To Have And To Hold

Cover Page

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

Copyright

“I’m leaving.”

“No, you’re not. I won’t let you.”

Alix laughed. “It’s too late for the possessive husband bit. You just proved you couldn’t care less.”

Rhys drew back. But he said forcefully, “I mean it. I do care about you. You know that.”

“But you don’t love me. You don’t even know what love means.”

SALLY WENTWORTH was born and raised in Hertfordshire, England, where she still lives, and started writing after attending an evening writing course. She is married and has one son. There is always a novel on the bedside table, but Sally also loves craftwork, plays bridge and is the president of a National Trust group. Sometimes she doesn’t know how she finds the time to write!

To Have And To Hold

Sally Wentworth

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

ALIX NORTH had fallen in love with Rhys Stirling the first time she had met him. Her parents had moved to a new house in Kent, to be within easy commuting distance of her father’s new job in Canterbury. It was high summer. Alix had gone out to explore the garden, looked through a hole in the hedge, and lost her heart. Rhys had been tall, lean-faced, and good-looking. He still was. But then he had been fourteen and Alix just four years old.

‘Hello,’ she’d called to him through the gap.

Looking up from the book he was reading, Rhys had spotted her face framed by leaves and came to squat down to her level. ‘Hello. What’s your name?’

‘Alix. What’s yours?’

‘Rhys. Have you come to live here?’

‘Yes.’

‘I expect you’ll be going to the local school, then—BABS.’

‘Babs?’ Alix frowned in perplexity.

‘It stands for Barkham All Boys’ School.’

‘But I can’t go to a boys’ school—I’m a girl.’

‘Really?’ Rhys leaned closer. ‘How can you be a girl with a name like Alix?’

‘Well, I am.’ Putting her arms through the gap, Alix suddenly launched herself through like a diver, disregarding scratches and torn clothes as she struggled to the other side, then scrambled to her feet in front of him, somehow knowing that it was vital that he should be convinced she wasn’t a boy. Rhys, too, had got to his feet and loomed over her, almost as tall as an adult, but she put her hands on her hips and looked up at him with a determined chin as she said in a tone she’d heard her mother use, ‘Look! I am most definitely a girl!’

That had made him laugh. ‘Well, you’re a tomboy at least,’ he’d told her, and taking hold of her hand had led her to meet his mother, who’d given her lemonade and cake. Afterwards Rhys had lifted her on to his shoulders and taken her home, the long way round. Alix had clung on, her arms tight round his neck, and knew herself in heaven.

It had been his turn to meet her mother, but he didn’t stay long. When he left Alix ran after him and caught him up in the drive, gazed up at him with a flushed face framed by springy corn-gold curls. ‘Please,’ she said earnestly, ‘will you marry me?’

He laughed again, patted her head, and said of course he would. But he hadn’t taken her seriously. He still didn’t. But Alix had meant it then and went on meaning it all through the years when the gap in the hedge had been made ever bigger as she pushed her way through, until the two fathers had given in to the inevitable and put in a gate, which saved her mother a lot of mending.

Their two families had become very friendly, all of them diverted by Alix’s open adoration of Rhys. He had continued to treat her with good-humoured amusement, playing games with her or letting her come with him when he went walking or fishing in the summer vacations, helping her to learn chess and letting her listen to his music collection in the winter holidays. During term-time Alix didn’t see so much of him because he boarded during the week, only coming home for weekends, when he always had loads of studying to do. But when he was free she was a regular visitor, becoming as much at home in his house as her own, and treated almost like the daughter they didn’t have by his parents. Alix didn’t mind that, but she objected strongly when Rhys treated her like a sister. ‘No, you’re going to marry me,’ she always insisted, supremely confident that he would keep his socasual promise.

It became a standing joke with their parents, all of whom were confident that she would grow out of it, but was referred to less when Rhys went away to college and then got a job as a civil engineer which sent him to South Africa for a couple of years, and then to build a bridge in Botswana. During those years, when he was home, Rhys was as tolerant of her as ever, enjoying the fuss she made of him and her joy at seeing him. He let Alix go jogging with him every morning and would play a few sets with her at the tennis club from time to time. But a twenty-year-old young man didn’t want to be seen by his contemporaries in public with a ten-year-old he’d nicknamed ‘urchin’; he met girls of his own age and went around with them, fancied himself in love and gained some useful experience.

