A Stranger's Kiss

by Liz Fielding

  Tom opened the folder and glanced at the top sheet — a report on Kit Fairfax from an investigation company which, despite the thinness of the file, appeared to have been thorough. He wouldn’t have expected anything else. It was a perfectly reputable company that his own firm used when necessary and Hollingworth had undoubtedly recommended them to Carlisle.

  He flicked through the papers, glanced at the photographs of a man in his early twenties, his hair long and curling over his shoulders. He had a slightly distant expression, as if unaware of the extraordinarily pretty girl at his side, her arm looped through his, although that seemed unlikely.

  As unlikely as the idea of a man setting an investigation agency to watch his own daughter simply because he didn’t much care for her boyfriend.

  The whole business left Tom Brodie with a bad taste in his mouth but he made a determined effort to bury his own personal prejudices. Gerald Carlisle was concerned about his daughter, probably with good cause. Doubtless she was the target of all kinds of fortune hunters. ‘And if Fairfax won’t be bought off?’ he asked.

  ‘Everyone has a price, Brodie. Try a hundred thousand. It’s a nice round sum.’ Round, Brodie thought, in the way that peanuts were round. The guy must surely know that Emerald Carlisle was worth millions? But maybe he wasn’t that ambitious, maybe a “nice round” payoff was all that Fairfax was after. But somehow that dreamy face didn’t quite fit such a cynical scenario. Carlisle must have seen the doubt in Brodie’s face. ‘It’s a pity Hollingworth is away. He knows what he’s doing.’

  Tom’s glance flickered to the other man. ‘Is this a regular occurrence?’

  Carlisle stiffened. ‘Emerald is rather gullible. She needs protecting from unscrupulous people who would take advantage of her.’

  ‘I see.’ Obviously it was.

  ‘I doubt it, Brodie. I very much doubt it.’ He made it sound as if having Emerald for a daughter was like bearing the world on his shoulders. Maybe it was time he let the girl make a few mistakes. The longer he protected her, the harder it would eventually be. But Carlisle did not want to hear that and Tom wasn’t there to offer “agony aunt” advice. ‘I’m relying on you to deal with this situation quickly and without any fuss. Do whatever you have to. Hollingworth—’

  ‘I’m sure James Hollingworth would be more than happy to come back from Scotland if you prefer that he handle such a delicate matter,’ Brodie interjected, quickly. His own speciality was corporate law. Buying off an unsuitable husband was new territory for him, territory he was not anxious to explore.

  But there was no escape. ‘That would take too long. I want this settled and I want it settled quickly before Emerald does something she’ll regret. You’re Hollingworth’s partner and I’m relying on you to do whatever you have to in order to stop my daughter marrying this man.’

  * * *

  Emmy Carlisle was fuming. She was nearly twenty-three years old, for heaven’s sake. Quite capable of making a rational decision about the rest of her life.

  But not quite quick enough to anticipate her father’s ruthlessness when it came to getting his own way.

  She grasped the door knob in both hands and shook it furiously. It didn’t budge. It was locked, and a cursory examination of the keyhole had revealed that the key had been removed. He had obviously foreseen the possibility that she might try poking it out of the lock onto a piece of paper. Assuming she had a piece of paper. She gave the door a kick.

  How dared her father lock her up in the nursery like some Victorian Papa? Did he think she’d just sit quietly and take it?

  Easily, was the answer to her first question. And, no. He knew she wouldn’t take such treatment quietly, which was why he had tricked her into the second-floor nursery, conveniently equipped with safety bars across the window.

  She abandoned the door and rushed across to the open window as she heard a car crunching over the gravel carriage drive that swept in front of the house, pulling herself up on the bars to get a better view.

  It was a dark BMW, not a car she recognised, and it was parked too close to the house to get a good look at the driver as he climbed out. No more than a glimpse of thick dark hair, a pair of wide shoulders as he shrugged into his jacket, a feeling that he was above average height, although with her foreshortened view from the second floor it was impossible to say for sure. From the expensive cut of his charcoal grey suit it was obvious that he was some business connection of her father’s, in which case he was definitely not the kind of person to whom she could appeal for help.

