Читать книгу Tall, Dark... Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Carole Mortimer - Страница 25

‘STOP looking so worried, Hebe,’ Nick told her derisively as she sat beside him on the drive to her parents’ home. ‘Didn’t I already prove last night that my performance in front of your parents will be faultless? As yours had better be when you meet my parents,’ he added grimly.

Hebe eyed him sharply. ‘I’m going to meet your parents…?’ She simply hadn’t given Nick’s family a thought, and realised she had no idea what it consisted of, besides his ex-wife Sally and Luke.

‘Well, of course you’re going to meet my parents,’ Nick came back impatiently. ‘And the rest of the Cavendish clan eventually too, no doubt.’ He gave her a brief glance. ‘I thought you understood, Hebe, my main home is in New York.’

‘You’re expecting me to move to New York with you?’ She gasped in dismay.

She had assumed England would be their main home, had never even imagined that Nick would expect her to—

But why hadn’t she? Her wants and wishes hadn’t been of too much importance so far in this relationship.

In fact, Nick seemed to be of the opinion that if he kept her ‘barefoot and pregnant’, and satisfied in his bed, she should just be happy with the fact that he was keeping her at all!

She didn’t want to move to New York, Nick realized irritably. Yet another mistake he had made where Hebe was concerned!

‘I’d have thought most women would love living in New York. But if you prefer we’ll buy a house in England.’ He sighed. ‘It ultimately makes no difference to me where we live, I suppose.’In fact, the more he thought about it, a house out in the London suburbs, with a big garden for their child to play in as it grew up, didn’t sound like such a bad idea.

She was eyeing him uncertainly. ‘You would really do that…?’

‘Why not?’ He shrugged. ‘I can travel to Paris and New York from here as easily as I can travel to London and Paris from New York.’

Of course he could, Hebe acknowledged frowningly. And if he had become bored with her in his bed by then he could also see whatever women he chose when visiting those other cities!

‘Fine,’ she accepted abruptly, turning to look sightlessly out of the window.

This visit to her parents was a nightmare as far as Hebe was concerned. How could she possibly manage to convince them that she was marrying Nick because she loved him when every conversation they had seemed to end like this? When it was only on a physical level that the two of them seemed to find any compatibility at all?

‘Here.’

She turned to find Nick holding out the ring box from last night.

Her expression darkened as she looked at it. ‘I told you—I don’t want it,’ she said forcefully. Not even to convince her parents of their relationship could she wear that—that insult of a ring!

Nick sighed heavily. ‘Will you just take the damned box, Hebe? So that I can use both hands to drive?’ He rasped his impatience with her stubbornness.

She took the box gingerly from his fingers.

‘Don’t just look at it—open it!’ Nick bit out irritably.

She gave him another frowning glance before opening it. Inside was a thin gold band supporting a medium-sized yellow stone surrounded by six smaller diamonds…

‘It’s a yellow sapphire,’ Nick told her abruptly. ‘The colour reminded me of your eyes.’

Tears instantly stung those eyes. Something else she had discovered about pregnancy was that tears came all too easily. In fact, emotions altogether came all too easily.

This ring was delicately beautiful—exactly the sort of ring she would have picked herself, given the choice.

And Nick had chosen a yellow sapphire because it matched the colour of her eyes.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she told him breathlessly.

‘Then put it on,’ he encouraged.

She took the ring from the box and slid it onto the third finger of her left hand. It was a perfect fit.

She looked up at him shyly. ‘Did you manage to get your money back on the other one?’

‘I didn’t even try,’ he drawled ruefully. ‘I’m keeping it for our tenth wedding anniversary. Or the birth of our fourth child—whichever comes first!’

Fourth child…?

Nick spoke about this marriage as if it would be a permanency rather than an expediency.

Something until this moment Hebe hadn’t thought he meant it to be at all.

‘It really is a lovely ring, Nick. Thank you,’ she told him softly.

‘You’re actually going to accept this one?’ He frowned.

‘Of course.’ Her voice was huskier than ever.

