“Marry me…and you’ll have everything you want, Leigh.

“What your sisters covet…what your father denied you and more.”

Her head whirled with Richard’s words, all of them striking such painful places.

“I hand you the keys to the whole Durant empire, everything Lawrence acquired in his ruthless drive for power. And no one will scorn you again, or treat you in a contemptible manner. As my wife, you will be my queen, in every sense.”

The low throb of his voice was like a drumbeat on her heart.

“Only you can satisfy me. Only you. We’re two of a kind, Leigh. You and I….”

Initially a French/English teacher, Emma Darcy changed careers to computer programming before marriage and motherhood settled her into a community life. Creative urges were channeled into oil painting, pottery, designing and overseeing the construction and decorating of two homes, all in the midst of keeping up with three lively sons and the very social life of her businessman husband, Frank. Very much a people person, and always interested in relationships, she finds the world of romance fiction a happy one and the challenge of creating her own cast of characters very addictive. She enjoys traveling, and her experiences often find their way into her books. Emma Darcy lives on a country property in New South Wales, Australia.

Bride of His Choice
Emma Darcy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For Pearl Grant, with much love and appreciation for having shared my books with me from the beginning, for giving me the confidence to write what I do and, most of all, for being my friend.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHPATER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

AUTHOR’S NOTE

CHAPTER ONE

THE plane touched down with barely a bump. Leigh Durant unclenched her hands and opened her eyes. She was back. A safe landing…though the nerves still knotted in her stomach proclaimed there was little else that would be safe about this trip.

From her seat next to a window, she noted the rain forecast for Sydney was certainly accurate. The view of Botany Bay was obliterated by wet darkness.

It was a dark and stormy night…

The cartoon character Snoopy, sitting on his doghouse with his typewriter, always started his stories with those ominous words. Leigh wondered if she was starting a new phase of her life by coming home or simply ending the one that had started the day she was born, twenty-four years ago.

Ever since the media had broken the news of Lawrence Durant’s fatal heart attack, she’d started hoping her long, lonely exile was over. Yet she wasn’t sure of anything where her family was concerned. All she knew was the man who had so cruelly dominated their lives was dead. And Leigh wanted to see him buried. Buried beyond any possible redemption. After that…

Well, she’d try to ascertain if it was possible to forge a new relationship with her mother and sisters. They might not want anything to do with her. It had been six years since she’d been part of their world…six years since she’d run away from the hell of knowing she didn’t belong to it and never could while ever Lawrence Durant lived. It might be that none of them would welcome her back…and the hole of emptiness in her life would never be filled.

Leigh instinctively fought against the prospect of that bleak outcome. There had to be a chance. Lawrence was no longer there to influence their behaviour towards her…the daughter who wasn’t his daughter, the cuckoo he’d hated having in his nest. Her mother and sisters were free of him now. Surely she could be re-united with them, if there was any fairness at all in this world.

The plane came to a halt. Leigh released her seat-belt and rose with the other passengers to retrieve her hand luggage. She was stiff and tired and did a bit of stretching to ease her cramped muscles as they waited in line to disembark. It had been a long trip—yesterday’s flight from Broome to Perth, the stopover there to buy suitable clothes, then this afternoon’s flight from Perth to Sydney, right across the Australian continent. It would be good just to get out of the plane.

The passengers moved slowly down the aisle towards the exit door. Leigh had worked her way up to being level with the first-class seats when her gaze fell on a discarded newspaper. The photograph of a face caught her eye and her heart contracted.

Richard…Richard Seymour.

Before she even realised what she was doing, the newspaper was in her hand and she was staring at the current image of the man who’d haunted her teenage years.

“Move on!” someone called impatiently.

“You’re holding us up, Miss,” the man behind her said more politely.

“Sorry,” she gabbled, her face burning as she hurried forward and shot into the disembarking tunnel, still holding the wretched newspaper. She wished she could drop it and vowed to do so the moment she reached the first litter bin inside the terminal.

Richard Seymour…

She’d read about him in various articles relating to Lawrence Durant’s shock death…the man who was now in charge of the vast financial empire, steadying the ripples on the stock exchange…the man groomed by the great tycoon to take over from him…Lawrence Durant’s protégé and right hand. But none of the articles had been accompanied by a photograph.

It was seeing his face again that had got to her, releasing a flood of the ambivalent feelings he’d always stirred. Stupid! she savagely berated herself. One thing was certain. If this was the start of a new phase in her life, he wouldn’t be featuring in it. There was no reason for him to ever mix with the Durant family again. He now had what he wanted, the top spot with no one to answer to except the shareholders.

A furious energy coursed through her as she entered the airport terminal, spotted a rubbish bin and strode straight over to it, ridding herself of the photographic reminder of a man who wasn’t worth thinking about. Of course she would see him at the funeral tomorrow. Richard Seymour could hardly miss that. But no-one could force her to have anything to do with him. Not any more. Lawrence Durant was dead.

It was still raining when she stepped out of the terminal. Luckily she didn’t have to queue for a taxi-cab. There were plenty waiting. She ran to one, jumped into the back seat, hauling her bag with her, shut the door and gave the address of her hotel to the driver. He zipped off into the line of traffic and Leigh tried to relax.

Impossible task. She stared broodingly out at the wet street, a zigzag of lights reflected in sheets of streaming water. A dark and stormy night…was it an omen? Should she have stayed in Broome, keeping the past pushed behind her? Was she on a totally hopeless mission?