When he came home from Botswana he was twenty-eight. His face was tanned now, his features almost as lean, but his body had filled out, become that of a man instead of a boy. He had found strength, not only physical strength but mental self-assurance, too. He had been in charge of an important project and a great many men, and it had given him an authority which showed.

Alix, too, had met a lot of boys and young men, had gone out with some she liked, but there had been no question of any romance; she was just as in love with Rhys as that first day and had no interest in anyone else. When Rhys came home, soon after her eighteenth birthday, she was starry-eyed, convinced that he would immediately be bowled over when he saw her, that they would be officially engaged at once and be married in no time at all. Her mother did her best to dissuade her, but Alix merely laughed and said, ‘You’ll see.’

When Rhys saw her, grown tall and slender, wearing a very feminine dress and her face made-up, his eyebrows did in fact rise—but he laughed as he said, ‘Good grief! It can’t be my little Alix all grown-up.’

She gave him a shy, yet breathlessly eager look, expecting him to treat her like an adult, like his girl, but he was only amused, just the same as he’d always been.

He took her out a few times, escorting her to dances, often when their parents came along, too, and Alix was again in seventh heaven, but even she realised that his manner was merely casually affectionate. On the few occasions when she got him alone, Alix tried to tempt him to make love to her. He obliged with a few light kisses, which she found most unsatisfactory. ‘Kiss me properly,’ she commanded. ‘After all, we are going to be married.’

‘Married?’ Rhys burst into laughter. ‘You crazy little idiot! You’re not still on about that, are you?’ He tweaked her hair. ‘You know, urchin, you’re really good for my ego.’

Pleased, she said eagerly, ‘So when will we get married?’

He kissed the end of her nose. ‘Ask me again when you’re an adult.’

‘I am an adult!’

‘OK, when you’re not a teenager, then.’

‘So when I’m twenty will we get married?’

Rhys glanced at her, laughter in his eyes, but then the laughter died as his gaze lingered on her face, on the long dark lashes and brows that were such a contrast to her fair hair, on her high cheek bones and straight nose that gave her ageless beauty, but mostly on her eyes, as blue as sapphires and full now of loving eagerness. Lifting a finger he traced the tip along the soft, full curve of her lips. ‘Maybe I might at that,’ he said almost under his breath, so softly that only her alertness let her hear it. But then he spoiled it all by sitting back, giving a twisted smile, and saying, ‘You’ve got a lot of living to do yet, urchin, before you even think of settling down.’ A gleam came into his eyes and the grin broadened. ‘And so, for that matter, have I.’

Rhys had made such a success of the Botswana project that he was promoted and was centred more on his company’s office in London, where he rented a flat. He still went abroad a lot but not for such long periods now, acting more as head of an estimating team for contracts, and also as a kind of trouble-shooter, ready to fly anywhere in the world where he was needed. He was, according to his proud parents, his boss’s blue-eyed boy and was heading for a directorship before too long.

As for Alix, she got over her disappointment almost at once, and was happy in the knowledge that in only two years she would be twenty, when Rhys had told her to ask again. And she hugged that murmured ‘I might at that’ to her like a talisman, knowing that for a moment at least he had looked at her as a woman. She went to college to take a two-year business studies course, refusing to take an additional year that would have given her a higher qualification, because Rhys had said twenty, not twenty-one.

As Rhys was living in London and she was away at college, Alix didn’t see him for those two years. His visits home never seemed to coincide with hers, not even at Christmas, because he was away both years and his mother and father flew out to be with him.

