His Convenient Mistress

by Cathy Williams

  James allowed himself to savor the thought of unraveling Sara King….

  He wanted to find the chink that would give him the leverage he needed to enable him to persuade her to sell the house to him. He would be fair—more than fair, he decided—but he would get what he wanted in the end. And looking at Sara now, with her red hair, pale, flawless skin and those translucent green eyes that were guarded, but couldn’t help shimmering with fire, James had a sudden, disconcerting feeling that he was going to enjoy his dealings with her.

  He’s got her firmly in his grasp and she’s only got one chance of survival—surrender to his blackmail…and him…in bed!

  Bedded by… Blackmail!

  The new miniseries from Harlequin Presents®…

  Dare you read it?

  Coming in November:

  Pregnancy of Revenge

  by Jacqueline Baird

  #2502

  Cathy Williams

  HIS CONVENIENT MISTRESS

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘YOU look tired, James. You work too hard. How many times have I told you that if you do not slow down, you will end up as another of those…those…?’

  ‘Statistics?’

  ‘And there you go. Making fun of me, an old woman who is only foolish enough to love you more than life itself.’

  James’s dark eyebrows flicked upwards in a teasing smile and he stretched out his long legs in front of him, crossing them at the ankles, cradling his glass of whisky with one hand.

  Perfect. The perfect time of evening in the perfect place. The summer sun had turned into that warm amber glow that preceded the onset of twilight and outside was awash with the rise and fall of colour, every shade of green and yellow imaginable. This was wild Scotland at its most majestic. Through the massive windows, the landscape of the baronial estate unfolded into the horizon and the backdrop of mountains rose upwards into the sky like an implacable matriarch making sure that her feudal tenants kept to their place.

  Ah, yes. Perfection. And, like all things perfect, it was really only palatable in small doses. A bit, James thought, like women. Too much of a good thing was guaranteed to dull the palate and bring on thoughts of boredom and restlessness.

  ‘Are you listening to a word I’m saying, James Dalgleish?’

  ‘With every ounce of attention, Mama.’ He smiled lazily, sipped his whisky and focused on the handsome woman sitting on her upright chair by the fireplace, that was adorned, for summer, with a sumptuously large array of flowers, all hand-picked from the extensive gardens.

  Maria Dalgleish, for all her talk about being an old woman, was an indomitable and youthful force, as untamed as the Scottish Highlands she adored, even after forty years of living in its towering purple shadows. The passion that coursed through her Italian veins had never quite abandoned her and she possessed a vitality he had never seen in a woman anywhere else in his life.

  Perhaps, he thought idly, at the age of thirty-six he was a mama’s boy, destined to become a cantankerous old man living alone in his sprawling mansion. But a cantankerous, wise old man, he thought, taking another appreciative sip of his drink. Wise enough to know from experience that women were drawn to money like moths to a flame. Better no woman than one of those. Although, better still, a series of women of conveniently abbreviated duration.

  ‘Now, James, how long will this visit be? I hope you have not forgotten that you have duties here. Trevor wants to talk to you about some repair work to the roof and then there is the business of the summer party and there is no point grumbling about getting involved. It happens every year.’

  ‘Did I say a word, Mama?’

  ‘You do not have to. I can see the grumble in your expression.’

  ‘I think I’ll take a bit of a break this time, stay for a week or so before I fly to New York.’

  ‘New York, New York. All this flying business every other day. It is no good for you. You are not a young man any more, you know.’

  ‘I know, Mama.’ He shook his head and adopted a penitent expression. ‘I am ageing by the second and what I need to do is find a good woman to have a brood of babies and look after me.’

  Maria huffed, tempted by the carrot offered to involve herself in one of those conversations dear to her heart, but it was getting late and she could tell from her son’s expression that he was too relaxed to do anything other than humour her in that infuriatingly stubborn and relentlessly charming manner of his.

  ‘Yes, well.’ She clicked her tongue to imply that the subject would rear its head soon enough. ‘Now, tomorrow evening the Campbells have asked us over for supper. Lucy is up from Edinburgh.’

  ‘Oh, good heavens.’

  ‘It will be very nice and you know how much everyone enjoys seeing you when you fly in.’

  ‘I’m here to relax, Mama. Not get caught up in a hectic whirlwind of socialising.’

  ‘Things are never hectic in this part of the world. And how will you ever meet a nice girl if you refuse to socialise?’

  ‘I socialise in London. Too much, if you want to know.’

