by Penny Jordan
All at once it was too much for her. She started to cry silently, tears soaking her skin, her whole body shaking with shock and reaction. James got up and came towards her, but she flinched automatically from him. She heard him swear and then suddenly she was in his arms, his eyes almost black as they glittered into her own with fierce anger.
‘For God’s sake, why can’t you trust me a little?’ he grated. ‘Why must I always be cast as the villain of the piece? Your dislike of my sex as a whole I can understand—now! but you seem to have singled me out for special treatment. What have I ever done…’
‘What?’ Now that she knew Lucy was safe, some of her fear slipped away from her bringing in its wake restorative anger. ‘What about forcing me to marry you, humiliating me by making me…’ She bit her lip.
‘By making you what?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said wearily, ‘it’s all over now, James. You can have the old Hall, I just don’t care any longer.’
‘Damn you, Jenna,’ he swore softly, shaking her again. ‘I’m not letting you go. I love you far too much, and if you’d just give yourself a chance you might admit that you’re not totally indifferent to me…’
For minutes the shock of what she was hearing totally stunned her. Was there a slight plea in those final words? Jenna’s head spun as she tried to take in what he was saying.
‘You love me! But you can’t…’ she whispered in complete bewilderment.
‘Why not? Unlike you I have all the normal human frailties, Jenna. I think I fell in love with you the first time I saw you. The day you so obviously mistook me for some uncouth country lout,’ he added wryly, with a tight smile. ‘Remember?’
Did she? Of course she did…and everything that had happened between them since.
‘But you—you never said—you…’
His harshly derisive laughter silenced her. ‘Said what, Jenna? That I loved you? When did you ever give me a chance? You fought me every inch of the way. I had to trap you into marrying me and even then you demanded that it be a marriage in name only.’ His eyes met hers and he said softly, ‘Surely you realised then how I felt about you? I made a pretty poor show of concealing it and that’s a fact!’
‘You said you wanted me and…’ she shrugged helplessly.
‘And you believed that was all?’ He sounded incredulously angry. ‘Dear God, what sort of woman are you, Jenna?’
He saw the colour surge up under her skin and muttered something fierce under his breath, cupping her face, and taking her mouth with his own, kissing her with a feverish need that spoke more clearly than any words could have done.
‘There,’ he said hoarsely when he finally released her. ‘If I can’t tell you, I can at least show you. I love you, Jenna,’ he murmured against her mouth. ‘More than anything else in this life. Yes, I wanted the old Hall originally because of my mother, but that was only a fleeting insipid emotion compared with the way I want you. I didn’t want this to happen. I never planned to fall in love. I had seen what it did to my mother. We have an awful lot in common, you and I, if you really think about it,’ he added softly. ‘We’ve both been hurt by events in our lives outside our own control. Don’t shut me out, Jenna. We could build something good together. You may not love me now…’
She started to shake in his arms, and after initially tightening they fell away from her. He took a step away and said with his back to her, his voice raw with weariness, ‘All right, Jenna, if a divorce is what you want…’
‘James, no…’ It was the pain in his voice that gave her the courage to cross the chasm of self-doubt and vulnerability that separated them. She touched his arm with her fingertips, instantly aware of the hardness of the muscles beneath his skin. He turned to look at her, and she saw suddenly how tense and strained he looked.
‘No, what?’ he asked her, his mouth wry and twisted. ‘I can’t go on like this, Jenna,’ he told her. ‘The strain of having to stay away from you, of not being able to touch you, of not having you as my wife in every real sense of the word, of having to guard everything I say to you in case I betray the truth, and, worst of all, to know that when I do get you in my arms it isn’t me who’s holding you but some damned——’
‘James, no.’ She said it more urgently this time, clutching his arm so that he had to look at her. ‘That was a lie,’ she told him quietly. ‘It’s true that I did dream I had a lover and that he was dressed much as one might expect to find your ancestor dressed, but his face was your face, James, his hands on my body your hands—even though at the time I fought to deny it even to myself. You’re my dream lover, James,’ she told him softly, ‘and I love you more than I can say.’
