“You’ve always claimed that no man could replace Richard in your life.”

“No man could,” Polly agreed.

“Not in your life, then, but perhaps it’s a different matter when it comes to your bed.”

Polly stared at him.

He continued. “If I’d known, I might have done this much sooner….” His mouth came down on her own with a determination that made her whole body start to tremble.

“Kiss me properly,” Marcus demanded rawly against her lips.

“Marcus,” she started to protest, but the moment her lips parted his were covering them, devouring them…devouring her.

And the resistance drained out of her body.

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.

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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.

The Ultimate Surrender
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

‘HI, MA, guess what? I think I’ve found the perfect woman for Uncle Marcus. Her name’s Suzi Howell. We met her when Chris and I were having dinner with his parents. Suzi’s mother is Chris’s godmother, and she’s gorgeous; tall, blonde—you know, that stylish, elegant type that Marcus always goes for. And she’s the right age—late twenties—and she knows all about the hotel trade because she works for some super-exclusive American outfit in the Caribbean, and—’

‘Briony…’ Polly Fraser’s muffled voice interrupted her daughter’s eulogy as Polly emerged from the deep recess of the kitchen cupboard she had been cleaning out.

Why was it one’s offspring always chose the most inauspicious of moments to make such announcements? Polly wondered as she gingerly extricated herself from the cupboard and put its contents on the worktop which she was kneeling with one leg whilst standing on her step-ladder with the other.

‘You’re going to love her; she’s just so perfect for Uncle Marcus,’ Briony continued to enthuse, adding warningly, ‘Watch out, Mum,’ as she deftly caught the jar of home-made plum jam which Polly had dislodged as she hurriedly stepped down from the worktop.

‘Mmm,’ Briony remarked, ‘my favourite. May I take this back to college with me? Bought stuff just doesn’t taste the same.’

‘No, it doesn’t, does it?’ Polly agreed, smartly repossessing the jar and ignoring her daughter’s injured expression. ‘You know the rules,’ she reminded her firmly. ‘The customers come first. Which reminds me, if you want to earn a little bit of extra money whilst you’re at home that blackberry and apple jelly I made last year from that new recipe has gone down very well…’

‘Mum…’ Briony protested. ‘Can you just stop thinking about the hotel and the guests for five minutes and listen to what I’m trying to tell you?’

Penitently Polly got down properly from her perch and allowed her daughter to lead her towards the kitchen table.

She had been just eighteen herself—Briony’s age—when she had met and fallen in love with Richard Fraser. At twenty-two, four years her senior, he had swept her off her feet.

They had met when he had called at the solicitor’s offices where she’d worked, following the death of his grandfather, General Leo Fraser, who had left jointly to both his grandsons the large Georgian house which had been in the family for several generations but which neither of his sons, both army men themselves, nor their wives, had wanted to take on.

It had been left to Richard to deal with most of the more mundane aspects of the formalities connected with the will since Marcus had at the time been working abroad for a large multinational oil company, and although Polly had heard a good deal about his slightly older cousin from Richard it had not been until after their own wedding, a breathtaking three months after they had met, that she had actually seen Marcus in person for the first time. Even now, all these years later, she could recall the shock that coming face to face with him had given her. Richard, her own husband, had been good-looking and sweetly charming, with the old-fashioned kind of courtesy that came from a traditional services boarding-school upbringing, but Marcus…To call Marcus merely good-looking was rather like comparing the sweet pleasantness of ordinary milk chocolate to the sophisticated, broodingly rich, dark, addictive flavour of plain.

In other words Marcus was in a class of his own, a man who even now, in his early forties, was just so compellingly male that Polly’s mouth still went a little bit dry and her pulse-rate still rose every time he walked into the room. If Richard would have made a classically good-natured and physically attractive hero in the mould of Jane Austen’s Mr Bingley, then Marcus could quite definitely have been Mr Darcy—and then some. There was something of a sense of shut-down, controlled male power about Marcus that immediately made one think of a smouldering volcano—a fierce sexual energy which, for Polly, at nineteen and a very, very new and shy bride, had been rather too much for her to contend with.

And it hadn’t helped either that in those early days of her marriage Marcus had been so plainly disapproving of her youth and the fact that she and Richard had married so quickly. But, although she had been sensitively aware of Marcus’s disapproval of their marriage, Polly had refused to let either him or Richard see it or guess how much it hurt her—for Richard’s sake.

Right from the start, when they had met, Polly had sensed how much his older cousin’s approval meant to Richard. Both boys had gone to the same school and had grown up more as brothers than cousins—and since Richard was the younger of the two of them, if only by some eighteen months, it was perhaps natural that he should have put Marcus on something of a pedestal.

Because of her own upbringing—she had been orphaned at four and brought up by her father’s sister and her husband—Polly had been acutely conscious of not wanting to do anything that might cause a rift between the two cousins. If Marcus’s approval was important to her darling, beloved, wonderful Richard, then she was certainly not going to do anything to prejudice it, even if that meant keeping her own unhappiness about the way Marcus was reacting to their marriage to herself.

‘For God’s sake, Rick, she’s nothing but a baby,’ she heard Marcus expostulating to her husband when neither of them was aware that she could hear them.

‘She’s adorable and I love her to bits,’ she heard Richard responding happily to his cousin.

Marcus sighed, and she was just able to imagine the tight, reined-in look of irritation that must be on his darkly handsome face. It was hard to believe that someone like Marcus could ever understand how it felt to be as deeply in love as she and Richard were with one another.

After their marriage she moved into the small flat that Richard was renting—a tiny place, but with an attic with that all-important north-facing light that artists valued so much. Because Richard was a presently struggling and as yet unknown young artist, who she just knew was one day going to be so famous…and rich…

Right then they were just about managing on the small allowance Richard got from his parents plus the little bits of money he earned from commissions—mostly from his parents’ friends. And then, of course, there was the money she earned as a secretary. It wasn’t a lot but it was enough…just…and when Richard and Marcus sold Fraser House…

And then it happened…an accident…a trick of fate. During the late wedding gift Marcus had given them—a weekend stay in a very, very luxurious country house hotel—either because the shellfish had not been quite as fresh as they should have been or she had imbibed too much champagne, or both, there was a night when Polly was violently ill. Richard was so generously sweet and loving in the way he looked after her—and soon after she was feeling well again…

But a short time later she totally disgraced herself by dashing into the tiny bathroom of their flat, right past Marcus, who had called to see Richard about the problems they were having in finding a buyer for Fraser House, and it was Marcus who first pinpointed the potential cause of her malaise by announcing to Richard in sharp tones of condemnation, ‘My God, Rick, if she’s pregnant…’

‘Pregnant…’

As the tears of nausea and shock filled her eyes Polly started to shake with anxiety.

What would they do if Marcus was right? She and Richard couldn’t afford a baby. They could barely afford to support themselves.

