About the Authors

SARA CRAVEN was one of Mills & Boon’s most long-standing authors. Sadly she passed away on November 15th 2017. She leaves a fantastic legacy, having sold over thirty million books around the world. She published her first novel, Garden of Dreams, in 1975 and wrote for Mills & Boon for over forty years. The Innocent’s One-Night Confession is her ninety-third book.

Former journalist Sara balanced her impressive writing career with winning the 1997 series of the UK TV show Mastermind, and standing as Chairman of the Romance Novelists’ Association from 2011 to 2013.

RACHAEL THOMAS has always loved reading romance, and is thrilled to be a Mills & Boon author. She lives and works on a farm in Wales—a far cry from the glamour of a Modern Romance story, but that makes slipping into her characters’ worlds all the more appealing. When she’s not writing, or working on the farm, she enjoys photography and visiting historical castles and grand houses. Visit her at rachaelthomas.co.uk.

Also By Sara Craven

His Untamed Innocent

The Highest Stakes of All

Wife in the Shadows

The End of her Innocence

The Price of Retribution

Count Valieri’s Prisoner

Seduction Never Lies

Inherited by Her Enemy

The Innocent’s Sinful Craving

The Innocent’s Shameful Secret

Also By Rachael Thomas

From One Night to Wife

New Year at the Boss’s Bidding

The Sheikh’s Last Mistress

To Blackmail a Di Sione

Married for the Italian’s Heir

A Child Claimed by Gold

Di Marcello’s Secret Son

Convenient Christmas Brides miniseries

Valdez’s Bartered Bride

Martinez’s Pregnant Wife

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

The Innocent’s One-Night Confession/Hired to Wear the Sheikh’s Ring

The Innocent’s One-Night Confession

Sara Craven

Hired to Wear the Sheikh’s Ring

Rachael Thomas

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09562-4

THE INNOCENT’S ONE-NIGHT CONFESSION/HIRED TO WEAR THE SHEIKH’S RING

The Innocent’s One-Night Confession © 2018 Sara Craven Hired to Wear the Sheikh’s Ring © 2018 Rachael Thomas

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

The Innocent’s One-Night Confession

Back Cover Text

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Hired to Wear the Sheikh’s Ring

Back Cover Text

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

About the Publisher

The Innocent’s One-Night Confession

Sara Craven

One night with Zandor marked Alanna as his...

Now he’s returned—to claim her forever!

Zandor awakened Alanna to an unknown sensuality! Overwhelmed by her response, she fled, never expecting to see him again. But when he shockingly reappears back in her life, Zandor’s charisma reminds her of the heat they shared. And this time, she can’t run from the sizzling intensity of their connection...

For Leo, stern critic and amazing support.

Thank you for everything.

CHAPTER ONE

‘SO, COME ON, BECKS. Tell all. What’s he like in bed?’

Alanna Beckett nearly choked on her mouthful of St Clements as she cast an apprehensive glance round the crowded wine bar.

‘Susie—for heaven’s sake, keep your voice down. And you can’t ask things like that.’

‘But I just did,’ said Susie, unruffled. ‘I have a thirst for information that even this very nice wine can’t satisfy. Think about it. I go to America for six whole weeks, leaving you alone in the flat and doing your usual imitation of a hermit crab. I come back terrified that you’ll have adopted a cat, started wearing cameo brooches and signed up for an evening class in crochet—and, instead, you’re on the brink of getting engaged. Hallelujah!’

‘No,’ Alanna protested. ‘I’m not. Nothing like it. He’s just invited me to his grandmother’s eightieth birthday party. That’s all.’

‘An important family do at the important family house in the country. That’s serious stuff, Becks. So, let’s have some details about—Gerald, is it?’

‘Gerard,’ said Alanna. ‘Gerard Harrington.’

‘Also known as Gerry?’

‘Not as far as I’m aware.’

‘Ah.’ Susie digested this. ‘Complete physical description, warts and all?’

Alanna sighed. ‘Just under six foot, good-looking, fair hair, blue eyes—and no warts.’

‘As far as you’re aware. How did you meet?’

‘He saved me from being run over by a bus.’

‘Good God,’ Susie said blankly. ‘Where—and how?’

‘Not far from Bazaar Vert in the King’s Road. I was thinking of something else and just—stepped off the pavement. He snatched me back.’

‘Well, God bless him for that.’ Susie stared at her. ‘That’s not like you, Becks. What on earth were you daydreaming about?’

Alanna shrugged. ‘I thought I’d seen someone I knew.’ She hesitated, thinking rapidly. ‘Lindsay Merton, as a matter of fact.’

‘Lindsay?’ Susie repeated, puzzled. ‘But she and her husband are living in Australia.’

‘And I’m sure they still are,’ Alanna returned brightly, cursing herself under her breath. ‘So I nearly got squished for nothing.’

‘What did Sir Galahad—aka Gerard—do then?’

‘Well, I was naturally a bit shaky, so he took me into Bazaar Vert and got the manageress to make me some very sweet tea.’ She shuddered. ‘I’d almost have preferred being run over.’

‘No you wouldn’t,’ Susie corrected briskly. ‘Think of the unfortunate bus driver. And how come your knight errant has so much influence with the snooty ladies in Bazaar Vert?’

‘Someone in his family—his cousin—owns the entire chain. Gerard is its managing director.’

‘Wow,’ said Susie. ‘Therefore earning megabucks and ecologically minded as a bonus. Darling, I’m seriously impressed. Don’t they say that if someone rescues you, then your life belongs to them for ever after?’

‘“They”, whoever they are, seem to say a lot of things, most of them plain silly,’ Alanna returned evenly. ‘And there’s no question of belonging—on either side. Or not yet, anyway.’ She shrugged. ‘We’re simply—getting acquainted. And this party is another step in the process.’

‘Seeing if Grandma bestows the gold seal of approval?’ Susie wrinkled her nose. ‘Don’t think I’d like that.’

‘Well, it can work both ways. Anyway, it’s a weekend in the country, so I intend to relax and just—go with the flow. Which will not carry me into sleeping with Gerard,’ she added. ‘In case you were wondering. It’s strictly separate bedrooms at Whitestone Abbey.’

Susie grinned. ‘With Vespers thrown in by the sound of it. But he might know where to find a convenient haystack.’ She raised her glass. ‘To you, my proud beauty. And may the weekend make all your dreams come true.’

Alanna smiled back and drank some more of her orange juice and bitter lemon. After all, she told herself, it might even happen.

And perhaps she could, at long last, dismiss her secret nightmare to well-deserved oblivion. Begin to live her life to the full without being crucified by memories of the private shame which had turned her into a self-appointed recluse.

Everyone made mistakes and it was ludicrous to have taken her own lapse so seriously. Even if it had been totally out of character, there’d certainly been no need to continue beating herself up about it, allowing it to poison her existence for month after dreary month.

‘But why?’ Susie had wailed so often. ‘It’s party time so forget your authors and their damned manuscripts for one evening and come with me. Everyone would be thrilled to see you. They ask about you all the time.’

And, invariably, her mind flinching, she’d used the excuse of work—deadlines—an increased list—and the very real talk of a possible takeover, to be followed, almost inevitably, by redundancies.

Explained, perfectly reasonably, that, to make sure of her job, she needed to put her heart and soul into her work. Which wasn’t any real hardship because she loved it.

And, as reinforcement, she’d created this new office persona, quiet, dedicated and politely aloof. Confined her cloud of dark auburn hair in a silver clasp at the nape of her neck. Stopped enhancing her green eyes and long lashes with shadow and mascara, restricting her use of cosmetics to a touch of lipstick so discreet it was almost invisible.

And only she knew the reason for adopting this deliberate camouflage. She hadn’t even told Susie, best friend from school days and now flatmate, who’d provided her joyfully with the refuge she needed from her solitary bedsit, and was now equally delighted to welcome her apparent renaissance.

Not that she planned to abandon her current version of herself. She’d become used to it, telling herself that safe was far better than sorry. Not, of course, that she’d ever gone in for fashion’s extremes or painted her face in stripes.

And Gerard seemed to like her the way she was, although she could, maybe, move up a gear without too much shock to his system.

Depending, she thought, on how things went at his grandmother’s party.

The invitation had surprised her. Gerard was undeniably charming and attentive, but their relationship so far could quite definitely be characterised as restrained. Not that she had any objections to this. Quite the contrary, in fact.

She’d only agreed to have dinner with him on that first occasion because he’d put himself at risk to save her from serious injury at the very least, and it would have seemed churlish to refuse.

And, almost tentatively, she’d found herself relaxing and starting to enjoy a pleasant and undemanding evening in his company. It had been their third date before he’d kissed her goodnight—a light, unthreatening brush of his lips on hers.

Not, as Susie put it, a martini kiss. She’d been, to her relief, neither shaken nor stirred. At the same time, it was reassuring to reflect that she’d have no real objection to him kissing her again. And, when he did, to realise that she was beginning, warily, to find it enjoyable.

‘We’re going steady,’ she’d told herself, faintly amused at the idea of an old-fashioned courtship, but thankful at the same time. ‘And this time,’ she’d added fervently, ‘I’ll get it right.’

All the same, she was aware that the coming weekend at Whitestone Abbey could prove a turning point in their relationship which she might not be ready for.

On the other hand, refusing the invitation might be an even bigger mistake.

On the strength of that, she’d spent a chunk of her savings on a dress, the lovely colour of a misty sea, slim-fitting and ankle length in alternating bands of silk and lace, demure enough, she thought, to please the most exacting grandmother, yet also subtly enhancing her slender curves in a way that Gerard might appreciate.

And which would take her through Saturday’s cocktail party for friends and neighbours to the formal family dinner later in the evening.

‘I hope you won’t find it too dull,’ Gerard said, adding ruefully, ‘There was a time when Grandam would have danced the night away, but I think she’s started to feel her age.’

‘Grandam?’ Alanna was intrigued. ‘That has a wonderfully old-fashioned ring about it.’

He pulled a face. ‘Actually, it was an accident. When I was away at school for the first time, she sent me a food parcel and when I wrote to thank her, I mixed up the last two letters of Grandma and it stuck.’

‘Whatever,’ she said. ‘I think it’s charming.’

‘Well, don’t think in terms of lavender and lace,’ he said. ‘She still goes out on her horse each day before breakfast, summer and winter.’ He paused. ‘Do you ride?’

‘I did,’ she said. ‘Up to the time I left home to go to university and my parents decided to downsize to a cottage with a manageable garden, instead of a paddock with stabling.’

‘Bring some boots,’ he said, his surprised smile widening into a grin. ‘We can fix you up with a hat and I’ll give you a proper tour of the area.’

Alanna smiled back. ‘That will be marvellous,’ she said, and meant it in spite of a growing conviction that the soon-to-be eighty-year-old Niamh Harrington was one formidable lady.

And then, of course, there was the rest of the family.

‘Gerard’s mother is a widow and his late father was Mrs Harrington’s eldest child and only son,’ she told Susie over a Thai takeaway at the flat that evening.

She counted on her fingers. ‘Then there’s his Aunt Caroline and Uncle Richard with their son and his wife, plus his Aunt Diana, her husband Maurice and their two daughters, one married, one single.’

‘My God,’ Susie said limply. ‘I hope for your sake they wear name tags. Children?’

Alanna speared a prawn. ‘Yes, but strictly with attendant nannies. I get the impression that Mrs Harrington doesn’t approve of modern child-rearing methods.’

She added, ‘She also had a third daughter, her youngest, called Marianne, but she and her husband are both dead, and their son apparently is not expected to attend the festivities.’

‘Just as well,’ said Susie. ‘Sounds as if it will be standing room only as it is.’ She paused. ‘Is it this Marianne’s son who owns Bazaar Vert?’

Alanna shrugged. ‘I guess so. Gerard hasn’t said much about him.’ She picked up a foil dish. ‘Share the rest of the sticky rice?’

‘Willingly,’ said Susie. ‘But I’m glad to be missing out on the sticky weekend,’ she added thoughtfully.

The stickiness, in fact, began early at the Friday morning acquisitions meeting.

Alanna walked from it into her cubbyhole of an office, kicked the door shut behind her and swore.

‘Oh, Hetty,’ she said quietly. ‘Where are you when I need you?’

Well, on maternity leave was the answer to that, which was why Alanna had been temporarily promoted to head up romantic fiction at Hawkseye Publishing during her boss’s absence.

Initially, she’d been thrilled at the opportunity, but now the rose-tinted spectacles were off and she realised she was in a war zone, the opposing foe being Louis Foster who produced the men’s fiction list, mainly slanted towards the ‘blood and guts’ school of thought, but also including some literary names. And others, as Alanna had just found out.

She had gone to the meeting to sell a new author with a fresh voice and innovative approach, who was her own discovery.

She had spoken enthusiastically and persuasively about acquiring this burgeoning talent for the Hawkseye stable, only to find herself blocked by Louis’s suave determination.

He could not, he said, having studied the figures, recommend such a high-risk investment in a total unknown.

‘Especially,’ he added, ‘as Jeffrey Winton told me over lunch the other day that he was very keen to extend his range, and what he was suggesting sounds very similar to what this young lady of Alanna’s is offering. And, of course, we’d have the Maisie McIntyre name which sells itself.’

Jeffrey Winton, thought Alanna, her toes curling inside her shoes, the bestselling creator, under a female pseudonym, of village sagas so sweet they made her teeth ache.

Also Hetty’s author, so what the hell was he doing being wined and dined by Louis, let alone discussing future projects?

Not that she wanted to go within a mile of him, she thought, recoiling from the memory of her one and only encounter with the rotund, twinkling author of Love at the Forge and Inn of Contentment. And, even worse, what had followed...

Everything she had done her best to erase from her consciousness was now suddenly confronting her again in every detail, rendering her momentarily numb.

And while she was still faltering, Louis’s powers of persuasion convinced the others round the table and she was faced with telling an author she believed in that there was no contract in the offing after all. Adding to her bitter disappointment twin blows to her negotiating skills and her pride.

And possibly moving Louis a definite step towards his ultimate goal of uniting men’s and women’s commercial fiction under his leadership.

All this, she thought wearily, and, in a few hours, her first encounter with the extended Harrington family, for which she probably needed all the confidence she could get.

She looked at her weekend case waiting in the corner, holding jeans and boots, together with the expensive tissue-wrapped dress and the hand-crafted silver photograph frame she’d chosen as her hostess’s birthday present.

For a moment she considered assuming the role of victim of a forty-eight-hour mystery virus, then dismissed it.

Having let her author down, she would not do the same to Gerard, mainly because she sensed he was anxious about the weekend too.