When they kissed it was as though it was for the first time, with no restraints or doubts between them. The sensation of James trembling with emotion in her arms was one that illuminated and humbled her. She ached to cradle him in her arms, against her body, to pour out for him the full measure of her love, to wrap him in her warmth and remove from his heart all pain.
‘So many mistakes…’ His fingertip traced her gently swollen lips. ‘So much unhappiness. I could have killed Wilde when you told me you wanted him to be your lover,’ he told her slowly. ‘And it sickened me to know that I was capable of so much violence towards a fellow human being.’ He paused and then said quietly, ‘Jenna, about your sister…I wish there was some way I could ease that hurt for you but——’
Her fingers against his mouth silenced him. ‘You have done,’ she assured him. ‘Last night…telling you about it acted as some sort of catharsis. I can’t explain it properly to you, I only know that for the first time since it happened I feel empty of all the bitterness and pain. It’s gone, James. I finally feel free of the past.’ A frown pleated her forehead. ‘I just wish that Lucy…’
The sharp peal of the telephone cut across her words. James answered it and listened silently for several seconds. ‘Fine, we’ll come and get her now.’
‘That was Nancy,’ he told Jenna when he had replaced the receiver. ‘Lucy is ready to come home. Jenna, why don’t you wait for her here?’ he suggested softly. ‘This will be hard enough for both of you. I’ll go and collect her alone, shall I?’
She nodded her head wearily, knowing that what he was saying made sense. He came over to her, kissing her gently, and in spite of her anguish her heart flooded with love.
She was sitting in Lucy’s bedroom when they came back. She heard the car doors slam and then slow footsteps on the stairs. When Lucy pushed the door open Jenna could only look at her, and then without a word Lucy ran towards her, tears cascading down her face. Jenna opened her arms instinctively hugging the lithe teenage body to her own.
‘I never knew…I never knew…’ Lucy sobbed against her shoulder. ‘You gave up so much for me.’
It was not what she had expected. She had been braced for recriminations, for anguish and despair, but never for this.
Holding Lucy away from her Jenna looked into her niece’s crumpled face. ‘Lucy, what I did, I did out of love, love for my sister and love for her child…you,’ she said softly, ‘and although I’ve been at fault in not telling you the truth about your father, I did it because——’
‘Because you didn’t want me to be frightened that I might grow up like him,’ Lucy supplied for her. ‘James explained it all to me.’
Poor child, how dreadful it must be for her to have to accept that James whom she adored was not her father, and that he in reality…
‘I don’t really mind, you know,’ she said, surprising Jenna with the accuracy with which she had read her mind. ‘About James not being my father. I never really felt that he was. It was just with all that gossip about it in the papers I couldn’t help hoping that it was true, but deep inside I knew somehow that it wasn’t. That’s why I call him James…’ She grimaced shamefacedly. ‘I didn’t want to tell you, though, because I knew if you knew, you and James wouldn’t get married!’
Jenna was stunned for a moment an
d then she pulled herself together enough to say huskily, ‘Lucy, about your mother and father…’
‘Bill and Nancy have told me everything. I understand that my father was sick in some way and that he couldn’t help what he did, and I know enough about myself to know that I’m not like him. Children can’t always like their parents, or parents their children.’
‘You would have loved your mother,’ Jenna told her softly. ‘Everyone did!’
Lucy’s eyes lit up. ‘Tell me about her. Have you any photographs? Was she…’
Jenna laughed. ‘Oh, Lucy, there is so much I want to tell you about her, so much about her that I want to share with you. All these years I’ve longed to talk about her, but I couldn’t. You’re very like her, you know, but I think you have more of my personality.’
‘You mean we’re both survivors,’ Lucy said wryly. ‘James said she died when I was born.’
It was obvious that Lucy had not overheard their entire conversation and Jenna made a mental promise to herself that she would never know exactly what had happened.
