Читать книгу His Rags-to-Riches Bride - Сара Крейвен, Susan Stephens - Страница 12

THE wheel comes full circle …

Daniel’s words seemed to echo and re-echo in her mind as she lay on the bed staring up at the ceiling. And, as she reminded herself, she could hardly defend her decision, or deny its irony. Not to him, at any rate.

She wondered if he too was thinking of the day two years ago when, ten weeks after Si’s funeral, he’d walked into the drawing room at Abbotsbrook and found her standing on a rickety pair of steps, struggling to hang the new curtains that had arrived that morning.

‘What the hell are you doing up there?’

She hadn’t heard him enter the house, let alone the room, and the furious demand from behind her made her jump, and sent the steps into a further paroxysm of wobbles as a result.

‘Come down.’ The peremptory note brooked no argument, so he didn’t actually need to grasp her round the waist with strong hands and lift her bodily from the steps. Yet that was what he did, setting her down to face him, flushed and breathless.

‘Dan?’ She allowed herself to sound surprised, but braked hard on the instinctive overwhelming delight of seeing him again after all these endless weeks. Of noting almost wistfully how gorgeous he looked. The way the white shirt with the turned-back sleeves emphasised his tan, how the casual charcoal pants enhanced his lean hips and the length of his legs. How that random strand of dark hair always seemed to fall over his forehead, making her always long to smooth it back. Which was impossible.

And then she realised the danger of standing, gaping at him like this. Felt self-conscious too, in her working gear of ancient cut-offs and faded T-shirt, not to mention hot and grubby because she’d just washed down the high window frames.

And hurried into speech. ‘My—my mother never mentioned you were expected. Are you staying with us? Because I’ll need to see about your room—’

‘Your mother has no idea I’m here.’ He cut across her incisively. ‘I’m staying at a hotel a few miles away, and I’ve come, having failed to find you at Randalls. What’s going on, Laine?’

She shrugged, standing with yards of brocade trailing awkwardly over her arm. ‘I left. Didn’t Mrs Hallam tell you?’

‘Indeed she did, and at some length too,’ he said grimly. ‘What she couldn’t say was why?’

‘Because we no longer have a housekeeper, and I’m more use at home.’ She spoke with deliberate brightness. ‘At least I may be one day. I’m still struggling a bit at the moment.’

There was a silence, then Dan said softly, ‘My God, this is unbelievable. What happened to Mrs Evershott?’

‘She—left too. We couldn’t really afford her any more.’

‘So you’re doing her job instead?’ There was an odd note in his voice. ‘At the same salary, I presume?’

‘Heavens, no. That’s all part of the economy drive.’ She forced a smile. ‘Although I do get paid, of course.’

‘I can imagine. And just how long does your mother intend this situation to continue?’

‘Until Abbotsbrook is sold. It went officially on the market yesterday, so who knows?’ She held up the brocade. ‘Mother’s trying to make it seem less shabby to impress the potential buyers when they start flocking in, but I doubt whether a few yards of material will fool them.’

‘I don’t think so either,’ he said dryly. ‘And just when did she reach this momentous decision?’

‘As soon as I turned eighteen and the terms of the trust no longer applied—oh—and thank you for my gorgeous earrings and the flowers,’ she added hurriedly. ‘I was going to write, but I wasn’t sure where you’d be.’

‘Forget about it.’ His dark brows were drawn together in a cold frown. ‘So, where is your mother? I’d like a word with her.’

‘She’s at the golf club,’ Laine told him. ‘But she’ll be back around five, and she’ll expect to find these curtains up at the windows.’

‘Then she can attend to them herself.’ Dan took the heavy folds from her and flung them over the back of a chair. ‘Risk her own damned neck.’

‘But you don’t understand,’ she protested. ‘It’s part of my job.’

He said gently. ‘You’re wrong, Laine. I understand perfectly—apart from asking myself what on earth she’s doing at the golf club.’

‘She goes there nearly every day,’ Laine said, her voice subdued. ‘She started having lessons over a year ago, when the new professional first came. His name’s Jeff Tanfield.’ She paused. ‘He’s quite a bit younger than she is.’

