Unfortunately she hadn’t known Robert well enough to realise Barnstable was a stage-name!
It was just her luck.
He grinned down at her, wickedly good-looking, wearing his dinner-suit with a natural elegance. But then he did have natural grace and charm, especially charm. She had been out to dinner with him herself at least once, and had found him very good company, not at all inclined to want to talk about himself all evening, the way some actors were.
But she would never, in a million years, have guessed that he and Raff were cousins!
‘If you ever tell any of that crowd in London that my family call me Bobby …!’ He groaned at the embarrassment of it.
Jane didn’t return his smile, looking up at him intently. ‘I’m more concerned with whether or not you intend telling your family, especially Raff, what the crowd in London call me!’
‘Ah,’ he said more soberly. ‘Well, I must admit to being slightly baffled by what you’re doing here?’
She shrugged. ‘Raff seems to think I could be on the look-out for a rich protector.’
Robert’s splutter of laughter caused his parents to look at them curiously, Anita Barnes instantly displeased to see her son talking to Jane at all, let alone actually enjoying her company.
It was also the moment Raff chose to enter the room, his steady gaze narrowing on them as they stood so close together across the room from him.
As Jane had rightly surmised, he wore his dinner-suit and snowy-white shirt with complete disregard for their formality, his hair curling damply over the collar of the latter, revealing that he had recently taken a shower.
‘Yes, well, he would, wouldn’t he?’ Robert remarked drily, meeting the other man’s gaze challengingly. ‘My cousin’s estimation of women isn’t very high. Mind you, with an ex-wife like Celia that isn’t surprising,’ he grimaced.
Celia. At last Jane knew Raff’s wife’s name. Not that it did any good to know it, it only made her seem more real, more someone who had meant something in his life. And, somehow, that was painful to even think of.
‘Maybe I remind Raff of her?’ she suggested, hoping Robert wouldn’t pick up on the intense curiosity she had to know more about the other woman, to try to understand what sort of woman it was that had made Raff as cynical as he was.
‘You?’ Robert frowned down at her. ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Celia was tall and willowy.’
And she was short and skinny! ‘I thought possibly my hair …?’ She curled one of the flowing strands around her fingers, Raff’s attention having been momentarily claimed by his uncle, who seemed completely unaware of Raff’s interest in Jane and his son. Or his wife’s!
‘Your hair?’ Robert looked even more puzzled now. ‘What about your hair?’ His frown deepened.
‘I thought— Wasn’t Celia a redhead?’ It was Jane’s turn to look unsure now.
Robert laughed softly. ‘Blonde, brunette, black, every colour you can think of, but I don’t think she was ever— Wait a minute.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I think she may have been a redhead when she and Raff first got married. Hm, I’m almost sure she was.’ His brow cleared. ‘But it wasn’t for long,’ he dismissed. ‘Celia seemed to change the colour of her hair to match the clothes she wore!’ he told Jane ruefully.
But she had been a redhead when Raff first married her …
It was one explanation for the way he seemed to dislike the colour of her hair, the way it seemed to make him more angry with her. But he couldn’t blame every other woman with red hair for the way his initially red-haired wife had let him down!
She shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s just me he distrusts,’ she sighed. ‘He gives the impression no man is safe with me.’
‘I should be so lucky!’ Robert looked at her admiringly.
He had never made any secret of the fact that he found her attractive, and Jane knew that tonight she looked better than she had done for some days, the pallor from her accident having faded, made more so by the application of a light make-up, her blue dress flowing silkily over her body, her hair like a bright, shimmering flame as it cascaded down over her bare shoulders.
Raff was looking at her again now, but if he found her in the least appealing he didn’t show it, glaring at her coldly while remaining in conversation with his aunt.
Looking at the two men, it was clear which one was the more obviously attractive, and yet, despite all Robert’s charm and good looks, Jane knew that of the two she was more attracted to Raff.
Strange … until recently she had never thought of herself as a masochist!