She was scarcely able to touch a mouthful of the special meal she had prepared for Marcus—trying out ambitious new recipes was her hobby. Her aunt was a good cook, and with neither of her own daughters remotely interested in learning her culinary skills she had concentrated on passing them on to her eagerly interested niece.

Naively, perhaps, Polly had never considered the possibility of becoming pregnant—at least not so soon.

Whilst she was in the kitchen she could hear the two men talking together, their voices carrying to where she was working.

‘For God’s sake, Rick,’ she heard Marcus demanding sharply, ‘what the hell were you thinking about? She’s little more than a baby herself…’

‘I wasn’t thinking…You don’t when you’re in love,’ she heard Richard responding simply.

‘In love!’ Marcus almost snarled. ‘You might be that but I doubt that either of you knows what real love is all about.’

He left shortly afterwards, ignoring the cheek she timidly offered him to kiss, his shark-grey eyes almost black with the intensity of his anger.

‘I don’t think that Marcus likes me very much,’ she forced herself to confess to Richard a little later. They were sitting on their small shabby sofa and Richard was trying to playfully spoon-feed her what was left of the rich chestnut roulade she had served the men for their pudding. Just the smell of it turned her stomach, never mind what the taste would do, but at this stage she was still reluctant to confront the truth.

‘Of course he likes you,’ Richard told her heartily—too heartily, perhaps, as he avoided looking at her. ‘In fact he probably wishes he’d met you first,’ he added, before admitting, ‘Not that you’re really his type…’

‘Oh? What kind of girl is?’ Polly asked him, more to stop herself focusing on how very queasy she felt than out of any real interest.

‘Oh, sort of sophisticated and tall, the kind of girl who looks as though she knows what life’s all about, if you know what I mean.’

Polly did, and the kind of girl Richard had just described was as different from the way she was herself as it was possible to be. For a start she was short rather than tall—barely five foot two—and her hair was a soft mousy-brown rather than blonde; and as for knowing what life was all about…

A month later, when it was impossible for her to ignore the fact that Marcus’s angry guess had been right and that she was pregnant, Richard walked into the flat to find her in tears and desperately worried about their future.

‘Don’t worry,’ he consoled her as he took her in his arms and held her tight. ‘We’ll manage…somehow…’

Of course she immediately felt better, comforted by his insouciance and his confidence. Richard had such a warm, sunny nature that it was impossible not to feel buoyed up and infected by his natural optimism and his belief that something would ‘turn up’.

A commission for a portrait via Marcus, together with a generous Christmas cheque from Richard’s parents, who were living in Cyprus where Richard’s father was stationed, helped them to repay the overdraft which had somehow or other built up to alarming proportions despite Polly’s excellently thrifty housekeeping. But the flat was damp and cold, and in the new year Richard caught flu, and then Polly caught it from him and was unable to work. The office sent a letter round suggesting that since she would be leaving work anyway when her baby was born it might be as well if she didn’t return but concentrated on looking after her health. The letter arrived on a raw, miserable February day when Polly was seven months pregnant and the last of the Christmas money had just been used to pay their rent.

The small sitting room of the flat was crammed with things she had bought for the coming baby—all of them second-hand—including the cot that Richard was cleverly repainting. Polly was sitting there on the threadbare carpeted floor, large round tears running down her face and dripping onto her large round tummy, when the door opened and Marcus walked in unannounced.

In her undignified haste to get up Polly caught her foot in the carpet and pitched forward, giving a sharp cry of protest and fear, quickly smothered against the unexpected warmth of Marcus’s expensive cashmere jacket as he caught hold of her, impeding her fall. For a moment, as she stood within the protective circle of his arms her face buried in his jacket, breathing in the raw male scent of him, Polly had the most peculiar and bemusing sense of somehow coming home; of being safe and protected.

It was gone in a second, quickly dismissed by her realisation of just how alien and idiotic her reaction was. She had never felt really comfortable with Marcus, still less as her pregnancy advanced, and she felt sure she could see in his eyes his disapproval of the way their marriage and her pregnancy had taken over Richard’s life, forcing onto him responsibilities which did not allow him full exercise of his artistic talents. So how on earth could she possibly have experienced what she had experienced? It was her imagination—a hallucination—an odd side-effect of being pregnant and poorly. And then Marcus was releasing her, turning his back on her, his face set and unreadable as he headed for the attic and Richard.

It was less than a week later when Richard burst into the flat, full of excitement to tell her of the ‘terrific idea’ that Marcus had had. He picked her up and whirled her round in his arms despite the bulk of her pregnancy, until she was so dizzy she had to beg him to stop.

‘What idea?’ she asked him.

‘Instead of selling Fraser House Marcus says that we should keep it…’

‘But we need the money from it,’ Polly protested anxiously. One thing she had learned about her husband was that he was something of a dreamer, prone to wonderful ideas that he painted for her in all the rich colours of his imagination; but, strong as he was on imagination, Richard was rather weak on practicality, and her heart sank a little as she prepared to listen to him.

‘We need money, yes,’ Richard agreed. ‘But Marcus has come up with this wonderful way for us to make some. You know how he’s just got that recent promotion which involves him spending more time here in the UK and entertaining a lot?’

Cautiously Polly nodded. Marcus had recently been made the head of his department, travelling daily to the company’s UK offices in the city and returning each evening to the luxurious apartment he retained in the small commuter village where his and Richard’s family roots were. And she had learned, through listening to his conversations with Richard, that he spent a lot of time having meetings with his overseas colleagues.

‘Well, apparently Marcus’s boss has just come back from a prolonged visit to their American parent company in the States and he’s told Marcus that over there the trend is for visiting execs and their wives to stay as house guests with their US counterparts. Apparently he’s very keen to introduce the same sort of system over here. Marcus would get a special expenses allowance to cover all the costs but, as he was saying to me, it would be virtually impossible for him to provide the standard of hospitality that would be needed as an unmarried man living alone in a service flat. That’s when he realised what a perfect solution it would be for all of us…’

‘What would be?’ Polly asked him in bewilderment. The baby had started kicking quite hard and her head was still full of flu, and what she really wanted more than anything else was to go to bed—a nice warm bed in a nice warm bedroom…not the horrid, lumpy, uncomfortable bed she and Richard shared in their cold, damp room.

‘What I’ve just said,’ Richard told her. ‘What a terrific idea it would be if the three of us moved into Fraser House and you and I…well, you, I suppose, really,’ he admitted a little ruefully, ‘looked after Marcus’s colleagues…you know…tidied up their rooms, cooked their meals—that sort of thing,’ he told her vaguely. ‘And Marcus would pay us for doing it. Oh, and of course he’d be living there as well, and I suppose you’d have to cook for him too, although he’d still be away some of the time…’

‘Richard…’ Polly stopped him faintly.

