Читать книгу A Deal To Mend Their Marriage - Мишель Дуглас, Michelle Douglas - Страница 9
Оглавление‘I KNEW THAT was what you were remembering earlier. And your remembering made me remember.’
Jack’s voice was so full of heat and desire it made Caro sway. ‘So...’ Her voice hitched. ‘That’s my fault too, is it?’
Jack, it seemed, considered everything to be her fault.
He ignored that to lean in closer again and inhale deeply. ‘You smell as good as you ever did, Caro.’
She loathed herself for not being able to step away.
He glanced down at her and laughed—but it wasn’t a pretty sound, full of anger and scorn as it was. She sensed, though, that the anger and scorn were directed as much at himself as they were at her.
He trailed a lazy finger along the vee of her blouse. Her skin goosepimpled and puckered, burning at his touch with a ferocity that made her knees wobble.
‘If I had a mind to,’ he murmured, ‘I think I could convince you to invite me to stay.’
And the moment she did would he laugh at her and leave?
The old Jack would never have enjoyed humiliating her. And yet that finger continued trailing a tantalising path in the small vee of bare flesh at her throat. Heat gathered under her skin to burn fiercely at the centre of her.
She made herself swallow. ‘If I had my heart set on you staying, Jack, you’d stay.’
That finger stopped. He gripped her chin, forcing her gaze to meet the cold light in his. ‘Are you sure of that?’
She stared into those eyes and spoke with an honesty that frightened her. ‘Utterly convinced.’
Air whistled between his teeth.
‘You want me as much as you ever did,’ she said. And, God help her, the knowledge made her stomach swoop and twirl.
‘And you want me.’ The words ground out of him from behind a tight jaw.
‘But that wasn’t enough the last time around,’ she forced herself to say. ‘And I see no evidence to the contrary that it’d be any different for us now either.’
She found herself abruptly released.
Jack straightened. ‘Right—Barbara. Now I’ve had time to think.’
He’d what? All this time his mind had been working? It was all she’d been able to do to remain upright!
‘If she’s keeping that trinket so close then she obviously has plans for it.’
‘Or is she looking for the first available opportunity to throw it into the Thames and get rid of incriminating evidence?’
He shook his head. ‘Barbara is a woman with an eye on the main chance.’
She found herself itching to slap him. ‘You don’t even know her. You’re wrong. She’s—’
‘I’ve come across women like her before.’
Did he class Caro as one of those women?
‘And I’m the expert here. You’ve hired me to do a job and we’ll do it my way—understand?’
She lifted her hands in surrender. ‘Right. Fine.’
‘Can you get us an invitation to this country party of Lady Sedgewick’s?’
She blinked. ‘You heard that?’
‘I thoroughly searched Barbara’s room and your father’s study, as well as checking the safe.’
She stared at him. ‘You opened the safe?’
He nodded.
‘But you don’t know the combination.’
He waved that away as if it were of no consequence. ‘And on my way to the study I eavesdropped on what might prove to be a key piece of information. By the way, it’s a nice touch to keep letting Barbara think you mean to give her half of the estate. Hopefully it’ll prevent her from feeling too desperate and doing something stupid—like trying to sell something that doesn’t belong to her.’
Caro’s fingers dug into the window frame. ‘It’s not a ploy! I fully intend to give her half.’
‘Lady Sedgewick?’
She blew out a breath and tried to rein in her temper. ‘I can certainly ensure that I get an invitation.’
‘And me?’
‘On what pretext?’ She folded her arms. ‘Oh, and by the way, Lady S, my soon-to-be ex-husband is in town—may I bring him along? That won’t fly.’
He pursed his lips, his eyes suddenly unreadable. ‘What if you told her we were attempting a reconciliation?’
A great lump of resistance rose through her.
‘Think about it, Caro. Your snuffbox goes missing and then the very next weekend Barbara—who’s apparently hardly left the house in months—makes plans to attend a country house party. Ten to one she has a prospective buyer lined up and is planning to do the deal this weekend.’