There was a silence, then Dan said thoughtfully, ‘I could do with some strong coffee. Let’s go and make it.’

When they were sitting opposite each other at the big scrubbed kitchen table, steaming mugs in front of them, he said, ‘So what’s really going on, Laine? And I want to know all of it.’

‘We’re going to live in Andalucia.’ Laine struggled to keep her voice from deteriorating into a little wail of desperation. ‘At one of those holiday complexes built round a golf course.’

‘You as well?’

She nodded. ‘When Abbotsbrook is sold Mother’s going to invest in the Spanish place, buy into the consortium that owns it. Jeff will go on teaching golf, and Mother will do the administration—look after the guest bungalows. And I’m going to be her assistant.’

‘When did you discover this?’

‘A few days after my birthday.’ She shrugged. Tried to smile. ‘I was just—told.’

‘I see.’ He stirred some cream into his coffee. ‘And you agreed?’

She bit her lip. ‘I didn’t seem to have many other career options open.’

‘Tell me,’ Dan said, ‘is your mother planning to marry this Tanfield?’

‘I don’t know. Although I heard her having a row with Simon just before he left, and I’m almost sure I heard Jeff’s name mentioned. I didn’t mean to listen,’ she added hastily. ‘But she was rather talking at the top of her voice.’

‘Then Simon—knew?’ he said slowly. ‘Well, that makes sense.’ He paused. ‘What’s the age difference between them?’

‘Seven—maybe eight years. I’m not too sure.’

He gave her an enigmatic look. ‘And you feel that’s an insuperable bar to marriage?’

She sipped her coffee, burning her tongue. ‘Well, it’s usually the other way round—isn’t it? The man’s generally older than the woman.’

‘It can certainly happen,’ Dan agreed gravely. ‘So, what do you think of your potential stepfather?’

‘I suppose he’s—all right,’ she said slowly, trying to be fair. Then, in a burst of honesty, ‘I try not to think about him much at all. Or any of it, for that matter.’ She swallowed. ‘When Simon was killed I thought things couldn’t get any worse, but they have—they have. Everything’s suddenly—falling apart, and I don’t know how to stop it.’

There was a silence, broken by the sound of an approaching car.

‘Your mother?’ Dan asked tersely.

She sighed. ‘No, that’s the station taxi. It will be Candida, arriving for the weekend.’

His brows lifted. ‘You surprise me,’ he said slowly. ‘Does she do a lot of this?’

She nodded. ‘She’s supposed to be going through Simon’s things,’ she said tonelessly. ‘Sorting them for charity because Mother doesn’t feel up to it yet. But she doesn’t seem to have got very far.’

She got up. ‘I’d better put the oven on. I made a casserole yesterday, and it just needs heating up.’ She paused. ‘There’s plenty—if you’d like to stay too?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so. I have a much better plan. Why don’t I take you out to dinner instead?’

Her lips parted in astonishment. ‘But I can’t. I have to get the rest of supper—the vegetables—a pudding.’

Dan finished his coffee and rose too. ‘On the contrary, my sweet, it will do them good to forage for themselves.’ He added crisply, ‘And I won’t take no for an answer, Laine.’

The kitchen door was flung open and Candida swept in, looking disgruntled. ‘That train service is a nightmare. I deliberately came early, but it was still crowded with the most ghastly—’

She saw Daniel and halted, her face clearing magically into a ravishing smile. ‘Dan—darling. How wonderful. I had no idea you’d be here.’

‘And I was just thinking the same about you,’ he returned silkily. ‘How are you, Candy?’

‘Oh—still soldiering on.’ She gestured vaguely. ‘You know how it is. I come down most weekends to be with poor Angela.’ She paused, and sighed. ‘We try to be—there for each other.’

‘Then I’m surprised you haven’t headed straight for the golf club,’ Daniel commented blandly. ‘I gather that’s her chosen refuge these days. But it’s good you’ve arrived early,’ he went on, ‘because I expect she’ll be tired and hungry after a hard afternoon on the fairway, and you can start supper for both of you. Laine and I are going out for dinner.’