  She gave a little sigh.

  It would have been so perfect if it had been Kit come to rescue her; driving up in his battered white van like some latter-day Galahad and hammering on the front door. But Kit was no Galahad and besides, he had no idea what had happened. She hadn’t dared tell him her plan or he would have been thoroughly shocked.

  He was such a hopeless dreamer. Despite all his problems he’d packed his paints and taken off for France for the summer so that even if her mobile phone hadn’t been downstairs in her handbag, out of reach, she couldn’t have sent out an appeal to him for help.

  At the time she’d been furious, but at least her father didn’t know where to find him. Yet. But she had to get out of here before he did and warn Kit, or her neat little plan would simply fall apart.

  She had underestimated her father. She’d realised that he was having her followed, of course — he was so protective — and she’d known exactly what his response would be to her announcement that she planned to marry Kit...

  Well, obviously not exactly. She hadn’t anticipated that he would lock her up like the heroine of some nineteenth century melodrama or she would never have walked into his trap. He must have planned the whole thing after she telephoned to say she had to see him about something important. Her biggest mistake had been to put him on his guard, but it had been the only way of ensuring her father’s attention. She twisted the small diamond engagement ring around her finger.

  ‘Oooooh!’ she growled, venting her frustration on one of the bars fixed to the window frame to prevent small children from falling out by just the kind of careful Victorian papa she had been castigating, striking at it with a tight little fist. It shifted slightly beneath the blow and she immediately forgot the pain caused by her temper. Instead she stared at the bar for a moment then, slowly uncurling her fingers, she reached out, grasped it firmly and gave it a sharp tug. She had not been mistaken; there was a small but quite positive movement.

  Her temper instantly evaporated and she looked about her for something to lever the horrid thing out of the frame.

  The room was furnished with a bed, a dresser, a small hard-backed chair. The built-in cupboard was bare as she had already discovered to her disgust. There was nothing in the least bit useful to be found, but she refused to be put off by this set-back. Instead, she returned to the window and gave the bar a vigorous shake.

  It was definitely loose and seized by the same enterprising spirit that had got her into this scrape in the first place, Emmy put her foot against the wall for leverage, took the bar in both hands and gave it a sharp tug. There was the promising sound of wood splintering. Cheered by this success she did it again, yanking on the bar with all her might until the window frame split with a satisfactory crack, disintegrating beneath the pressure and sending her sprawling back on the floor, the bar still grasped tightly in her hands.

  She stared at it for a moment and then laughed out loud. The frame had rotted away beneath the paintwork and no one had noticed. It was hardly surprising. The dreary old nursery hadn’t been used since her grandfather was a baby when children and servants were expected to keep their proper place. Her mother had insisted on a bright modern suite of rooms on the first floor for her baby girl, not that she’d hung around to enjoy either of them.

  But she didn’t waste time congratulating herself on her luck, which was just as well. While the rest of the bars were dispensed with easily enough, her problems were far fr
om over. The nursery was on the second floor and there was the better part of fifty feet between her and freedom.

  It was a pity, she thought, that she had taken so much trouble dressing to create the right impression. Jeans and a pair of Doc Martens would have been far more practical for climbing down the ornate drainpipe than the elegant linen dress and high-heeled shoes she had decided would convince her father that she was serious. Her father, she knew, would never have taken her seriously in jeans, and it was desperately important that he be convinced that she was in earnest. Unfortunately she had achieved her objective rather too well.

  She considered the problem for a moment, then took off her shoes and dropped them out of the window onto the rose border below. She peeled off her stockings and, lacking a pocket in which to stow them, she stuffed them into her bra, because her high-heeled shoes would rub against her feet in five minutes without them and the last thing she needed right now were blisters.