No point in not going through with it now, she stubbornly reasoned. She was here. Tomorrow she would go to Lawrence Durant’s funeral, see her mother and sisters, and their attitude towards her would determine if she had a place here or not. One day was probably all it would take to settle her future course. At the very least, she wouldn’t be left wondering for the rest of her life.

CHAPTER TWO

NOTHING had changed…

Leigh stood in the grand reception room of the Durant mansion, feeling the same oppressive sense of being utterly worthless as she had as a teenager, as a child. It was as though she’d moved back in time and all she had escaped from was swamping her again; the insecurities, the rejections, the fear of not fitting in, the despair of not belonging.

It should be different now, she fiercely told herself. Lawrence Durant—her father for the first eighteen years of her life—was dead. Surely his repressive, tyrannical force had died with him, leaving her mother and sisters free to follow their own inclinations instead of kowtowing to his rule. Was it too soon for them to realise he was truly gone? Hadn’t the funeral today brought that home to them?

Conversation at the chapel service had naturally been limited. The shock of seeing her after so long an absence might have caused a loss of words, too, but why were they avoiding her now, ignoring her presence, leaving her completely alone? If they would only show her a glimmer of welcome…

Feeling hopelessly ill at ease amongst the crowd of notable people who filled the reception room, paying their last respects to a man who’d wielded wealth and power, Leigh felt a jab of hopeful relief on seeing her mother detach herself from one mourners’ group and move away, unaccompanied. She moved quickly to intercept her, touching her arm to draw attention.

“Mother?”

Alicia Durant shot her youngest daughter a brief, impatient glance. “Not now, Leigh. I must get back to Richard.”

It was the barest pause, a frowning acknowledgement, so devoid of warmth it made Leigh shrivel inside. She dropped her hand and watched with a sense of wretched helplessness as her mother made a beeline towards the man who already had the undivided attention of her four sisters.

Richard Seymour…the heir apparent of Lawrence Durant’s financial empire, presiding over the great tycoon’s funeral and this ostentatious wake in the family mansion. She’d refused to even glance at him at the funeral. Looking at him now brought an instant resurgence of her old hatred of him.

He was still everything she wasn’t and never could be…what Lawrence Durant had wanted of his fifth child…the shining son to carry on from him. Except the fifth child his wife had delivered was Leigh, another daughter by another man, a total reject who’d never shown any attributes worth the slightest bit of notice, apart from disapproving notice. Cruel notice when comparisons were made to Richard Seymour, the chosen one.

He certainly shone in every department—looks, brains, personal charisma. The aura of power and success and confident purpose literally pulsed from him. Leigh deliberately turned her back on him, telling herself none of this mattered any more. She no longer had any reason to hate Richard Seymour. She’d made her own life away from everything Lawrence Durant had ever touched, and had only come to his funeral out of a sense of closure to that miserable part of her life.

And to see if she meant anything to the rest of her family…her mother and sisters.

It was self-defeating to let these old feelings get to her today. She no longer wished to be something she wasn’t. It had taken her a long time to become her own person—six struggling, lonely years—and Richard Seymour could not affect that now. If she could just show her family that she’d come of age, more or less, and that things could be different…

Leigh heaved a sigh to relieve the painful tightness in her chest. Her mother and sisters were probably dancing attendance on Richard Seymour out of habit. The king is dead. Long live the king. Except Richard was not family, so Leigh didn’t really understand their fixation on him. He couldn’t rule their lives as Lawrence Durant had. Not with the same iron hand and surely not with the same cruel judgement of crime and punishment.

Maybe when the wake was over and all these people who had to be impressed were gone, there would be a better opportunity to re-unite with her family. She’d give it a chance anyhow, one concerted effort to mend the bridges she’d broken in fleeing from the unbearable existence she’d led in this house.

Meanwhile, there seemed little point and no pleasure in hanging around the edges of this crowd, forced to chat to people who could only see her as a curiosity. She made her way out to the back patio which was not in use, due to a gusty wind which would undoubtedly discomfort most guests.

It didn’t worry Leigh. She wasn’t wearing a hat and she didn’t have a fancy hairstyle that could be ruined. The thick mass of her almost waist-length hair could be untangled with a brush when she went back inside.

She wandered over to the steps leading down to the gardens which were terraced to the water’s edge, and paused to look out over the much prized vista of Sydney Harbour. Last night’s rain had gone but it was a grey winter day, no warmth or sparkle anywhere. Even the boats seemed to be hurrying to get to their destination.

She thought of the seaport of Broome, high up on the coast of the other side of Australia where there was constant heat, turquoise waters, and “hurry” was a foreign word—a different life a long way from this city. But had she really made her home there or was it still a refuge?

“Leigh…”

Her head jerked around at the unexpected call of her name. Nerves already shredded by being virtually ignored by her family were instantly on edge. Richard… Richard Seymour…seeking her out for attention? He was so closely entwined with Lawrence Durant in her mind, fear clutched at her heart, making it skitter until defiance surged to the fore.

She wasn’t a teenager trapped in this place any more. She was an independent young woman, twenty-four years old and well established in another life away from here. There was nothing she could be threatened with, nothing anyone could hold over her head, and she’d learnt to cope with all manner of things.

She stood tall and straight and still, forcing herself to stare coolly at the man who had been a figure of torment to her in the past. Her mind was a total blank on why he’d bother with her at this point in time. What business with or interest in the black sheep of the Durant family could he possibly have?