‘Hey, you aren’t crying, are you…?’ he prompted uncertainly a couple of seconds later, when he obviously heard the sob she had tried so hard to suppress.

She was crying. The threatening tears had finally cascaded hotly down her cheeks. They were impossible to control, it seemed.

Nick was going to think she was an idiot, an emotional fool—crying over a ring.

But it wasn’t just about the ring.

It was everything. The enormity of her pregnancy. Nick’s insistence that she marry him. The uncertainty of what their future together might bring.

Apart from the four children Nick seemed to have planned!

Nick took another hard glance at her before pulling the car over to the side of the country road they were travelling along, putting it in neutral before turning fully in his seat to look at her. ‘I guess we can make it three children if the idea of four scares you this much!’ he chided, and he took her in his arms.

His teasing just seemed to make her cry all the harder.

Was he ever going to do or say something that didn’t reduce this woman to anger or tears? When she was like this, she looked so vulnerable, and all he could think about was protecting her.

He didn’t remember Sally being this emotional—not even when she had been expecting Luke…

‘You aren’t going to convince your parents of anything except that I beat you, if we turn up at their place with you looking all red and blotchy from crying,’ he drawled.

He was rewarded by a choked laugh as Hebe raised her face to look at him.

Looking decidedly unred and unblotchy, her face was still beautiful in spite of her tears. Nick felt as if he could drown in those misty golden eyes.

But drowning in her beautiful eyes would do him no damned good at all, he told himself firmly, before releasing her to move back behind the wheel and restart the engine, his expression grimly set as he began the last ten miles or so of their journey.

Keep your eye on the ball, Nick, he taunted himself.

Hebe wasn’t marrying him because she loved him. This wasn’t a love-match at all. She was expecting his baby, and in return she would want certain things from him. That was it.

Fifteen minutes later, when he met Hebe’s parents he learnt exactly why she had been so concerned about their reaction to the two of them.

Henry Johnson was a tall, thin, slightly stooped figure—a retired history professor at Cambridge University, no less—and his wife Jean was the sort of round, homely woman whose husband and child were her whole world, who had made a home for them that was as warm and welcoming as she was herself.

There was no way this couple would ever understand the sort of marriage that he and Hebe were going to have!

‘Oh, darling Hebe, how wonderful!’ her mother said tearfully when Hebe showed her the engagement ring.

Her father gave her a bear hug. ‘You might have brought Nick home to meet us earlier than this,’ he chided, but affectionately rather than in genuine rebuke. ‘The owner of the Cavendish Gallery, no less,’ he added, slightly dazed.

‘My fault, sir,’ Nick assured him as the two men shook hands. ‘It’s all happened so quickly. Hebe just knocked me off my feet the first time I saw her!’ Literally, as he remembered it!

Henry nodded, as if he perfectly understood how that could happen to a man where his beautiful daughter was concerned.

They were a little older than Nick had expected—both of them in their sixties, he would guess. That meant Henry and Jean must have been in their late thirties when they’d adopted Hebe. Nick wondered why they had left it so late to decide that was what they were going to do.

The ubiquitous English answer to any occasion, a cup of tea, soon appeared—though Henry was profusely apologetic that they didn’t have any champagne to toast the happy couple with.

Nick saw Hebe flinch at the description. So much for his assurances that he would behave as if they were a happy couple; Hebe looked as if she was about to burst out with the truth at any moment, and damn the consequences…

‘Tea is fine, sir,’ he assured the older man as he took his cup and saucer. ‘Hebe can’t drink champagne in her condition anyhow,’ he added determinedly. ‘Not until after the baby is born, in another seven and a half months or so,’ he added for good measure.

Let her try to talk her way out of that!

Hebe gave Nick an incredulous look as she saw her parents’ stunned reaction to his announcement, but met only glittering challenge in his gaze. His hard, uncompromising gaze.

He was leaving her no way out. That cold blue stare told her so only too clearly. She was his. The baby was his.