  She didn’t have a handbag; she’d left it in the study when her father, brushing aside her declaration that she intended to marry a penniless artist with or without his blessing, had asked her to give her opinion on some old toys that had been found in the attics during recent roof repairs.

  After completing her fine arts degree, she had taken a job in an auction house where she had become fascinated with old toys. Her father had been furious that she had chosen to take any kind of job, even one that any well brought up young heiress might covet. After her last escapade, he had wanted her to stay at home where he could keep an eye on her until he found her a suitable husband.

  Although she recognised the device as being in the “if we don’t talk about it, it will go away” category, she had been sufficiently touched that he should have brought himself to acknowledge her expertise to fall for it.

  She wasn’t usually so gullible where her father was concerned but, with the lure of a lost hoard of Victorian toys, she had walked into the nursery without a suspicious thought in her head. That was when he had slammed the door and locked it behind her.

  Pride, Emmy thought ruefully, always came before a fall. And of course there weren’t any toys. If there had been, he would have summoned a real expert; he would certainly never have consulted his tiresome daughter.

  She gave the door a look that should have incinerated it then, in an attempt to slow down discovery of her flight she jammed the solitary chair beneath the doorknob. That done, she hitched up her skirt and swung one leg over the window-sill.

  * * *

  ‘I’ll expect to hear from you within twenty-four hours that this matter has been settled, Brodie,’ Carlisle said, as he walked with him down the steps. ‘I want no delay.’

  Brodie considered whether to mention the possibility that the lovebirds might already have flown, probably to one of those romantic destinations where weddings could be arranged in a matter of days, in which case it was already too late. But as they reached the bottom of the steps he decided against it. What clinched it was the sight of Emerald Carlisle, her dress hitched up about her waist, clinging just above head height to an ornate lead drainpipe about twenty feet behind Gerald Carlisle’s back.

  Brodie knew that he should draw his client’s attention to what was happening behind him. Something stopped him. It might have been a pair of large pleading eyes. Or the deliciously long legs wrapped about the drainpipe. Or even, heaven forbid, the glimpse of something white and lacy peeping from beneath her tucked up dress.

  Or maybe it was just simple distaste that any father could conceive of locking up a fully grown woman simply because her idea of what made a good husband did not coincide with his own. Whatever it was he decided to take Carlisle at his word. Emerald Carlisle, he had been told, was no concern of his. And when the girl let go of the pipe with one hand and urged him, with an unmistakable gesture that left her swinging in the most perilous fashion above a well-tended rose border, to get her father inside the house, he didn’t hesitate. Patting at his jacket pocket he turned and headed back up the steps. ‘I think I left my car keys on your desk, sir.’ The “sir” almost choked him.

  Carlisle glared after him. ‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ he said, irritably, but followed Brodie back into the house.

  * * *

  Emmy’s heart, already beating an adrenalin-charged tattoo as she eased herself down the drainpipe, had gone into overtime at the sudden appearance of her father. But the moment her gaze had collided with the dark-eyed stranger standing with him she had known instinctively that she had an ally. He hadn’t batted an eyelid at the sight she must have made, not given her away by so much as a twitch of an eyebrow. Instead he had quite coolly considered his options.

  He could have informed her father that he appeared to have an incompetent cat burglar clinging to his drainpipe.

  Or he could have ignored the situation, pretend he hadn’t seen her and hope she didn’t fall into the roses.

  What the dark-eyed stranger had done was create a diversion.

  That kind of swift thinking was so rare she thought. Poor Kit would have dithered and blushed and quite given the game away. He was sweet and wonderfully talented, but not in the least bit decisive which was why she had to get to him before her father’s henchman. As she searched amongst the lavender and roses for her shoes she felt a moment of regret that she wouldn’t be able to stay and thank Dark-eyes for his chivalry. Were they grey, she wondered. Or brown? Distance and the dusky light had made it impossible to tell.

  Unfortunately she didn’t have time for politeness, but she was sure he would understand her need to put the maximum distance between herself and her father before he discovered her escape. If only she could find her other shoe!