‘What is it? Aren’t you feeling well?’ he demanded anxiously as soon as he saw how pale and shocked she was looking. ‘It isn’t the baby, is it? It isn’t time yet…’

No, it wasn’t the baby, although the shock to her system of what he had just outlined could well have caused her to go into premature labour, Polly reflected a little later on as she tried and failed to find the words to tell him how impossible what Marcus was suggesting was. For one thing she just couldn’t see how Marcus—immaculate, lordly, impatient Marcus—was ever going to be able to live side by side with a small baby…never mind side by side with her.

Then, during the night, the ceiling above their bedroom fell in, sending plaster and water cascading everywhere causing Richard to say worriedly that there was no way they could continue to live where they were, especially since he was having to leave in the morning to spend the next ten days working on a private commission for his father’s regiment. He had been asked to paint the regiment’s mascot—an elderly goat which was ‘stationed’ at regimental headquarters near Aldershot.

While Polly still wandering round the flat in a daze, trying to remove bits of fallen plaster from her carefully washed and ironed inherited baby things, Richard was on the telephone to Marcus. Marcus arrived shortly after surveying both the flat and Polly in grim silence before announcing that the place was totally unfit for anyone to live in, never mind a pregnant child.

‘I am not a child,’ Polly retorted, flinching as though he had struck her, reminding him through gritted teeth, ‘I am nineteen years old.’

‘Like I said…a child,’ Marcus returned scathingly, before he instructed, ‘No, leave those and just go and get in the car.’

Much as she longed to object to his high-handedness, Polly thought better of it, which was how she found herself somehow or other installed at Fraser House, its 'For Sale’ sign firmly removed and a team of cleaners produced from out of nowhere to attack the neglect of the months it had been empty.

It was the kitchen which converted Polly to Marcus’s seemingly impossible idea. Large and surprisingly well equipped, considering the age and solitary lifestyle of the General, it possessed a deliciously warm range and a central heating system which produced gallons of scaldingly hot water—something which had been in very short supply at the flat. And then, of course, there was the garden, large enough for an army of children, and the bedrooms—in need of a fresh coat of paint, perhaps, but each of them with the most wonderfully sturdy country-style furniture and enough cupboards and dressing rooms for every single one of them to have its own en suite bathroom, which Marcus told her firmly was an absolute necessity for his executives and their wives.

The drawing room was enormous, and so too was the dining room, complete with the custom-made dining table and its twenty-four chairs—it seemed the General had never done anything on a small scale and that included entertaining. There was a small library and a pretty morning room which Marcus told her he could remember had been his grandmother’s own special domain, and then another sitting room, cellars and an upper storey as well as the attics.

When Marcus told her how much his board were prepared to pay per executive couple per visit, Polly felt faint with shock.

‘So much,’ she faltered, round-eyed.

‘You’ll have to feed them for that,’ Marcus warned her tersely. ‘And proper food, Polly; these people are used to dining at the very best restaurants and they’ll expect the same standard here. Not that that will be any problem for you, I know,’ he added, totally flooring her both with the unexpectedness of the compliment and his casual acceptance that her cooking skills could rival those of the country’s best chefs.

‘I…’ Polly had begun to feel quite faint. ‘I…’ she began again. Marcus had been walking ahead of her across the large hallway, which already in her mind’s eye Polly could see freshly decorated with a huge bowl of freshly cut flowers on the wooden chest next to her to welcome their visitors. The decorating she knew could be safely left to Richard, who, most unusually for an artist, had no inhibitions or prejudices about turning his hand to such work. The mural he had painted for the tiny cupboard at the flat which had been going to be the baby’s room had taken her breath away with its delicacy and imagery.

‘Yes, Richard would…Oh-h-h…’ The sharpness of the pain she felt made her catch her breath and stop in mid-step, her eyes going wide with apprehension and dread.

‘What is it?’ Marcus demanded sharply.

‘Nothing,’ she fibbed, praying that she was right and that the ominous penetrating pain that was ebbing and flowing with increasing strength and increasing frequency was simply the false alarm she had learned so much about at her antenatal classes. It was far too early for the baby yet. She still had nearly a full month to go…

And so, reassuring herself, she forced herself to walk as steadily as she could to Marcus’s side, and made to climb the stairs so that they could inspect the bedrooms together and decide which ones should be allocated as guest bedrooms.

It had already tacitly been decided that Marcus would have the large bedroom which had been their grandfather’s, mainly because the bathroom and small sitting room which went with it meant that he could be reasonably self-contained there. Tactfully, Polly had chosen for them two rooms as far away from him as possible, not just to maintain their own privacy but also to make sure that Marcus wasn’t disturbed by the baby.

In her heart of hearts she knew the last thing she wanted was to live in the same house as Richard’s cousin, no matter how much Richard might enthuse about the idea. But what choice really did they have?

She winced as another pain caught her, sharper this time, deeper and lasting a little longer, and this time too there was no disguising what was happening from Marcus. As the pain gripped her she automatically held her breath. She felt sick and dizzy and very, very alone and afraid, and she longed more than anything else for Richard, or, failing that, her aunt, but Richard was in Aldershot painting the regiment’s goat’s portrait and her aunt was in South Africa visiting her eldest daughter.

As sweat beaded her forehead and her whole body was gripped by the necessity to deal with what was happening, Polly had no breath left to protest as Marcus suddenly swore under his breath and started to urge her towards the front door.

‘No…Where…? What…?’ she began, and then stopped as the pain surged again.

She could hear Marcus responding to her question, telling her tersely, ‘Where the hell do you think? Hospital, of course. Can you walk to the car, do you think, or…?’

Only the appalling thought of Marcus actually trying to carry her to the car got Polly there, and she was sure that Marcus must have broken every speed limit there was to get her to the hospital so fast.

By then her contractions were coming so quickly that there wasn’t time for her to do anything other than what she was told as she was whisked from his car onto a trolley and into the labour ward.

Two hours later, when Briony Honey Fraser made her way into the world, Polly opened her eyes to look up into the eyes of the man whose hand she had been gripping onto for dear life all through her labour, and realised, with a bewildering sense of disbelief, that it wasn’t Richard but Marcus. But before she could say anything exhaustion swept over her, and when she eventually woke up to find her adorable new daughter tucked into a little crib at the bottom of her bed and her equally adorable husband sitting beaming with pride and pleasure at her bedside she told herself that she must have imagined that Marcus had been there with her during her labour.

She continued to tell herself until the morning Richard came to take her and Briony home from the hospital and commented happily to her, ‘What a piece of luck that Marcus should have been with you when you went into labour…I’ve told him that we shall definitely want him to be Briony’s godfather. After all, he was there when she was born.’

Polly closed her eyes, her skin burning with embarrassed colour. So it hadn’t just been a dream…a nightmare more like; Marcus had actually been there with her all the time. It had been Marcus who had wiped the sweat from her forehead, who had encouraged her to rest, to push…who had told her in a voice thick with unfamiliar emotion that she had the most beautiful, gorgeous little baby girl…Marcus, not Richard…

No one would ever know just how relieved she was to return to Fraser House to find that Marcus was away on business and that he would be away for almost a month…time enough for all her disturbing memories and feelings about the fact that he had been with her when Briony had been born to subside and be carefully pushed away into a place where they couldn’t cause her any harm.