‘Oh,’ Candida said, and her glance flickered between them. Then she smiled again with renewed radiance. ‘But that’s a terrific idea. Why don’t we all go out—make it a real reunion?’

He said, quite gently, ‘Because I’ve invited Laine on her own. It’s recompense for missing her birthday.’

‘But I’m sure she won’t mind.’ There was a faintly metallic edge to her voice. ‘After all, you were very generous at the time, if memory serves. You mustn’t spoil the child too much.’

‘I won’t,’ he said. ‘Besides, the recompense is for me—not for her.’ He walked round the table, drew Laine to him, and dropped a light kiss on her hair. He said softly, ‘Go and make yourself beautiful for me, sweetheart. I’ll be back at seven.’

Laine, aware that she was shaking inside, suddenly and uncontrollably, glanced across at Candida, and the two spots of colour now blazing in her cheeks, and decided to make a run for it while her legs would still support her.

And as she flew upstairs to her room she found she was repeating the words ‘back at seven’ over and over again under her breath, as if they were a good luck charm.

And perhaps I truly thought they were, Laine thought listlessly, recalling how she’d gone through every item in her inadequate wardrobe, trying to find something that would do the occasion justice. At the same time reminding herself with every breath that this was not—not—a date. That he was simply being kind.

I knew it then, she thought sadly. Why couldn’t I remember it later—when it really mattered?

She heard the flat door bang, and realised that he’d left for the evening, that she was on her own again. Which meant that she could leave her room and move around freely, if she wanted, without the risk of any unwanted encounters.

Except that it just seemed easier to stay where she was as her mind dived back into the deep waters of the past, to that night when her life had changed so completely and so wonderfully—or so she’d thought then.

In the end, she’d decided to wear her summer best of a turquoise wrap-around skirt and white scoop-necked top. Not glamorous or sophisticated, she’d thought wistfully, but the earrings he’d given her would make the outfit a little more special. At the last minute she had added a moonstone pendant on a slender gold chain which had been her seventeenth birthday present from him, watching how it seemed to slide naturally into the faint cleavage between her small breasts and nestle there.

Wondering if he would notice that too, and halting right there, knowing that she was straying into the realms of dangerous fantasy. Reminding herself that the pendant had got her into enough trouble already when, on her birthday evening, she’d gone running into his arms to thank him, seeking his cheek with her lips and somehow finding the warm, lingering pressure of his mouth instead, along with a strange inability to move away, out of range. As she should have done. At once, if not sooner.

An error which, she’d realised, had been lost on no one present—particularly Angela, who’d delivered a stinging rebuke later, telling her she was far too old to fling herself at Daniel like that.

Too old one minute. Too young the next. She’d never known where she stood.

But on that evening, as she’d touched her lips with pale rose colour and recalled the sensation of his mouth on hers, she had felt all too young. And flustered. Thinking, for no fathomable reason, of the clean but so elderly bra and briefs she was wearing. Glad that it wasn’t a real date, so there was no chance that they’d ever—that he’d want to—that she’d be expected to.

At which juncture she had told herself sternly to stop thinking, because it was clearly turning her into an idiot, collected her bag and, breathing deeply, gone downstairs.

Angela still hadn’t returned, and Candida had been in the drawing room, turning over the pages of a magazine in a way that suggested she’d rather be tearing them to shreds and throwing them at someone.

She’d given Laine a hard stare. ‘You’re actually planning to wear that—for dinner with Daniel Flynn?’

‘My crinoline’s at the menders.’ Laine pretended to check the contents of her bag, feeling her fragile confidence shredding.

She was rescued almost at once by the shrill of the doorbell and the need to answer it.

‘Oh,’ she said, almost blankly, finding Daniel waiting on the doorstep, immaculate in a dark suit and a tie the colour of rubies. ‘It’s you.’

‘How many other men are you seeing tonight?’

‘But you never ring,’ she protested. ‘You usually just walk in.’