She had been wavering, it was true. She had looked at her parents and wondered if perhaps they would understand if she confided her pregnancy to them and asked them to help her. But the relaxed way Nick had made his announcement, the possessiveness in his tone, gave her no opening to do that.

As he had known it wouldn’t…

Damn him!

‘Mum, Dad.’ She turned anxiously to her parents. ‘I didn’t mean to tell you quite as abruptly as that.’ She shot Nick a censorious glance before crossing the room to take her mother’s hands in hers. ‘But Nick and I are expecting a baby, early next year.’

‘Which means the wedding is going to be very soon,’ Nick put in firmly, though his conversation with Hebe the night before had not got that far. ‘My lawyers are working on the paperwork at the moment.’

His lawyers…!

Why on earth were his lawyers working on their wedding arrangements? Unless Nick intended making her sign one of those pre-nuptial agreements, or something equally cold and calculated?

Well, she wasn’t signing anything like that. Not now. Not ever.

But this wasn’t the time to argue that point with him. She was too concerned with calming her parents’ shock at the rapidity of everything to have time to worry about Nick and his Machiavellian plans.

‘Perhaps a small sherry might be a good idea,’ her father said weakly, moving to the cabinet to pour three glasses.

One for himself. One for her mother. And one for Nick.

Who wasn’t in shock at all. Instead he looked as if he were enjoying every second of this.

‘Well, I suppose it’s about time I was a grandmother!’ Her mother was the first to recover from the shock, squeezing Hebe’s hand supportively.

‘You don’t intend taking our little girl away to America, do you, Nick?’ Her father was more practical.

‘No, sir,’ he assured him easily. ‘Hebe has expressed a wish to live in England, and I’m happy to go along with that. Whatever Hebe wants,’ he added, with a challenging raise of his brows across the room at her.

Her father gave him a beaming smile, as if he was quite happy with any man who wanted to want to spoil and look after his ‘little girl’ in the way Nick seemed to want to.

Except that Hebe knew he didn’t.

He wanted the baby she carried. And if he had to concede certain things to the baby’s mother to achieve that, then he would do so. On his own terms, of course.

But she couldn’t let any of her trepidation show in front of her parents. She knew that she had to make them believe she was as happy with the situation as Nick implied he was.

‘We’ll want you and Daddy to come up to London for the wedding, of course,’she told her mother warmly. ‘In fact, you’ll probably be our only guests!’ She had no idea what arrangements Nick had discussed with his lawyers, but she very much doubted they would involve a big wedding.

‘Not at all, Hebe,’ Nick put in smoothly. ‘Your flatmate will want to come, of course. And any of your friends you can think of. And I’ve decided to close the gallery for the day, so that all the staff there can attend too. My own parents will be there, naturally. Along with my younger sister and her family.’ He met her gaze confrontationally.

She couldn’t believe this. She had expected their wedding to be almost a clandestine affair, with as few people as possible knowing it was taking place, and now Nick had announced he was inviting half of London and all of his close family, as well as her own parents.

‘I was keeping it as a surprise, honey,’ he murmured indulgently, and as he moved to kiss her lightly on the lips, his arm moving about the slenderness of her waist.

For her parents’ sake, of course.

As these elaborate wedding plans probably were too.

‘We’ll be having a reception at one of the leading hotels,’ he told her parents, his arm like a steel band around Hebe as he held her tightly—shackled!—to his side. ‘I think it might be better if I were to book you a suite there for a couple of nights too. I’m sure Hebe will want her mother to help her get ready on the day—won’t you, honey?’ Blue eyes glittered down at her with mocking amusement.

Where was all this coming from? Hebe wondered, feeling dazed.

Of course Nick had been married before, so he was probably more cognizant with wedding arrangements than she was, but even so…!

‘We do just have one tiny concern.’ Nick turned back to her parents. ‘Obviously Hebe has told me that she’s adopted. I’m sure she was irresistible as a baby,’he added favourably, as Hebe’s father frowned slightly. ‘We were just wondering if you had any information on Hebe’s real parents?’ He looked at them enquiringly. ‘Obviously with Hebe expecting a baby the medical history of her birth parents would be real helpful,’ he added, with country-boy charm.

