucy had realised that what she had mistaken for love was in actual fact merely affection and liking. He had been a considerate lover, careful and gentle, but she had certainly not experienced with him anything intense enough to make her feel the way she knew other people felt about their men. They had parted amicably and as friends. He had moved away from the area now and they had not remained in contact. She had no regrets about knowing him and even less about not marrying him. Was Tom right? Was she over-controlled? She looked at her reflection gravely as she cleaned off her make-up. What was she supposed to do? Give in to every tiny emotion she felt, abandon herself to them, embellish and exaggerate them? No. That was not her way. She told herself that she was being silly, that Tom had not meant to be deliberately hurtful, but somehow that made it worse. Beyond her bedroom window was the familiar outline of the trees ringing the grounds surrounding the flats. The developer had been forced to keep those trees; she was lucky, living here. Maybe her neighbours were all elderly…maybe the flat was small, but at least it was hers. Her haven…her security. She shivered a little. How much longer would she be able to keep it if Eric Barnes continued to press her to repair the cottage? Beside her bed there was a photograph of her parents. Her father had always wanted to be a painter. It was the one disappointment of his life that he was, as he had put it, good enough to know he was just not good enough. Lucy knew that sometimes it had frustrated him that he could only have as a hobby something he would have liked to have made his whole life. The trip to Provence had been a special treat her parents had given themselves. A twenty-fifth wedding-anniversary present. Lucy wasn’t able to go with them because they had to take advantage of a cheaper out-of-school-holiday-time offer. It had been a hot, dry summer, and when first she had heard of the fires sweeping France she had had no intimation, no intuitive sense of what was to come. Her parents hadn’t been the only ones to lose their lives in those fires. There had been so many other deaths that perhaps it was understandable that the authorities had only been able to send that brusque telegram. She had been alone when it had arrived, and at first she had not been able to take in what had happened. She sat down on her bed, blinking rapidly, fiercely refusing to allow herself to cry. It was almost ten years ago now, but she still missed them…still missed their love. She did not, as she knew some of his friends had, blame her father for not taking more financial precautions…for not at least insuring his life, so that there would be something for her. After all, how could he have known, any more than she had, what was to come? And her parents had given her one priceless, precious gift: they had given her love. The kind of love that Tom’s two small children did not have. Was that part of the reason why she knew she could never do as so many others did and allow herself to become involved with someone who had commitments elsewhere? Or was she, as Tom had implied, simply too cold and prudish to ever experience the intense, heady physical desire that drove everything else out, including honour and self-respect? Tiredly she climbed into bed. Rather than philosophising over something that was never likely to happen, she ought to be directing her thoughts to more important things. Like what she was going to do about the cottage and about its tenant. Perhaps if she tried again to reason with Eric Barnes, to explain her situation… A DINNER PARTY was the very last thing she felt like tonight, Lucy acknowledged as she stood under the shower, but Verity would never forgive her if she didn’t turn up. Her non-appearance would put out Verity’s numbers. Perhaps because she had very little else to occupy her time Verity was almost obsessional about such things. To Lucy’s knowledge, she had rung Don at least four times during the week to consult him about proposed changes in her planned menu. Lucy had winced a little at the irritation she could hear in Don’s voice on the final occasion, but she had tactfully said nothing, and now here she was, getting ready to play the role Verity had set for her. ‘Of course, I’m partnering you with Niall Cameron,’ Verity had told her. ‘After all, you’re both single.’ ‘Single? I thought you said he was living with someone,’ Lucy had reminded her. ‘Yes, he is, but you know what I mean. I meant that he’ll be coming alone, and so will you.’ ‘I hope you aren’t thinking of doing any matchmaking,’ Lucy had told her drily. ‘Certainly not,’ Verity had assured her. But she hadn’t been able to resist asking, ‘Have you met him yet? He really is—’ ‘I haven’t met him, but I have seen him,’ Lucy had interrupted her, guessing what she was going to say. ‘He definitely isn’t my type.’ Verity’s eyes had rounded. ‘Lucy, he’s every woman’s type,’ she had told her fatuously. ‘I don’t like arrogant men,’ Lucy had overruled her, and for once Verity had seemed to have nothing to say. No, it wasn’t going to be a particularly congenial evening, but she was too fond of Verity to upset her by refusing her invitation, and Don had been a good and generous boss to her. And, after all, what would she have to do, other than be polite to the man…a man who was one of their clients? She gave a tiny shrug and then grimaced as she realised that she had soaped the same leg twice. Lucy was as careful in buying her clothes as she was about everything else. Her job was such that she was often required to mix socially with Don’s clients, as indeed she was doing tonight and as she had done while in France, and, apart from her very casual clothes—the jeans she kept for the long country tramps she enjoyed, her tennis kit, her comfortable loose sweaters—most of her wardrobe was geared to her working life. Tonight she was wearing a very simple dark blue cre?pe wool dress with a round neckline and a dropped waist. The skirt was gently gathered on the dropped waistline and narrowed elegantly towards the hem. It had long sleeves and fastened up the back with pearl buttons. It was Italian, like a good many of her clothes, because the Italians seemed to specialise in clothes for women of her height. With it she wore sheer tights and plain navy suede pumps. Her only jewellery was the things she had inherited from her mother. Three strands of good cultured pearls, her rings, a pair of pearl earrings and a very heavy red-gold bracelet. The neckline of her dress wasn’t suitable for the pearls, so she wore the bracelet. Not for anything would she have ever admitted to anyone that she wore these things not just as a memento, but as a kind of safeguard…a security blanket for when she was feeling vulnerable. As she brushed her hair she paused, wondering what she had to feel vulnerable about tonight. She knew everyone who was going to be there, everyone except Niall Cameron, and even he wasn’t a complete stranger to her. She had seen him; she knew a good deal about his business; she even knew that he had purchased the farm in his own name rather than in the joint names of himself and his lover. She smiled cynically to herself. That showed the kind of man he was, didn’t it? Not a man who believed in sharing, obviously. She wondered briefly what the woman was like. Confident of herself and him, evidently; certainly confident enough to leave him for so many months while she was in New York. She amused herself by building a mental picture of her. She would be tall and elegant, blonde, perhaps, with patrician features. Certainly not a pouty bimbo type. He would want a woman who could match him in style and looks, a woman who dressed as elegantly and expensively as he did himself; a woman who would look equally as at home in the sophisticated cities of the world as she would standing beside that immaculately polished Discovery, her hair just slightly touched by the breeze, a couple of gun dogs at her side…chocolate-brown ones, of course. An unkind smile touched Lucy’s mouth. She was being bitchy and probably very unfair, she told herself, but she just couldn’t help it; there was something about the man, something about the way he had looked at her…virtually as though she had been an interloper, which had grated on her. Was that how she felt, secretly? Did she feel she was an outsider…that she was alone? A tiny tremulous sensation fluttered inside her. Of course not. Now she was being silly. She had good friends…close friends…and, if she didn’t get a move on, one of those friends was going to be extremely irritated with her, she reminded herself. Verity hated people being late. Surprisingly, perhaps, she was an excellent cook, and if nothing else Lucy knew that she would enjoy her dinner. There were several other cars in the drive when Lucy arrived, including the Discovery. It was, Lucy was amused to note, not quite as immaculate as it had been when she had first seen it. There were distinct signs of mud-splashes on its shiny paintwork, and in the light from the powerful security lights around the house she could see how that same mud was clinging to the vehicle’s tyres. She wondered mischievously if his highly polished shoes had suffered the same fate. From what she remembered, the farm’s cobbled yard was every bit as dirty as the lane. Once that farm had been owned by her family, and let to tenants, but that had been before she was born. She realised when Don let her in that she was the last to arrive. The others were gathered in the drawing-room, exchanging chit-chat over their pre-dinner drinks. Don, knowing that she didn’t drink, immediately poured her a glass of mineral water. She had seen Niall Cameron the moment she had walked into the room. He was standing by the fireplace and was deep in conversation with Bill Broughton, a local builder. His wife was also with them, gazing very attentively at Niall Cameron. Bill had been a widower for eight years when he had married Amanda. She was fifteen years younger than him, thirty-five to his fifty, which must have made her around the same age as Niall Cameron, Lucy guessed. She didn’t know why, because she certainly wasn’t staring at them, but for some reason something must have alerted Niall Cameron to her observation, because he turned his head and then moved so that he had an unobstructed view of her. Did he recognise her? Had he really seen her in her car, or was he simply trying to place her? Her heart was beating a little bit too fast. She was suddenly sharply conscious of the sounds all around her, people’s voices, the chink of glasses, hyper-sensitively aware, hyper-conscious that Niall Cameron was watching her. ‘I think I’ll go and see if Verity wants a hand in the kitchen,’ she told Don huskily. She had seen Niall Cameron