But there was one disturbing postscript to what had happened. By some odd quirk of fate, baby Briony took one look at her father’s cousin and her mother’s private and unacknowledged bête noire and openly and determinedly, in that way that only babies could do, declared her love for him.

It was Marcus she gave her first smile to. It was Marcus whose name she said first, even if Polly had tried to convince herself that that ‘Ma…Mar’ had been ‘Mama’, and Marcus towards whom she took her first faltering steps.

Richard, typically, didn’t mind in the least, and in fact was only too pleased that his daughter adored Marcus as much as he did himself, and by the time Briony was three years old even Polly had to admit that Marcus’s decision to turn Fraser House into an unofficial very luxurious and comfortable ‘home from home’ for his visiting executives had worked wonderfully well for all of them.

Polly was in her element in her role as Fraser’s chatelaine. Her guests thrived on her warm blend of cosseting and cooking, and Marcus had even remarked dryly to her that his chairman was beginning to complain that he had not, as yet, sampled the delights of a stay at Fraser House, adding that the whole board were unanimous in their decision that this year’s official Christmas boardroom dinner should be held there.

As her confidence grew so too did Polly’s cooking skills. She devoured new recipe books as eagerly and avidly as her guests devoured her gourmet meals, and as the Christmas preceding Briony’s fourth birthday approached Polly was forced to admit that she had never been happier.

Gradually, through his contacts, Richard was getting more work, and he still had dreams of one day being asked to exhibit at the Royal Academy, although privately Polly was beginning to sense that he never would. However, his dreams were precious to him, and she loved him far too much to want to damage them or to hurt him.

The murals he had painted in the house were exciting an enormous number of compliments and bringing in fresh work, but whilst his portraits were technically excellent Polly was beginning to see that his work lacked that spark that would have made him great. Still, he was happy, and if Richard was happy then so was she. But she often wondered what Marcus, who collected modern art in a very small but knowledgeable way, really thought of his cousin’s talent. She suspected that, like her, Marcus loved Richard far too much to want to hurt him.

And then disaster struck. On the way home one night from working on a commission several miles away, Richard’s car was involved in an accident and Richard was killed outright. The police brought the news whilst Polly was tucking Briony up in bed. She was on her own in the house for once, Marcus being away on business, and she knew what she was going to be told the moment she opened the door and saw the policeman’s face.

Richard, her beloved, handsome, boyish, loving husband, was dead, and with him too was that special part of her heart that had belonged exclusively to him.

Marcus had to fly back from Australia for Richard’s funeral, arriving grey-faced and haggard, and not just from jet lag, Polly knew—just as she knew that he had never approved of her, and how much he had loved Richard. But now Richard was gone.

At the funeral her aunt, meaning to be kind, no doubt, told her firmly, ‘Polly, I know this seems like the end of the world now, but you’re young—young enough to meet someone else and fall in love again.’

‘Never,’ Polly told her, white-faced and dry-eyed. ‘I shall never, ever love anyone else,’ she told her passionately. ‘That’s impossible. I love Richard far too much for that and I always will.’

Marcus, who had overheard her gave her an unfathomable look—one which haunted her for a long time after Richard’s funeral. Did Marcus, like her aunt, think that she was so shallow, so immature that she would forget Richard? If so she was determined to prove him wrong.

CHAPTER TWO

AND that was exactly what Polly did, devoting herself to Briony and to her work. So much so that when Briony was seven years old, following a conversation with one of Marcus’s colleagues and his wife, who had announced that they were so impressed with the standard of Fraser House’s comforts and its cook, they were surprised she didn’t consider opening the house as a small, exclusive private country hotel, Polly had taken this idea to Marcus. And, to her surprise, he had agreed.

And so had begun her unexpected career as co-owner and manageress of Fraser House, a small Georgian country house set in its own grounds where the cognoscenti could enjoy a true feast of all the senses—or so the restaurant critic who had visited them had proclaimed in the article he had written following his visit.

The years hadn’t just brought the addition of an indoor swimming pool and luxury gym area to the hotel’s facilities, but a broadening of Polly’s cooking skills as well.

Now Fraser House was listed as one of the country’s most exclusive small country house hotels, its restaurant ranking with the best of the country’s growing stable of to-be-seen-at eateries.

No one as yet might have approached Polly with an invitation to host her own TV cookery series, nor to write a cookery book, but soon after the hotel had opened one of their first clients had asked if it might be possible for their daughter to hold her wedding reception at the house. Then Polly had felt that they had reached a definite landmark.

As joint owner of the house, Marcus had always remained aloof from its day-to-day running, although, to be fair to him, Polly had to admit that he had always been meticulous about giving her whatever assistance and support she had asked for. He was now on the board of his company, one of its youngest directors, and, much to Briony’s dismay, had spent nearly two and a half years away from them living in Russia, to help with the newly emergent oil industry there.

More recently he had been spending a considerable amount of time in China, and Briony had already extracted a promise from him that if she graduated with a First he would treat her to a trip to China’s Great Wall.

Whilst Richard’s death might have deprived Polly of the love and companionship of a husband, Marcus had seen to it that Briony had never lacked the love of a father figure in her life, and Briony adored him in much the same way as Richard had done.

In fact, sometimes Polly felt almost as though the two of them formed a special magic circle from which she, as Briony’s mother, was somehow excluded. Because she knew that Marcus had never really liked or approved of her? Because she felt, for some obscure and irrational reason, that in some way Marcus actually blamed her for Richard’s death?

Since the beginning of her own first romantic relationship with Chris Johnson, Briony had become increasingly concerned about the fact that her beloved uncle Marcus had no permanent partner to share his life with, and to that end she had been taxing her brain to find someone whom she considered special enough to make him the ideal wife.

Now it seemed, from what she was saying to Polly, she had actually found that someone, and certainly, from the way she was describing her, Suzie Howell did sound as though she was just Marcus’s type. Tall, blonde, leggy—the kind of chatelaine who would be perfect for the house Marcus had announced so unexpectedly only six weeks ago that he intended to buy.

‘But why? You’ve always lived here,’ Polly had protested, white-faced, when he had announced his plans to her. ‘This has always been our home. Yours, mine and Briony’s.’

‘Precisely,’ he agreed coolly. ‘But Briony is now at college and, as you were saying yourself only a few weeks ago, you are increasingly having to turn away prospective guests. With my rooms to provide two extra bedrooms…’

Polly wasn’t able to totally take in what he was saying to her. It had never occurred to her that he might move out of Fraser House.

‘I need a home of my own, Polly,’ he told her crisply. ‘A life of my own. And now that Briony is old enough to start making her own life I feel that my duty to her—’

‘Your duty to her?’ She interrupted him, too shocked to be cautious. ‘Is that why you were living here? Because of Briony?’