Which Hebe, knowing him only too well, didn’t fall for at all.

She wasn’t sure her parents did either. Glancing at her father, she saw he was still frowning and her mother was looking up at him a little anxiously.

‘What sort of thing do you want to know?’ her father prompted guardedly.

Nick shrugged. ‘As I said, just medical history—stuff like that,’ he dismissed easily.

He could feel the sudden tension in the room, and wondered if Hebe had noticed it too.

It was a perfectly legitimate question in the circumstances, surely…?

‘Perhaps you know the name of Hebe’s birth mother?’ he continued lightly. ‘Or her father, perhaps.’

‘No,’ Henry answered slowly. ‘I don’t believe that was ever mentioned to us.’

Was it just his imagination, Nick wondered, or was the other man’s reply just a little ambiguous?

‘I told you that Mum and Dad wouldn’t know, Nick,’ Hebe cut in tensely, at the same time smiling reassuringly at her parents. ‘Nick is such a fusspot where this baby is concerned.’ She attempted to dismiss him. ‘I’ve assured him that I’m perfectly healthy, and that everything with the baby is going to be just fine, too.’

She hadn’t assured him of any such thing. And even if she did, he would want a second opinion. A medical opinion. He had yet to tell her, wanting to avoid having another argument and so cause tension before they met her parents, that he had made that particular appointment for Monday afternoon…

Right now, though, he was far from satisfied with the answers he had received from the Johnsons about Hebe’s real parents.

‘Sometimes when people adopt children, things like medical histories are discussed, aren’t they?’ he persisted lightly.

‘Sometimes I’m sure that they are.’ Henry’s reply seemed a little guarded.

‘But not in this case?’

‘No.’There was definite challenge in the other man’s expression now.

The atmosphere had changed from warmly congenial to tensely suspicious.

Why?

What did this couple have to hide?

Because they were hiding something. Nick was sure of it.

‘Oh, well—I just thought it worth asking. But I’m sure that the doctor will be able to check everything out,’ he dismissed, with a lightness he was far from feeling.

‘I must tell you about the interesting painting Nick came across a week or so ago.’ Hebe cut smoothly into the conversation, obviously changing the subject. ‘An Andrew Southern portrait. Have you heard of him?’ she prompted her parents lightly.

Nick tensed, having no idea where Hebe was going with this conversation. Surely she didn’t want her parents to know about that portrait of her? It wasn’t exactly the sort of thing you could bring home to show your family—the raw sensuality of the subject—Hebe—was all too obvious!

‘Of course we’ve heard of him, darling,’ Henry confirmed mildly. ‘One of his paintings is worth a small fortune, surely?’ He addressed this remark to Nick.

‘Oh, Nick has a very large fortune—don’t you, darling?’ Hebe prompted challengingly.

Nick had used her parents shamefully to manipulate her, and now she intended doing the same where he was concerned.

She couldn’t be sure that Andrew Southern would respond to her letter and the photograph, and if he didn’t she needed more information than Nick had given her to be able to continue her own search for the origins of that portrait. To do that she needed a piece of information Nick hadn’t yet revealed.

‘Not as large as it once was,’ Nick muttered tersely, the warning glitter in his eyes more than meeting her challenge.

Hebe turned unconcernedly back to her parents, knowing Nick was furious with her for bringing up the subject of the portrait. Well she couldn’t help that. He had asked the questions he wanted answering, without consulting her or warning her, and now she was going to do the same. Whether he liked it or not.

Because she knew that portrait wasn’t of her, even if he wouldn’t accept that it wasn’t.

‘It’s an unseen portrait the artist painted over twenty years ago,’ she confided to her parents. ‘Nick is so pleased with it—aren’t you, darling?’ she prompted, with an insincere sweetness she knew he would recognise as such even if her parents didn’t.

‘Oh, very,’ he confirmed tightly.

‘How on earth did you find it?’ Hebe’s mother smiled with interest.