He glanced past her, his mouth twisting faintly. ‘Not when I’m hoping for a fast getaway,’ he said, and took her hand. ‘Let’s go.’

The car was long, low and sleek, and Laine sank down into the soft seat, stifling a sigh of pleasure as she breathed in the expensive smell of leather.

‘Is this new?’ she asked as the engine purred into life.

‘It’s always the same car,’ he admitted. ‘I simply update the model.’ He paused. ‘Are you learning to drive?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not yet.’ And probably not at all, she added silently. Not when driving lessons were so expensive. She couldn’t visualise her mother footing such a bill—or ever allowing her the use of the household’s only car.

She glanced sideways at him. ‘You look—well,’ she volunteered shyly. ‘Very tanned. I thought it was winter in Australia.’

‘It is, but I stopped off in America on the way back. Some friends have a house on Cape Cod, and I spent a couple of weeks there.’

‘I expect it’s very beautiful.’

‘Incredibly. Lots of beaches to walk on while you think.’

He seemed to want to think now as well, she reflected rather wistfully as he relapsed into silence, or maybe he was just concentrating on his driving on these narrow country roads.

Not that it really mattered. It was enough just to sit beside him and let her mind flicker through a series of small, impossible dreams.

But when at last he turned the car through a pair of imposing wrought-iron gates she sat up swiftly, her enjoyable reverie over. ‘But this is Langbow Manor.’ She sounded shocked. ‘Are we having dinner here?’

‘You’ve got something against the place?’ He looked surprised. ‘It seemed fine when I checked into my suite earlier.’

‘I’ve never been here before. But isn’t it terribly expensive?’

He slanted a grin at her as he slotted the car into a parking space with expert efficiency. ‘That’s not an objection I usually get when I take a girl to dinner.’

‘No, of course not,’ she said, flushing. ‘I’m sorry.’ Candida’s words stung her afresh. ‘It’s just that I’m not really dressed for somewhere quite as grand.’

He walked round and opened the passenger door. ‘I shall be the envy of every man in the place,’ he told her softly, and her flush deepened.

Comfort closed round her as soon as she crossed the threshold. The room he took her to was like someone’s lovely drawing room, with charming chintz-covered sofas, and chairs grouped round small tables, but within a moment a waiter had arrived beside them. ‘For monsieur a vodka martini? Certainement. And, for mademoiselle may I recommend a Kir Royale?’

The drinks were there within seconds, accompanied by a dish of tiny, exquisite canapés, bursting in her mouth with all kinds of delicious and subtle flavours.

‘I shan’t be able to eat a thing later,’ she sighed.

He laughed. ‘I think you will.’

And he was right. Because, however nervous and excited she might feel, the watercress mousse she was served, followed by lobster mayonnaise, was just too wonderful for her to leave even a scrap—especially when accompanied by the crisp white wine Daniel had chosen, and which the sommelier had brought to them with an air of quiet satisfaction.

She found she could even manage the sweet pastry tart filled with tiny strawberries that ended her meal, while Daniel followed his vichysoisse and river trout with a tiny pot of something dark, rich and alcoholically chocolate, of which she sampled a taste.

‘This is a magical place,’ Laine said, looking around her with shining eyes. They had been given a secluded table in the corner of the Manor’s famous conservatory, where the massive vine above their heads was already loaded with bunches of small grapes. Because of the evening’s warmth the doors stood open to the garden, and subdued lights had begun to edge the scented borders outside as the daylight faded.

She added, more stiltedly, ‘I—I’ll remember it always.’ She tried to smile. ‘I don’t think Spain is going to be anything like this.’

‘I don’t suppose so either,’ he said. ‘So why go?’

She stared down at the linen tablecloth. ‘You speak as if I have a choice.’

‘Actually, you do,’ he said quietly. ‘You could stay here in England—with me.’

The world seemed to stop suddenly. She found she was fighting for breath. For the ability to say, in a voice she barely recognised, ‘You’re offering me a job?’