I must make sure it all goes well for his sake, she thought. And for the possibility of a future together—if and when liking grows into love.

A cautious beginning to a happy ending. The way it ought to be.

That was what she needed. Not a passionate tumultuous descent to guilt and the risk of disaster. That, like all other bad memories, must be locked—sealed away to await well-deserved oblivion.

Which would come, in spite of the recent unwanted reminder, she assured herself. It had to...

* * *

It was an uneventful journey, Gerard handling his supremely comfortable Mercedes with finesse while he chatted about the abbey and its turbulent history.

‘It’s said that the family who acquired it in Tudor times bribed the King’s officials to turn the monks out and the abbot cursed them,’ he said ruefully.

‘Whether that’s true or not, they certainly fell on hard times in later years, largely due to the drink and gambling problems of a succession of eldest sons, so my great-great-grandfather Augustus Harrington got it quite cheaply.

‘Also being eminently respectable and hard-working, the restoration of Whitestone was his idea of recreation.’

‘Is much of the original building left?’ Alanna asked.

‘Very little, apart from the cloisters. The Tudor lot simply pulled the whole thing down and started again.’

‘Vandals.’ She smiled at him. ‘I suppose upkeep is an ongoing process.’

He was silent for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Very much so. Maybe that’s the real meaning of the abbot’s curse. He said it would be a millstone round the owners’ necks for evermore.’

‘I don’t think I believe in curses,’ said Alanna. ‘Anyway, even a millstone must be worth it—when it’s such a piece of history.’

‘I certainly believe that.’ He spoke with a touch of bleakness. ‘But that isn’t a universal view. However you must judge for yourself.’ He accelerated a little. ‘We’re nearly there.’

And he was right. As they crested the next hill, Alanna saw the solid mass of pale stone which was the abbey cradled in the valley below, its tall chimneys rearing towards the sky and the mullioned windows glinting in the early evening sunlight.

From either side of the main structure, two narrow wings jutted out, enclosing a large forecourt where a number of cars were already parked.

Like arms opening in welcome? Alanna wondered. Well, she would soon find out.

Gerard slotted the Merc between a Jaguar and an Audi, just to the right of the shallow stone steps leading up to the front entrance. As she waited for him to retrieve their luggage from the boot, Alanna saw that the heavily timbered door was opening, and that a grey-haired woman in a smart red dress had appeared, shading her eyes as she watched their approach.

‘So there you are,’ she said with something of a snap. She turned to the tall man who had followed her out. ‘Richard, go and tell Mother that Gerard has arrived at last.’

‘And good evening to you too, Aunt Caroline.’ Gerard’s smile was courteous. ‘Don’t worry, Uncle Rich. I can announce us.’

‘But you were expected over an hour ago.’ His aunt pursed her lips as she led the way into an impressive wainscoted hall. ‘I’ve no idea how this will affect the timing of dinner.’

‘I imagine it will be served exactly when Grandam ordered, just as usual,’ Gerard returned, unruffled. ‘Now, let me introduce Alanna Beckett to you. Darling—my aunt and uncle, Mr and Mrs Healey.’

Slightly thrown by the unexpected endearment, Alanna shook hands and murmured politely.

‘Everyone is waiting in the drawing room,’ said Mrs Healey. ‘Leave your case there, Miss—er—Beckett. The housekeeper will take it up to your room.’ She turned to Gerard. ‘We’ve had to make a last change to the arrangements, so your guest is now in the east wing, just along from Joanne.’ She gave Alanna a dubious look. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to share a bathroom.’

‘I’m used to it.’ Alanna tried a pleasant smile. ‘I share a flat in London.’

Mrs Healey absorbed the information without comment and returned to Gerard. ‘Now do come along. You know how your grandmother hates to be kept waiting.’

It occurred to Alanna as she followed in Mrs Healey’s wake that she wasn’t really ready for this. That she would have preferred to accompany her case upstairs and freshen up before entering the presence of the Harrington matriarch.

Or—preferably—return to London, on foot if necessary.

Gerard bent towards her. ‘Don’t worry about Aunt Caroline,’ he whispered. ‘Since my mother went off to live in Suffolk, she’s been taking her role as daughter of the house rather too seriously.’

She forced a smile. ‘She made me wonder if I should curtsy.’

He took her hand. ‘You’ll be fine, I promise you.’

She found herself in a long, low-ceilinged room with a vast stone fireplace at one end, big enough, she supposed, to roast an ox, if anyone had an urge to do so.

The furnishings, mainly large squashy sofas and deep armchairs, all upholstered in faded chintz, made no claim to be shabby chic. Like the elderly rugs on the dark oak floorboards and the green damask curtains that framed the wide French windows, they were just—shabby.

A real home, she acknowledged with relief, and full of people, all of whom had, rather disturbingly, fallen silent as soon as she and Gerard walked in.

Feeling desperately self-conscious, she wished they’d start chatting again, if only to muffle the sound of her heels on the wooden floor, and disguise the fact that they were staring at her as Gerard steered her across the room towards his grandmother.

She’d anticipated an older version of Mrs Healey, a forbidding presence enthroned at a slight distance from her obedient family, and was bracing herself accordingly.

But Niamh Harrington was small and plump with bright blue eyes, pink cheeks and a quantity of snowy hair arranged on top of her head like a cottage loaf in danger of collapse.

She was seated in the middle of the largest sofa, facing the open windows, still talking animatedly to the blonde girl beside her, but she broke off at Gerard’s approach.

‘Dearest boy.’ She lifted a smiling face for his kiss. ‘So, this is your lovely girl.’

The twinkling gaze swept over Alanna in an assessment as shrewd as it was comprehensive, and, for a moment, she had an absurd impulse to step back, as if getting out of range.

Then Mrs Harrington’s smile widened. ‘Well, isn’t this just grand. Welcome to Whitestone, my dear.’

The distinct Irish accent was something else Alanna hadn’t expected although she supposed ‘Niamh’ should have supplied a clue.

She pulled herself together. ‘Thank you for inviting me, Mrs Harrington. You—you have a very beautiful home.’

Oh, God, she thought. Did that sound as if she was sizing the place up for future occupancy? And had Gerard warned his grandmother that they’d only been dating for a few weeks rather than months.

Mrs Harrington made a deprecating gesture with a heavily beringed hand. ‘Ah, well, it’s seen better days.’ She turned to the girl beside her. ‘Move up, Joanne darling and let—Alanna, is it?—sit beside me while she tells me all about herself.’

Gerard was looking round. ‘I don’t see my mother.’

‘Poor Meg’s upstairs having a bit of a lie down. I expect she found the journey from Suffolk a great burden to her as I always feared she would.’ Mrs Harrington sighed deeply. ‘Leave her be for now, dearest boy, and I’m sure she’ll be fine, just fine by dinner.’

Alanna saw Gerard’s mouth tighten, but he said nothing as he turned away.

‘So,’ said Mrs Harrington. ‘My grandson tells me you’re a publisher.’

‘An editor in women’s commercial fiction.’ Alanna knew how stilted that must sound.

‘Now that’s a job I envy you for. There’s nothing I love more than a book. A good story with plenty of meat in it and not too sentimental. Maybe, now, you could suggest a few titles that I’d enjoy.’

‘Can you recommend a book for an elderly lady who loves reading?’

Almost the same request she’d heard in a London bookshop nearly a year ago, but spoken then in a man’s deep drawl. And the start of the nightmare she needed so badly to forget, she thought, trying to repress an instinctive shiver.

Which was noticed. ‘You’re feeling cold and no wonder, now the evening breeze has got up.’ Niamh Harrington raised her voice. ‘Will you come in now, Zandor? And close those windows behind you, for the Lord’s sake. There’s a terrible draught, and we can’t have Gerard’s guest catching her death because you’re wandering about on the terrace.’

Alanna found she was freezing in reality. She stared down at her hands, clasped so tightly in her lap that the knuckles were turning white.

‘Zandor,’ she repeated under her breath in total incredulity. Zandor?

No, it couldn’t be. Not possibly. She was nervous so she’d misheard. That’s all it was.

‘I apologise, Grandmother. To you and my cousin’s beautiful friend. We must all take care that no harm comes to her.’

Not just the name, she thought dazedly. But the voice—low-pitched and tinged with that same note of faint amusement. Instantly and hideously recognisable. Shockingly, horribly unmistakable.

As, God help her, she must be to him.

She forced herself to look up and meet the gaze of the tall figure, dark against the setting sun, framed in the French windows.

The man from whose bedroom she’d fled all those months ago, leaving her with memories that had haunted her ever since.

And for the worst of all possible reasons.

CHAPTER TWO

HE CLOSED THE French windows behind him with elaborate care and strolled forward, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped, long-legged in close-fitting black pants, his matching shirt casually unbuttoned halfway to the waist, affording Alanna an unwanted view of his bronze chest, and an even more disturbing reminder that, when she’d left his bed at their previous encounter, he’d been wearing no clothes at all.

He said softly, ‘Perhaps we should properly introduce ourselves. I am Zandor.’ He paused. ‘Zandor Varga, and you are...?’

She produced a voice from somewhere. A husky travesty of her usual clear tones. ‘Alanna,’ she said, and swallowed. ‘Alanna Beckett.’

He nodded, those astonishing, never forgotten pale grey eyes studying her, hard as burnished steel.

‘It is a delight to meet you, Miss Beckett...’ He paused, and she swallowed, waiting for him to say ‘again’ and for the questions to begin.

His faint smile told her he had read her thoughts. He said silkily, ‘But then my cousin Gerard has always had exquisite taste.’ And turned away.

She felt limp with relief, but knew that was only transitory. That she was by no means off the hook.

And that the day which had started badly had just got a hundred—a thousand times worse.

She realised now that it hadn’t been her imagination playing tricks that day in Chelsea. That as the owner of the Bazaar Vert chain, he’d been visiting the King’s Road branch and must have just left when she caught that brief but dangerous glimpse of him. And that Gerard had been seeing him off the premises when he came to her rescue.

It was also apparent, from Gerard’s passing remarks and his aunt’s irritable comment about last minute changes, that Zandor had indeed not been expected at the birthday celebrations.

Oh, God, she thought, panic clawing at her. If only he’d stayed away...

And wondered why he’d changed his mind.

But even so, they’d have been bound to meet eventually, that is if she went on seeing Gerard. And how could she—under the circumstances? When that night with Zandor would always be there, a time bomb lethally ticking its way down to disaster.

Because the way he’d looked at her had told her quite plainly that he was not simply going to let bygones be bygones.

Presumably her hasty and unheralded departure had offended his masculine pride. That he was usually the one to walk away. Well, tough. She owed him nothing, as she would make clear when the time inevitably came.

However, Mrs Harrington could not have detected anything amiss in the recent exchange as her lilting tones had reverted to the subject of books.

‘Middlemarch, now,’ she was saying. ‘Did you ever read that? A wonderful book, but what a fool young Dorothea to be marrying that dried-up stick of a man. And then leaping out of the frying pan into the fire with the other fellow.’ She snorted. ‘A ne’er do well, if ever there was one. And what in the world is it that draws a decent girl to the likes of them?’

Somehow, Alanna managed a smile. ‘I’ve no idea. But it’s still a great novel.’

As I told your grandson who bought it for you around this time last year...

She was grateful when they were interrupted by Mrs Healey.

‘Isn’t it time we all got ready for dinner, Mama? I know we’re not actually dressing tonight, but I’m sure Miss Becket, for one, would like to tidy herself,’ she added with a look suggesting that Alanna had recently been dragged through a hedge backwards. ‘Joanne can show her to her room.’

Alanna found her hand being patted. ‘I have to let you go, dear girl,’ said Niamh Harrington. ‘But there’ll be plenty of time for another grand chat.’

Joanne turned out to be the blonde who’d been sitting beside her grandmother, not just pretty but clearly disposed to be friendly.

‘Rather you than me for the cosy chats,’ she confided as they went upstairs. ‘Grandam has a way of asking questions when she already knows the answers. But that won’t happen with you.’

Oh, God, I hope not, thought Alanna, her heart sinking.

‘And you know about literature,’ Joanne went on. ‘It’s as much as I can do to get through Hello! in the hairdresser’s, and Kate’s as bad, although she can use Mark and the baby as an excuse for being too busy to read.’

At the top of the impressive stone staircase, she turned left. ‘We’re down here—spinsters’ alley, I suppose, although you don’t really qualify as you and Gerard are an item.’

‘It’s a bit early to call it that,’ Alanna said carefully. ‘We’ve only been going out together for a few weeks.’

‘But he’s brought you here. Exposed you to the entire Harrington onslaught.’ Joanne giggled, naughtily. ‘I bet Grandam gave you the full once-over, checking for childbearing hips. Her father owned a stud farm in Tipperary, and she practically claims to be descended from Brian Boru, so she’ll want to know all about your family—suitable blood lines and all that. No dodgy branches on the family tree.’

Alanna gasped. ‘You are joking.’

‘Not altogether.’ Joanne pulled a face. ‘She does take the whole thing horribly seriously, and I’ve never had a boyfriend I’ve dared bring here in case he turns out to be spavined or sway-backed or something equally ghastly.’

She opened a door. ‘Well, this is you. I hope you’ll be comfortable,’ she added dubiously. ‘The bathroom’s between us. It’s only small, because it used to be a powdering room for people’s wigs, but the water’s always boiling, and there’s a door into the bedrooms on each side which we can bolt, so no need to sing loudly during occupancy.’

She looked at her watch. ‘I’ll be back to collect you in forty minutes. Will that do?’

Alanna could only nod.

Left alone, she sank down on to the edge of a rather hard mattress on a three-quarter-size bed, and looked around her. It was an old-fashioned room with a narrow window, and made even darker by cumbersome furniture dating from the beginning of the previous century, and wallpaper covered in flamboyant cabbage roses in a shade of pink Nature had overlooked.

Her bag had been placed on the foot of the bed, so she unfastened it and extracted tomorrow evening’s dress, removing its tissue paper wrapping before hanging it in the cavernous wardrobe.

Joanne, she decided, was undoubtedly indiscreet as well as cheerful, and she would probably need to be on her guard. But the other girl could be a valuable source of information and a few casual questions could do no harm.

Because it was clear that Niamh Harrington’s other grandson, whose arrival for her birthday party had caused such a disturbance to the arrangements as well as destroying her own peace of mind, was also something of an outsider.

Her first instinct was, once again, to run. To invent some work-related emergency involving an imperative summons back to London. But that would, quite correctly, lead Zandor Varga to suppose she was scared of him, and what was left of her pride forbade it.