‘Hidden away in a house in the north of England,’ Nick answered abruptly, obviously not wanting to pursue this subject at all.

Too bad—because Hebe did!

‘Yes. What did you say was the name of the original owner, Nick?’ Hebe prompted readily, completely putting him on the spot. The increased glitter in his eyes told her how incensed he was.

Well, so what? she thought. At the moment she was more interested in knowing who had been the original owner of her mother’s portrait than she was concerned with Nick obvious displeasure.

‘I didn’t,’ Nick came back stiffly, wondering why Hebe was asking this now. ‘And I’m sure Henry and Jean aren’t interested in this—’

‘On the contrary,’Hebe’s father interrupted. ‘It all sounds fascinating,’ the historian in him prompted inquisitively.

Hebe gave Nick another one of those over-sweet smiles, her smile turning to genuine amusement as she saw how annoyed he was.

But, no matter what he might otherwise wish, he couldn’t have things all his own way.

As he seemed used to having!

So far today he had bought her an engagement ring it would have been churlish to refuse, tricked her into what sounded like a full-scale wedding rather than the quiet affair she had been expecting, and questioned her adoptive parents about her real parents.

It was time he told her some of the things she wanted to know!

‘Not really,’ he dismissed easily now. ‘The man died, his relatives found and then sold the portrait. End of story.’

‘And are you going to put it into one of your galleries?’ her mother questioned brightly.

‘No!’ Nick came back harshly.

Hebe turned to look at him frowningly. If he wasn’t going to put the portrait in one of his galleries, then what was he going to do with it…?

‘No,’ he repeated less violently, seeming to force himself to relax, even while he frowned darkly in Hebe’s direction. ‘I happen to like this portrait and I intend keeping it for myself.’

‘But how wonderful!’ her mother came back innocently. ‘You’ll have to let us see it when we come down to London.’

Much to Nick’s discomfort and Hebe’s amusement! She had stood all the abuse from Nick she was going to with regard to that portrait. It wasn’t a portrait of her, no matter what Nick believed.

She was slightly surprised at his decision not to show the portrait, after going to all that trouble to purchase it, but perhaps he had decided he didn’t want his future wife on public display like that?

Or that it would be yet another thing to torment her with when they were alone!

Yes, that sounded more like the Nick she knew and—

She broke off those thoughts abruptly. What was the point of thinking about her love for Nick when she was obviously just another possession to him? A prize possession, because she carried his child.

Besides, she still didn’t have the answers she was looking for!

‘What makes this portrait so interesting, though,’ she continued cheerfully, ‘is that it isn’t listed anywhere as one of the artist’s works.’

Nick’s gaze narrowed searchingly on Hebe’s face. How did she know that? Unless she had been checking up on the portrait herself? Which made no sense to him whatsoever. She knew Andrew Southern had painted that portrait of her, whether it was listed or not, so why persist in pushing the subject?

‘Perhaps it’s a forgery?’ Jean mused.

‘Oh, no, Jean,’ Nick answered the older woman assuredly. ‘It’s most definitely authentic.’

‘Kept hidden away in some man’s attic for the last twenty-odd years,’ Hebe put in teasingly.

She wasn’t going to leave this alone, was she? Nick brooded. She obviously still wanted something from him. But what? And more to the point, why?

‘Actually, Jacob Gardner kept it in his—Are you okay there, Jean?’ He moved forward quickly to catch her cup and saucer as they seemed to leap out of her hand of their own volition.

‘Oh, how silly of me.’ Jean got up agitatedly to take the cup and saucer away from him. ‘I’ll take these things out to the kitchen so that there are no more accidents,’ she added swiftly, before picking up the laden tray and bustling from the room, her husband following her a few seconds later.

Nick was left not just with a suspicion, but with the certainty that these two elderly people were hiding something…

He just had no idea what.

A searching look at Hebe showed him that she had seen it too, and was just as puzzled. Her baiting of him to get information had somehow backfired on her in a way she hadn’t expected…