There was a small, purposeful pause that drove the colour from her face, but it came back again when he told her almost affably, ‘Well, of course; you didn’t think I was staying for you, did you?’

Staying for her? No, of course not! But for him to put into words the enmity she had so often sensed but hoped she had only imagined…

‘No. No, I didn’t,’ she acknowledged in a thick, choked voice. Yet it seemed that with Briony’s departure for college both she and Marcus were unanimous in believing that it was time for Marcus to establish a life of his own away from Fraser House. With a wife and family of his own? That was certainly Briony’s idea…

‘Does Marcus know that you’re planning to marry him off?’ she asked her daughter now, as she stood up straight and dusted herself down.

At thirty-seven she still had the same slender, small-boned body she had had at eighteen, although these days it was healthily honed and toned by her three-times-weekly gym workouts, and her once mousy hair was now skilfully highlighted; only the previous week her stylist had finally persuaded her to allow her to chop her smooth, shoulder-length bob into a far more adventurous and modern style which she had insisted was perfect for her.

‘Too young for you?’ she had demanded when Polly had uncertainly raised her doubts. ‘Polly, you’re thirty-seven, not fifty-seven,’ she had scolded her gently. ‘Thirty-seven is young…’

‘Try telling that to Briony,’ Polly had commented ruefully. ‘She’s eighteen, and she won’t want a mother who looks as though she’s trying to pretend she’s her sister.’

‘Listen to me,’ her stylist had told her firmly. ‘There is no way this style is anything other than absolutely perfect for you.’

As perfect for her as Briony seemed to think this young woman she had met was perfect for Marcus? This young woman. Determinedly Polly reached for a cloth to start wiping out the cupboard she had just emptied.

‘Anyway, what I was going to say to you is…’ Briony reached to the bowl on the table for an apple—one of their own, which had come from the trees in the small orchard behind the kitchen garden, an old-fashioned English variety which it was almost impossible to buy anywhere now but which Polly particularly cherished for its unique sweet-tart flavour. You could have a dinner party and invite Suzi to come and then she could get to meet Uncle Marcus and—’

‘A dinner party!’ Polly interrupted her daughter a little explosively. ‘Briony, this is a hotel and…’

‘And it’s half term, and you are never busy then,’ Briony reminded her. ‘And Suzi could recommend you to some of the people she knows and that way you would get more business,’ she pointed out craftily. ‘After all, when Uncle Marcus goes you’re going to have two more rooms to let…’

Polly gave a small sigh. Organising a formal dinner party at short notice was the last thing she felt like doing right now, but, knowing her determined daughter, she suspected that it might be easier to give in now and thus save the time she might otherwise have wasted in trying to reason with her.

Quite where Briony got her determination, her stubbornness from, she wasn’t really sure. Richard had had the sweetest nature imaginable and, as Briony and Marcus repeatedly pointed out to her, she had no backbone at all when it came to confrontations.

‘I’m not sure that Marcus is going to like this,’ she warned Briony. ‘You know how he hates being manipulated.’

‘Well, yes,’ Briony agreed, ‘but if I told him that it’s a special dinner for me, and that Chris is going to be there…’ She made a small face. ‘You know how fussy he’s always been about the boys I go out with, and he hasn’t really had much of a chance to meet Chris yet, since he was away on business when Chris and I first met and both of us have been away at college ever since…’

There was a good deal of truth in what her daughter was saying, Polly had to acknowledge. Whilst Marcus couldn’t exactly be accused of playing the heavy father with Briony, he certainly was very protective of her.

‘So, who exactly am I supposed to be inviting to this dinner party?’ Polly gave in.

Giving her a beaming smile, Briony responded, ticking the names off on her fingers.

‘Well, Uncle Marcus of course, and Suzi and her parents. Well, they are Chris’s godparents,’ she reminded her. ‘And Chris is staying with them whilst his own parents are away on business. That’s four. Oh, and you and me of course…’ She paused and gnawed at her bottom lip. ‘Oh, and I suppose we should really invite Suzi’s boss, otherwise he’s going to be left on his own, and—’

‘Suzi’s boss? Polly interrupted in bemusement. ‘But I thought you said she worked in the Caribbean…’

‘Well, yes, she does, but her boss has business interests over here as well, apparently. Anyway it’s okay; you’ll like him,’ Briony assured her mother sunnily. ‘He’s younger than you—thirty, Suzi told me—and single. He and Suzi were a bit of an item at one time, but that’s all over now.’

Polly gave her daughter a wry look.

‘So that makes eight of us, unless of course there’s anyone else you want me to entertain…’

Briony’s forehead pleated consideringly.

‘No, I don’t think so…’ she began.

‘No? Not perhaps Chris’s great-aunt and uncle, or his cousin four times removed and her husband?’ Polly suggested sweetly.

Briony looked perplexed.

‘Chris doesn’t have a great-aunt or uncle…’ she began earnestly, and then stopped, a rueful smile curling her mouth. ‘Okay, so perhaps I am being a bit managing,’ she agreed. ‘But it’s in a good cause, Ma,’ she wheedled. ‘Uncle Marcus needs a wife. You know that…’

‘Do I?’ Polly asked her dubiously, adding, ‘I don’t suppose that it’s occurred to you that he might just…just be perfectly capable of remedying his lack of one all by himself? After all, it isn’t as though he hasn’t had a stream of possible candidates through his life already,’ she added a little tartly.

Briony looked at her.

‘Do you know, Ma, you almost sound jealous?’

‘Jealous of Marcus’s women-friends. Certainly not,’ Polly declared immediately.

‘No, not jealous of them,’ Briony quickly corrected them. ‘No, I meant you sounded jealous of the fact that Uncle Marcus has had someone in his life…’

‘Someone—you mean several someones,’ Polly reminded her grimly.

‘Oh, come on, you aren’t really being fair,’ Briony objected. ‘There have only been a few, and all of them have lasted for quite a long time. Have you never, ever been tempted yourself, wanted yourself to…you know…meet someone? I mean, I know how much you loved Dad,’ she added hastily. ‘Everyone knows that. But there must have been times…’ She paused and bit her lip before saying defensively, ‘Well, you were only very young when Dad died, and, well, these days it isn’t…Women can…’

‘If you’re asking me if I’ve ever missed having sex—’ Polly stopped her pithily ‘—then yes, sometimes I have, but I’ve never missed it enough to…I loved your father very much,’ she told Briony simply, not wanting to delve too deeply into the exact whys and wherefores of her decision to remain single and celibate.