By now both sets of parents were the firmest friends; neither had had more children, and they were fast coming to the opinion that Rhys and Alix were absolutely right for each other. Not that they pushed at all; with Alix it wasn’t necessary, and Rhys’s parents knew that he had a mind of his own. But when the time came for Alix to leave college and get a job, Rhys’s father, who had got to know several people in his son’s company, found out that there was a vacancy in the London office. She applied and, probably because she wanted the job so badly, survived several interviews to win the position. ‘Don’t let’s tell Rhys. Let’s all keep it as a surprise,’ his father suggested.

Alix grinned, and kissed him. ‘It’s our secret, Uncle David.’

Rhys was away in South America when Alix went to work for his company as a secretary. She soon made friends there, her open, animated character making her popular with both sexes. But she wasn’t open about knowing Rhys; that she kept to herself. There were a great many unattached men working for the company and several of them asked her for a date—some of the attached ones, too—but she confidently told them that she was already seeing someone and expected to be engaged very soon, so they left her alone.

There was one girl in her office, Kathy, with whom Alix became especially friendly, and who would pass on all the office gossip over lunch. One day they were sitting in the window of a café not far from the office building when Kathy pointed out a girl walking by. ‘You see her? That’s Donna Temple. She’s Todd Weston’s personal assistant when he’s in London.’

‘Todd Weston? He’s one of the Canadian directors, isn’t he?’

‘That’s right. And not only a director but the son of George Weston, the company president, who started the firm and still more or less owns it. They say Todd is in the running to inherit the company.’

‘And is Donna interested in Todd?’ Alix asked, watching the tall, dark-haired girl as she waited to cross the road.

Kathy shook her head. ‘He’s already married and has a family. No, Donna is putting out her hooks for the man who’s next in line to take over from Todd when his father retires and he goes back to Canada.’

‘Oh? Who’s that?’

‘His name is Rhys Stirling, and he is absolutely gorgeous. You wait till you see him.’

Alix’s stomach turned over and she had to swallow hard before she could say, ‘What do you mean—putting out hooks for him?’

‘Well, they’re a number whenever he’s in England—he’s away a lot, you see—and everyone’s pretty certain that they’re having a hot affair.’

‘You mean—you mean they’re in love?’ Alix managed to ask, every word a cut to her heart.

‘Oh, no, I’m not saying that. Just that Donna is out to catch him.’ Kathy chuckled. ‘Although she’ll have to be very clever if she does; from what I’ve heard about Rhys, he has women falling for him wherever he goes. And he hasn’t been caught yet.’

That last sentence gave Alix a little comfort, but she said, ‘And these women; does he have affairs with all of them?’

Kathy shrugged. ‘That I don’t know; he’s good-looking enough to be able to pick and choose, but he certainly has quite a reputation within the company.’ She made a yearning face. ‘I just wish he’d ask me.’

‘He hasn’t, then?’

‘Fat chance. Not with Donna around. I mean, just look at her.’

Both girls turned to watch Donna Temple as she walked along the opposite side of the street. In her late twenties, she was rather severely dressed, in a beautifully cut suit that outlined a good figure, walked with head high, aware that she drew admiring glances, and was completely assured and sophisticated.

Alix’s heart sank a little—but not very much; she had been in love with Rhys for so long that it had become part of her, but it made her very thoughtful. She had never considered Rhys in the light of other women before; OK, she knew he’d been out with girls, of course she did, but it had never even occurred to her that he might fall in love and marry someone else. She had always been so sure of him. But only now did she realise that there was competition out there. And the competition, in the shape of Donna Temple, might be dangerous.

That was her first reaction. Her second was jealousy. No way did she want to think of Rhys making love to another woman. But there again, she had somehow known that Rhys had become a man of the world, in every sense. But so long as the girls in his life had been shadowy, mythical creatures and could be put down merely to experience, then it hadn’t mattered, but it came as quite a shock to see one in the flesh, as it were.

Was Rhys really attracted to that kind of woman? she wondered. Or was he just amusing himself while he waited for her to grow up? Alix decided it just had to be the latter, although she wasn’t quite so sure of Rhys as she had been, and she waited with anxious eagerness for him to come home.