‘I believe we’re about to go in to dinner now that my dear cousin has finally decided to join us,’ Robert said drily. ‘You still haven’t enlightened me as to what ‘‘Jane Smith’’ is doing here acting as Raff’s secretary, so I’ll have to get back to you again later. You know, Raff might change his attitude a little if he knew who you really are,’ he mused.
Jane eyed him sceptically. ‘Do you really think so?’ She thought of the life she had previously led, and knew it wouldn’t find favour in Raff’s eyes at all.
‘Maybe not,’ Robert acknowledged with a grimace. ‘Actually,’ he added conspiratorially, ‘I’m more than a little curious to find out how Jordan feels about your working here?’
‘It must be obvious he has no idea.’ Jane frowned her irritation.
‘Hence ‘‘Jane Smith’’, I suppose?’ Robert nodded. ‘Hm, I’m sure Jordan would be very interested to learn of your whereabouts.’
‘Don’t even think about—’
‘Have to go, Rhea—er—I mean, Jane.’ Robert grimaced. ‘Better not make a mistake like that again, had I? I’ll talk to you again later,’ he promised.
‘Oh, but—’
‘My mother is waiting impatiently for me to escort her in to dinner.’ He patted Jane’s arm reassuringly in a distracted way, his attention already transferred to his mother as she glared at him disapprovingly from across the room, obviously furious at the amount of time he had spent talking to Jane.
She didn’t envy him his mother’s wrath, sure that Anita Barnes was a force to be reckoned with when angry, if she was anything like her nephew; and Jane felt sure, even on so brief an acquaintance, that that woman could be very like him. Even being ‘the apple of his mother’s eye’ wouldn’t save Robert from her displeasure, Jane was certain.
As the only other female in the room Jane should really have been escorted in to dinner by Jack Barnes, but he seemed to be taking his cue from his wife, obviously knowing better than to anger her any further where Jane was concerned, strolling in to the dining-room at his wife’s other side.
There was an awkward silence as Jane and Raff realised they had no choice but to go in to dinner together.
And Raff looked far from pleased about it!
Maybe she shouldn’t have joined them for dinner at all this evening; she was, after all, only an employee, and Anita Barnes didn’t give the impression she usually ate with the ‘hired hands’.
But Raff should have told her earlier if that was the case; she couldn’t not go into dinner with the family now!
Raff made no effort to offer her his arm. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he rasped.
She blinked up at him. ‘I—’
‘Stay away from my little cousin,’ he warned harshly.
She drew in a sharply angry breath. ‘He came over and started talking to me,’ she bit out indignantly. ‘What was I supposed to do, be rude to him?’ She glared up at Raff. ‘I suppose then I would have been reprimanded for that,’ she added impatiently. ‘I can’t seem to win with you!’
With that, she turned on her heel and walked into the dining-room without him, uncaring of how odd that must look.
Robert raised questioning brows at her flushed cheeks and glittering eyes.
‘Are you working at the moment?’ she asked him as she took her seat at the table down the opposite end to Raff, as he pulled his own chair out and sat down with the mi
nimum of movement, his body stiff with anger. ‘Raff tells me you’re an actor,’ she smiled encouragingly at Robert, determined not to be completely unnerved by Raff’s contemptuous attitude.
Robert nodded, more than happy to pour fuel on the tension he sensed between Jane and Raff. ‘I’m rehearsing a play,’ he said with satisfaction.
‘That must be fascinating,’ she prompted, studiously ignoring Raff, although she knew his angry gaze was still on her.
Robert gave her a look that told her he knew exactly what was going on, and he was more than willing to help her annoy Raff. In fact, anyone listening to him over the next couple of hours could be forgiven for believing that goading Raff was what Robert lived for!
Jane could perfectly understand why that was—the two men being complete opposites, Raff taking life so seriously, Robert treating everything as if it were a game.
Raff’s manner got frostier and frostier, his eyes colder and colder, as the evening wore on.