Not once in the past six years had she asked for or tried to claim a single thing from the Durant holdings. So why on earth would Richard Seymour leave his admirers and follow her out here? She had to be totally irrelevant to his life.

“…you’re not leaving, are you?” he demanded more than inquired.

He looked concerned, which confused Leigh even more. “Why would you care?” she asked in bewilderment.

He strolled towards her, a whimsical appeal in the smile he constructed for her. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you.”

Leigh instinctively bristled at the projection of charm. He hadn’t attempted to charm her in the past. Why now? What was the point? “I wasn’t aware we had anything to talk about,” she blurted out.

It didn’t stop him. Her nerves screwed up another notch. She didn’t want him with her. He brought back too many memories…painful, bitter memories of hopes dashed and dreams turned to dust.

“You’ve been gone a long time,” he remarked casually as he closed the distance between them, making her very conscious of how tall and aggressively male he was.

The perfect tailoring of his dark mourning suit gave him a polished veneer but Leigh wasn’t fooled by it. Richard Seymour was a hunter in the same mould as Lawrence Durant. For some obscure reason he was hunting her at the moment and her heart was quivering, still reacting to the old fear of being pounced upon.

Somehow, she summoned up an ironic smile. “Did you want to welcome me home?” No one else had and she certainly didn’t expect him to.

He was quite sickeningly handsome up close. The photograph in the newspaper hadn’t done him justice, missing the compelling vitality he’d always emitted. He had to be thirty-four now and definitely in his prime. His clear tanned skin gave his face a healthy glow. His hair, not quite as black as hers, had an attractive wave which some hairstylist had made the most of. His nose was strong and straight and his mouth perfectly balanced. Although his jaw line was rather squarish, the firmly defined chin lent even more strength to his features.

Despite all this impressive framework, it was his eyes that drew and dominated, piercing blue eyes, all the more compelling for being set off by thick black lashes and arched eyebrows which carried more than a hint of arrogance. They scanned her expression with too sharp an intelligence for Leigh’s comfort.

“Have you come home?” he asked in a soft lilt that sent a shiver down her spine.

All the defences she could summon shot into place. He was not going to get to her. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let him. With the most determined deliberation Leigh could manage, she adopted a careless air.

“Only to test the waters again. They seem rather cold at the moment so I thought I’d take a walk in the garden while the VIPs are attended to.” She threw him a dismissive little smile as she added, “If you’ll excuse me…” then proceeded down the steps.

His voice followed her. “Do you mind if I accompany you?”

It wasn’t so much a shiver this time. Her spine literally crawled with a tangled mass of unresolved feelings, but nothing good could come of pursuing any of them with Richard Seymour. That time was gone…gone…gone! He might look like hero material but he hadn’t been a hero when it counted to her, when she’d wished he’d charge in like a white knight, smiting her father and rescuing her. Such foolish, teenage yearnings!

She squared her shoulders before glancing back at him. “You’ll be missed,” she pointed out, mocking the importance everyone else placed on his company.

“You’re the person I want to be with,” he said with a directness that jiggled something deep in Leigh’s heart, deep and dangerous to her.

“Not a good choice,” she quickly parried.

“It’s mine. I don’t allow other people to make my choices for me.”

There was purpose written in his eyes, undivertable purpose. As much as Leigh wanted to defy it, she knew he would not be turned away. A ruthless hunter always caught up with what he was hunting.

Did he think she’d come home to make trouble for him? Did he see her as someone he might need to pin down and neutralise so his takeover from Lawrence Durant was absolutely smooth? A black sheep could be unpredictable. After all, why turn up at the funeral after six years of non-communication?

Knowing herself to be a total waste of Richard Seymour’s time, Leigh decided no harm could come to her from one brief cross-examination from him. “Fine!” she agreed, then, determined to show she wasn’t disturbed by the prospect, she added, “I do admire people who have the strength of character to make their own choices.”

He smiled. “So do I.”

Leigh felt a very definite punch to the heart. His smile seemed to link her to him, as though they were co-conspirators in complete tune with each other. Leigh instantly rejected the idea, but she still felt shaken by it. Richard Seymour was not the man she’d wanted him to be and she wasn’t about to be tricked into thinking differently.

He ran appreciative eyes over her as he headed down the steps. “You’re looking good, Leigh.”

“Thank you.” She dragged out the memory of the last time he’d commented on her appearance, instinctively defending herself against the flattering power of his compliment. “As opposed to looking anorexic, I presume.”

He’d accused her of it after one of Lawrence’s ritual Sunday lunches, which she’d been unable to eat, her stomach too screwed up to accept anything. Although she had been dieting, her non-consumption of that meal had nothing to do with losing weight.

Richard shrugged. “Believe it or not, I was worried about you at the time. You were far too thin.”

“And you put it so kindly. Anorexia might be a way of taking control of your body but it won’t give you control over anything else,” she quoted.

His eyes locked onto hers again as he reached her side at the foot of the steps. “I thought you needed a jolt,” he explained without apology.

He was giving her a jolt right now with his perverse interest in her, with the clarity of a memory that surely held no significance to him. She’d been seventeen, fighting what she then saw as an unfair weight problem, trying to look more like her model-slim sisters. Impossible task.