  She spotted it at last, half buried behind the tall lavender that edged the border, filling the air with sweet scent as she brushed against it. The roses were not so kind, snagging at her bare arms as she reached for her shoe, catching and tangling her hair with their thorns. She didn’t have time to worry about it, or take time to extricate herself carefully, and tugged herself free. The rose retaliated by whipping back and catching at her neck with its thorns. She scarcely noticed. All she knew was that it was taking far too long.

  But there was no way she could make her escape barefooted. Her feet would be cut to ribbons on the gravel by the time she had sprinted around to the old coach house where her car had undoubtedly been stowed after her incarceration. She could just hear her father. “Miss Emerald has decided to stay for a few days. Put her car away will you, Saunders?” All perfectly natural. She made a rude noise as she tipped the dirt out of her shoes and slipped her feet into them.

  ‘Maybe you left your keys in the car, Brodie.’ Her father’s impatient voice carried through the open front door pinning her back against the wall.

  ‘I might have dropped them in the hall.’

  Brodie. The name had a nice, solid ring to it and Brodie, bless the man, was giving her all the time he could, delaying her father, quite` unconcerned at the tetchiness in his voice. Not many men were that brave. Unfortunately his valour would be to little avail. There was no cover within a hundred feet of her exposed position and any second now she was going to be discovered and dragged ignominiously back to the nursery where she would probably be put on a diet of bread and water. Not that she cared about that. But poor Kit...

  Of course, she could always throw herself on Brodie’s mercy. In fact the thought of flinging herself into his arms had a definite appeal. She hadn’t been mistaken about the shoulders, or his height. And his character spoke for itself.

  But no. He had already done more than enough. To demand he choose between her and her father was more than could be expected of any knight errant. But she was hanged if she was going to give in without a fight. She had mere seconds in which to act before the two men appeared on the steps and she was discovered. She didn’t waste it, flinging herself at the BMW, praying that it wasn’t locked. Her guardian angel must have been listening because the rear door opened to her tou
ch and she dived in, pulling it shut behind her with heartfelt thanks for the superb German engineering that ensured it closed with scarcely a sound.

  She didn’t know where her knight errant was going, but at least he was going somewhere. Away from her father, away from Lower Honeybourne. She would throw herself on his mercy and borrow his mobile. It would only take a call to bring some gallant racing to her aid. Meanwhile, she tucked herself down behind the front seats and congratulated herself on her luck.

  It might not be the most comfortable way to travel but this way her escape was far more likely to succeed. An attempt to get away in her own car would have been spotted in an instant and by the time she reached the electronic security gates they would have been locked.

  She could and would have climbed over them, but then what? She had no phone, no money and would be faced with a very long walk along a deserted country road as night fell. With her father hot on her tail.

  Brodie, on the other hand, would drive through unchallenged and, having aided and abetted her escape, he could scarcely turn around and take her back when she popped up on his back seat. In fact, since he was heading for London, he could drop her at her front door.

  By morning she would be in France with Kit and then Hollingworth could do his worst.

  There was the added bonus that once they were clear of the park she would be able to thank him for helping her. The thought brought a smile to her lips. She was absolutely sure that she and Brodie were going to be friends.

  There was a crunch of shoes, the driver’s door was opened and through the gap between the front seats she saw him palm the keys from his pocket.

  ‘It seems they were on the seat all the time,’ Emmy heard him say as he turned back to her father, almost certainly without a trace of a blush. No one who acted with such swift decisiveness would be fazed by a tiny white lie. ‘I must have dropped them.’

  Her father snorted, impatient with such incompetence. ‘I thought you were supposed to be Hollingworth’s bright new man.’ His voice betrayed what he thought of bright new men in general and Brodie in particular. ‘I just hope you’re capable of dealing with this situation efficiently. I don’t want it bungled. I particularly don’t want it all over the newspapers,’ he added.