Anita Barnes didn’t look too thrilled by her son’s apparent interest in her nephew’s secretary either, any comments she made to Jane being waspish, to say the least.
By the coffee stage of the meal Jane just wanted to escape from the situation she had helped to create because of her annoyance with Raff. Anita Barnes was just watching her with narrowed eyes now, and Raff himself looked ready to commit murder—with Jane as his obvious victim!
‘You know, Raff,’ Anita Barnes spoke slowly, her head tilted thoughtfully as she looked at Jane, ‘I’ve finally remembered who your secretary reminds me of. I knew it would come to me if I just gave myself a little time,’ she added with satisfaction.
‘Yes?’ Raff sat stiffly erect in his chair.
‘Yes,’ his aunt turned to him with narrowed eyes. ‘It was that woman your father was involved with.’
Raff’s mouth tightened. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean,’ he bit out tersely.
Neither did Jane; as far as she was aware Raff’s parents had been together when they died in the plane crash and, if that were so, how could Raff possibly know any woman his father had been involved with previous to his marriage? Raff wouldn’t even have been born!
She watched the aunt and nephew curiously, Raff seeming not at all pleased with the turn the conversation had taken.
‘Of course you do,’ Anita said dismissively. ‘She was your nanny at the time.’ She turned to her husband. ‘You remember her, Jack,’ she encouraged. ‘What was her name? I’m surprised you don’t remember it, Raff; you were so very fond of her. I remember how heart-broken you were when she left so suddenly,’ she derided.
‘I—’
‘It was Diana,’ Raff put in softly. ‘And I don’t care to have personal family business discussed just now,’ he warned his aunt coldly.
Because of Jane’s presence, she knew. But he needn’t have worried; she wasn’t at all interested in any skeletons in this family’s closet. Except that the conversation had set off little alarm bells in her own mind; her mother had been a nanny before she’d married her father, and her first name was Diana …
But it had to be a coincidence. Good grief, the Princess of Wales herself was named Diana, and she had worked with children before her marriage too!
Nevertheless, it was slightly unsettling …
* * *
‘Busy?’
Jane looked up at Robert as he stood framed in the doorway of the small sitting-room where she sat.
And it must have been obvious, as she sat on this small chintz-covered sofa, idly flicking through a magazine she had no real interest in, that she wasn’t doing anything in the least important!
She put the magazine down on the seat beside her. ‘Extremely,’ she drawled sarcastically.
He grinned down at her as he entered the room. ‘That’s what I thought.’
She grimaced. ‘Actually, I am busy—staying out of everyone’s way!’
She had made her excuses as soon as she possibly could once the meal had finished the previous evening, and had managed to avoid any further contact with the family today by going for a walk as soon as she’d got up, and taking some sandwiches with her so that she didn’t have to join the family for another tension-filled meal.
Unfortunately the Barneses’ BMW and Robert’s more flamboyant sports car were still parked in the driveway next to Raff’s old-style Jaguar when she’d returned late in the afternoon, and so she had taken refuge in this small sitting-room that was rarely used. Robert must have actually been looking for her to have found her in here.
‘The parents have just departed,’ he told her with a grin, perching on the wooden arm of one of the chairs that matched the chintz sofa.
Jane wasn’t at all surprised that the couple hadn’t felt it necessary to actually say their goodbyes to her; she was only an employee, after all.
‘My mother having settled herself you aren’t after the family silver,’ Robert continued mockingly, dressed casually today in denims and a loose white cotton top.
‘After the—?’ Jane spluttered indignantly. ‘Surely if that were what I was after I would have taken it and run by now?’ As far as she was aware the family didn’t have any silver!
‘Oh, I didn’t mean silver of the precious metal kind …’ Robert arched meaningful brows.
‘Then what—?’ She broke off, her eyes widening as she thought Robert’s meaning was becoming clear. ‘You don’t mean Raff?’ She was incredulous at the mere idea of it.
Robert nodded. ‘Mother has it in mind for Raff to remain unmarried, and for me to one day inherit all this.’ He waved his arms about pointedly.