start to move. It was ridiculous to imagine that he was intending to seek her out…absurd for her to feel that she must escape, especially when she was going to be seated with him at dinner, but for once her physical reactions were outside her mental control. ‘Verity has Mary to help her,’ Don was telling her, obviously puzzled, but Lucy ignored him, heading for the kitchen, where she found Verity instructing Mary Lewis. Mary was a widow and lived alone. As she had once told Lucy, she enjoyed helping out at dinner parties and functions because it allowed her to add to her income without tying her down too much. Lucy smiled at her as she entered the kitchen. Verity, as always, looked immaculate, her nails lacquered, her silk dress free of any kind of crease. ‘Mm…watercress soup,’ Lucy enthused as she saw their first course. ‘Yes, and salmon to follow.’ Verity made a face. ‘Rather dull, really, but Don loves it. I don’t think I’ve got any veggies. I didn’t check with Niall Cameron, although he doesn’t look…’ ‘No, definitely a blood-red-meat man,’ Lucy agreed sardonically. Verity gave her a confused look. ‘I thought you hadn’t met him yet.’ Lucy sighed. Much as she liked Verity, she had to admit that they weren’t always on the same wavelength. ‘Shall I help?’ she offered, but Verity immediately shook her head. ‘No, no. Everything’s under control.’ She turned to Mary. ‘You’ll bring the soup through in five minutes, won’t you, Mary?’ she checked as she shooed Lucy out of the kitchen and then followed her, saying, ‘Where’s Don? I want him to get everyone into the dining-room.’ As she took her seat Lucy was amused to note the tiny silver apples holding name-place cards. Trust Verity. She was just about to sit down when she heard someone saying, ‘Allow me.’ It had to be Niall Cameron, of course. She tensed as he pulled out the chair for her, and then turned to thank him. He was taller close to than she had expected. Six feet plus. He was also extremely broad-shouldered, more so than she would have imagined, and, although his suit fitted him perfectly, she had an uneasy feeling that the body beneath it was somehow very primitive and male. It was an odd feeling for her to have. She didn’t normally entertain any kind of thoughts about men’s bodies, primitive or otherwise. ‘I don’t think we’ve met.’ His voice was deep, its tone measured and polite, but certainly not effusive. He was being courteous, but not making any kind of attempt to impress her. ‘No, not yet…not officially,’ she agreed. ‘I’m Lucy Howard.’ ‘Yes.’ He didn’t smile at her, and a tiny trickle of nervous awareness touched her skin. It seemed that her prejudices against him were matched, if not surpassed, by his against her. Certainly there was no warmth in his eyes when he looked at her. Rather the opposite. He was openly studying her, assessing her, and not in the way that she was used to being assessed by the male sex. ‘I…I work for Don,’ she added quickly, and then wondered why on earth she had felt it necessary to add that explanation…that apology almost. ‘Yes,’ he agreed again. They were both sitting down now. Mary was serving the soup and, since the man seated on her left was busily engaged in conversation with the woman to his left, Lucy had no option but at least make some attempt to converse with Niall Cameron. ‘You’re a newcomer to the area,’ she began. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Unlike you. Your family are very well known locally. Large landowners.’ Lucy put down her spoon. Was she imagining it, or had that really been antagonism in his voice? And what an extraordinary thing for him to say. It was well over fifty years since her family had last owned land. ‘Er—yes…once…’ she began, but was interrupted as the man to her left turned towards her and began talking to her. Verity, as always, had produced an excellent meal, but Lucy was conscious that she did not do it justice. She could not understand why Niall Cameron was having such an extraordinary effect on her or why he was making her feel so nervous…so anxious. She knew that he didn’t like her, but she didn’t like him, and so that was no reason for the tiny darting sensation of panic she could feel building in her stomach, spoiling her enjoyment of her meal. Everyone else was now pleasantly relaxed and mellow. Perhaps she should have drunk her wine after all, Lucy thought grimly. She certainly couldn’t remember the last time she had felt as on edge as this. Normally she was quite comfortable socially. Even when she had gone to France on business, she had not experienced this degree of tension and anxiety. Now, with the plates cleared away and the conversation general as people enjoyed their coffee, Verity called down the table to her. ‘Have you managed to do anything about the cottage yet, Lucy?’ And then before Lucy could reply she was explaining for Niall Cameron’s benefit, ‘Poor Lucy is in the most wretched situation. She recently inherited a property from a cousin, a pretty little cottage, really, and in the most glorious setting, but it’s tenanted by this appalling old man.’ Verity always liked to embroider her stories, Lucy reflected wryly as she mentally compared Verity’s almost lyrical description of the cottage with its reality. ‘And he’s behaving dreadfully, isn’t he, Lucy? Demanding that she makes all sorts of alterations, threatening to take her to court. Of course, the rent he pays is next to nothing. He shouldn’t be living there at all, really. He ought to be in a home. From what Lucy’s seen, it’s obvious that he isn’t fit to live alone, and if he would only move out Lucy could—’ ‘Sell the cottage and its land to some speculative builder,’ Niall Cameron interposed grimly. Lucy stared at him, and even Verity looked a little perplexed. One or two of the others were listening now as well, obviously as aware as Lucy was herself of the dislike and the condemnation in Niall Cameron’s voice. ‘Oh, Lucy wouldn’t do anything like that,’ Verity told him, obviously shocked. ‘She just wants to—’ ‘To what?’ Niall demanded. ‘To bully a frail old man of almost eighty into leaving his home so that she can sell it and make a nice profit?’ Verity was gaping at him now. ‘Oh, but you don’t understand,’ she began helplessly. ‘Eric Barnes is the most obnoxious man, and poor Lucy—’ ‘Oh, but I do understand,’ Niall told her softly. ‘You see, that obnoxious old man, as you call him, just happens to be my uncle.’ He turned to Lucy, who was staring at him in shock, and told her grimly, ‘I am beginning to see now why he is so afraid of you. I warn you, Miss Howard, there are laws to prevent people like you from defaming people, just as there are laws, very strong laws, to force landlords to fulfil their obligations towards their tenants. But then I’m sure, as a landlord you are perfectly well aware of those laws, hence your determination to remove my uncle from his home.’ Lucy could say nothing. She was too stunned; too appalled. She glanced uncertainly round the table. Verity looked unhappy and upset, and Lucy could see on the faces of the others the interest and speculation Niall Cameron’s comments had caused. It was no secret, of course, that she had inherited the cottage, nor indeed was the state it was in, but, just as she had barely recognised the cottage from Verity’s description, so she had hardly been able to recognise herself or her motives in Niall Cameron’s denunciation of her. Eric Barnes…afraid of her? She remembered how he had treated her, her eyes blank with disbelief as she turned her head to look at her accuser. ‘There seems to have been some misunderstanding,’ she told him as calmly as she could. She was not going to argue, to verbally brawl with him here in public, abusing Verity’s hospitality, but his accusations could not be allowed to stand. ‘I’m glad you understand that,’ he told her, deliberately misunderstanding her. ‘You might believe that your family’s position locally entitles you to behave as you wish, but I do not intend to stand by and see my uncle bullied and threatened, just so that you can make a nice fat profit on his home.’ A nice fat profit. Had he seen the cottage? Did he have any idea of what it would cost to make it habitable? Did he really expect her or anyone else who knew his uncle to believe the picture he was drawing of Eric Barnes? She stood up awkwardly, her face white with temper and strain. Turning to Verity, she said fiercely, ‘Verity, I am sorry about this. I think I’d better leave.’ How dare he do this to her? How dare he ruin Verity’s dinner party like this? How dare he try to blacken her reputation? For the first time in her adult life she realised that she was in the grip of an almost uncontrollable surge of temper. Had it been there she could have willingly picked up her soup bowl and tipped the contents over him. She was bitterly, furiously, savagely angry in a way that was totally outside her experience of her own emotions. And she had to get away now before she gave way to those feelings. At the other end of the table, Don was trying to speak, saying uncomfortably, ‘I think there’s been a mistake here, Niall,’ but Lucy silenced him, shaking her head. ‘No, Don,’ she said fiercely. ‘Let Mr Cameron say what he thinks. After all, he’s obviously extremely well versed in the subject,’ she added bitterly. She refused to allow Verity to persuade her to stay, escaping to her car as quickly as she could. She was, she realised, shaking with temper and lack of self-control. Oh, God, but she would love to see Niall Cameron’s face when he found out the truth about his precious uncle. And about her. He seemed to think she was some kind of wealthy local would-be socialite. Oh, but the arrogance of the man. And the rudeness! Using Verity’s party to attack her. But then honesty made her acknowledge that it had been Verity who had first brought up the subject of the cottage and its inhabitant. She drove home far too fast, too angry to care that she was exceeding the speed limit, finding some small sense of release in driving her car a little too recklessly. Oh, but she was so angry. She had known from the first moment she had set eyes on him that she wasn’t going to like Niall Cameron, but this…She had never, ever imagined anything like this. She was far, far too wrought up to sleep and impulsively, once she was home, she changed into her jeans, a thick sweater and her trainers. Despite the dark, she was going for a long walk, the only way she knew of ridding herself of the demons of anger and pride that were savaging her. A tiny corner of her mind told her what she was doing was reckless and dangerous, but she was in no mood to heed them. The whole area was crisscrossed with footpaths, but instinctively her feet chose only one of them. She knew already where it would take her, and her eyes stung