From time to time news of him filtered down to her, either at work or at home. From South America he had moved straight on to another project in Australia, so it was over three months later before she heard that he was finally returning to England. The office buzzed with the news, because there was also a rumour going around that old Mr Weston was retiring at last, so there would be a big reshuffle among the directors. A lot of people thought that this was the main reason Rhys was coming home.

Alix heard the rumours but was too concerned with her own reasons for wanting to see Rhys again to think anything else very important. He was due to fly in on a Friday, and everyone, Alix included, thought that he would go straight to his parents’ home for the weekend. She could hardly contain her excitement, and had asked for the day off so that she could be waiting for him when he arrived, but a draft contract for a power plant in one of the Gulf states had to be finished and she had to work. Frustrated, and longing for the end of the day, Alix had to sit at her desk and wish the hours away.

But in the afternoon the phone on Kathy’s desk rang. She listened then swivelled round towards Alix. ‘Hey! Guess what? That was the girl on Reception. She says Rhys Stirling has come here straight from the airport.’

‘He has?’ Alix’s face lit with excitement she couldn’t hide.

But Kathy thought it was just eager interest and said, ‘Now you’ll be able to see for yourself how gorgeous he is.’

‘You think he’ll come in here?’

‘I should think so; he usually comes to say hello when he gets back.’

‘And goodbye when he goes,’ chimed in another girl.

It was quite a large office with about a dozen girls and young men, all doing more or less equal jobs, situated on the fifth floor of the building. The directors’ offices were on the floor above, so no one saw Rhys as he went up in the lift to see Todd Weston. Alix made for the cloakroom to check her make-up and brush her hair. When she’d last seen Rhys it had still been a mass of short curls, but she wore it longer now, so that it caressed her shoulders in a shining, golden mane. Not having expected to see him, she’d put on normal working clothes: a skirt, and sweater over a shirt, but the skirt was tight enough to outline the slimness of her hips and the sweater a shade of blue that emphasised the sea-blue of her eyes. Anyway, it would have to do.

When Rhys finally came to the office over an hour later, Alix was standing at a filing cabinet over by the wall, and had her back towards him. She heard his voice and began to quiver with excitement so strong she thought her heart would burst, but she didn’t turn round. No one had told Rhys that she was working here and she wanted to take him completely by surprise. He worked his way down the room, greeting everyone he knew by name, came to say hello to Kathy. Then he glanced past her at Alix and said, ‘You’ve got a new girl, I see.’

Alix took a deep breath and swung round, her face radiant. ‘Hello, Rhys.’

Rhys’s eyes widened incredulously. ‘Alix?’

With a laugh of pure delight, she ran to him and threw her arms round his neck in spontaneous joy.

He gave a whoop of astonished laughter, and put his hands on her waist to lift her up and swing her round. ‘Urchin!’ And then he kissed her, right there in front of them all. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ he demanded when he straightened up.

‘I work here.’ She still had her arms round his neck and he his hands on her waist, and to Alix it was the best moment, ever. ‘I’ve been here for months.’

‘And no one told me?’

‘We wanted it to be a surprise.’

‘It was certainly that.’ His grey eyes laughed down at her. ‘I shall have words to say when I get home.’

‘Are you going now?’

‘In about half an hour. I’ve got a car laid on. Want a lift?’

‘Of course.’

‘OK. Meet me out front.’

He went to let her go but she pulled him closer and stood on tip-toe to murmur in his ear, ‘I’m glad you’re home, Rhys.’

His eyes met hers for a moment, saw the radiance in their depths. ‘Still?’ he asked, only half teasingly.

‘Still,’ she answered with sincerity. ‘Always.’

He brushed her lips with his, then said, ‘See you later,’ and walked out of the office.

‘Well!’ Kathy exclaimed as soon as he’d gone. ‘You’re a dark horse. I thought you said you didn’t know him.’

Alix came back to earth to find everyone staring at her, which made her blush. ‘Oh, no; you never asked me. You just took it that I didn’t.’

Some of the others came to cluster round and Kathy gave her a shrewd look. ‘You could easily have told us. Why didn’t you?’

‘I wanted to surprise him.’

‘Well, you certainly did that. And you obviously know him very well,’ one of the men said.