Besides, the Harrington family en masse now seemed more of an advantage than a problem. By the time she’d done the rounds and met them all, it should be perfectly possible to lose herself among them, thus avoiding any further contact with Zandor.

And, of course, Gerard would be her shield too, she told herself, wondering why that was an afterthought.

Her immediate dilemma was what to wear that evening. She’d brought a dress, of course, a black, knee-length linen shift. It wasn’t the one she’d been wearing when she first met Zandor—that had been consigned to the dustbin the following day—but it bore far too distinct a resemblance to the other for her comfort. On the other hand, she felt hot and sticky in the clothes she’d travelled in, and her skirt was badly creased.

I’ll just have to bite on the bullet, she thought. Brazen the situation out. Let him think what he likes.

Her decision made, she took a quick refreshing bath in the deep, old-fashioned tub, then dressed swiftly and brushed her hair till it shone. She clasped a necklace composed of flat silver discs round her throat adding a matching bracelet to her wrist.

She disguised her unwelcome pallor with a discreet use of blusher and masked the strained lines of her mouth with a brownish-pink lipstick.

She reached for her scent spray, then hesitated. She only ever wore one perfume—Azalea, from the distinctive Earth Scents range by Lizbeth Lane, a new young designer whose workshop she’d visited with Susie when she first arrived in London.

And that was something he would definitely recognise—if he got close enough, she thought, sudden heat pervading her body as she returned the atomiser to her makeup purse.

She was trying to calm herself with some Yoga-style breathing when Joanne tapped on her door.

‘Ready for the lions’ den?’ she asked cheerfully.

‘You certainly look great. Your hair is the most amazing colour—rather like Gran’s antique mahogany dining table. Granny Dennison, I mean, not Grandam.’

‘You call her that too?’

‘We all do,’ Joanne said as they walked to the stairs. ‘Except Zan, of course. He sticks to the formal Grandmother when he visits—which isn’t that often.’

She sighed. ‘None of us knew he was coming this time either. I suppose it’s about money again, which means the usual row. And unfair, I think, to put her in a bate on her birthday weekend. On the other hand, I guess we must be thankful he didn’t bring Lili.’

She encountered Alanna’s questioning look and flushed scarlet. ‘Oh, hell, me and my big mouth. Look, just forget I mentioned her—please.’

‘Forgotten,’ Alanna assured her over-brightly, reflecting she’d been entirely accurate about Joanne’s talent for indiscretion.

But it was interesting that the dynamic, all-conquering Mr Varga needed money, suggesting that Bazaar Vert might be feeling the economic crunch along with other high-profile businesses.

Gerard had mentioned nothing about any downward turn, but she could hardly expect that he would, any more than she’d confessed to him her fears about the takeover at Hawkseye, now said to be looming. They weren’t on those sorts of terms.

And now they never would be, which might be disappointing, but hardly the end of the world.

It would have been far worse if she and Gerard had become seriously involved before she discovered his cousin’s identity.

It occurred to her that earlier there’d been a tension between the pair of them that was almost palpable, so perhaps the financial difficulties were all too real.

However, that was none of her business, and in forty-eight hours it would all be over anyway. And she’d be free to get on with the rest of her life.

And there was no need to wonder about Lili. She would simply be Zandor’s latest choice to share his bed. And welcome to him.

Even if his trading figures were down, his rapid turnover in willing women would undoubtedly be continuing unabated. It was probably only his grandmother’s strict embargo on extra-marital sex that had prevented him from bringing her as his guest.

And why the hell am I sparing the situation even a moment’s thought anyway? Alanna asked herself savagely as they reached the drawing room.

Although she knew the answer to that. Zandor’s re-emergence into her life had thrown her completely. She felt as if she’d gone sailing on a calm lake, under a blue sky, only to find herself helpless and at the mercy of a squall that had come out of nowhere.

Oh, get a grip, she thought with sudden impatience.

Certainly Zandor had not been pleased when they met earlier, but maybe her own sense of shock had made her read too much into his reaction. By now, he’d surely have had time to think. To realise their previous encounter had been a long time ago, and that they had both moved on.

At least that was how she planned to handle things from now on, until the weekend was safely over. And, hopefully, for ever after.

‘So there you are, sweetheart.’ Gerard came to meet her and, drawing her towards him, gave her a long, lingering kiss on her astonished mouth.

As he raised his head Alanna stepped back, aware that she was blushing, not with pleasure but with embarrassment and more than a touch of anger at this second demonstration of totally uncharacteristic behaviour.

The words ‘What on earth...?’ were already forming when she looked past him and saw, a few yards away, Zandor watching them, silver eyes glittering in a face that looked as if it had been hacked from dark stone.

And instantly she swallowed the tart query, tossing back her hair and forcing her lips into the semblance of a flirtatious smile instead, aware as she did so that Zandor was turning abruptly and walking away.

Now do your worst, she sent after him in silent defiance.

Gerard took her hand. ‘Come and say hello to my mother,’ he invited.

‘Is she feeling better?’ Alanna’s tone was stilted, conscious as they crossed the room that covert glances and shrugs were being exchanged as if Gerard’s family were as surprised by the kiss as herself.

‘There was never anything the matter with her.’ Gerard’s smile was rueful. ‘She and Grandam have always had something of an edgy relationship, so she finds headaches useful.’

‘Oh,’ was the only reply Alanna could conjure up. It occurred to her that Whitestone Abbey seemed to harbour all kinds of other tensions at various levels.

A pleasant weekend in the country? she thought drily. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Meg Harrington was ensconced in an armchair, slim and elegant in white silk trousers and a loose shirt in shades of blue, rust and gold. Her fair hair, skilfully highlighted, was cut in a smooth, expensive bob, and her makeup was flawless.

She gave Alanna a polite, faintly puzzled smile as Gerard performed the introduction, then picked up an empty highball glass from the table beside her chair and held it out to him. ‘Get me a refill, would you, honey?’

‘I didn’t know my son was bringing a friend,’ Mrs Harrington said as he departed on his errand. ‘Have you known each other long, Miss—er—Beckett?’

Saying, ‘Oh, call me Alanna, please,’ seemed strangely inappropriate, so she contented herself with, ‘Just a few weeks, actually.’

The other woman’s brows lifted. ‘And you agreed to accompany him here? How incredibly brave of you.’

Alanna shrugged. ‘I’m an only child, so I find a large family gathering like this tremendously appealing.’ She paused, hoping the lie didn’t sound as ridiculous as it felt, then aimed for something approaching the truth. ‘Gerard’s grandmother has been very welcoming.’

Meg Harrington said drily, ‘I don’t doubt it.’

‘And the house is amazing,’ Alanna added with spurious brightness. ‘Such an interesting history.’

‘A white elephant,’ said Gerard’s mother. ‘In the last stages of decay. I couldn’t wait to leave. And here comes my drink.’

But not brought by Gerard.

‘Drowning your sorrows, Aunt Meg?’ Zandor enquired pleasantly as he handed her the glass.

‘Anaesthetising them, certainly. And wondering what other surprises are in store.’ She paused. ‘I presume you’re here alone?’

His mouth tightened. ‘Of course. And for business rather than pleasure.’

‘Nothing new there then. I wish you luck.’ She raised her glass. ‘Cheers. Now why don’t you get a drink for Gerard’s new friend, here.’ She sounded amused. ‘The poor child looks as if she needs one.’

‘No,’ Alanna said quickly. ‘Thank you. I’m fine—really.’

She turned and walked away, only to find Zandor at her side and keeping pace with her.

He said softly, ‘Running away again, Alanna?’

She stared rigidly ahead of her, angrily aware that her heartbeat had quickened and she was blushing. ‘Just looking for Gerard, as it happens.’

‘And hoping for another loving reunion, no doubt.’ He sounded faintly amused. ‘However, he’s been summoned to the book room to have a private word with Grandmother Niamh. They won’t wish to be interrupted.’ He paused. ‘So why don’t I get us both a drink and take them on to the terrace for our own quiet chat? I think we should have one, don’t you?’

She took a deep breath. ‘On the contrary, we have nothing to discuss,’ she said icily. ‘And I don’t drink any more—at least not alcohol. I’m sure I don’t have to explain my reasons.’

He said slowly, ‘Actually, yes, I think you do. That is if it relates in some way to our previous encounter. If you’re implying you ended up in bed with me because you were drunk.’

‘Good guess.’ She clenched her shaking hands into fists at her sides. ‘And my first mistake. Fortunately not fatal.’

‘Hardly,’ he said. ‘After a couple of glasses of champagne. I’d have called it—pleasantly relaxing.’

‘I’m sure you would.’ She added tautly, ‘And that’s all I have to say, so now, please, leave me alone.’

‘Just as you left me?’ His tone bit. ‘But I have done so, my sweet, for almost a year, and—do you know?—I have discovered that it no longer pleases me. Especially now that I have seen you again—and under such interesting circumstances.’

His smile did not reach his eyes. ‘And before you think of another stinging retort, remember that this room is filled with people who believe we met for the first time today and might wonder why we are so soon on bad terms.’

‘On the other hand,’ she said. ‘From what I gather, you seem to make a habit of upsetting people.’

He said quietly, ‘Then, by all means, go on gathering. You may collect a few surprises on the way. But, understand this. One day—or night—we will have that chat. So be ready.’

And he walked away, leaving her standing there, those words ‘be ready’ beating in her brain, and drying her mouth.

She turned precipitately towards the door, impelled by a frantic need to be alone. To think...

Only to find herself being intercepted by Joanne.

‘Has Zan been coming on to you?’ Her tone was anxious. ‘My God, he’s the screaming limit. He must have women dotted all over the known world, and then some, so he has no right—no right at all.’ She added earnestly, ‘Honestly, Alanna, you don’t want to believe a word he says.’

‘Don’t worry.’ Joanne had just confirmed that she’d allowed herself to be used for a night’s amusement by a serial womaniser, yet Alanna managed to summon a smile from somewhere. ‘I won’t.’

‘Anyway,’ Joanne added more buoyantly. ‘You’re Gerard’s girl—right?’

Wrong, thought Alanna. The truth is I don’t really know at this moment who I am or what I’m doing here, but the weight of opinion seems to tend towards past fool and present fraud. But for now...

She lifted her chin. ‘Absolutely right,’ she said clearly.

‘And my parents are dying to meet you.’ Joanne guided her across the room. ‘But don’t worry,’ she added cheerfully. ‘Mother and Aunt Caroline are chalk and cheese. You’d never think they were sisters.’

Mrs Dennison was a comfortably built lady whose greeting was as warm as her smile.

‘Well, you’ve been thrown in at the deep end,’ she said cheerfully, motioning Alanna to sit beside her. ‘You’re not seeing us at our best, I fear, but please don’t blame Gerard. He wasn’t to know how things would turn out.’ She turned to her husband. ‘And now it seems my mother’s invited Tom Bradham tomorrow evening. Just asking for more trouble.’

Maurice Dennison shrugged. ‘Something she thrives on, darling. So relax, and let Caroline fret about the seating arrangements.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s almost time for dinner, so I’d better detach Kate and Mark from the nursery and frogmarch them downstairs.’

‘My mother,’ said Diana Dennison, as he walked away, ‘must be the only great-grandmother in the world who still believes that little children should be seen—briefly—but not heard. So they get to come down from the nursery once a day at teatime. Accordingly that’s why their parents choose to spend the greater part of their time upstairs with them.’

She sighed. ‘Mark’s parents would have the boys like a shot, and they’d have a wonderful time on the farm, yet Mother always insists on them being brought here when she issues a family summons.’ She shook her head. ‘I can never understand why. She’s never been fond of children—not even her own if memory serves,’ she added drily.

She gave Alanna another smile. ‘I’ve shocked you, haven’t I? But Gerard won’t mind you knowing how things are.’

More information, Alanna thought, that I could well do without.

She said carefully, ‘I think I should make it clear that I haven’t actually known Gerard for very long.’

Mrs Dennison shrugged. ‘He can’t be too concerned about that, or he wouldn’t have invited you,’ she returned calmly. ‘And I’m delighted he did. I intend to tell my nephew that he’s a fool if he lets you slip away.’

Alanna was agonised. ‘Mrs Dennison—please...’

The older woman sighed again. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m fond of Gerard and I want to see him happy again. However, if it means so much to you, I won’t say a word.’ Her smile was suddenly mischievous. ‘Let nature take its course.’

Not, thought Alanna, a course of action with any appeal for me.

Mrs Dennison paused. ‘And here comes my sister, looking rattled. I suppose that means that Mother is now waiting for us all in the dining room, tapping her foot impatiently. Let’s not keep her waiting any longer.’

It was a long and leisurely meal which turned out to be less of a nightmare than Alanna expected. For one thing, the food was excellent and, for another, she found herself sitting at the far end of the table, a long way from Gerard and, thankfully, even further from Zandor.

Her immediate neighbours were Desmond Healey, a quiet, humorous replica of his father, and his pretty wife, both of them drama buffs. And, for a while, she managed to lose herself in a light-hearted argument about TV noir and if the Scandinavians still led the field or had been overtaken by the French and Italians.

When the meal was over, it was late enough for her to be able to excuse herself politely from the return to the drawing room, a swift glance having assured her that Zandor was nowhere to be seen, claiming mendaciously that coffee kept her awake but adding truthfully it had been a very long day.

She’d noticed that Niamh Harrington was also missing and that Gerard had disappeared again too, presumably to continue their earlier conference, so she was able to escape up to her room without any further unwonted and public demonstrations of affection from him.

No wonder people were thinking their relationship was a done deal, she thought, closing her door and, for reasons she was unable to explain, turning its heavy key in the old-fashioned lock.

She found Mrs Dennison’s comment about wishing to see Gerard ‘happy again’ buzzing in her brain as she got ready for bed.

I’ve never seen any sign that he’s been miserable, she mused, with an inward shrug. Although perhaps having to work for his cousin might be getting him down, which raised the question why he’d accepted a job in the first place from someone who was clearly persona non grata with the rest of the family.

It’s beyond me, she decided as she switched off the lamp. And also not my problem. Not that it ever was or ever would be.

She drew back the curtains to admit the moonlight, and tried to get comfortable on a mattress that she discovered was lumpy as well as hard.

She was almost asleep when she heard the soft knock at the door. She propped herself on an elbow staring across the room and saw in the half-light the handle slowly turn.

She stayed silent, motionless, until it returned to its original position followed by quiet footsteps receding down the passage.

He’d gone—and she didn’t even have to question the identity of her late-night visitor.

As she lay down, she realised she’d also been holding her breath.

That key, she told herself, will go everywhere with me until I finally walk out of here on Sunday morning. And say goodbye to the Harrington family for ever.