Hell, blast and damnation!
‘This is becoming so much more complicated than it was supposed to.’
‘If you don’t like that plan there are two other strategies we can fall back on.’
She leaned towards him eagerly. ‘And they are...?’
‘We storm into Barbara’s room now, seize her purse and take the snuffbox back by force.’
Her heart sank. Very slowly she shook her head. ‘If we do that she’ll hate me forever.’
‘And that’s a problem because...?’
‘I know you won’t understand, but she’s family.’
He was silent for a moment. ‘That was a low blow.’
His eyes had turned dark and his face had turned to stone. Her heart started to burn. ‘I didn’t mean that the way you’ve taken it.’
‘No?’
Jack had grown up in Australia’s foster care system. It hadn’t been a brutal childhood, but from what she could tell it had been a lonely one.
She glanced down at her hand, shaking her head. ‘But you won’t believe me and I’m too tired to justify myself. Let’s just say that confronting Barbara like that is a last-ditch plan.’ Exhaustion stretched through her. ‘Jack, shouldn’t we be having this conversation inside?’ Him falling off the roof would top off a truly terrible day.
‘I’m perfectly comfortable where I am.’
Which was as far away from her and her world as he could get at this current moment. ‘Fine. And this second alternative of yours?’
‘You go to your employer in the morning and explain that the snuffbox is missing.’
And lose her job? Lose her professional reputation and the respect of everyone in her industry? Through no fault of her own? No, thank you! Besides, if the police investigation—and she had no doubt that there would be one—traced the snuffbox back to Barbara...
She shuddered and abruptly cut off that thought.
‘I can see you’re even less enthused about that option.’
She hated the tone of voice he used. She hated his irksome sense of superiority. She hated the opinion he had of her.
That last thought made her blink.
‘So, will you get us an invitation to the Sedgewicks’?’
She gave a stiff nod. ‘Yes.’
‘Good girl.’
‘Don’t patronise me.’
‘And it’ll be best,’ he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘if Barbara doesn’t find out that we’re planning to be there.’
‘Hmm...awkward...’
He raised an eyebrow.
‘But doable,’ she mumbled. She folded her arms and glared at him. ‘You do know we’ll have to share a room at Lady Sedgewick’s?’
Everyone would take it for granted that they were sleeping together.
He gave a low laugh. ‘Afraid you won’t be able to resist me, Caro?’
Yes! ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Or are you afraid I won’t be able to control myself?’
‘If you can’t,’ she returned tartly, ‘then I suggest you rethink your plans to remarry.’
‘Never.’
A black pit opened up in her chest. The sooner Jack was out of her life for good, the better.
She flinched when he ran a finger down her cheek. ‘Never fear, sweet pea. While your charms are many and manifold, they were never worth the price I paid.’
She flinched again at his words, and when she next looked up he was gone.
‘Right. A weekend in the country. Very jolly.’
She closed the window and locked it. And then, for the first time ever, she drew the curtains.
* * *
‘Was it difficult to swing the invitation?’
‘Not at all.’
It was early Saturday morning and she was sitting beside Jack in his hired luxury saloon car. It all felt so right and normal she had to keep reminding herself that it was neither of those things. Far from it. She still didn’t know how they were going to negotiate sharing a bedroom. She kept pushing the thought from her mind—there was no point endlessly worrying about it—but it kept popping back again.
‘Tell me how you managed it.’
So she told him how on Thursday she’d ‘just happened’ to bump into her old schoolfriend Olivia Sedgewick at a place she knew Olivia favoured for lunch, and they’d ended up dining together.
The house party in Kent had come up in their idle chitchat, and Caro had confided her concerns that this would be Barbara’s first social engagement since Roland had died. A bit later she’d mentioned meeting up with Jack again after all these years, and how the spark was still there but they were wanting to keep a low profile in London in case things didn’t work out.