Alix coloured again at the emphasis that had been put on the last two words. ‘Oh, yes. I’ve known him nearly all my life. We live next door to each other, you see.’

Faces cleared and people went back to their desks, a few picked up phones to pass on the tit-bit of gossip. Kathy looked as if she longed to do the same, but instead pulled her chair closer to Alix’s and said enviously, ‘How fantastic that you know Rhys. God, I’d give anything to live next door to him. But I’d never have been able to keep it secret like that. Do you see much of him when he’s home?’

‘Oh, yes, lots,’ Alix told her, conveniently forgetting the last couple of years. ‘We go out together, too.’

‘Really? Oh, wow! Just wait till Donna Temple finds out.’ And unable to resist any longer, Kathy reached for the phone.

Several curious faces were looking out of windows when Alix was supposed to meet Rhys, but as it happened he was standing in the foyer, talking to another man when she came out of the lift, a man in his forties, not as tall as Rhys but broad and tough-looking. She hesitated but Rhys saw her and beckoned her over. ‘This is the surprise I found waiting for me,’ he said with a grin. ‘Alix, this is Todd Weston. Todd, meet Alix North. I’ve been pulling her out of scrapes since she was shorter than my knee.’

Alix gave him an indignant look, but smiled as she shook the outstretched hand of the head of the company. ‘Hello, Mr Weston.’

‘Hello, Alix,’ he said with a Canadian accent. ‘Isn’t that a boy’s name?’

‘I thought she was a boy the first time I met her,’ Rhys said before she could speak.

Todd Weston looked her over and grinned. ‘Well, she’s certainly changed.’

‘So she has,’ Rhys agreed, and they both laughed as Alix blushed furiously.

A chauffeur came in to say the car was there so Todd bade them goodbye. ‘See you Monday and we’ll talk further, Rhys.’ And he clapped him on the shoulder before walking away.

Alix glanced up as they waited on the pavement for all Rhys’s luggage to be loaded in the car, saw the faces at the windows, and couldn’t help hoping, with great satisfaction, that one of them was that of Donna Temple.

They got in the back of the car, the glass screen dividing them from the chauffeur, and Rhys said, ‘Well, urchin, how did you get the job?’

‘Purely on merit,’ she assured him. ‘Although your father did find out about the vacancy,’ she admitted.

Rhys’s eyebrows flickered and he gave her a thoughtful look. ‘Did he, now?’

Alix chuckled richly. ‘But wasn’t it the most perfect surprise?’

‘It certainly was; in your letters you just said you’d got a job.’

‘Oh, you did read them, then?’

‘Of course.’

‘But you never bothered to answer any of them,’ she pointed out tartly.

‘Yes, I did; I sent you postcards from all over the place.’

‘Postcards!’ Alix exclaimed with such a disgusted expression that he laughed. ‘What good are those to a girl?’

‘You used to collect them,’ Rhys pointed out.

‘I didn’t collect them—I kept yours.’

‘What, all of them?’

‘Of course.’ Alix didn’t say that they were among her most treasured possessions, along with the gifts and Christmas and birthday cards that he had given her over the last sixteen years.

Maybe she didn’t have to, because Rhys ran a finger along her throat and up to her chin, and said, looking into her eyes, ‘You’re a funny one, Alix.’

‘Why—because I’m so single-minded about you?’

He smiled and gave a small shrug. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘I don’t see why. Some children know what they want to be—a doctor or a dancer or something—from a very early age, and usually everyone thinks that’s great and they’re given every help and encouragement. Well, it was more or less the same for me. I saw you and I just knew I wanted to be with you,’ she said simply. ‘I can’t help it—that’s just the way it is.’

Rhys shook his head at her. ‘I was sure you would have grown out of that by now.’

Alix smiled at him, a delightfully mischievous smile that gave her face an elfin quality. ‘And I was sure you would have grown into it by now.’

That made him give a burst of laughter and there was an arrested expression in his eyes as he looked at her. Her hand was still in his, but now he put his other hand over it. ‘Tell me what you’ve been doing,’ he commanded, giving her all his attention.