CHAPTER THREE

ALANNA WOKE VERY early the next morning, aware that she’d spent a restless night in the grip of dreams she was glad not to remember too clearly.

She slid out of bed and crossed to the window, only to find any view of the gardens was obscured by a thick cloud of mist hanging like a pall at tree level.

Towards the east, however, the sky was vermilion shot with flame, promising another hot day. And perhaps more, she thought, remembering an old saying from childhood, ‘Red sky in the morning, sailors’ warning’ which suggested storms in the offing.

As if there hadn’t been enough already, she thought, shivering a little as she pulled on the lawn wrap which matched her white nightdress, before curling up on the thinly cushioned seat under the window.

She should never have agreed to come here, she told herself. Quite apart from the nightmare of finding herself face to face with Zandor again, her visit had obviously raised expectations in Gerard’s family about their relationship which were as premature as they were embarrassing. And which were now, in any case, due to be totally disappointed.

And was that her own reaction too?

In all honesty, she didn’t know. Couldn’t even begin to consider all the might-have-beens that were now denied her.

Not when she had to deal with the reality of Zandor and his ongoing disruption of her life and her peace of mind.

Which had all begun, she recalled wretchedly, with a ‘Meet the Reader’ event, starring the loathsome Jeffrey Winton. And her feet hurting...

Alanna discreetly eased off one high-heeled pump and flexed her toes. These were not standing-about-in shoes, she reflected ruefully, but having her stand beside him instead of sit at the table was Jeffrey’s idea, and certainly not hers.

Nor had it been her plan to spend this Friday evening in a bookshop, listening to him talk about his life, his writing career, primarily his incarnation as Maisie McIntyre, and his future plans to a crowd of adoring women fans.

Clearly no one had ever told him that self-praise was no recommendation.

Izzy, the Hawkseye Publishing publicist scheduled to accompany him, had gone home during the afternoon with a migraine, and Alanna had been the only one around when Hetty came looking for a replacement.

Her protests had been ignored. ‘Sometimes, it’s all hands to the pump,’ Hetty had decreed. ‘It’s simple enough. He just needs someone to pass him the books to be signed and keep the queue moving. Oh, and he prefers smart dress for his back-up,’ she added flicking a glance at Alanna’s jeans, T-shirt and trainers. ‘Including shoes.

‘Also he tends to sign all the books we send so that the shop can’t return them, so fend him off because the owner of SolBooks doesn’t like it.’

Now, nearly an hour into Mr Winton’s description of how he’d learned to get in touch with his feminine side in order to write about the whimsical and endearing events in his rural sagas, Alanna had murder in her heart.

Back at her bedsit, she had scripts to read and report on, music to listen to, a bowl of soup followed by a jacket potato smothered in cheese to enjoy and an elderly but comfortable robe to wear.

Instead, she was stranded here in her one and only little black dress and some toe-crushing footwear.

She wished that someone would stand up and ask, ‘What do you say to the rumours that your wife writes over fifty per cent of your books?’ but of course it didn’t happen.

His audience, whose tickets included a glass of wine, had completely bought into the Maisie McIntyre dream world, and they were hooked—mesmerised, and almost panting to get their hands on the piles of Summer at the Shepherd’s Crook that shop-owner Clive Solomon was bringing from the stockroom.

‘This will be my last Meet the Author session,’ he’d confided when she arrived. ‘I’m retiring, and handing the business over to my nephew as both my daughters are married and sublimely uninterested in bookselling. I shall keep my hand in with a spot of antiquarian dealing on the internet,’ he added with satisfaction.

And Alanna, wishing that he’d had a more congenial writer at his swansong, smiled and wished him every success.

She was just squeezing her protesting foot back into her shoe when she realised that there was a new arrival in the shop, who’d apparently just pushed open the door and walked in off the street. And that unlike the rest of the rapt crowd, he was male.

He was also tall, very dark, his thin face striking rather than conventionally handsome, and elegantly clad in a charcoal grey suit, his immaculate white shirt set off by a crimson silk tie.

So hardly, she thought, a journalist who’d also been sent there on an unwilling mission.

Just someone in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As she walked down the shop towards him, she was aware too that he was looking back at her. That his grey eyes, so pale they were almost silver, with their colour enhanced by long black eyelashes, were conducting a leisurely and comprehensive survey of her that she should have resented.

Also that his firm-lipped mouth was beginning to quirk into a smile. To which, she discovered to her own astonishment, she was sorely tempted to respond.

She said quietly but firmly, ‘I’m afraid this is a private book launch. Or do you have a ticket?’

‘No.’ He glanced round him. ‘I thought the shop was having a late-night opening. As I’m here, can you recommend a book for an elderly lady who loves to read?’

She hesitated. Mr Solomon was still busy, and Jeffrey Winton was looking daggers in her direction, so the obvious answer was to advise this potential customer to return another time. Except he wouldn’t. He’d buy elsewhere and she liked Mr Solomon and didn’t want him to miss out on a sale.

‘What sort of thing does she like?’

‘Good stories with plenty of characters, I understand.’ He looked past her, frowning faintly. ‘Is he an author?’ he asked quietly.

‘Yes,’ Alanna whispered. ‘But I don’t think he’d be her choice.’ She paused. ‘Has she read Middlemarch by George Eliot?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea. Did you enjoy it?’

‘It’s one of my all-time favourites.’

‘Then you have a sale.’ His smile was glinting in those astonishing eyes, and prompting a strange and unfamiliar tremor deep within her.

‘I’ll leave that to Mr Solomon,’ she said hurriedly, seeing that he was heading enquiringly in their direction. ‘I need to get back to my author.’

He said softly, ‘To my infinite regret,’ and she felt her face warm as she hurried back to the table.

During the applause at the end of the talk, she permitted herself a quick glance towards the door, but the stranger had gone, and she found herself suppressing a pang of disappointment.

The signing session went well, although Alanna did not appreciate Mr Winton’s unctuous reference to herself as ‘my lovely helper’ or his insistence on her moving nearer to his chair, when her preference was for keeping her distance.

She’d already noticed with faint unease his sideways glances at the length of her skirt, the depth of her neckline and the way the fabric clung to the gentle curves in between.

She was thankful when the queue began to dwindle and people started to take their reluctant departures. Clive Solomon was already collecting the used glasses and she, remembering Hetty’s warning, decided to add some extra tape to the unopened cartons in the stockroom, in case Mr Winton decided to pull a fast one.

And next time Maisie McIntyre has a book launch, I’ll be the one claiming a migraine, she thought grimly, if not a brain tumour.

She picked up the tape and started work, glad it was a mindless occupation because her brain seemed for some reason to be working on images of a man with a slanting smile and silver eyes.

So much so that she didn’t even realise she had company until Jeffrey Winton spoke.

‘That’s rather naughty of you, my dear. You should be promoting my sales, not obstructing them.’

She straightened. ‘I think all the customers have gone, Mr Winton,’ she returned, wishing he was not standing between her and the door, and that Clive Solomon wasn’t packing up the unused wine in his tiny staffroom.

‘But a whole lot of new ones will be in the shop tomorrow.’ His tone was jovially reproving as he took a step closer. ‘However, you’re young and I might be persuaded not to report you to Hetty.’

‘And a fat lot of good that would do you,’ Alanna said under her breath as she stepped backwards, only to find herself trapped between his bulky body and the steel shelving.

Oh, God, she thought in horror, please don’t let this be happening. Please...

‘That is,’ he added, ‘if you’re prepared to be nice to me.’

He licked already moist pink lips expectantly, leering at her as he moved closer, his hand snaking towards the hem of her dress.

What, Alanna wondered wildly, would be the penalty for kneeing a bestselling author in the groin?

But before she could take the risk, another voice intervened.

‘Haven’t you finished yet, darling?’ He was back, the customer, the silver-eyed focus of her recent imaginings, leaning casually in the doorway, smiling at her and ignoring Jeffrey Winton who had spun round, red-faced and furious at the interruption. ‘You promised me the rest of the evening—remember?’

She said huskily, ‘I’m quite ready. I—I just need my jacket and bag.’

She eased past Mr Winton and collected her things from the staffroom, uttering a few words of breathless congratulation on a successful evening to Mr Solomon before joining her unexpected rescuer at the shop door.

‘It seems I arrived at the right moment,’ he commented helping her into her jacket.

‘Yes,’ she said with a shudder. ‘I still can’t really believe it.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I—I don’t know how to thank you.’ She paused. ‘But what made you come back? Did you change your mind about the book?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I wanted to ask you to have dinner with me.’

She hesitated, feeling her pulses quicken outrageously. ‘That’s very kind of you,’ she managed. ‘But truly, there’s no need.’

‘I disagree,’ he said. ‘For one thing, I’m keen to continue our discussion of English literature. Also I dislike eating alone.’

‘But I don’t even know your name...’

‘It’s Zandor,’ he said. ‘Or Zan, if you prefer. And you are...?’

She swallowed. ‘Alanna.’

‘So now we are at least fifty per cent respectable,’ he said. ‘The rest can wait.’

As he signalled to the cab that had suddenly appeared from nowhere, it occurred to her that by no stretch of the imagination could she accept that solitary dining would ever play a major role in his life.

From the moment she’d seen him, she’d recognised that he was a seriously attractive man on a scale marking as dangerous, at the same time registering an exhilarating awareness that her blood seemed to be flowing more quickly. That her senses had somehow become more finely tuned.

Knowing at the same time that by accepting his invitation, she could be making a disastrous leap from a hot frying pan into a raging inferno.

A view reinforced by the sight of Jeffrey Winton emerging from SolBooks and glaring venomously in her direction. Proof, if proof were needed, that he was unlikely to be a good loser, she thought, her stomach churning with renewed alarm, as she shrank into her corner of the cab.

Which Zan noticed as he took his seat beside her.

‘What’s the matter?’

She said shakily, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not very hungry. I—I’d like to go home, please.’

‘Do you live with your family?’

‘No, I have a flat.’ An absurdly upbeat way, she thought, to describe one room with a kitchen alcove, and a shared bathroom.

‘Which you share?’

‘Well—no.’

He nodded. ‘Then I think our original plan is best.’ His tone was matter-of-fact. ‘You’ve had an unpleasant experience but some food and company will help put it behind you. Solitary brooding will not.’

‘That’s easy for you to say,’ she flashed back. ‘You don’t stand to lose your job over this evening’s fiasco. Jeffrey Winton is a huge bestseller. If he spins some yarn about me, guess who will be believed?’

He frowned. ‘I could speak to your boss. Tell him what I saw. He seems a guy who would listen to reason.’

But my boss is a woman. She has to consider the bottom line... The words were trembling on her lips, but she swallowed them unspoken.

Zan, she realised, must think she worked at SolBooks, and, on the whole, that seemed preferable to launching into complicated explanations about her junior role at Hawkseye. Or any other personal detail, for that matter.

And she felt too weary to go on arguing about dinner. For one thing, the planned soup and jacket potato no longer held the slightest appeal for her. And he was trying to be kind, so she could at least be civil in return for an hour or so.

Besides, she owed him—didn’t she?

After that—well, they would be ships that passed in the night. Nothing more, she decided, staring out of the window at the brightly lit shops—which suddenly seemed oddly blurred.

And realised to her horror that she was crying, quietly and unstoppably.

She heard Zandor say something under his breath, and found herself drawn towards him. She gave herself up the astonishing comfort of being cradled in his arms, her head against his shoulder. Of breathing the warm scent of his skin and the faint but heady fragrance of his cologne. And, not least, the sheer practicality of having an immaculate linen handkerchief pushed into her hand.

‘He was so vile.’ She sobbed the words into his expensive tailoring. ‘If you hadn’t been there—if you hadn’t come back...’

‘Hush,’ he whispered, his hand gently and rhythmically stroking her hair. ‘It’s over. You’re safe now.’

And she’d believed him, she thought. Had cried herself out while he held her, then sat up awkwardly, reducing his handkerchief to a sodden lump as she blotted her eyes and blew her nose.

‘I feel so stupid,’ she said huskily.

‘There’s no need.’ He pushed a strand of damp hair back from her forehead and she felt the brush of his fingers resonate through every inch of her skin.

At the same time she realised the cab was coming to a halt and, as Zandor paid the driver, found herself standing outside an imposing facade announcing itself as the Metro-Imperial Hotel, with a uniformed commissionaire holding open a pair of elegant glass doors.

As they crossed the expanse of marble-tiled foyer towards a bank of lifts, Alanna hung back.

‘Why are we here?’

‘To have dinner.’ He urged her forward gently, his hand under her elbow. ‘I didn’t have time to book a table anywhere else. But the food is good.’

And then she was in the lift, which was rising smoothly and swiftly past floor after floor until it reached the very top.

‘Is this the restaurant?’

‘No, the penthouse. I stay here when I’m in London.’ He unlocked the door straight ahead of them with his key card and ushered her into a sitting room, all pale golden wood and ivory leather sofas with enough space to accommodate her bedsit twice over and then some.

He pointed to a door on the far wall. ‘You might want to freshen up. Go through there and you’ll find the bathroom’s directly opposite.’ He paused. ‘Do you like pasta?’

‘Well—yes,’ she admitted uncertainly.

‘Good.’ He smiled at her. ‘Then that’s what we’ll have.’

‘Through there’ was, of course, the bedroom, also huge and with a bed vast enough for several kings plus an emperor, Alanna thought as she headed for the bathroom, the imperial note being continued in the deep purple quilted bedspread.

Apart from a two-tier wooden stand bearing an opulent leather suitcase, open and neatly packed, the bed was the only visible piece of furniture, so presumably the wardrobes and chests of drawers were concealed behind the room’s elegant cream panelling.

The bathroom with its walk-in shower and sunken tub was lavishly supplied with soft towels and toiletries, and one glance in the mirror above the twin marble washbasins at her red-eyed, tear-stained reflection revealed to Alanna how essential the freshening up process was and why a public restaurant might not have been her companion’s immediate choice.

Or his second, she discovered, when, all signs of her recent distress removed and her makeup discreetly renewed, she returned to the sitting room and found a waiter laying places for two at a table beside the long windows while another was busy with a gold-foiled bottle and an ice bucket.

Zandor was lounging on a sofa, jacket removed, tie loosened, and the top buttons of his shirt unfastened. His attention was fixed frowningly on the laptop on the low table in front of him, but he closed it at her approach and smiled up at her.

‘Did that help?’

‘Amazingly so.’ She sat down beside him, but at a discreet distance, and took another longer look around her. ‘This is—palatial.’

He shrugged. ‘It does the job while I’m in London. Right now, I seem to spend most of my time on aircraft. Tomorrow I’m heading off to the States.’