‘Yes, she did,’ she agreed calmly. ‘But before she died she knew about you and she asked me to look after you.’
‘I wasn’t really eavesdropping, you know,’ Lucy murmured when she digested this. ‘I was hungry because Sarah and I had had an early supper and I came down for something to eat. I heard you and James quarrelling. I meant to move away and then I heard you saying that James wasn’t my father. When he said you weren’t my mother, I couldn’t believe it. I went back upstairs, then…’
‘What were you planning to do when James found you in the garden?’ Jenna asked her gently.
‘Nothing much, I was just plucking up the courage to come and ask you if it was true.’ She saw Jenna’s face and hugged her reassuringly. ‘Oh, no, I’d never have done anything silly. Life’s too precious to throw away. I’ve been an awful brat recently, haven’t I? But I’m much more mature now,’ she added naïvely.
Jenna had to laugh. ‘Ah, yes, three months or so makes a very big difference,’ she teased, and yet in a way wasn’t that quite true? She as much as Lucy had matured tremendously in a very short period of time—the period of time she had known James…
James. A small smile curved Jenna’s mouth, her eyes suddenly dreamy. ‘You’re thinking about James,’ Lucy accused with startling accuracy. ‘I know because that’s how he looks when he’s thinking about you!’
* * *
‘Well now, madam wife, that’s a very fetching costume you’re wearing!’
They were in their new bedroom in the Georgian wing. They had moved in on time just before Christmas and tonight was New Year’s Eve. Their charity ball had been exceptionally well subscribed, and Jenna had just put on her outfit. Down the hall in the large bedroom that they shared Sarah and Lucy were also getting dressed. For the first time tonight Sarah would be walking without her crutches.
‘I’m glad you like it.’ Jenna pirouetted mischievously in front of her husband, laughing as he caught her round her waist and pulled her towards him. The dress in question was a flimsy Regency ballgown, all gauzy drapes falling from the beribboned Empire waistline under her bust. The soft aqua colour suited her, the tiny puff sleeves sliding provocatively off her silky shoulders. The pearls, which had been her Christmas present from James, glowed warmly against her throat and ears.
‘Time we went down, I think,’ James murmured against her mouth, the words husky and indistinct. His hand slid from her waist, to the gently rounded curve of her stomach, concealed by the floating lines of her dress.
She had told him about their child at the end of November. At first she had been disappointed by the way he received the news. She had hoped he would be as overjoyed as she was herself, but when he had told her later in bed, that if she had any fears about the birth, that if she did not want to continue with the pregnancy, she had understood at once that it was because of his love for her that he had been so reticent. Strangely, perhaps, she was not at all frightened. She wanted to have James’s children…she wanted them to be a family…to banish any lingering shadows from the old Hall, and now she thought indulgently, there could be no prouder father-to-be.
‘The older they are the worse they are,’ Lady Carmichael had told Jenna drily over Christmas. ‘You’d think from James’s expression when he looks at you, thinking no one else is looking, that he’s the first man ever to have achieved conception.’
‘Ready?’ asked James.
Nodding her head, Jenna followed him through their bedroom door. On her way past the girls’ room she tapped on the door and glanced inside. Both of them looked lovely in their pretty Victorian-style dresses, their long hair demurely ringleted.
‘Don’t be long,’ she warned them. ‘Everyone will start arriving soon.’
James was waiting for her on the stairs, and a grin curled her mouth as she saw that he was posing beneath the portrait.
‘Well?’ he demanded with a mock injured air when she made no comment. ‘Don’t you think it’s a good likeness?’
He had had the clothes worn in the portrait copied, without her knowing it, and tonight had put them on for the first time. The resemblance was remarkable, but there were subtle differences, easily discernible by a woman who looked with the eyes of love.
‘Isn’t this what you wanted?’ he whispered against her ear, pulling her into his arms. ‘Your favourite fantasy come true…your dream lover?’