But then, to her dismay, as though somehow with uncanny and certainly unwanted perception she had actually picked up on her private thoughts, Briony reminded her mischievously, ‘I know you’re no sexpot—remember the time we celebrated the first year of the hotel being in business and Uncle Marcus gave you that gold bracelet? When he went to put it on for you he started to kiss you, and you backed away from him as though he was the devil incarnate!’ She chuckled. ‘Poor Uncle Marcus. That must have been the one and only time he got that kind of reaction from a woman…’

Remember it…? Somehow or other Polly managed to force her lips into some semblance of a smile, at the same time ducking her head as she made a totally uncoordinated swipe at the interior of the cupboard she had emptied. Of course she remembered. But she hadn’t imagined that Briony would have done so. After all, she had been very much a child at the time—far too young to have noticed…registered…

‘When were you thinking of holding this dinner party?’ she asked her daughter huskily.

‘Well, it’s Wednesday today. How about Friday evening?’ Briony suggested. ‘You’re never very busy at half term, as you’ve always said this is the kind of place grown-ups come to relax, not to bring their children, and since Chris and I will be going back to college on Monday…’

‘Friday it is, then,’ Polly agreed hollowly.

‘Great. I’ll go and give Chris a ring so that he can organise things at his end. What time shall I tell him? Seven-thirty for eight?’

‘Yes, fine,’ Polly agreed.

As she watched her daughter slide her long legs off the table and hurry to the kitchen door, it wasn’t Friday evening’s proposed dinner party that was causing her to frown anxiously but the memories which Briony’s innocent comment had provoked.

She still had that gold bangle Marcus had given her. He had brought it home with him from the Middle East and the gold was heavy and of extremely fine quality, set with a sprinkling of exquisitely fine small diamonds. It was the kind of gift any woman would have been delighted to receive and to wear, but she had never done so. If she should be foolish enough right now to close her eyes and let her thoughts go back to that warm late spring evening she knew she would almost be able to smell the scent of the freshly mown grass coming in through the open French windows of the small sitting room which Marcus had insisted she retain for her and Briony’s own personal use.

‘I don’t need my own sitting room,’ she had protested when their plans for the reorganisation of the house had still been at the drafting stage.

‘Maybe you don’t, but Briony most certainly does,’ Marcus had insisted. ‘Fraser House is her home, Polly, and she needs to be able to grow up feeling that it is a proper home. It’s what Richard would have wanted,’ he had told her firmly, when she had been about to demur. And of course she had given in, and had been glad that she had done so in later years when she had recognised that he had been right to pinpoint Briony’s need to feel that at least a small piece of the house and her mother were hers exclusively.

‘Oh, Marcus,’ she had protested as she’d unwrapped the small gift box she’d held in her hand. ‘What…?’

‘It’s to celebrate our first year in business together,’ he had told her coolly.

He had only arrived back in the early hours of that morning. She hadn’t seen him arrive since she had been in bed, but she had heard the taxi drawing up outside and then this evening he had come down. All day she had been a little on edge wondering when he would put in an appearance, and then there he was, looking impossibly brown and male, dressed in a white tee shirt that positively hugged his broad male torso and a pair of faded jeans which…

Hastily she had averted her eyes as she’d realised, to her own chagrin and confusion, that for some reason her body was actually responding to the sight of his maleness.

Fortunately Marcus had been too busy hugging Briony to notice what was happening to her but, nonetheless, as her daughter had chattered excitedly to her favourite relative—bar none—Polly had instinctively and defensively wrapped her arms around her own upper body to make sure that Marcus neither saw nor misinterpreted the totally inappropriate provocative little thrust of her hardening nipples against the soft fabric of her top. And then he had given her the pretty gift-wrapped package—after he had given Briony an even smaller one, which had turned out to be exactly the right kind of delicate little gold locket for a young girl of her age.

Who had chosen their gifts for him? she had wondered a little sharply. A woman…And then, as she had thanked him for them, stumbling a little over the words, he had taken hold of her, his hands cupping the delicate balls of her shoulder joints and frowning a little as he explored them, before saying almost accusingly, ‘You’ve lost weight.’

‘No, I haven’t,’ she denied, before admitting as she saw the look in his eyes, ‘Well, just a little. I’ve been so busy, there just hasn’t—’

‘Mummy gets too busy to eat,’ Briony informed him trenchantly, much to her dismay.

‘No, that isn’t true,’ she began, as she turned her head from looking at her daughter to look at him, and then stopped when she realised that he was much, much closer to her than she had imagined. So close, in fact, that his mouth was just near enough…

She tensed and gulped, and then, finding that she couldn’t breathe in enough air to her oxygen-starved lungs, she opened her mouth, and Marcus somehow or other totally misinterpreted what that meant. To her shock, he lowered his head, covering her mouth with the warm, firm pressure of his own.

Richard, as a husband and lover, had been tender and gentle, so that sex for Polly had been a happy joyful experience—playful loving in the warm shallows of intimacy and romance, during which she had never once felt unsafe or out of her depth. But instinctively she knew, had always known, that Marcus was not like her husband, that there was to him a much darker and far more passionate maleness.

Sex with Marcus would not be conducted in the shallows. No. It would be conducted in the deepest depths, all she would have to cling to if those waters threatened to submerge and overwhelm her would be Marcus himself. As a wife, and then a widow, Polly had deliberately closed her mind to Marcus’s sexuality, refusing to admit even to herself that it was there or that she was aware of it; but, as his mouth covered hers, she was suddenly made very potently aware of it—and of him.

She panicked, jerking her head back from his and raising her hands to ward him off.

Just for a second before he released her, Marcus had looked right into her eyes. His own were almost black, obsidian, with an anger he wasn’t bothering to conceal, his mouth—the same mouth which had just burned hers—twisting into a dismissive grimace.

‘You’re a woman now, not a girl, Polly,’ she heard him telling her angrily. ‘Richard is dead and—’

‘I don’t care.’ She interrupted him wildly, her heart beating in frantic, nervous little thuds as though she was in fear of her life and fleeing from some terrible threatening danger. ‘To me he is still my husband and he always will be.’

‘Such noble sentiments,’ Marcus scoffed, ‘and so very naive. Richard may have been your husband, Polly, but I suspect he never really awakened you as a lover, because if he had—’

‘How dare you?’ she almost screamed at him, backing away from him like a threatened hind fearing the approach of the hunter. ‘Of course Richard was my lover. How else do you think that Briony…?’

She stopped, almost choking on her own tears, suddenly realising that Briony could see and hear everything they were saying to one another.

‘He was your husband, yes, and you conceived his child, yes, but that was a long time ago and in many ways Richard was only a boy,’ Marcus agreed flatly, before continuing in a soft, almost mesmeric voice, ‘But look at you now; you’re trembling like a virgin confronted with her first experience of an adult man and all because I kissed you. Is that how a woman who has experienced a lover’s—a man’s—passion would react?’

He started to shake his head but Polly wasn’t prepared to listen to any more. Reaching out protectively to draw Briony closer to her, she told him shakily, ‘You have no right to say such things to me. I loved, still love, always will love Richard more than someone like you could possibly understand.’

The look he gave her before he walked past her and out of the room lived with her for a long time afterwards, long after Marcus himself had left again on his travels.