Which explained the waiting suitcase.

‘You enjoy travelling?’

‘It doesn’t worry me.’ His mouth twisted. ‘But then I’ve always been regarded as having gipsy blood.’

‘How—exciting.’ She’d almost said ‘romantic’ but stopped herself just in time.

He said drily, ‘Except it’s never been intended as a compliment.’

She was wondering how to respond to this when she was diverted by the waiter’s arrival with two flutes of pale wine, fizzing with bubbles.

‘Champagne?’ She drew a breath. ‘But why?’

He shrugged. ‘You think it’s just for celebrations? It isn’t. Tonight, treat it simply as the world’s best tonic.’

She accepted the flute uncertainly. ‘Well—thank you.’

‘We should have a toast.’ He touched his glass lightly to hers. ‘Health and happiness.’

She repeated the words softly and drank.

The cool, dry wine seemed to burst, fizzing, in her mouth, caressing her throat as she swallowed.

She said with a little gasp. ‘You’re right. It’s wonderful.’

And the food which arrived shortly afterwards was just as good—fillets of salmon wrapped in prosciutto, served on a bed of creamy tarragon pasta with asparagus, peas and tiny broad beans.

The dessert was a platter of little filo pastry tartlets filled with an assortment of fruits in brandied syrup.

All of it enhanced accompanied by the chilled sparkle of the champagne.

And by conversation, starting with books and moving on to music, quiet, entertaining, and always involving, so that, in spite of her initial forebodings, Alanna found she was relaxing into enjoyment. Savouring his company almost more than the delicious supper.

Yet, at the same time, becoming increasingly aware of the potency of his attraction. How his slow smile and the quiet intensity of his silver gaze made her nerve-endings quiver and set her pulses racing—reactions which bewildered as much as they disturbed her.

She wasn’t a child for heaven’s sake. She’d enjoyed a satisfactory social life at university and since her arrival in London. But liking had not so far ripened into passion and none of the young men she’d dated had ever come close to persuading her into a more intimate relationship.

That, she’d told herself, was because casual relationships had little appeal for her, and, anyway, she was far more interested in concentrating her emotional energy on the development of her career.

Or was it just because she’d never been seriously tempted to abandon her self-imposed celibacy.

Not that she was now, of course, she added hastily.

And, thankfully, the evening would soon be over, and no harm done.

After all, the conversation, however enjoyable, had remained strictly impersonal. They hadn’t even exchanged surnames, she reminded herself, which made it very much a ‘ships that pass in the night’ occasion.

And she should put out of her mind the sense of comfort and security she’d experienced in the taxi when he’d held her in his arms as she wept. Once again, he was just being kind. Nothing more. And far better—safer—to believe that.

The arrival of the coffee, however, prompted a move back to the sofa. And it had also, she realised, signalled the departure of the serving staff, leaving them alone together.

She made a thing of looking at her watch. ‘Heavens, I didn’t realise how late it was. I should be leaving. I—I’ve already taken up too much of your time.’

‘I think we both know that isn’t true.’ He paused, then added, ‘Have some coffee,’ filling one of the small cups from the tall silver pot. ‘Then I’ll call the desk and order a cab for you.’

As he passed her the cup, their fingers brushed and she felt the brief contact shiver through her senses.

It was so quiet in the room that it seemed the swift uneven pounding of her heart must be audible to them both.

She pushed back a strand of hair from her forehead and saw him watching the swift, nervous movement of her hand and stared down, trying to calm herself, concentrating her attention on the dark swirl of coffee in her cup.

She thought, This is madness...

When she’d finished the last rich drop, she returned her cup to the tray.

She said too brightly, ‘That was delicious. But now I really must be on my way.’

‘Of course,’ he said, and picked up the telephone. He gave the order for the taxi and listened, nodding, to the response.

‘It may be a few minutes,’ he said, as he replaced the receiver. ‘Apparently it has begun to rain.’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ she said quickly, rising to her feet and reaching for her jacket and bag. ‘I—I’ll wait in the foyer. There’s no need for you to come down.’

His brows lifted but all he said was, ‘As you wish.’

At the door, Alanna turned. ‘Thank you again—for everything,’ she said and held out her hand.

But instead of the brief handshake she’d expected, Zan’s fingers closed round hers, carrying them to his lips and kissing them gently.

At her sharp indrawn breath, he paused, smiling down into her widening eyes, then turned her hand, letting his mouth caress the soft hollow of her palm.

Sensations began to uncurl inside her—pleasure and a kind of yearning that she had not experienced before but which she found strangely, even dangerously, beguiling.

So much so that when he took her in his arms, she went unresistingly, swaying against his body, feeling herself enveloped by the heat of his skin, as if the layers of clothing between them had ceased to exist.

His hands tangled in her hair, framing her face as he brought her mouth to his. As his lips slowly, almost wonderingly, explored the contours of hers, then coaxed them apart to allow the dark, sweet invasion of his tongue.

As she yielded—responded—to this new intimacy, she found her hands gripping his shoulders as if they were her only security in a suddenly reeling world, where her legs seemed no longer able to support her.

Their mouths clung, as his kisses deepened from gentleness to urgency and an open hunger that she could neither ignore nor deny because she shared it.

Even when she realised his fingers were releasing the zip on her dress and pulling the loosened fabric from her shoulders, she made no protest, melting into him as his lips caressed a slow path down her throat.

She was absorbed, lost in bewilderment—in the soft, hot ache of desire—when the sudden insistence of the telephone ringing intruded violently, like a whiplash across her senses.

Zan said something under his breath and released her, striding across to the phone, responding to the caller with a curt ‘Very well’ before replacing the receiver.

He looked back at Alanna. ‘Your taxi is here.’

Even without that, the brief interruption had been enough, bringing her starkly back to the reality of what she was inviting. And telling her that it must end.

She said shakily, ‘Yes—yes, of course.’

Clumsily, she pulled her dress into place and closed the zip, then reached down for her bag and jacket which had slipped from her grasp to the floor.

Zan came back to her side as she was fumbling with the door handle.

He said laconically, ‘There’s a trick to it,’ and demonstrated.

‘Yes, I see now.’ She forced a smile. ‘Well—goodnight.’

‘Wait.’ His voice was husky. ‘Don’t leave.’

‘I—I must...’

‘No.’ He stared down at her, the silver eyes brooding. ‘Let me send the cab away.’ He drew a harsh breath. ‘Oh, God, Alanna. Stay with me tonight. Sleep with me.’

‘I—can’t.’ She looked away, fixing her gaze on the open door and the empty corridor beyond it. ‘I—I don’t—I’ve never...’ She was stumbling over her words, embarrassed at what she was revealing. ‘Please—let me go.’

There was a pause, then he said quietly, ‘If that’s what you want,’ and stood aside to let her pass.

She walked the few yards to the lift, trying not to run. Instinct telling her that he was still there, watching her from the doorway.

And, even as she pressed the button for descent, found she was whispering over and over again under her breath, ‘Don’t look back—don’t look back...’

CHAPTER FOUR

AND THEN...

No, Alanna told herself almost violently. Nothing more. I will not—not go there. Never again.

Chilled and cramped, she found she’d almost curled into a ball, her arms wrapped protectively round her body, and straightened slowly, inwardly cursing her own stupidity at allowing past mistakes to impinge on her again.

On the other hand, she argued to herself, it could have been very much worse. Supposing Zandor had spent this weekend elsewhere, as he’d clearly been expected to do, and she’d remained in ignorance of his connection to the Harringtons. She might well have found herself embarking, if tentatively, on a serious relationship with Gerard.

Imagine, she thought, her mouth twisting, how that would have crashed and burned when I eventually discovered the truth, and that particular skeleton came tumbling out of the woodwork.

As it is, I can ease myself out of the situation, with no broken bones—alive or dead.

A knock at the door brought her to her feet. ‘Who is it?’ She kept her voice steady.

‘Joanne. I have coffee, if you don’t mind black without sugar.’

‘Sounds great.’ She crossed to the door, the key grating in the lock as she turned it.

Joanne, a steaming mug in either hand, gave her an astonished look. ‘You’re safety conscious,’ she commented. ‘If you’re worried about the abbot’s ghost, it’s only supposed to haunt the cloisters.’

‘I didn’t even know it existed,’ Alanna returned, waving Joanne towards the only chair before she returned to the window seat with her own coffee. ‘And aren’t ghosts supposed to walk straight through doors and walls anyway?’ She hesitated. ‘But I guess locking myself in is a habit dating from my bedsit days.’

Joanne giggled naughtily. ‘Poor Gerard, if he risked Grandam’s eagle eye to come visiting.’

Alanna forced a smile in return. ‘No, the rules were explained to me in advance.’

And if anyone dared to ignore them, it certainly wouldn’t be Gerard, she thought, her throat tightening. Just someone who was strictly a law unto himself.

‘Well the pair of you must make sure you get some time alone today and prepare yourselves for this evening. Repeating silently that it will all be over by this time tomorrow works for me.’

Alanna looked at her, this time with genuine amusement. ‘Joanne—that’s absurd. It’s just a birthday party.’

Joanne sighed. ‘It’s never “just” anything with Grandam. Witness her invitation to Lord Bradham.’

Alanna remembered Mrs Dennison had mentioned the name with foreboding.

‘Don’t you like him?’ she asked.

‘He’s lovely. Local landowner. Very rich. Life peer for services to conservation.’

‘Then what’s the problem?’

‘Ah, so Gerard hasn’t told you.’ Joanne pulled a face. She lowered her voice. ‘The problem is that he was engaged to my aunt Marianne. Date fixed and everything. She went off to Paris to stay with her godmother who was buying her wedding dress, and was invited to some party at the embassy. One of the other guests was a guy called Timon Varga. A bit of a mystery man with plenty of looks and charm, but a bit short on background.

‘A week later, Marianne walked out of the house with her passport, and the wedding dress which had been delivered the day before, leaving a note to say she was marrying this glamorous unknown.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Naturally, all hell broke loose. I mean—a week for God’s sake. She must have been meeting him on the sly, but no one had suspected a thing.’

She shook her head. ‘Grandam was raving that he was nothing but a con man and a gipsy who thought Marianne had money, and she wanted to start a police hunt, but Grandfather talked her out of it. He said Marianne was over eighteen and free to choose for herself, however mistakenly that might be.

‘And if Grandam was right and she did come back abandoned, destitute and pregnant, they would look after her.’

‘What about her fiancé?’ Alanna asked. ‘How on earth did they tell him?’

‘They didn’t have to. Marianne had already written to him apparently. Naturally, he was desperately upset—so much so, he closed up his house and went off to Canada. When he came back two years later he was also married—to a girl called Denise that he’d met in Montreal.’

She gave a sudden giggle. ‘Grandam loathed her on sight, and when he got his life peerage and Denise became Lady Bradham, she was fit to be tied, muttering it should have been Marianne.’

Alanna cleared her throat. ‘Who was not, presumably, abandoned and destitute?’

‘Far from it,’ said Joanne. ‘When Grandfather insisted they should be invited down to the abbey, my mother says Marianne was wearing a diamond like the Rock of Gibraltar. It turned out that her husband was absolutely loaded and that they adored each other.

‘Grandam, of course, wouldn’t accept that. She did her damnedest to find out where he came from and how he’d made his money, but she never did, so she told the rest of the family, he must have bad blood and was probably a criminal of some kind and Marianne would be lucky if he didn’t end up in jail with her alongside him.’

Alanna almost choked on her coffee. ‘How could she?’

‘Quite easily. After Zan was born, Ma says she used to refer to him as the gipsy brat, even when he was old enough to understand.’

‘I...see,’ Alanna said slowly.

‘Anyway, that’s why Lord Bradham, who’s now a widower, has suddenly been invited. To remind Zan that, to Grandam, he’s still an outsider and that’s the man his mother should have married.’ She paused rather awkwardly. ‘Among other things.’

So much for the smiley, white haired old lady, thought Alanna.

She finished her drink and handed Joanne the empty mug. ‘Thank you for that.’

‘No problem. When Gerard brings you down here without the rest of us, shove a kettle and a jar of instant in your bag. The kitchen’s out of bounds before breakfast which is served at nine o’clock sharp.’ She winked. ‘Another company rule.’

Alanna forced another smile. ‘I’ll remember.’

And not just the coffee...

She now had even more reason to ease herself out of the situation, she thought, as she took her shirt, jeans and boots from her bag. The sun was out now and most of the mist had dispersed, so presumably she and Gerard would be going riding and spending the rest of Saturday as planned.

Maybe as Joanne had said, remembering her stay would be over in twenty-four hours might work for her too.

And when they were back in London, she could tell Gerard that she felt things were not working out between them.

And wished she felt more disappointed.

* * *

Niamh Harrington was presiding at the breakfast table, still in her riding breeches and silky polo-necked sweater, plus pink-cheeked and twinkly-eyed, even though neither her daughter-in-law nor Zandor had observed the nine o’clock deadline. For which Alanna had to be thankful.

She had politely wished Mrs Harrington a simple ‘Many happy returns of the day’ as Gerard told her that gifts would be presented at dinner that evening, and helped herself to toast and coffee from the sideboard.

‘So, dear girl, you ride, do you?’ her hostess inquired briskly as Alanna sat down. ‘I wish I’d known. You could have come out with me earlier.’

Alanna, staring down at the tablecloth, murmured that she hadn’t been on a horse for some time.

‘No matter.’ Niamh dismissed that with a wave of her hand. ‘We’ll put you on Dolly. She’s quiet and easy paced.

You’ll be fine.’ She paused, her brow wrinkled. ‘And I could always call Felicity. I’m sure she’d be glad to ride over and keep you company.’

Alanna became aware that all other conversation at the table had suddenly ceased.

The silence was broken by Gerard. He said evenly, ‘There’s no need for that, Grandam. I expect Felicity has plenty to do. Anyway, I’m taking Alanna riding.’

‘But not this morning, darling.’ She gave him a tranquil smile. ‘Didn’t I say I wanted you to ride over to the Home Farm for a chat with Mr Hodson? It must have slipped my mind, but he’ll be expecting you.’

She paused. ‘But you’re probably right about Felicity. After all, it’s little enough her father sees of her these days, poor man.’

Alanna saw Joanne and her mother exchanging glances, and hurried into speech.

‘Gerard, I honestly don’t mind about the riding. I can explore the cloister and have a wander round the gardens instead.’

‘No, no,’ said Mrs Harrington. ‘A good canter in the fresh air will do you more good. Put some colour in your face instead of that pale London look.’

She nodded. ‘I’ll tell Jacko, my groom, to go along with you and make sure you don’t get lost.’ And returned to her boiled egg.