She’d been born with a different bone structure and no matter how thin she got, the natural curves of her body denied her a boyish figure. Away from the repressive influences of her family, she’d grown into the woman she was always going to be, voluptuously curved, but not grossly so for her height. She was taller than average, though even in high heels, she found herself half a head shorter than Richard Seymour, looking up to him, which she suddenly resented.

“Well, Richard,” she drawled, turning away to start down the path to the ornamental pond, “let me tell you I don’t need your approval for who or what I am. In fact, your opinion—good or bad—is irrelevant to me.” Which put him in his place in her world.

He laughed as he fell into step with her.

Leigh found herself clenching her hands at his amusement. She sliced him a totally unamused look, wishing he would take his disturbing presence elsewhere.

He grinned. “I have missed the black blaze of those incredibly expressive eyes.”

Missed? Had she really made such a strong impression on him all those years ago? Or was he attempting to flirt with her, now that she “looked good”?

She frowned over the questions as he walked on with her. The black suit she’d bought for the funeral was figure-hugging. She didn’t favour layers of shapeless clothes that made her look fat. Apparently Richard liked her current shape. As for her eyes, Leigh simply accepted them as part and parcel of her coloring—matching the blackness of her hair and toning with her olive skin. She had a slightly long nose and a wide, very full-lipped mouth, and she’d come to accept them, too. Since her face had filled out, the features she’d despaired over looked more right somehow, in keeping with the rest of her.

Certainly she no longer felt like the ugly duckling she’d always been in the Durant household, though she could never be counted as a blonde beauty like her older sisters. Ruefully she remembered her one desperate attempt to dye her hair blonde. Total disaster. Like everything else she had attempted in her teens in her hopeless need to fit some acceptable mould. She hadn’t known then she was a cuckoo in the nest and cuckoos couldn’t turn into anything else.

“I have no doubt you have no need of my approval, Leigh,” Richard picked up, apparently determined on teasing her out of her silence. As she glanced at him he added, “There wouldn’t be one red-blooded male who didn’t approve of you.”

Sex! Leigh wrenched her gaze from his and walked faster, inwardly fuming over this shallow view of her. She was more than just a lush body that a lot of men fancied. But then men like Richard Seymour probably didn’t want a woman with a mind or a heart. Taking sex as needed was probably his style.

In all the publicity and media speculation sparked by Lawrence Durant’s fatal heart attack, the newspapers had made much of the fact Richard Seymour was not married—one of the most eligible bachelors in Australia—and Leigh wondered if he was as much a womaniser as Lawrence Durant had been, behind the respectable facade of his marriage. With his looks, Richard certainly wouldn’t lack choice.

Was he now thinking the same of her? He was wrong, if he did. She hadn’t even cared to sample the chances that had come her way. Somehow an internal barrier went up the moment any man started getting too close to her. As for desiring them…she’d often wondered if desire was linked to trust and that was why she couldn’t feel it. Maybe one day she would meet someone she could really trust to love her as she wanted to be loved.

“Are you happy in the life you’ve made for yourself?”

The apparently artless question snapped Leigh out of her private reverie. Danger signals flared in her mind. Give anything away to a man like Richard Seymour and somehow he’d use it against her. She’d had too much experience of that process in the Durant household to be offering any information about herself.

Keeping her expressive eyes fixed on the path ahead she answered, “Reasonably,” in an even tone, then turned the question back on him. “What about you? Are you happy with what you’ve made of yourself?”

He laughed again, though there was more irony than amusement in the sound this time. “You know, no-one’s ever asked me that question.”

Of course. Brilliant success didn’t exactly invite any such doubt. “Perhaps you should ask it of yourself?” she drily remarked.

“Perhaps I should,” he agreed even more drily. “Though I can’t say it’s ever been on my list of priorities. I’ve always thought happiness an elusive thing, not easily captured and even more difficult to hold.”

Unlike wealth and power.

“Then why ask me about it?”

“Oh, I guess I was really asking if you’ve found a relationship you find satisfying.”

He dropped the question so casually, the impact came in slow motion. Leigh’s first reaction was it was none of his business. Then his previous comment about the approval of “red-blooded men” started to rattle her. Did he fancy a quick fling with her while she was in Sydney? Was this why he’d followed her out here…to ascertain availability and charm his way into her bed? Did he see her as old enough for him now?

The idea was outrageous, yet oddly tantalising. Leigh was tempted to play him along, just to see if it was true. “No, I haven’t. At least, not as satisfying as I would wish,” she answered honestly, then slid him an assessing look as she added, “But I didn’t come home for you, Richard.”

It was a mistake to look at him. He instantly locked onto it with a piercing intensity that pinned her eyes to his. “Am I not one of the ghosts you wish to lay to rest?”

“Why would you think so?” she retaliated, disturbed by the wild quickening of her pulse.

“Because you hated me so much.”

He was raising the ghosts, deliberately and too evocatively for Leigh’s comfort. “Wouldn’t you, in my place?” she snapped.

“Yes. But there was nothing I could do to change your place, Leigh. You had to do it yourself. Which you did. Yet I wonder if all those negative feelings towards me—the bitter resentment and the black contempt—still linger on?”

He was getting to her, digging around in her head and heart, and she didn’t want him to. Realising she’d paused to counter this attack on her feelings, Leigh got her legs moving again, chiding herself for falling into the trap of letting him focus the conversation on her. She tried to switch it back on him.

“I can’t imagine it matters to you.”