Well, at least Briony had been right about one thing, Polly reflected a couple of hours later, her kitchen cupboards restored to their normal immaculate order: the hotel was relatively quiet at the moment. Not that she minded. They had a very busy season coming up, with Christmas to contend with. They had guests who regularly booked themselves into Fraser House for Christmas and the New Year, and if the conversion of Marcus’s room was finished in time for the Christmas season they had a respectably long list of guests already for their occupancy. Christmas at Fraser House was, Polly acknowledged with her customary modesty, something a little bit special.

Yes, she was glad that Marcus had decided to give up his rooms here, she told herself firmly as she glanced round her now immaculate kitchen, and not just because of the extra guests it would allow them to have. The architect they had hired had made the suggestion that the stable block could perhaps be renovated and extended to provide even more rooms, but for once Polly had demurred, explaining that she felt it would detract from the hotel’s unique ‘feel’ if they expanded too much. A little to her surprise, Marcus had actually endorsed her opinion. She hadn’t as yet been to see the house he had bought nearby, although Briony had, returning to tell her mother enthusiastically that it was ‘ace’.

Built in the early days of Victoria’s reign it had originally been a part of the Fraser estate, built to house the widowed mother of the then owner.

Whilst not a dower house in the traditional sense of the word—Fraser House was not a great house in the style of Chatsworth and its ilk—it had been built in a similar if later style to that of the main house and was less than a mile away from it. After the end of the First World War the family had sold off the house, but now the opportunity had arisen for Marcus to buy it back along with the small acreage of land which had been sold with it.

In some ways Polly quite envied him the opportunity to bring the pretty ivy-clad house back to life again—its last owner had been elderly and after her death the house had been left empty for some time whilst her executors decided what to do with it.

Its five bedrooms and spacious ground floor meant that it would make an ideal family house. Was Marcus perhaps thinking of settling down at long last? At forty-two he was very visibly in the prime of his life. His career and financial future were assured, his physical appearance such that no right-thinking, intelligent, heterosexual woman would hesitate to snatch him up as potential-mate material and father to her unborn children. The current scientific evidence was that a woman naturally and instinctively chose the strongest and best-looking mate she could find in order to secure the best genes possible and thus the best chance of survival for her offspring. And no doubt Marcus would be similarly influenced when he chose the woman he wanted to marry. She would be young, intelligent and, of course, stunningly beautiful. According to Briony, her candidate filled all of those requirements.

Lost in thought, Polly made her way slowly to what had always been her favourite spot in the house’s grounds—a small dell surrounded by mature trees and with its own natural pond. It was off limits to their guests and could only be reached by a narrow private footpath. It was a spot that Richard had loved, and his last gift to her before his death had been a painting of it done in the spring when the bluebells were out. Now it was autumn and the trees were shedding their leaves, giving the small, enclosed space a haunting, almost melancholy air that was so much in tune with her own mood that Polly could feel her always easily aroused emotions bringing unwanted tears to her eyes.

She had brought so many of her problems and her heartaches, large and small to this spot over the years, but none had come anywhere near the magnitude of the agonising despair she was suffering now.

So much in her life was changing…Briony had already left home and was quickly becoming an adult and no longer in need of her in the way she had once been. Her staff were so well trained that sometimes she felt almost as though they didn’t need her either. And then there was Marcus…

Marcus…

She closed her eyes and leaned against the thick trunk of one of the trees.

Of course she had always known that one day Marcus would get married.

Hadn’t she?

That he would meet someone…fall in love with them…

‘Polly.’

Her eyelids swept up in shock, revealing the tears dampening her eyes as she stared in mute distress at the man who had been the focus of her thoughts.

‘What are you doing out here without a coat?’ she could hear him demanding disapprovingly. He, of course, was wearing a coat—or rather a jacket…the soft, well-worn leather one that she and Briony had bought him together one year for his birthday.

‘Marcus,’ she croaked when she had managed to find her voice, and then shivered, idiotically justifying his sharp criticism of her.

‘You are cold,’ she heard him say grimly. ‘Here, take this…’

Before she could stop him he was removing his jacket and wrapping it around her. It drowned her, its warmth enveloping her—and not just its warmth. Weakly Polly closed her eyes as her vulnerable senses were assaulted by the unmistakable scent of him.

‘No, I don’t want it,’ she denied, thrusting it off and turning her back on him as she walked quickly away from him.

She could hear the faint exclamation of exasperation he made as he bent to retrieve it, and she wasn’t surprised when he told her irritably, ‘Don’t be so damn childish, Polly. I do realise, you know, how much you resent having to accept anything from me. There’s no need for you to reinforce that fact—especially not in such a self-defeating way.’

‘That’s not fair.’ Polly defended herself quickly. ‘And it’s not true either. I’ve always been aware of how much both Briony and I owe you, and I’m very grateful for everything that you’ve done for us.’

When he didn’t make any response she added incon-sequentially, ‘This was always one of Richard’s favourite places…’

‘Yes, I know,’ Marcus agreed curtly—so curtly that Polly turned round to face him properly. His face was wearing that austere, withdrawn expression that made him seem so distant and disapproving.

‘He loved to paint here,’ Polly continued protectively. ‘And…’

‘And you keep the painting he gave you of this place in that nun-like cell you call your bedroom…’

‘It isn’t a cell,’ Polly protested, outraged.

‘No, you’re right, it isn’t,’ Marcus agreed tersely. ‘It’s more like a shrine…a shrine to a man—a boy—who would have been appalled by your maudlin determination to turn him into some kind of plaster saint…’

Polly could feel herself starting to tremble. Why was it always like this? Why was it always like this between them? Why did they argue so much…fight so viciously? Why, when he obviously disliked and resented her so much, had Marcus done so much for her? But she already knew the answer to that conundrum. First it had been for Richard and then, after his death, for Briony.

‘Richard was my husband,’ she reminded him with a small quiver in her voice.

‘Was…Was, Polly,’ Marcus emphasised savagely. ‘Richard is dead and has been for a very long time.’

‘Briony wants me to give a private dinner party,’ she told him quickly. ‘She—’

‘Yes, I know.’ Marcus interrupted her shortly. Uncertainly Polly searched his face. What exactly had Briony told him—that she had found the woman she thought would make him the perfect wife? It wouldn’t surprise her. Marcus would accept things from Briony that she could never imagine him accepting from someone else. They were on the same wavelength, so much in tune with one another that…that they made her feel excluded, envious…Envious? Of her own daughter…? Fiercely Polly resisted her thoughts.

‘I have to go back,’ she told Marcus jerkily, her body tensing when he fell into step beside her as she headed for the footpath. Just as she reached it she tried to distance herself from him, gasping in shock as a small branch from one of the trees became entangled in her hair.

‘Keep still,’ Marcus instructed her, immediately realising what had happened and reaching out to free her.