But could Anita and her family, even if this preposterous idea were true, not see the financial difficulties the estate was in, and just how little there would be for Robert to inherit as Raff’s heir? Although the other couple were obviously rich in their own right, so perhaps this didn’t worry them unduly. Jane had no doubt that even if the Barneses were in a financial position to help him, Raff would never ask them for it; he was a proud man, determined to make it—or not, whichever it turned out to be!—on his own merits.
‘One look at Raff and I together, and your mother knew I was no danger to her aspirations,’ Jane said drily.
Robert grinned. ‘Raff has always been blind where women are concerned.’
She felt a little uncomfortable discussing him in this way—even with Robert, who had been something of a personal friend in London.
‘Maybe he has good reason to be,’ she dismissed, thinking of his broken marriage.
‘Maybe,’ his cousin acknowledged uninterestedly. ‘His father wasn’t too lucky in love either. None of the male members of this family seem to have been, now that I come to think of it.’ He frowned.
‘But Raff’s parents must have been married over thirty years.’ She was intrigued in spite of herself at the mention of Raff’s father twice in as many days.
‘Married, yes,’ Robert said drily. ‘Happily, no. Aunt Helen, Raff’s mother, was something of a bitch. She and Celia were the best of friends,’ he added, as if that said it all.
And maybe it did. But how sad that both the Quinlan men, father and son, had been so unhappy in their marriages.
But it still left the question of the woman, Diana, whom she reminded Anita Barnes of.
‘Who was Diana?’ she asked curiously.
Robert shrugged. ‘I don’t really know. Before my time, I’m afraid. I didn’t actually come here to talk about Raff or the rest of the happy family,’ he asserted. ‘I’m still agog to know what you’re doing here playing at secretaries?’ he taunted.
‘I’m not playing at it,’ she protested indignantly. ‘I’ll admit I’m not very good at it, but I work fast enough for Raff, which is what matters. And it is a job,’ she shrugged.
‘But why do you need one?’ He still looked puzzled.
As well he might. Much as she disliked having to do it, she knew that nothing less than the complete truth would appease Robert. And
maybe she owed him that much for keeping quiet what he knew about her.
She looked at him warningly. ‘This is in the strictest confidence.’
He sat forward on the arm of the chair. ‘I’m all ears,’ he encouraged confidingly.
Jane gave him a censorious glare. ‘This isn’t funny, Robert.’
He held up his hands defensively. ‘I’m not laughing.’
‘You aren’t taking it seriously, either.’ Jane stood up impatiently, striding over to the window, staring out at the rolling hills while she tried to collect her thoughts together. Finally she turned back to him.
‘In just under three months’ time I shall be twenty-one,’ she began slowly. ‘If by that time I have managed to stay in useful employment—a job where I actually earn a wage rather than the charity work I have been involved in so far—I inherit the money my father left for me.’ She gave a grimace of disgust at her father’s obvious lack of trust in her.
She had never had an easy relationship with her father, and had been away at finishing-school in Switzerland when he had died just over two years ago. She had come back to England to take over running the houses he had all over the world, and become so caught up with that that it had been increasingly difficult for her to do anything else, although charity work had also featured largely in her busy life.
But Jordan had known of the stipulation in her father’s will if she was to inherit the full fortune which had been left to her; indeed he was one of the trustees who would decide whether or not she should inherit.
‘Jordan doesn’t believe I can do it,’ she added hardly.
‘It’s incredible!’ Robert breathed softly. ‘It’s like something out of a Victorian novel.’
Jane sighed. ‘My father had little belief in women’s capabilities.’
‘Your mother …?’
‘Died when I was born,’ she rasped sharply. ‘But you see why I need this job so badly?’ She frowned. ‘At the moment I’m totally dependent on Jordan except for my allowance, and I want more than anything to be free of the financial hold he has over me.’
Robert looked troubled. ‘I had no idea …’
Fated Attraction Page 5