“It does. Very much.”

“Why?” she demanded, inwardly refusing to believe him. She would not—not—allow herself to be vulnerable to what Richard Seymour thought or felt about her. She’d been down that painful track, wanting him to shine for her, but he hadn’t.

“I wasn’t your enemy,” he answered simply. “Your hatred was blind, Leigh. As much as I could be, I was your friend.”

Hardly a friend, she thought with a violence that startled her. Let it go, she berated herself furiously. Just let it go and set him aside, right out of your life.

“I don’t view you as an enemy, Richard,” she said as dispassionately as she could. “I don’t think I did then, either. Not personally. If you hadn’t been the favoured protégé, someone else would have won that place, and been used in the same way to show off my father’s dissatisfaction with me.”

“I didn’t enjoy my place in that particular game, Leigh.”

She couldn’t stop herself from seething over how he had conducted himself, even though he might not have enjoyed it. “You didn’t walk away from it,” she tersely remarked.

“As you say, it wouldn’t have changed anything,” he answered easily. “Lawrence would have found someone else. Someone who might have joined in the game with him, making it worse for you.”

In all fairness, she couldn’t accuse Richard of aiding or abetting the cruel baiting that had gone on during the mandatory-attendance Sunday luncheons in the Durant mansion. She remembered him diverting the conversation into other topics, taking the focus off her, but she’d hated him for that, too, feeling he pitied her.

She’d wanted him—willed him—to stand up and fight for her, though Lawrence would never have tolerated that from him. With an older, wiser head on her shoulders, she could see that now, but at the time…

She took a deep breath, trying to clear herself of the burning turmoil Richard Seymour could still stir. Applying cold hard reason, it was possible to agree with his point of view. He may well have meant to be a friend to her, as much as he could, within the parameters of retaining his position.

“Well, thank you for thinking of my feelings,” she said, trying to be fair and wanting this highly unwelcome contretemps finished with. “As it happens, I don’t hate you any more, and you’re not a ghost I need to lay to rest.”

“Good!” He sounded relieved.

His response nagged at Leigh. Why did he care what she felt? Unless, of course, he did want to bed her, and ghosts wouldn’t be good in that scenario. But was that really likely? She was no longer sure what was likely with him. He kept on walking with her, seemingly deep in thought, and she couldn’t shake the feeling all his thoughts were focused on her.

They reached the ornamental pond. Wanting to reduce any sense of gathering intimacy with a man she could have nothing in common with beyond the memories of imprisoned hours together in the long-ago past, she sat down on the wide sandstone blocks which formed a flat platform on top of the pond’s circular enclosure and trailed her fingers through the water, making the fish dart into flashing movement, their luminous colours catching the light.

So beautiful, Leigh thought. Did they know they were prisoners, bought by the wealth of Lawrence Durant for his casual pleasure? Would freedom mean anything to these fish, or would they be lost in a world beyond this confinement? They were well fed, but being well fed wasn’t everything. It was good to feel free. Yet even away from this place and all it represented, Leigh knew she was still emotionally tied to it, which was why she’d come back, hoping for…what?

It looked like she was only messing herself up again.

“I’m glad you came back, Leigh.”

The soft intonation made the comment sound very, very personal. Leigh instantly steeled herself against its warming effect. If she started wanting too much from Richard Seymour, bitter disillusionment would surely follow. Any closeness with him had to be dangerous. As it was, she was acutely aware of him standing barely a metre away. That distance didn’t feel far enough.

“I needed to be here today,” she answered flatly, still watching the fish. “The funeral made Lawrence’s death real…the coffin…the cremation…ashes to ashes, dust to dust. He doesn’t have the power to hurt me any more.” And I won’t let you do it, either, she added resolutely.

“Your mother and sisters…from what I saw, none of them ever stood up for you. Do you expect that to be different now?” he asked, the soft tone projecting a caring she wouldn’t let herself believe.

He hadn’t stood up, either, though Leigh had to concede he had done more than the others to stop Lawrence’s games. On the other hand, as an outsider, he hadn’t been personally subjected to them. She wasn’t the only one in the family who’d suffered verbal abuse. It had a repressive effect on all of them.

“I don’t know if it will be different,” she answered honestly. Suddenly and fiercely wishing for some open honesty from him, she lifted her gaze for direct confrontation. “Lawrence pulled the strings then. It looks like you pull them now. So what do you want, Richard? What is this conversation about? You’ll do much better with me if you don’t play games.”

He cocked his head slightly, assessing the strength of that statement. His eyes held no warmth whatsoever. They were coldly calculating and Leigh sensed a ruthless gathering of purpose. When he spoke, there was no preamble, no dressing up with persuasive intent, just the bare bones of what he’d been leading to from the very beginning of this encounter.

“I want to marry you, Leigh.”

CHAPTER THREE

LEIGH stared at Richard Seymour, too stunned to really believe her ears, but her eyes didn’t pick up any messages that changed what she’d thought she’d heard.

He was watching her with intense concentration, waiting to weigh her reaction. His body looked relaxed but she could feel tension emanating from him. More than tension. Will-power was beaming out of those compelling blue eyes, asserting absolutely serious intent and firming up the wobbly ground inside her mind.

There was only one question to ask so she asked it. “Why? Of all the women you could choose to marry, why me?”

His mouth curved into a half-smile. “I could give you many reasons, Leigh, but since they’re mostly from my point of view, I doubt you’d see them as valid.”