Alanna, her cheeks burning, decided bitterly she need no longer worry about her pallor.

If Mrs Harrington was delivering a message that she was out of place here, it was quite unnecessary. And so she would tell Gerard as soon as the first opportunity presented itself. In fact her immediate impulse was to request him to drive her to the nearest station and a train back to London, and to hell with the party, the abbey, and everyone in it.

Except, of course, that Zandor might draw the conclusion that this unexpected departure had some connection with him, and that was something her pride could not risk.

No, she decided grimly, she would stick it out to the bitter end.

Her breakfast finished, she excused herself politely and left the dining room. Gerard, tight-lipped and his eyes stormy, halted her at the foot of the stairs.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To change.’ She indicated her jeans and boots. ‘I’ve decided to save your grandmother’s groom the trouble after all and spend the morning here.’

‘No,’ he said urgently. ‘I must talk to you—and privately. So, I’m going to ride over to the Home Farm and while I’m down at the stables I’ll tell Jacko to take you up to Whitemoor Common, and join you as soon as I’ve finished with old Hodson.’

Alanna hesitated. ‘Do you think that’s wise?’

‘I think it’s essential.’ He paused. ‘Is it agreed?’

She sighed. ‘I suppose—yes.’

After all, she reasoned as she continued to her room, this time to fetch a sweater, this private talk could work both ways.

* * *

Dolly was a dapple grey, sturdy rather than elegant, but with a calm eye and Jacko was on much the same lines, watching critically as Alanna swung herself into the saddle and rode beside him out of the yard and along the track beside the paddock.

He was also a man of few words. ‘Whitemoor Common, is it, miss?’ and her response of, ‘Yes, please,’ being the sum total of their conversation.

Fifteen minutes along a quiet lane brought them to their destination, a wide expanse of scrubby grassland and bracken, studded with pale rocks and the occasional tree.

Jacko gave her a brusque nod and turned his own horse back towards the abbey.

Alanna watched him go, then dismounted, hitching Dolly’s reins over a low branch of a mountain ash. Removing her borrowed hat, she pulled off her sweater, tying it loosely over her shoulders, before seating herself on the short grass at the side of the lane, her back against a white painted stone, announcing ‘Whitemoor’ in faded black letters, and lifting her face to the sun while Dolly cropped contentedly a few feet away.

All in all, she thought, a pretty isolated spot, but she knew that Gerard had set off for Home Farm over an hour before, so maybe she would not have to wait too long.

Nor did she. The warmth was just beginning to make her feel drowsy after her restless night when Dolly gave a soft whinny.

Alanna opened her eyes and sat upright, as she saw a solitary rider on a stylish bay cantering slowly towards her from the opposite side of the common.

It occurred to her, watching his approach, that Gerard was a much better horseman than she would have supposed. But then, she chided herself, what possible justification did she have for making such a judgement about him—apart from his seeming perfectly at home in the city?

Yet, she thought as she got to her feet, lifting a hand to shade her eyes, he was also the heir to the abbey.

Except...

She drew a swift, sharp breath.

Except, now that she was no longer dazzled by the sun, she could see that the new arrival not only had hair as dark and glossy as a raven’s wing, but was also wearing a deep crimson shirt as opposed to the blue that Gerard had been wearing at breakfast. And knew exactly who was getting closer by the second.

To this isolated spot—her own assessment—where every instinct was warning her that it would be too dangerous to be alone with him.

I won’t, she thought. Dear God, I can’t...

Her mouth was suddenly dry, her heart thundering in panic as she stumbled towards Dolly, unhitching her reins with a jerk, then hurling herself up into the saddle and recklessly kicking the startled mare into a gallop.

She heard him shout her name, but ignored it, bending low over Dolly’s neck and urging her on, her breath sobbing in her throat, realising too late that the treacherously uneven surface of the common was the last place to stage any kind of race.

Because Zandor was coming after her. Gaining on her fast, even though Dolly, rudely jolted out of her normal placidity, was now making a fight of it with her stablemate, leaving Alanna to curse her own stupidity.

She tried to pull on the reins, but the mare tossed her head in protest and tore them from her grasp, leaving her clinging desperately to Dolly’s mane.

At the same moment, Zandor drew level with them. He reached an arm across and snatched Alanna from her saddle, his iron grip pinning her to his side and leaving her dangling helplessly as he brought his own horse under control and then to a complete halt.

Alanna began to struggle. She said breathlessly, ‘Let go of me, damn you. Put me down.’

‘With pleasure,’ he returned curtly and dropped her, letting her land on her backside on a tussock of coarse grass with a thud that seemed to jar every bone in her body.

Dolly had slowed too, and was trotting in bewildered circles, apparently realising that the unexpected excitement was over.

Zandor patted his horse’s neck, murmuring something soothing in a language Alanna did not recognise, then dismounted looping his reins round the branch of a small stunted tree, then walked over to Dolly, whistling softly.

At first she shied away, then as he waited, still whistling the same quiet tune, she dropped her head and came to him, allowing him to walk her back and tether her near the bay.

Meanwhile, Alanna, her breathing still flurried, had scrambled ungracefully to her feet, swearing under her breath, as she resisted the need to rub her aching rear.

Zandor observed her, tight-lipped. He said icily, ‘Next time you wish to risk your neck, try jumping off a tall building. Dolly may be past her best, but she doesn’t deserve to end her days with a broken leg or worse.’

He added, ‘I understood you could ride. Don’t you know better than to gallop headlong over unknown country?

‘Especially as there’s marshy ground ahead? And you aren’t wearing a hat.’

The honest answer was ‘Yes, of course I do.’

But Alanna didn’t return it. Instead, she lifted a defiant chin. ‘I had a hat but I left it at the roadside. What are you doing here?’

‘I came to find you.’ He paused. ‘I’m aware you were expecting my cousin, but he will not be joining you after all.’

‘How did you know that?’ she asked sharply.

‘I was in the stableyard when he was talking to Jacko. So, too, was our grandmother, who had other commissions for him after his visit to the Home Farm.’ He gave her a thin smile. ‘So I decided to save you a long, futile wait in the sun.’

Alanna bit her lip. ‘Please don’t expect me to be grateful.’

‘I don’t.’ Zandor shrugged. ‘Besides I also thought it would be a golden opportunity for us to have that talk I promised.’

‘We have nothing to talk about.’

He said quietly, ‘There, once again, we must differ.’ His gaze was steady, the silver eyes intent, making her aware that her sweater had slipped off during that mad, ludicrous dash and that her sweat-dampened shirt was clinging revealingly to her body, emphasising the swell of her rounded breasts. An additional humiliation, she realised angrily.

‘Let us go back to the first time you ran away from me,’ Zandor went on. ‘When I woke up to find you gone without a word—then or later.’

He paused. ‘What the hell did I do to warrant that?

Because I really need to know.’

Her throat was dry. ‘I suppose your usual conquests hang around begging for more. Let’s just say I turned out to be the exception to the rule.’

He said harshly, ‘And that’s a cheap retort which insults us both.’

‘We had a one night stand.’ It was her turn to shrug, struggling to keep her voice casual. ‘No big deal.’

‘Again, I don’t agree.’ His voice took on a purr of intimacy. ‘Shall I go through my reasons?’

‘No!’ In spite of herself, the negation seemed to explode from her and she hastily tempered it with, ‘Thank you.’ She spread her hands. ‘It—it was all a long time ago.’

‘To me, it still seems like yesterday.’

‘Then that’s your problem.’ She swallowed. ‘Why can’t you let the past stay exactly that instead of raking over old mistakes?’

She added defensively, ‘After all, it’s not going to make the slightest difference—to either of us.’

He was silent for a long moment, his expression unreadable. He said, ‘Then let us turn our attention to the future and allow me to offer you a word of warning.’ He paused. ‘You and Gerard?’ He shook his head. ‘It’s never going to happen. You would be well advised to walk away.’

The obvious and truthful response was ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ she thought, stiffening. But that was her decision, not his. And, anyway, what right did he have to interfere—either to warn or advise?

She said coolly, ‘My relationship with Gerard is a private matter for us alone.’

‘Not any longer,’ he said, his mouth twisting. ‘And certainly not in this family. They invented the words “public domain”.’

‘Then let me tell you they’ve all been very kind and—welcoming.’

‘Does that “all” include Aunt Meg and Aunt Caroline?’ He raised an ironic eyebrow. ‘Or my grandmother, for that matter?’

Her hesitation was fractional. ‘She’s been—charming.’

‘Why not? She has bundles of it when she chooses. She sometimes even uses it on me. But that makes no difference to her long-term plans for Gerard, which do not, my lovely one, include you, I can promise you.’

‘Please don’t call me that,’ she said tautly. ‘And Gerard’s future is his own to decide and he may consider I have a role to play in it.’

‘Then why isn’t he here with you now, finding some quiet, sheltered place and getting you out of your clothes?’

As she stared at him, shocked, he added, ‘Or is that not yet part of the agenda?’

Alanna threw back her head. She said chokingly, ‘How—how dare you? That’s none of your business.’

‘But it’s very much my concern.’ Zandor’s voice slowed to a drawl. ‘Having initiated you into the pleasures of physical passion, my sweet, I wouldn’t wish you to feel—short-changed in any way.’

Alanna pressed her hands to her burning face. ‘I don’t,’ she said defiantly. ‘In any way.’

Which, she told herself, was no more than the truth—if not in the way he expected.

She added, ‘I trust you don’t want details.’

He was unfazed. ‘Thank you but I think I prefer my memories.’

He let that sink in. Sting.

‘So Niamh is charming and Gerard attentive,’ he went on musingly. ‘But don’t let that fool you. If you’re also thinking long term, Gerard can’t afford to get married.’

‘You’re his employer,’ she flashed. ‘Perhaps you should pay him more.’

‘Perhaps I would,’ he said, ‘if I was more convinced about his commitment to Bazaar Vert.’

He paused. ‘However, his present salary already allows him a very pleasant flat in Chiswick, his car, and an expensive boat currently moored at Chichester, plus his New Year skiing trips, and his summer vacations in the Caribbean, as I’m sure you’re fully aware,’ he added silkily. ‘All of which hardly puts him on the breadline.’

Alanna bit her lip. ‘And as he’s also aware, I’m not exactly on the breadline myself,’ she mentioned crisply.

‘No, you work in publishing, for a company called Hawkseye,’ he said slowly. ‘And not as an assistant in a bookshop as I once thought.’

‘Does it matter? They’re both perfectly respectable occupations.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But unless you’ve also won millions in the Euro lottery, neither of them equips you financially to be the wife of the heir to Whitestone Abbey.’

He continued drily, ‘Unless, of course, you’re prepared to take on Niamh and convince him he needs that particular destiny like a hole in the head.

‘To do that, you’d need to be either very brave or very reckless. And while you certainly don’t lack the second trait, you may not come off unscathed again. Not a third time.’

‘A third?’

‘Why, yes,’ he said. ‘The first was the night at my hotel when you let the taxi I’d ordered leave without you.’ He added unsmilingly, ‘Or had you forgotten that small but important detail?’

The silence stretched between them as Alanna tried to think of something to say. And failed.

As if she had spoken, Zandor nodded. ‘What I need to know is—why? Or are you going to use the champagne as your excuse again?’

The words bit at her. She made herself meet his gaze. ‘No—although I’ve never drunk very much alcohol.’

Perhaps because I’ve seen where it can lead...

She went on, ‘Perhaps I was simply—curious. I’d come to realise I was something of an anomaly in this day and age and maybe I wanted to—know what I was missing.’

‘And, on a whim, chose me for this daring experiment?’ His voice was harsh. ‘Please don’t expect me to be grateful.’

‘I don’t.’ She stumbled on. ‘I—I soon realised I’d committed a terrible—an unforgivable error. That it was the last thing I wanted to happen. I—I couldn’t face you—afterwards—so I—left.’

His eyes were as bleak as winter. ‘It didn’t occur to you to tell me much earlier—maybe when it started—that you’d changed your mind? That you wanted it all to stop?’

‘Oh, sure,’ she said bitterly. ‘And you’ve have accepted that. Patted me on the head and said “That’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” I read about cases like that all the time in the papers.’

‘Of course,’ he said, with equal bitterness. ‘And it was somehow simpler to include me with all the brainless louts who won’t take no for an answer.’

She swallowed. ‘Zan...’

‘No,’ he said almost violently. ‘You don’t call me that. Not now. Not ever again.’

‘I don’t understand...’

‘You don’t have to. Just believe that it’s—safer.’ Shaken, Alanna watched him draw a deep breath. Regain his control.

When he spoke again, his tone was dry. ‘After all, you might make another mistake and use it in front of Gerard. Make him—wonder just how well-acquainted we really are.’ He paused. ‘Unless, that is, you’ve already told him.’

‘No,’ she said, still on edge. ‘Why would I want to admit that I’m damaged goods?’

She saw his mouth tighten and braced herself. But all he said was, ‘Why indeed?’

He became brisk. ‘Now it’s time you went back to the abbey before my grandmother thinks of any other little tasks to keep Gerard occupied and out of reach for the rest of the day.

‘If you turn right by those boulders, you’ll find an easy track that will take you almost straight to the stables—unless you decide on another gallop.’

He unhitched Dolly and led her over.

‘But don’t hope for too much,’ he went on as Alanna mounted and settled herself in the saddle, trying not to wince. ‘Whether you’re damaged goods or pure as the driven snow, it makes no difference. He’s still not for you.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ll decide that for myself.’

‘Which,’ he said softly, ‘could be another terrible mistake. You seem prone to them.’

He untied his own horse and swung himself lithely into the saddle.

She said sharply, ‘I can find my own way. You don’t need to accompany me.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he returned. ‘I’m merely going to retrieve the expensive hat you abandoned earlier.’ He paused. ‘Unless, of course, you want to give my grandmother additional ammunition.’

He gave her a mocking salute and rode off.

She watched him go, then slowly turned Dolly for home, grateful that the mare seemed happy to resume her usual staid pace.

But even more thankful, she thought, that Zandor would never know the truth.

And felt the tears she dared not shed burn like acid in her throat.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE RETURN TO the abbey was more of an amble than a ride. Dolly clearly would have known the way blindfold and Alanna, struggling to subdue her inner turmoil, was content, even grateful, to let the mare take charge, and allow her to think.

The important—the only—thing was, had Zandor believed her? Had their previous encounter now been dealt with and laid to rest?

And as she reviewed endlessly everything that had been said, she could start to believe that it had. That it was finally finished. And for that she had to be thankful.

She was recalled to the present by Dolly’s soft whicker as the roofs of the stables came into view, reminding her that she had other problems to attend to.