with tears as urgency impelled her, so that she was almost running rather than walking, past the small church where there was a small plaque in memory of her parents, across the small strip of common ground down the lane, and there it was: the house where she had grown up. An ordinary enough house. Detached, but not particularly large. One of half a dozen down this cul-de-sac, surrounded by fields. Theirs had been the last house in the row. She stopped outside it, her body trembling with tension, the tears hot and salty in her throat. How could it have happened? How could anyone have made such vile accusations against her, and in front of her friends, people who knew her, who knew her family? And how many of them would wonder secretly if there weren’t some grain of truth in what he was saying? She shivered a little; the tears had stopped now. She could feel the tightness on her face where they had dried. She felt slightly calmer and dreadfully tired, but coming here had soothed her a little as she had known it would. It was here that she had spent her happy, loved childhood years…here that she had felt safe and protected. She turned round and began to walk home. She saw the Discovery the moment she reached home. It was parked beside her own small car. She stopped, tense with fear and sickness as she watched Niall Cameron climbing out of it, but it was too late; he had seen her. Pride made her walk tensely towards him, her head held high. He made no comment on her changed appearance but his look registered it, and as he focused on her face she recognised, too late to do anything about it, that he had probably seen the traces of her tears as well. That knowledge made her glower at him, tilting her chin firmly as she waited for him to speak. ‘I’ve just been speaking with Don,’ he told her tersely. ‘Oh, yes. Why? Were you demanding that he sacked me?’ she asked him acidly. It gave her a great deal of pleasure to see the angry burn of colour run up under his skin. ‘He explained your situation to me,’ he continued coldly. ‘And it seems that—’ ‘That what?’ Lucy interrupted him sarcastically. ‘That I’m not the wealthy money-dominated landlord you described over dinner tonight?’ She made no effort to hide her resentment or her bitterness. ‘I have no intention of trying to evict your uncle or to sell the cottage,’ she told him fiercely. ‘Even if it were in a fit state to be sold, which it most certainly is not.’ ‘I agree,’ he told her tightly. ‘In fact—’ ‘In fact what? In fact, that’s why you’re here now…to demand your pound of flesh, or rather your saintly, timid uncle’s pound of flesh.’ Lucy was well into her stride now, half of her marvelling, half of her appalled by where her temper was taking her. Never had she felt like this or behaved like this before. ‘I’m surprised I didn’t guess the relationship between you,’ she told him acidly. ‘I ought to have recognised the resemblance immediately. You’re obviously two of a kind.’ She heard his indrawn breath and knew that she had pushed him too far, but she didn’t care. How dared he have said the things he had said to her? Inwardly she wept with pain and shame over them. Inwardly she was bitterly, deeply hurt, but she would never, ever allow him to see that. ‘Now just a minute,’ he began. He was coming towards her and immediately Lucy panicked, stepping back from him, tensing as she saw the anger darkening his eyes. He reached for her, grabbing hold of her, while she tried to pull away, demanding to be let go. No man had ever touched her in anger…no man had ever taken hold of her against her will. No man had ever imposed himself on her senses as this man was doing, and she fought frantically against him, driven by fear and panic. ‘For God’s sake, you little fool. Will you keep still?’ she heard him saying, and then he was dragging her against him and she could smell the hot male scent of him, feel the anger and power in his body. She reacted instinctively to it, lifting her hand, hitting him as hard as she could, feeling the stinging sensation in her palm as it connected with his face. The sound of the blow shocked her into sharp awareness. A feeling of sick dismay drowned out her fear and anger. How could she have behaved in such an uncontrolled way, even with such provocation? She was aware that he was still holding her, but it no longer seemed to matter. She made tiredly to pull herself free. She would have to apologise, she acknowledged miserably, and then she realised that he wasn’t going to let her go, and as she looked uncertainly up at him she saw that, unlike hers, his anger still burned furiously. ‘My God, I’m not going to let you get away with that,’ he told her thickly, and then before she could stop him he twisted both her hands behind her back, holding her imprisoned frighteningly easily with one hand, while he used the other to hold the back of her neck. And even then she had no realisation, no warning of what he intended to do. She was too taken off guard by his physical imprisonment of her to realise what was going to happen. All she did know was that she had to apologise to him now before the whole thing got completely out of control. She looked up at him and her heart suddenly missed a couple of beats, shock arcing through her as she finally recognised his intention. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». 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