Valid!

She laughed. Couldn’t help herself. The situation was so wildly improbable, a sense of sheer hysteria bubbled out of her. King Richard wanting Cinderella as his wife? It might be understandable if he was madly in love with her, but that idea was as far-fetched as his proposition.

Leigh couldn’t resist pursuing it, her eyes dancing a challenge as she asked, “Just give me one of those reasons, Richard. One I might be able to believe in.”

His eyes seemed to twinkle knowingly at her as he said, “We’re fellow travellers on a road that started a long time ago. Who else will understand what went into the journey?”

A straight stab to the heart, killing any urge to laugh and instantly evoking a sober and vehement reply. “I got off that road.”

“Did you?” he softly challenged. “Not quite, Leigh, or you would never have come back.”

“I’ve explained why.”

He nodded. “I listened, and what I heard is it’s not finished for you. You’re still seeking…” He paused a moment, his eyes boring into hers. “…justice.”

He was crawling into her mind, plucking on heartstrings that did yearn for what had never been given.

“What better justice can there be now than to balance the scales…with you taking all that was taken from you?” he suggested with a terrible, insidious appeal to the darkness deep inside her. “I can give it to you, Leigh.”

She wanted to look away, to escape this awful intrusion into her private soul, yet if she did, he would know he had hit truly and the vulnerability was there to be played upon. The darkness was not good. She’d tried to escape it, hating how it blighted her life. She realised now she had come back to confront it, make it go away. But how could marrying him turn it around? Wouldn’t it be more of the same?

She’d been right about not giving him information to use against her. He was too clever at reading it. He wouldn’t have succeeded Lawrence Durant if he wasn’t both diabolically clever and ruthless. And she hadn’t forgotten how the game was played. Hiding the hurt defeated the victory. She kept her gaze firmly on his and turned the darkness back onto him.

“Let’s cut to the real point, Richard. I don’t believe you want to marry me, so marriage to me has to have a purpose. What advantage is there in it for you?”

He laughed, completely disarming her for a moment, and his eyes danced at her in open admiration, disarming her even further. “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said I love you,” he tossed at her, moving closer to the sandstone rim of the pond, then lifting a foot onto it, leaning forward, resting his arms on the bent knee.

The pose brought him effectively closer to her, setting up an intimate togetherness while still respecting her personal space. And suddenly there was a sizzle in his eyes that set all her nerve ends twitching.

“But don’t think I don’t want you, Leigh,” he said in a low purring voice, stirring even more havoc inside her. “There’s nothing about you I don’t want, including your blazing directness, which I find more refreshing than you could ever begin to believe.”

Her heart was pumping so hard she couldn’t think of a word to say. Her mind was jammed with sexual signals. And the terrible part was she couldn’t push them out. There was a dreadful fascination in this crazy physical response to Richard Seymour. She remembered how his presence had always tied her in knots when she was a teenager. She hadn’t recognised it then as sexual attraction. But now…

Did he know?

Did he feel it?

Sheer panic kept her silent.

He was not the least bit perturbed by her lack of response. He went on talking with easy confidence, knowing that she understood what he was spelling out. “You were supposed to be the son to carry on Lawrence’s name and dynasty. And you paid one hell of a price for not being that son. What you don’t know—yet—is he never lost the obsession of having his own flesh and blood carry on from him.”

“But that’s impossible now,” Leigh murmured, struggling out of her distraction.

“No, it’s not impossible…if he has a grandson with the right capabilities. And Lawrence thought of that before he died. Thought of it and planned it.”

A grandson! It was sickening. An innocent little baby boy created for Lawrence Durant’s massive ego, life and goals all rigidly mapped out before he even started living. As hers would have been if she had been the right sex and the right material for moulding into the right monument to a man who didn’t deserve any kind of monument.

“Did he pick out the name, too?” she asked in savage disgust. “Mine was supposed to be Leigh Jason. The Jason part was dropped when I turned out to be a girl.”

“Lawrence,” came the dry reply.

“Of course. One Lawrence gone. Another coming up.”

Something infinitely dangerous and determined flashed through the clear blue of his eyes. “He can’t reach that far from the grave, Leigh, and his purpose can be defeated.”

She was tantalised by the brief glimpse of something she didn’t know—a force driving him that went beyond her previous judgement of his character. “Go on,” she urged.

“I was the one who took your designated role, insofar as I met the expectations he would have had for his son. My much publicised position as his successor is not ironclad. It is provisional to my fulfilling the terms of his will.”

“Which are?” she prompted when he paused, although she could guess what was coming, and another painful emptiness yawned inside her.

His mouth curled into a mirthless smile. “If I marry one of his daughters and produce a son, I get the necessary percentage of company shares which will make my position as his successor unassailable.”

The right material wedded to the Durant genes.

Hence the proposal of marriage.

Except she couldn’t be the chosen one…never the chosen one.

There was one huge flaw in Richard Seymour’s selection of her as his bride, and Leigh wasn’t the only one who knew it. Her mother certainly did. Her four sisters might very well be aware of it, as well. They’d tell him soon enough, if it served their interests, and the evidence of her own observations pointed that way.

All five of them undoubtedly knew the contents of the will. Whomever Richard chose to marry would be sitting pretty in the world they knew. It explained why her mother and sisters had been so focused on courting his favour and not paying any attention to the return of the prodigal daughter. It was the same old sick game, sucking up to power.