It seemed her resolve to proceed with caution in her relationship with Gerard had been the right one. Certainly if she’d been allowing herself to fall in love with him, she’d now be devastated.

Not, she reminded herself hastily, that Zandor’s warnings were necessarily valid. The strange dynamics of the Harrington clan alone might well have caused him to adopt his own agenda.

On the other hand, she could see that the abbey clearly needed an injection of seriously hard cash, which she, the daughter of a country solicitor, would never be able to provide, even if she’d felt so inclined.

Because the abbey, she suspected, could well be a bottomless pit.

She was also realising that she’d probably totally misinterpreted Joanne’s comments about potential clashes over money during the weekend. Because the family history she’d subsequently heard indicated that it would not be Zandor—the gipsy, the outsider—asking his grandmother for financial help, as she’d assumed, but quite the other way round.

Not, she thought, a happy state of affairs.

However, from a purely selfish point of view, no business of hers. And something else she could soon put behind her altogether.

But at least this interlude with Gerard had been enjoyable enough to bring her permanently out of her self-imposed seclusion. In future, she’d be as much of a social animal as even Susie could wish.

And one day she might find herself involved in a real relationship. Something to hope for, anyway, she thought, sternly stifling the odd pang twisting inside her.

* * *

She was in Dolly’s stall, removing her saddle, when Jacko appeared.

‘You’d best leave that to me, and get yourself up to the house,’ he said gruffly. ‘The Missus is asking for you.’

Well, the Missus could wait, Alanna decided, relinquishing Dolly reluctantly, at least until she’d soothed in a hot bath the last of the aches and pains from being summarily dumped on the common, and put on some clothes free of mud and grass stains.

She let herself into the house by the side entrance and was just crossing the hall to the stairs when she was intercepted by the housekeeper, Mrs Jackson.

‘Oh, you’re back, Miss Beckett. That’s good. Mrs Harrington has been waiting for you to join her for coffee in the library.’

A note in her voice told Alanna unequivocally that this was not a suggestion but a command that she would do well to obey.

Reluctantly, she followed Mrs Jackson to the unexpected and unwanted rendezvous.

It wasn’t a large room, and the oak shelving that covered three of its walls from floor to ceiling, filled with leather bound tomes that Alanna could bet were never opened from one year to the next, made it seem smaller and darker, making her glad she wasn’t claustrophobic.

The fourth wall was occupied by an ornate fireplace, its grate, at this time of year, filled with an attractive arrangement of dried flowers.

Two high-backed leather armchairs, a coffee table between them, confronted each other on either side of the hearth, and Niamh Harrington, predictably, Alanna thought sourly, was seated in the one facing the door.

Since breakfast, she’d changed into a silk caftan in sapphire blue, embroidered with butterflies.

‘So here you are at last!’ she exclaimed. ‘I was becoming anxious, dear girl, when I found Jacko had come back without you. The common can be treacherous in parts,’ she added, shaking her head gravely.

Treacherous, plus bloody dangerous and unexpectedly disturbing, Alanna supplied silently as she sat down, still with a certain care.

‘So, how did you like Dolly?’ Mrs Harrington went on. ‘A bit quiet now, I dare say, bless her. But come out with me tomorrow, and I’ll put you on Caradoc.

‘My brother-in-law in Ireland bought him as a stallion, but he nearly wrecked the horse box, kicked out his stall and attacked his girl groom, as well as fighting with the other horses, so Patrick had him gelded and offered him to me as a point to pointer for Gerard.

‘But he was still a wild one, and I’d just decided to sell him on when Gerard’s cousin took a fancy to him. Came down here at weekends to work with him until Caradoc would come when he whistled.

‘Turned him into a lovely smooth ride with the manners of a saint, would you believe? But then,’ she added, shrugging, ‘gypsies always seem to have a way with horses. It’s in their genes, I dare say.’

It was the overt contempt in her voice that told Alanna that it was Zandor’s own grandmother who would never intend ‘gypsy’ to be a compliment—or even a joke. And how vile was that?

Mrs Harrington sent Alanna another bright smile. ‘So we’ll go out in the morning and see what you make of the darling boy.’

The smile was transferred seamlessly to the housekeeper, entering with a tray. ‘Set the coffee down here, Mrs Jackson dear, and we’ll serve ourselves.’

She picked up the heavy silver pot. ‘I’d guess cream but no sugar. Am I right?’

Alanna, whose mind’s eye had been suddenly filled with a sunlit image of a man riding a powerful bay as if they were fused into one, like some ancient Greek centaur, dragged herself back to reality with a start. ‘Actually, I take it black.’

Mrs Harrington tutted. ‘Ah, now, too much caffeine is bad for the system, so I’m told.’

‘I’ve heard the same thing,’ Alanna agreed, taking the cup her hostess handed her. ‘But I still prefer it that way.’

She hesitated. ‘And tomorrow we’ll be going back to London right after breakfast, so, sadly, I’ll have to miss out on another ride. But thank you for asking me.’ And produced a smile of her own. ‘Next time perhaps.’

‘Well, there’s always that,’ Mrs Harrington agreed tranquilly. ‘However, I’m afraid, my dear, that I have to disappoint you. Gerard, being the heir, has a number of responsibilities down here at Whitestone, especially now I’m not as young as I was, and we have tenants who’ll be wanting to see him tomorrow.’

She nodded. ‘I imagine that could take up most of the day, and then we’ll need to discuss everything, so he may well be spending the night. And I’m sure you need to get back to your busy life and your career in the big city.’

She sighed. ‘Ah, girls today have the best of it. Great jobs and their independence. My own family took it for granted I’d stay at home until I was married, and that’s what I did until the blessed day when Gerard’s grandfather came to claim me.

‘It will be so different for you, dear girl. You can enjoy your freedom.’

She paused, then went on more briskly, ‘But my Diana and her husband are leaving before lunch, so I’m sure they’ll be glad to give you a lift. I’ll ask them, shall I? Or you could speak to Joanne. I’ve noticed the pair of you hitting it off.’

I bet you have, thought Alanna, sipping her coffee with a fair assumption of composure. So that’s how it’s done. Nothing as crude as ‘Never darken my doors again.’

Just the subtle dagger between the ribs. And if I cared, I’d now be bleeding all over this Persian rug.

As it is, what’s twisting the knife is having to accept that Zandor was right. But at least I’ll never have to say so. Or not to him, anyway.

Knowing I’ll definitely never have to meet him again is actually one of the few advantages of the situation.

However, if Mrs H. thinks I’m going to leave in a huff right here and now, she’ll be disappointed. I intend to stick to my guns and depart with dignity.

Aloud, she said calmly, ‘Please don’t trouble yourself, Mrs Harrington. I can make my own arrangements.’

Or Gerard certainly can, she decided, stonily. I think he owes me that. Because I’m not going round begging for a lift as if I’m a Victorian servant turned off without a character.

Besides, he must know his grandmother’s plans for his future, so what on earth prompted him to invite me in the first place?

Therefore, I’m going to have some advice for him too. Grow a backbone before it’s too late.

Then, swiftly reverting to the theme of dignified departure, she smilingly accepted another ‘absolutely delicious’ cup of coffee.

Which proved to be a mistake.

‘I believe your father is a lawyer,’ Niamh Harrington remarked as she handed back Alanna’s cup. ‘One of the great professions, I always think. My cousin’s son is Dermot Connor-Smith, QC who’s made a great name for himself at the criminal bar. I expect your father knows him well.’

‘I doubt they’ve ever met,’ Alanna returned composedly after another fortifying sip. ‘My father isn’t a barrister, and he doesn’t work in London.’

‘Not in London?’ Mrs Harrington’s brows rose. ‘Isn’t that a strange choice?’

‘Not at all. He’s a partner specialising in probate and family law at a firm based in a small market town called Silworth.’ Alanna paused. ‘Perhaps you’ve heard of it?’

Mrs Harrington appeared to consider. ‘It doesn’t spring to mind. And he finds enough to occupy him there?’

Alanna smiled. ‘Oh, yes. He’s always busy.’

‘And your mother. Does she also have a job?’

‘She does part-time work in a charity shop for the homeless, but she’s also very involved with the local Women’s Institute, and both she and Dad are keen gardeners.’

And so the inquisition continued, demonstrating to Alanna with needle-sharp accuracy just how provincial her background would seem to the Harringtons of Whitestone Abbey.

By the time the meeting drew to its close and she was graciously released—‘I think some of the others are playing croquet on the lawn, my dear. I’m sure you’d be most welcome to join them...’—Alanna’s blood was close to boiling.

Whatever she’d resolved privately, it was still not pleasant to be dismissed in such a cavalier fashion. Treated as if she didn’t matter, she thought as she stormed upstairs. As if, God help her, she’d somehow been tried and found wanting.

As for croquet, she thought savagely, watch out, world, and Niamh Harrington in particular, if she got her hands on a mallet any time soon.

She flung open the door of her room and marched in, stopping herself just in time from slamming it behind her in case the sound echoed as far as the library and told Gerard’s grandmother that her knife had found its target.

Nor did she intend to permit herself to cry, although she knew tears were not far from the surface. She would not, she decided, grant Niamh Harrington that much of a victory either.

She stalked furiously into the bathroom and began to run water into the tub, adding a generous capful of gardenia bath oil, before stripping off her clothes and fastening her hair into a loose knot on top of her head with a small silver comb.

She slid down into the water, closing her eyes and resting her head against the small towelling pillow attached to the back of the bath, feeling the heat permeate through every inch of her chilled and shaking body. Relaxing gradually as she inhaled the fragrance of the gardenia and began to breathe softly and evenly again.

And there she remained, adding more hot water when necessary until she’d recovered a measure of calm, even managing to smile again as she thought what she’d have to tell Susie—strictly edited, naturally. Zandor Varga, if she mentioned him at all, would feature only as Gerard’s arrogant boss. Their previous acquaintance would still stay strictly taboo.

And one day, sooner rather than later, she would be able to erase his memory from her life altogether.

As the water drained, she dried herself slowly with one of the soft, fluffy bath towels provided, moisturised her skin with her Azalea body lotion, then wrapping herself, sarong-style, in another towel, she sauntered back into her bedroom, removing her comb and letting her hair tumble round her bare shoulders as she went.

‘Ah,’ Zandor said softly. ‘So there you are.’

He was standing by the bedroom door, leaning a casual shoulder against its frame.

Alanna started violently, dropping the comb and clutching at the towel, which had begun to slip.

She said hoarsely, ‘You. How dare you come in here? Get out at once.’

‘It didn’t require any particular daring.’ He shrugged. ‘I came to return some lost property.’

He pointed to the bed and, turning, Alanna saw the sweater she’d dropped in that headlong dash across the common draped neatly across the pillow.

Damnation, she thought, and lifted her chin. ‘Then you should have knocked.’

‘I did. You didn’t seem to be here. And the door was not locked.’ He paused. ‘Unlike last night.’

So it was you. She managed just in time to choke back the words.

Oh, God, she thought. Why didn’t I think of it this morning?

‘And you don’t need to thank me.’ He allowed his gaze to travel over her slowly and appreciatively. ‘I am already sufficiently rewarded, believe me.’

She felt her skin warm. ‘In that case, kindly leave.’ She spoke crisply. ‘I’d like to get dressed.’

‘Then do so,’ he drawled. ‘After all, watching you put your clothes back on again is one of the few things I haven’t yet enjoyed in your company.’

The breath caught in her throat. She said unevenly, ‘If you don’t get out now, I’ll scream the house down.’

His brows lifted mockingly. ‘Rather extreme action to take with someone you supposedly met only twenty-four hours ago,’ he commented. ‘How would you explain it?’

‘I wouldn’t have to,’ she said defiantly. ‘Your reputation with women apparently speaks for itself.’

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘But gossip certainly does. My Cousin Joanne has been busy.’

She said huskily, ‘Or perhaps she speaks from bitter experience.’

‘No.’ His tone was harsh. ‘She does not.’ He paused. ‘I admit I considered it at one time, but then I remembered I used to be fond of her.’

Alanna drew a ragged breath. ‘Whereas with me you didn’t even have that excuse.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘With you, my lovely one, I had no excuse at all. None.’

He straightened. Came away from the door.

Alanna shrank. ‘Keep your distance. Don’t dare to lay a hand on me.’

‘Now you are being absurd.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It is barely an hour until lunch.’ He sent her a crooked smile. ‘Certainly not time for anything I might have in mind. As you may remember.’

‘You,’ she said unevenly, ‘can go to hell.’

He opened the door. Looked back at her. He said quietly, ‘“Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.” I am sure you recognise the quotation.’

And went, closing the door behind him.

For a long moment, Alanna remained exactly where she was, staring at the solid wooden panels. Then she stumbled across the room and—belatedly—turned the key in the lock once again.

Better safe than sorry, she thought, and knew just how ridiculous that was. Because she certainly wouldn’t be safe until she left the abbey behind her for ever. And it was equally certain, she told herself, that her meeting with Zandor Varga was something she’d regret for the rest of her life.

* * *

It was almost time for the midday buffet on the terrace that Gerard had mentioned on the journey down when she eventually went downstairs, casually dressed in a brief khaki cotton skirt and a cream short-sleeved top, her hair brushed back and confined at the nape of her neck with a tortoiseshell clasp.

She had scrutinised herself closely before leaving her room, and was reassured there was nothing in her appearance to suggest she’d spent the last few hours on an emotional roller coaster.

So, outwardly, she was together, and if, inwardly, her composure seemed to be hanging by a thread, that was something else to add to her list of little secrets.

To her surprise, she found Gerard waiting at the foot of the stairs.

He said, ‘I was just coming to find you.’

She shrugged coolly. ‘Whereas I wouldn’t have known where to start looking for you.’ She allowed that to sink in before glancing at her watch. ‘Am I late? Due for an entry in your Aunt Caroline’s bad books?’

‘No, not at all.’ He paused. ‘In fact, I thought we’d give the buffet a miss and drive over to the village. The pub does a pretty good ploughman’s, but there are other places further on in Aldchester if you’d prefer.’ He hesitated again. ‘Or we can stay here.’

He seemed to be making a real effort, so Alanna relented and gave him a smile. ‘A ploughman’s and some cider would be terrific.’

He grinned back. ‘And it’s perfect weather for a convertible, so why don’t I get Zan to loan me his Lamborghini for the afternoon.’

‘No!’ She saw immediately that her instinctive negative had been too quick and far too emphatic. ‘I mean—as you say, it’s a lovely day and he may want to use it himself. Besides, I really like the Mercedes.’

‘Well, there’s no accounting for tastes,’ he said cheerfully. ‘But it’s your decision, so let’s go.’