Wriggling out of his embrace, Jenna tapped him on the chin with the fan she was carrying. ‘Fie, sir, you are too bold,’ she cautioned him in simpering tones, adding with a soft giggle, ‘Ask me that again later tonight, James. I just might be able to give you an answer!’ She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and grinned wickedly. ‘I shouldn’t dance too much if I were you, you’re going to need plenty of stamina.’
‘You’ll regret saying that,’ he threatened softly, but both of them knew it was just a game. There was no fantasy lover in Jenna’s life, only a very real and live one—in the shape of her husband.
Tonight they would bring in the New Year, and with it she would finally put aside all the miseries of the old. There was so much to look forward to, and she could hardly wait for it to begin. Tonight they would celebrate what was to come with their friends and neighbours. Later, alone, they would celebrate those same things together, reaffirming their love for one another and the life they had created between them.
On the last stair, Jenna paused, and James reached for her automatically. ‘James…’ she eyed him thoughtfully and said as seriously as she could, ‘do you think you could manage to lure me away from the ball? Could you ..?’
‘Do you really want to find out? If so, it can quite easily be arranged.’ He picked her up as he spoke and turned to go back up the stairs, just as they heard the first car crunch over the drive. ‘Just in the nick of time!’
Jenna pouted and then as she prepared herself to go and greet their first guests she whispered against his ear, ‘But never mind, there’s always later!’
‘Always…’ James kissed the tips of her fingers lightly as he released her. ‘That word has a very delightful permanent sound to it, Jenna. And that’s how I want you…permanently…for always…’
* * * * *
Now, read on for a tantalizing excerpt of Michelle Smart’s next book,
CLAIMING HIS ONE-NIGHT BABY
The second book in her Bound to a Billionaire trilogy!
Natasha Pellegrini and Matteo Manaserro’s potently charged reunion leads to one night of explosive passion. When Matteo discovers Natasha’s pregnancy, he’s intent on claiming his baby. Except he hasn’t bargained on their insatiable chemistry binding them together so completely!
Keep reading to get a glimpse of
CLAIMING HIS ONE-NIGHT BABY
CHAPTER ONE
JAW CLENCHED, HIS heart pounding an irregular beat in his chest, Matteo Manaserro watched the coffin being lowered into the consecrated ground of Castello
Miniato’s private cemetery.
Surrounding the open earth stood hundreds of Pieta Pellegrini’s loved ones, friends, family, colleagues, even some heads of state, with their security details standing back at a discreet distance, all there to say a final goodbye to a man who had been respected the world over for his philanthropic endeavours.
Vanessa Pellegrini, Pieta’s mother, who had buried her husband Fabio in the adjoining plot only a year ago, stepped forward, supported by her daughter Francesca. Both women clutched red roses. Francesca turned around to extend a hand to Natasha, Pieta’s widow, who was staring blankly at the wooden box like an ashen-faced statue. The breeze that had filled the early autumn air had dropped, magnifying the statue effect. Not a single strand of her tumbling honey-blonde hair moved.
She lifted her dry eyes and blinked, the motion seeming to clear her thoughts as she grabbed Francesca’s hand and joined the sobbing women.
Together, the three Pellegrini women threw their roses onto the coffin.
Matteo forced stale air from his lungs and focused his attention anywhere but on the widow.
This was a day to say goodbye, to mourn and then celebrate a man who deserved to be mourned and celebrated. This was not a day to stare at the widow and think how beautiful she looked even in grief. Or think how badly he wanted to take hold of her shoulders and…
Daniele, Pieta’s brother, shifted beside him. It was their turn.
Goodbye, Pieta, my cousin, my friend. Thank you for everything. I will miss you.
Once the immediate family—in which Matteo was included—had thrown their roses on the coffin, it was time for the other mourners to follow suit.
Striving to keep his features neutral, he watched his parents step forward to pay their last respects to their nephew. They didn’t look at him, their son, but he knew his father sensed him watching.
Matteo hadn’t exchanged a word with them since he’d legally changed his surname five years ago in the weeks that had followed the death of his own brother.
So much death.