Leigh found her gaze had dropped to the leg Richard had propped on the sandstone platform. The fine woollen fabric of his suit trousers was pulled taut over a strongly muscled thigh. Her mind fuzzed over an image of how he might look naked, all that male power energised by desire, wanting her…

Another fanciful dream turned to dust, she thought, feeling the same old ache of disappointment Richard had always left her with. If she told him the truth he wouldn’t want her, not as a wife. Even if he still fancied her—the woman she was now—she couldn’t allow anything to come of it, knowing he would inevitably choose to make one of her sisters his bride. Best to cut it dead right now.

She dragged her gaze up and kept it levelled on his as she delivered her rejection. “The answer is no, Richard. I won’t marry you.”

Then to emphasise the matter was closed, she was up on her feet with her back turned to him and heading towards the steps that led down to the next terrace, away from him, away from the house that had dominated much of her life, away from the family who cared more for what it represented than they’d ever cared for her.

“Why not?” Richard shot after her.

She waved a dismissive hand without glancing around. “You have four other daughters to choose from. You just struck out on me, that’s all.”

“I don’t want any of the others,” he declared vehemently.

She shook her head over the black irony of that statement and kept on walking, down the steps to the summer-house which presided over the terrace of rose gardens. She could hear his footsteps following her and fiercely wished he’d leave her alone.

It was so perverse of him to choose her ahead of the far more suitable daughters, the beautiful blonde accomplished socialites with the right blood in them, only too eager to snap him up and grace his arm, his bed, and his bank balance. Felicity, Vanessa, Caroline, Nadine…such pretty, feminine, classy names.

The impulse to shove one truth she’d had to accept down Richard Seymour’s throat made Leigh pause by the summer-house and cast a derisive look at him. He was already at the foot of the steps and striding towards her.

“You know, Richard, most people don’t get everything they want. You may not be used to that but I’m sure compromises sometimes have to be taken, even in your world.”

He kept on coming. “You can have everything you want from me, Leigh.”

The strong conviction in his voice clutched at her heart, but only for a moment. He wasn’t offering love. He probably didn’t know what love was, any more than she did. The sheer sweep of his extravagant promise suddenly evoked another wild laugh, peeling into a wind that carried it away from her as swiftly as it arose.

It didn’t stop him. His eyes didn’t waver from hers, determined on burning away her scorn and supplanting it with possibilities that could breed hope. But there was no hope.

“It’s very simple, Richard,” she said flatly. “Regardless of what you can give me, I can’t give you what you want.”

He came to a halt, barely a metre away, totally un-perturbed by her claim. His eyes challenged it with ruthless intent as he said, “Because you’re not Lawrence Durant’s daughter?”

Shock reverberated through her. “You know?” The words spilled from her lips before she could catch them back. Had he guessed or had he pushed her into admission? His proposal made no sense if he knew. A churning turmoil of shame and pride robbed her of any movement as he stepped towards her, a mesmerising satisfaction written on his face.

“I knew the day I first met you, Leigh. You didn’t belong to Lawrence, not physically, not mentally, not emotionally. No bond at all and nothing of him in you. Nothing.”

It wasn’t proof, she thought, but he went on, shattering that thought.

“Lawrence confirmed it when you went away and I suggested someone should be hired to keep track of you in case you were in need. ‘She’s my wife’s child, not mine!’ was what he said, then swore me to silence on the subject. A proud man like Lawrence didn’t care to have it known that you weren’t his.”

The power of his total self-assurance held her still, though her heart was pounding wildly and tremors of shock were still running through her.

“Legally, you are his.”

“No.” Her voice sounded hollow but the words had to be said now. “He disinherited me when I left.”

“He made no provision for you in his will, Leigh, but nowhere is there a claim that denies you are his child. And since Lawrence was cremated today, there can be no DNA tests to prove you aren’t. I can marry you in good faith with the terms of his will.”

Instinctively she fought against the relentless beat of his logic. “My mother could name my real father.”

A grim little smile curled his mouth. “It’s not in her best interests to do so.”

The manipulation of wealth! Leigh’s hatred of it spurred her to argue. “What makes you think my real father wouldn’t come forward if he saw money in it?”

That killed the smile. Yet, even more disturbing, his eyes seemed to soften with sympathy. “It won’t happen, Leigh,” he said quietly. “Your mother paid for him and his family to go back to Italy before you were born. From the date of their departure, I’d say he knows nothing of you.”

“Go back to Italy?” she picked up in bewilderment.

“You didn’t know he was Italian?”

She shook her head. On the terrible night she had learnt Lawrence Durant was not her father, her mother had refused to reveal the true circumstances of her birth. The argument between Lawrence and his wife had raged over her head, and had more to do with financial arrangements than the infidelity that had brought her into their world. They had forgotten her in hurling threats at one another. She’d simply slipped away, packed her things and left.

Italian…well, that explained her colouring. There weren’t too many blonde Italians. It probably explained her non-boyish figure, as well. The only Italian actress she could think of was Sophia Loren, whose curvaceous femininity was legendary. Leigh supposed a hot-blooded Italian lover would have made a tempting contrast to Lawrence Durant, but her mother had hardly been wise in having a child by him, risking the possibility of producing the cuckoo Leigh had turned out to be.

“He was the gardener here at the time of your conception,” Richard explained.