‘Not exactly.’ He smiled at her across the steady flame of the little lamp in the centre of the table. ‘I’m asking you to be my wife.’

There was a silence, then she said, in a tone that wobbled slightly, ‘If that’s a joke, it’s not a very kind one.’

He reached out and took her hand, stroking her slender fingers. ‘Do I make a habit of being unkind?’

Mutely, she shook her head, trying to banish from her mind the memory of that seemingly endless procession of blondes.

‘Well, then.’ There was another long silence, then he said on a note of faint amusement, ‘My sweet, this hesitation on your part is doing my self-esteem no good at all. You see, I thought you liked me.’

‘I do.’ I love you—love you. I always have and I always will.

‘But not enough to marry me—is that it?’

She still couldn’t look at him. ‘I suppose—I’ve never thought of you as—the marrying kind.’

He said slowly, ‘I could say I’ve been waiting for you to grow up, but I doubt you’d believe me—not when you’ve watched me sow a whole series of wild oats.’ And, as he saw her bite her lip, he added more urgently, ‘Is that the problem, darling—my past? Couldn’t we agree to bury it, and simply concentrate on the future instead?’

He paused. ‘Unless you’re determined to marry another virgin? And I really hope that’s not true, for all kinds of reasons.’

She felt her face warm involuntarily, and said on a little gasp, ‘Oh, no, I—I’m not.’ I just don’t know what to say to someone who’s made all my wildest, sweetest dreams come true at once.

‘That,’ he said, ‘is a definite relief.’ He studied her for a moment, then said gently, ‘I’ve startled you, haven’t I, sweetheart? I didn’t intend that. I thought your female intuition would have warned you why I’d whisked you away with me this evening.’

She tried to smile. ‘Perhaps I’m not very female.’

‘Now, that I don’t believe.’ Quite casually, he turned her hand over and began to trace a gentle circle in its soft palm with the ball of his thumb. It was the lightest of touches, but Laine felt it piercing her, transfixing her with a shaft of desire so swift, so intense and so totally unexpected that she almost cried aloud in amazement. And in overwhelming need.

She was suddenly melting, liquid with a hunger she’d never even guessed could exist. Aware, too, that her nipples were swelling, hardening against their flimsy constraints, and that her every sense was on fire with the consciousness of him, and his proximity to her. Knew, at the same time that she wanted to be even closer. To be joined to him. To be part of him for ever, totally and irrevocably. To be a woman—his woman.

His voice reached her in a quiet murmur of sound. ‘Marry me, Laine.’

Her mouth was dry, the breath catching in her throat, but somehow she managed to whisper back, ‘Yes.’

And saw him bend his head in brief acknowledgment.

He released her hand, his mouth twisting in faint ruefulness. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘we’d better go and break the news to your mother.’

She wanted to cry childishly, But I don’t want to go yet. You’re staying here—you said so—and I want to be alone with you.

But of course she said nothing of the kind, just smiled and nodded, and tried to conceal the feeling of inner dread that was uncurling deep inside her, praying that it wouldn’t be justified.

She was wrong.

‘You want to marry Elaine?’ Angela stared at Daniel with narrowed eyes. ‘This child? But that’s quite absurd. I couldn’t possibly agree to any such thing.’

Laine stood beside him, her hand in his, wanting to sink through the floor with humiliation. She was aware of Candida sitting bolt upright, her face like a mask carved from stone, and Jeff Tanfield standing gaping by the drinks table, a glass in one hand, a whisky decanter in the other, as his already pink complexion deepened to crimson.

Daniel said quietly, ‘I’m not asking your consent, Mrs Sinclair. I don’t have to. I’m merely informing you of our intentions as a matter of courtesy. We plan to be married within the next few weeks.’

‘But that’s quite impossible.’ Angela gestured wildly. ‘I have this house to sell—a move to Spain to arrange. I couldn’t possibly organise a full-dress wedding as well.’

‘You won’t be asked to,’ Daniel said curtly. ‘I’ll talk to the Vicar myself about a mid-week date, and the guest-list—on my side anyway—will be minimal. We’ll hold a small reception here afterwards, and I’ll book the caterer and supply the champagne. The only contribution you need make is to help Laine choose something to wear and send the bill to me.’