The pub in Whitestone village was called The Abbot’s Retreat.

‘He can’t have been a very saintly abbot,’ Alanna commented, as they parked the car and walked round to the gardens at the rear. ‘Not if he had to retreat to a pub.’

Gerard grinned. ‘Don’t condemn the poor guy too quickly. Tradition says that there was once a hermitage on this site, somewhere the monks came for solitude and prayer. And traces of a much earlier building have actually been found in the cellars.’

‘We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt,’ Alanna decided as they found a table beside a stream overhung with willows. ‘And I wouldn’t blame him either way.’

The ploughman’s lunches were substantial, with slices of home-cured ham alongside the mature cheese, salad and fresh crusty bread.

To her own surprise, Alanna ate every scrap.

‘Great idea,’ she said as she finished her cider, and put down her empty glass. ‘Congratulations.’

‘I felt something was needed,’ Gerard admitted ruefully. ‘The weekend so far isn’t exactly proceeding as I planned. I seem to be at other people’s beck and call the whole time. But that’s going to stop.’

He smiled with faint awkwardness. ‘From here on, it’s you and me against the world.’

Alanna felt a stirring of alarm.

She said steadily, ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

He reached across and took her hand. ‘Alanna—I know it’s too soon, but I want you to agree to become engaged to me.’

Her lips parted in a gasp of sheer astonishment. She said faintly, ‘But we hardly know each other...’

‘If you’re saying we’ve never been on intimate terms, that’s quite true.’ He hesitated. ‘Alanna, I was in a bad place when you quite literally fell into my life. And as I got to know you, I had the impression that you’d been in a similar situation.

‘I—I’ve never asked you about it, or talked about my own problems because I’d come to see that nothing can be gained by endlessly rehashing past mistakes.’

She swallowed. ‘Well, we can certainly agree about that,’ she said unevenly. ‘But, Gerard...’

‘Please hear me out.’ His fingers tightened round hers. ‘Right now, I’m simply offering an engagement, not pressuring you into marriage—or anything else for that matter. I think—I hope we could be happy together, if we gave each other the chance.’

She gave him a straight look. ‘But there are other people who might not be happy at all.’

‘You mean Grandam.’ His mouth tightened. ‘I love her dearly, Alanna, but she has to realise she can’t control my life. Not any more.’

Alanna wasn’t too sure of that, just as she was totally certain this engagement idea was a path she didn’t want to follow. Because marriage was out of the question.

Even if she’d fallen in love with him, twenty-four hours at the abbey would have warned her to think again and run for her life. For all kinds of reasons.

But to tell him so bluntly would be unkind.

A bad place. Well, as he’d guessed, she knew all about that. And that was another good reason for letting him down lightly.

She said quietly, ‘This has come as such a total surprise. You have to give me some time. Let me think about it.’

‘Take as long as you need. And as I said, I won’t try to change our relationship—push you into something you’re not ready for. So let’s just see how it goes. Shall we?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose.’ She hesitated. ‘But, Gerard, I’m not promising anything. I can’t. Not yet.’

Not ever...

She added, ‘You must understand that.’

She felt dazed as they returned to the car. If he’d stripped naked and jumped into the stream, she couldn’t have been more astonished, although she supposed it explained the unusually proprietorial attitude he’d shown since the start of the weekend.

Which must have also set Niamh Harrington’s alarm bells ringing.

Well, let her worry, she thought with grim determination. At the party tonight, for the first and last time, she’ll be seeing me in full devoted girlfriend mode. And to hell with the consequences.

CHAPTER SIX

‘THAT,’ SAID JOANNE REVERENTLY, ‘is one gorgeous dress.’

Alanna smiled at her. ‘Glad you like it.’

She had to admit the soft colour glimmered even in the fading light from her window, and it did indeed cling in all the right places.

She remembered thinking when she bought it that the weekend could be a turning point for her. And how right she’d been—even if it wasn’t exactly as anticipated. More twists than a corkscrew, she thought with an inward grimace before adding lightly, ‘I want to make Gerard proud of me tonight.’

‘I should think he’ll burst with it.’ Joanne giggled naughtily. ‘And the Hon. Felicity will burst too—for a different reason.’

‘Felicity?’ Alanna queried. ‘Oh, the girl your grandmother suggested should go riding with me.’

‘That’s the one.’ Joanne nodded. ‘Lord Bradham’s only child—and therefore loaded. Not to say spoiled.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘She and Gerard had a boy-girl thing for a little while in their teens, and Grandam periodically tries to revive it. Fat chance, on his side at least, so you don’t have to worry.’

‘I couldn’t be less worried if I tried,’ Alanna assured her. Although not for the reason you think, she added silently.

‘Besides Dad has always said that if Grandam got her way, she could live to regret it,’ Joanne went on. ‘You see, Felicity runs this very upmarket letting agency for wealthy visitors from abroad.’

She grinned. ‘He reckons that as soon as the ink on the marriage certificate was dry, she’d have Grandam whistled out of here into a purpose-built annexe at the manor with a live-in carer, while she rented out the abbey for megabucks to some foreign oligarch.’

Alanna smiled too, but felt a touch of compunction.

‘I can’t imagine Gerard allowing that to happen.’

‘That,’ said Joanne darkly, ‘is because you haven’t met Felicity.’

She looked at her watch. ‘We’d better go down. People will be arriving soon, and Grandam likes the whole family assembled to greet them.’

Which hardly includes me, thought Alanna. But this is the one and only time so I won’t argue.

Gerard was waiting in the hall below. He looked them both over and said, ‘Wow,’ before offering them each an arm and escorting them ceremoniously into the drawing room.

‘Ah,’ said Niamh Harrington. ‘So here are the latecomers at last.’ She beamed at them. ‘But it’s been worth the wait.’

‘Not,’ Alanna murmured inwardly, catching the steely glint in the cherubic blue eyes. Nor did she miss the imperious gesture summoning Gerard to his grandmother’s side or the low-voiced altercation that followed.

However, the Dennisons were smiling and waving, so she prudently got out of the firing line and went to join them with Joanne, just as the first guests started arriving.

The room was soon full, the extra staff hired for the occasion circulating busily with trays of drinks and canapés. And because the invitees were all local people and already acquainted, the talk and laughter levels rose accordingly.

Alanna, her hand beginning to ache through being vigorously shaken, and her head reeling with names she knew she would never remember, was thankful this was a one-off event and soon to be forgotten.

Although some moments might linger, unwanted, in her memory, like glancing up and seeing Zandor, watching her through the crowd, and raising his glass in a mocking salute.

She turned away abruptly nearly bumping into a tall girl, stick-insect-thin in a pale blue dress, her glossy chestnut hair woven into an ornate coronet on top of her head.

‘Oh, hi.’ Her voice was a high-pitched drawl, her accent cut glass. ‘I haven’t seen you before,’ she went on, looking Alanna up and down. ‘I suppose you’re a friend of Joanne, who seems to have vanished, so tell her, will you, that I’m still waiting to hear from that journo chap of hers. It’s been weeks, so not impressed. Not impressed at all.’

And with a nod, she walked on.

‘And that,’ said Joanne appearing from nowhere. ‘Is dear Felicity.’

Alanna stared at her then began to smile. ‘Were you hiding?’

Joanne grinned back. ‘I’ll say. Ducked down behind the sofa when I saw her coming. She’s apparently campaigning to be nominated Businesswoman of the Decade or something and when she heard I was dating someone from the Chronicle she started pestering me to get him to interview her about her amazing success. Another glass ceiling smashed, etc.

‘Chris’s response was that all advertising has to be paid for, but I don’t relish having to tell her so.’

Alanna nodded. ‘We have the same problem promoting authors. There has to be a story apart from the one they’ve written.’

‘Whereas Felicity’s story comprises one word—“Me”,’ Joanne said gloomily. ‘I can hardly tell her that either.’

‘No,’ Alanna agreed. ‘But how about saying he’s now considering doing a composite piece featuring all the candidates for the award. Equal publicity for all.’

‘Making her just one of a crowd. That will go down like a lead balloon.’ Joanne gave a sigh of relief. ‘Alanna, I can see you’re going to be a real asset to this family.’

Only for a few hours more, Alanna thought, crossing her fingers behind her back.

She’d expected Gerard to return and join her at some point, but seeing him standing, stony-faced behind his grandmother’s sofa, soon convinced her that this was not going to happen. A view substantially reinforced when the places flanking Mrs Harrington became occupied by Felicity Bradham and a tall grey-haired man that Alanna guessed was her father.

The party reached a climax when a large birthday cake was wheeled in on a trolley, and ceremoniously cut by Niamh Harrington so that slices could be distributed to the departing guests.

In its wake came an enormous basket of flowers—‘Paid for by all the locals, including the tenants,’ Joanne whispered. ‘Feudal or what!’—and presented by Lord Bradham, who then led the company in singing, ‘For she’s a jolly good fellow’.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, Alanna said silently, reminding herself, as people began to leave, there was now only the family dinner to endure.

As she’d expected, she was seated once again about as far from Gerard as it was possible to get, and if she’d been falling in love with him, that would have rankled.

But, under the circumstances, it was probably no bad thing, she thought, noting with amusement that Felicity had been seated next to him.

Besides, her placement meant that she was in the same congenial company as the previous evening, which delighted her, and away from Mrs Harrington’s watchful gaze, which pleased her even more.

Now all she had to do was try to appear oblivious to the presence of Zandor who was seated between Caroline Healey and Gerard’s mother on the opposite side of the table, but not, thankfully, in her direct eyeline.

The meal began with chilled avocado soup, continued with poached salmon mayonnaise, followed by duck in a rich cherry sauce, and completed with individual vanilla and honeycomb cheesecakes.

Gerard had explained that after the dessert there would be a pause before coffee was served, so that a birthday toast could be drunk before his grandmother opened the gifts waiting on a side table, Alanna’s photograph frame among them.

An offering that would almost certainly find its way to a charity shop in the near future, she thought with a mental shrug.

An expectant silence fell as Gerard rose to his feet, glass in hand. He spoke briefly and affectionately about his grandmother then proposed the toast to her health adding, ‘And, of course, many happy returns of the day.’ Words that were echoed round the table as everyone rose to drink before singing a chorus of ‘Happy birthday to you’.

After which they all resumed their seats but with one exception.

Gerard, still standing, cleared his throat and smiled round the table.

‘Now I have another toast to propose. And, I hope, another happy surprise for Grandam’s birthday.’

He paused. ‘Earlier today, Alanna and I became engaged. And I would like you all to welcome my fiancée to the family and drink to our future happiness.’

The shock wave that ran through the room was almost tangible, and if anyone else had been involved, Alanna might even have found it amusing.

As it was, she had a curious sensation that she’d been turned to stone.

She wanted to leap to her feet, shouting, ‘No, it’s not true. I never agreed to it. I never would.’

But she seemed to be pinned, silent, to her chair.

Nor was she the only one. Niamh Harrington was rigid, her fresh colour fading to reveal two harsh spots of blusher.

While across the table...

In spite of herself, Alanna found she was looking at Zandor, her nerve-ends tingling as she saw the harsh line of his mouth, and met the stark brilliance of his gaze which went beyond shock to anger and something terribly, unbearably like pity, mingled with contempt.

And saw too the faint shake of his head, as if emphasising silently his earlier warning: ‘It’s never going to happen.’

A challenge issued and accepted as Alanna felt rage and resentment take swift and uncontrollable possession of her.

How dared he look at her like that? she thought as she got to her feet. What damned right had he—or anyone else in that room—to judge her? Or ordain her future?

Well, to hell with the lot of them.

She walked, forcing herself to seem quietly, happily self-possessed, to where Gerard stood, and slipped her hand through his arm.

‘Darling,’ she said softly. ‘How naughty of you. I thought we were going wait—to keep it our little secret for a while.’ And lifted her smiling face for him to kiss her on the mouth.

In the next instant, the ongoing silence was broken by Maurice Dennison, rising from his chair.

‘Congratulations, my boy, and every good wish to you, my dear,’ he said heartily. ‘We couldn’t be more happy for you both—could we, everyone?’

And as he glanced round the table, the others stood in turn, murmuring ‘To Gerard and Alanna’ as they drank. With Zandor, the last one of all, merely raising his glass in a negligently token gesture.

Which Alanna knew was intended to fool no one—least of all herself.

‘I can’t believe you did that.’ An hour later, a stormy Alanna faced Gerard on the terrace under the guise of a romantic moonlight stroll. ‘I thought we had an agreement.’

‘We still do,’ he said urgently. ‘I swear that hasn’t changed.’ He spread his hands. ‘But you’ve no idea of the pressure I’ve been under.’

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I think I have. But I’ve allowed my inbuilt aversion to being used to take precedence on this occasion.’

‘Well, thank you, anyway, for going along with it.’

‘As opposed to calling you a liar in front of your family?’ She sighed. ‘Oh, Gerard, what a mess.’

He said with faint stiffness, ‘It doesn’t have to be. My suggestion we should become engaged, even on a trial basis, was perfectly sincere. And that’s what’s going to happen. We have to give ourselves a chance.’

‘Not easy with half your relations asking if we’ve set the date yet, and the others behaving as if you’ve had a mental breakdown,’ she said bitterly.

Except I’m the crazy one for agreeing to this engagement fiasco when I know I haven’t the slightest intention of marrying you.

Aloud, she added, ‘And as I’d rather not face them again, will you take me round to the side door, please, so I can go straight up to my room.’

‘Yes, if that’s what you want.’ He paused. ‘But they may find it strange.’

‘In which case,’ Alanna said coolly, ‘it will fit in nicely with the rest of the evening’s events.’

Alone in her bedroom, with the door safely locked, she took off her dress and hung it carefully away, then put on her robe and lay down on top of the bed, staring into space as she recapped everything that had happened.

* * *

After Gerard’s announcement, the opening of Niamh’s presents, which followed, seemed a total anti-climax.

She certainly exclaimed and enthused, but it was clear her heart wasn’t in it. When she unwrapped Alanna’s photograph frame, she studied it in silence for a moment, then looked up, smiling.

‘How thoughtful,’ she said softly. ‘I shall keep it for a picture of your wedding, dear girl.’

If, of course, you can find one small enough, Alanna supplied silently as she smiled back.

When they returned to the drawing room for coffee, Joanne flew across the room and threw her arms round first Alanna then Gerard, hugging them both exuberantly.

‘Well, you kept that up your sleeves,’ she teased, adding more quietly, ‘By the way, Felicity and her father have made their excuses and gone home. Grandam won’t be too pleased about that, but Zandor’s leaving as well which should make up for it.’

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