It shocked her into speech. “A gardener? My mother took a gardener as her lover?” It seemed unbelievable. Her mother was a dyed-in-the-wool snob who invariably disdained to notice what she considered the lower classes.

“He had four sons, Leigh.”

Ah…the logic of it was instantly crystal clear. No escaping that connection. A man who fathered sons was precisely what was wanted when four daughters had been delivered and a son was required.

Leigh closed her eyes, revolted by the calculation that had gone into her conception…the payment that had been made for a service rendered. No doubt, if there’d been ultrasound scans done all those years ago to determine the sex of the baby, the pregnancy would have been terminated and she wouldn’t even be alive today. Her mother had probably gambled on having a child that took after her in looks and colouring. No wonder she’d been unwanted. She represented failure in every sense.

“How do you know all this, Richard?” she asked, raising lashes that felt unnaturally heavy, but needing to see the answer in his eyes.

“I made it my business to find out.”

“Why?” A weary, aching cynicism prompted her to add, “To ensure there was no wild card that could upset your plan?”

“There was no plan when I set about getting the information. That was six years ago, Leigh.”

She frowned, realising the terms of the will would only have been revealed on Lawrence’s death. “Then what use was it to you?”

His serious expression was softened by a touch of whimsy. “Oh, I thought one day you might like to know who your real father is.”

“You did it for me?” She shook her head incredulously, unable to believe such altruism from a man who clearly calculated everything.

“We have more in common than you think,” he said wryly. “I was not the child of the man my mother was married to. I bear his name but I’m not his child, and I knew it very early on.”

Leigh was dumbfounded. There’d never been a whisper of anything scandalous in his background. Another private family secret? Then it burst upon her that he knew what it felt like…travelling the same road…and he’d seen it all along in her…a fellow traveller.

“The truth of such a situation is not easy to deal with and a name can become important,” he went on. “Your father’s name is Mario Vangelli. He and his family live in Naples. I can give you the address should you ever want to visit.”

Vangelli…Richard was right. It was good to have a name instead of a blank. “What about you?” She eyed him curiously. “Did you find your real father?”

“Yes. He was married to someone else. They had a family. He didn’t know I was his son and I didn’t tell him.” His expression hardened. “As with your father, it was just seed sown that he walked away from.”

Paid to walk away from in her case. “I wouldn’t feel right about visiting, but thank you for telling me about him, Richard. It is better knowing than not knowing.”

He nodded, an understanding in his eyes that shared the scars of being a bastard child who didn’t belong to the marriage of either parents.

“I might never have come back,” she mused. “You might have got that information for nothing, Richard.”

He shook his head. “Information is always useful.”

Cynicism returned in a swift bitter sweep. It was information he could have used against her mother, or Lawrence, for that matter. “Of course,” she drawled. “Knowledge is power.”

“And you were always going to come back,” he continued without so much as a ripple in his cast-iron confidence. “When you felt ready to.”

“Lucky for you it was now or you would have had no choice but to propose to one of my sisters,” she mocked.

“Luck has nothing to do with it. If you hadn’t come I would have gone to you.”

Her heart contracted. He really did want her above the others. “You would have had to track me down,” she pointed out.

“I’ve kept track of you all along, Leigh. As soon as I knew you had gone, I acted to ensure you were safe, and stayed safe, wherever you went and whatever you did. There wasn’t one day of these past six years that I haven’t known where you were, and been assured you were managing by yourself. I knew what flight you took out of Broome, where you stayed in Perth, and what time you arrived in Sydney last night. And I knew you would be here today.”

It shook her, more than any of the previous shocks he’d delivered. Or perhaps it was the culminating effect of all of them. “You had someone spying on me?”

“No, not spying. Just checking that you were coping on your own, not in trouble, not in need of help. There was absolutely no interference in your life, Leigh, nor in whatever you chose to do.”

“Why did you do it?” she cried, still appalled at having been so comprehensively watched over.

It came again, that brief flash of something deep and dark and dangerous behind the crisp blue of his eyes. “Because I cared. And no one else did.” Even his voice carried a note of ferocity, suggestive of feelings he hadn’t quite kept under control.

Leigh tried to focus on it but Richard distracted her by moving closer, lifting a hand and touching her cheek, soft fingertips grazing her skin, raising electric tingles. “Think, Leigh,” he commanded, the powerful impact of his eyes increased by the knowledge he had of her. “You came, looking for some portion of justice…”

That was true.

“Marry me…and you’ll have what your mother sacrificed you for…what your sisters covet. You’ll have all that Lawrence denied you and more. What greater justice than to take what you were born for…”

Her head whirled with his words, all of them striking such painful places.

“I hand you the keys to the whole Durant empire, everything Lawrence acquired in his ruthless drive for power…”

To the exile, the spoils, she thought wildly.

“…and no one will scorn you again, Leigh, or treat you in a contemptible manner. As my wife, you will be my queen, in every sense.”

As long as I give you a son.

There was always a price for the pot of gold.

“I want you as my queen, Leigh.”

The low throb of his voice was like a drumbeat on her heart.

“Only you can satisfy me. Only you. We’re two of a kind, Leigh. You and I.”

And that mesmerising message blazed from his eyes as he moved closer, an arm sliding around her waist, taking possession, the hand on her face suddenly cupping her chin, holding it tilted, and she knew he was going to kiss her, knew he meant to seduce her to his will, but somehow she didn’t want to stop him.

Her entire being was quivering with anticipation.

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