‘You must have lost your mind,’ Angela said shortly. ‘For one thing the Daniel Flynns of this world simply do not get married at the drop of a hat to some little nobody in an out-of-the-way place like this.’

He gave her a level look. ‘Well, naturally I can’t speak for the rest of us, but this Daniel Flynn generally pleases himself. And my current intention is to make Laine my wife as quickly and as simply as possible.’ He turned to the girl at his side, lifting the hand he was clasping to his lips. ‘Which seems to be what she wants too.’

‘Yes.’ She found a voice from somewhere. ‘I do.’

‘And what about her mother in all this?’ Jeff Tanfield put down the decanter and moved forward with sudden belligerence. ‘Angela was relying on Elaine’s active support in this new venture of ours in Spain. We both were—as she well knows. As part of the team she’d gain valuable and exciting work experience—and also the chance to see something of the world.’

Daniel looked at him, his lip curling. ‘She’d provide you with a valuable skivvy, certainly. However, I think Laine will find living and travelling with me rather more amusing than the view from some Spanish laundry room. And I guarantee that the pay and conditions will be better too.’

Angela’s laugh was metallic. ‘Quite a Cinderella story—isn’t it? Except I can’t really visualise you as Prince Charming, my dear Daniel. I hope, for her sake, that my daughter knows what she’s taking on.’

‘If not, I’m sure you’ll tell her.’ His gaze flicked her contemptuously, then he turned and looked down at Laine, his expression softening. ‘The cab’s waiting, darling, and the driver has another job later. I have to go.’ He saw the desperation in her eyes and smiled reassuringly. ‘But I’ll be over first thing in the morning to take you shopping for a ring.’

Take me with you, she begged silently. Don’t leave me here with them. Take me away now—please.

‘Elaine has work to do tomorrow.’ Angela’s voice was inimical. ‘Besides, she’ll also be needed to show prospective buyers around.’

‘Use the estate agent,’ Daniel advised with equal coldness. ‘That’s what you’re paying him for. And I’ll get on to an agency and hire someone to take over Laine’s kitchen duties.’ He put his arm round Laine’s waist. ‘Now, come and say goodnight to me, sweetheart.’

The night was warm, but Laine shivered as she stood with him at the main door. ‘That was so horrible.’

‘It could have been worse, believe me.’ His tone was wry.

‘I don’t know how.’ There was a touch of desolation in her own voice. ‘Dan—I could go on doing the housework here. Mother might appreciate it, and I really don’t mind.’

‘But I do. I want your hands beautifully soft for our honeymoon.’ He grinned teasingly as her face warmed, then bent his head and kissed her swiftly and sensuously on the mouth. ‘Sweet dreams,’ he told her, and went.

Laine couldn’t face going back into the drawing room, so she went upstairs to get ready for bed—although she seriously doubted whether sleep would be an option.

She was just about to switch off her lamp when the door opened and her mother came in.

‘Well, you’re certainly a dark horse. Feed him some sob story, did you?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Or is there another reason for this hasty wedding? He hasn’t got you pregnant, by some mischance?’

Laine’s face flamed. ‘You know that’s not true.’

Angela shrugged. ‘I can’t think of any other reason for him to bother with you. Although I suppose young flesh will always have its appeal—even to a sophisticate like Daniel Flynn. But marriage?’ She laughed harshly. ‘Never in this world, my dear.’

Laine sat up very straight, her throat so dry it hurt. ‘It doesn’t occur to you that he might be in love with me?’

‘No, frankly, it doesn’t. Is that what he’s told you?’

‘Of course.’ Surreptitiously Laine crossed her fingers under the covers. Because she suddenly realised that Dan had never mentioned the word ‘love’. Not when he’d proposed. Not in the cab-ride back to Abbotsbrook. Not while they were saying goodnight.

Not once.

And after Angela had finally left, and she was alone, it was a thought that came back to haunt her over and over again throughout the long night.