He was standing far too close to her, Polly recognised weakly. Far too close. She was beginning to feel dizzy…light-headed…

‘Keep still,’ Marcus repeated irritably as he tried to tug her hair free. She felt engulfed by him, surrounded by him as he moved closer to her whilst he worked patiently to free her.

Standing this close to him was almost like being in a lover’s embrace with him…Polly could feel her skin starting to prickle with nervous tension. She could hardly breathe and if he didn’t free her soon and move away from her she knew she was going to panic and do something really stupid.

‘There. You’re free now.’

Free…For one wild moment Polly actually contemplated telling him how impossible it was for her ever to be free of the unwanted burden she carried, but just in time she stopped herself, her ‘Thank you’ short and sharp, as though the words hurt her throat.

Her head was beginning to ache, but not because of her pulled hair and no way near as much as her heart.

Marcus provoked her, irritated her, angered her more than anyone else she knew, sometimes she felt that the hostility between them was such that she could almost reach out and feel it. But only she knew how much, how desperately she needed to cling onto that anger and hostility…how much she needed the defence it gave her.

‘There’s no need to walk back with me,’ she told him tersely. ‘I can manage.’

‘As you never seem to cease delighting in reinforcing to me,’ Marcus agreed curtly. ‘Polly, has it ever occurred to you—?’ He stopped.

‘Has what ever occurred to me?’ she pressed him. But he simply shook his head and told her grimly, ‘It doesn’t matter.’

No, she wanted to correct him, I’m what doesn’t matter to you, Marcus…me. But somehow she found the strength not to do so.

On her return to the house Polly went straight to the kitchen. Polly loved cooking, and its pleasure for her came from a deeply rooted nurturing instinct.

‘Ma, you should have had half a dozen children, not just one,’ Briony often told her.

Perhaps it was true; perhaps the love she poured into Fraser House and their guests was simply a form of displacement therapy, an outlet for the love and caring she no longer had her beloved Richard to give.

Paradoxically, perhaps Marcus was like herself, someone who, whilst enjoying and insisting on top-quality health-protecting, wholesome food, was not a gourmet, which was probably why, at forty-two, he still had the superbly fit and muscled body of a man half his age—as Polly had good cause to know. The last time he had been home she had hurried down to the swimming pool intent on having her early-morning swim before getting down to prepare the guests’ breakfasts, and as she had approached the pool she had realised that Marcus had beaten her to it.

Reluctantly impressed, she had watched as he completed a length in a stunningly effective and fast crawl before turning at the far end of the pool to see her watching him. Quickly she’d started to walk back to the exit but, to her chagrin, Marcus had hauled himself out of the water and come after her, stopping her before she could leave.

‘Nice swimsuit,’ had been his drawlingly derogatory comment as he had surveyed her. ‘What is it—one of Briony’s schoolfriend’s cast-offs?’

Furious with him for his rudeness, and herself for allowing herself to be provoked, she had compressed her mouth, refusing to make any verbal response even though she’d known her heightened colour had given away her real feelings.

Perhaps her swimming costume was a little bit old-fashioned, a plain, serviceable affair which she had originally bought when Briony had been a little girl and she had been taking her for swimming lessons; but the bikini Briony had insisted on her buying for their last holiday together was, in Polly’s maternal opinion, far too brief and revealing—little more than a few scraps of black satinised cotton edged in a dull gold, and certainly far too sophisticated for a businesslike early-morning swim.

Distractedly she had watched the downward path of the droplets of water coursing their way through the sleek dark pelt of Marcus’s body hair, across the flat, hard-packed muscles of his chest and stomach, and then…

It hadn’t been until Marcus had oh, so deliberately wrapped the towel he was carrying around his hips that she’d realised just how hard she had been staring at him, and where, and her face had flushed an even deeper hue of pink as he had asked her, ‘What is it Polly? Have you forgotten what a man looks like, or is this…’ his hand had reached out and touched the hot skin of her face ‘…because you have remembered?’ And then, before she could say anything he had challenged her, ‘Do you think if your positions had been reversed that Richard would have clung so unnaturally to his widowhood or his celibacy?’

‘Celibacy is easy when you…when there’s only one man you love—only one man you want,’ she had managed to retort; and, after all, it had been and still was the truth.

CHAPTER THREE

‘AHA! I thought so. No way are you wearing that.’ Briony pounced, coming into Polly’s bedroom just as she was zipping up the plain, faithful black dress she’d decided to wear for Briony’s dinner party.

The meal was in the capable if somewhat nervous hands of her young trainee chef, Andrew, and before coming upstairs to get ready she had gone into the conservatory where they were going to be dining to check that everything was in order.

The round table, rather smaller and far more intimate than the long dining table in the dining room, gleamed with crystal and silver, and the conservatory itself was illuminated by the dozen or more heavy floor-standing candelabra which Polly always lit for such occasions.

The simple muslin drapes which had been unfastened to cover the windows added to the wonderful delicacy of the room creating a glimmering, misty, low-lit effect which, as Polly already knew, did wonders for female complexions and—so she had been reliably informed—male libidos!

As she’d come upstairs she had congratulated herself with amused tenderness that Briony was bound to be pleased with her efforts, but it seemed now that she had congratulated herself a little too soon.

‘What on earth do you mean?’ she responded. ‘I always wear this dress for dinner parties.’

‘Exactly,’ Briony agreed. ‘It’s the kind of dull, anonymous thing that all fifty-something women play safe with.’

‘Er…well, yes,’ Polly agreed. ‘That’s why I bought it.’

‘But, Mum, you aren’t fifty-something, and anyway if Marcus sees you in it he will go mad. He told me the last time you wore it that I ought to burn it.’

‘Oh, he did, did he?’ Polly said grimly. ‘Well, in that case…’

‘Oh, help, I shouldn’t have said that, should I?’ Briony yelped. ‘What is it with you and Uncle Marcus these days, Mum? You know, when I was little I used to pretend that Uncle Marcus was my father and I used to close my eyes and make a wish that you and he would get married.’

‘Never,’ Polly told her instantly. ‘Never. I…’

‘Mmm; that’s exactly what Uncle Marcus said too,’ Briony murmured, adding, ‘Anyway, never mind about all that now…Look what I’ve got for you.’

Triumphantly she produced the bag she had been holding behind her back and, with a flourish, removed its contents.

‘You can’t possibly be expecting me to wear that,’ Polly protested faintly as she saw the tiny tube-like piece of fabric her daughter was holding in front of her.

‘Oh, but I am,’ Briony grinned.

‘It won’t fit me,’ Polly told her positively.

‘Yes, it will; it stretches,’ Briony informed her smugly, proving her point by gently pulling out the sheer black fabric with its delicate sprinkling of small jet beads.

‘Briony, there’s no way I can wear that.’ Polly gasped in shock as she saw how see-through the fabric actually was.

‘Relax, Mum,’ Briony laughed. ‘There’s an underslip that goes with it. It’s perfectly respectable, I promise you. Come on, take that horrid old thing off and let me see this on you.’

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