  ‘But with the wrong sort of girl,’ his mother muttered darkly, unperturbed by the impatient glitter in his eyes.

  ‘Mama,’ he warned, ‘let’s just leave this alone, shall we? Agree to differ? The girls I socialise with happen to be just what my jaded soul desires.’

  ‘I will leave this alone, James, for the moment, although you are still too young to be jaded…it is late and besides…’ Maria Dalgleish allowed her voice to trail off into speculative silence.

  ‘Besides…what?’

  ‘There is something you might be interested in…’

  ‘It’s…’ James glanced at his sleek, expensive watch, and then looked drily at his mother ‘…nearly quarter to ten. Too late for mysterious guessing games.’

  ‘Someone has moved into the Rectory.’

  ‘What?’ James sat up straighter, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his thighs. The lazy, indolent ease had been replaced by that watchful edge that his mother only occasionally glimpsed.

  ‘Someone has moved into the Rectory,’ Maria repeated, primly flicking invisible specks of dust from her flowered skirt.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘No one local. In fact, no one is quite certain…’

  ‘Why didn’t Macintosh tell me that the place had been sold? Dammit!’ He stood up and began pacing the room, frowning as he contemplated his lawyer’s crass inefficiency. He’d had his eye on the Rectory for the past three years, had used every ounce of his formidable persuasiveness to try and convince Freddie that he didn’t need a place that big, that he would get way over the top if he chose to sell.

  Freddie had always laughed, poured them both a whisky or three and explained that the lady was not up for grabs. That James’s plans to convert the expansive Dalgleish estate into a first-rate hotel with his mother overseeing the details from the Rectory, which was ideally positioned alongside the estate, would just have to go on hold.

  ‘I intend to live to a hundred,’ he had said more than once, grinning wickedly at James’s frustration, ‘and when I do finally decide to go, maybe we can strike a deal. If you’re still around, wee laddie. Though what I would do with the money is beyond me. I’ve no family to speak of to leave it to. Still, I’m not agin doing a favour for a neighbour. Especially one who is so desperate to bring jobs into this beautiful countryside of ours. Not to mention a bit of
much needed glamour for our local lassies to get their bored teeth into.’

  ‘Because it has not been sold,’ Maria replied.

  ‘I told the man a thousand times after Freddie died that I wanted the place. I’ll have his hide for breakfast.’ He paused to stare through the windows, frowning. Underneath all the bantering, Freddie had wanted him to have the place but, Freddie being Freddie, had died suddenly two months previously while driving his old banger to see if he could unearth something interesting at Loch Shiel and had left no will to indicate what he wanted done with the Rectory.

  James had simply had to inform his solicitor in the town what his intentions were and it had not once crossed his mind that he would fail to get what he wanted once all the technicalities of the place had been sorted out. He had the money, could move with speed to tie up any annoying loose ends and would be doing a service to the community by converting his own rambling baronial manor into a hotel, not to mention taking care of his mother, who wasn’t getting any younger and would be happier in the relative cosiness of the Rectory. Still close enough to keep a jaundiced eye on the manor, to argue with contractors and suppliers and employees, while not having to contend with the overwhelming size of the place. She didn’t look her age, had still retained the pure bone structure of the model she had once been, but she was sixty-five and didn’t need the worries of running a house the size of Dalgleish Manor with grounds to match, staff or no staff.

  He was furious that his plans had been scuppered at the last minute. His mansion in the outer reaches of Scotland was there to soothe his harried spirits not harbour yet more stress that he could do without.

  ‘Who’s bought the place, then?’ He spun round to look at his mother, switching on one of the table lamps to dispel the infernal duskiness that had settled in the room. ‘Some speculator, I presume? Someone who wants to convert the place into a little bed and breakfast where he can fleece innocent tourists and hobnob with the local gentry?’

  ‘You are not listening to what I have just told you, James.’

  ‘Of course I’m listening! I’ve done nothing but listen since you dropped this little gem on me!’

  ‘The place has not been sold,’ Maria repeated emphatically.

  ‘Not been sold? You just said…’ He breathed a sigh of relief as his long-range plans began to once again take root in his head. He had already got Max, one of his top architects, to begin doing some preliminary work on the conversion of the manor, based on a series of photographs. Step two would be a trip to the place for a couple of weeks to see how viable his thoughts were.

  ‘Well, if it’s just a question of someone showing interest then that’s fine. I was under the impression that the place was occupied.’ He shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets so that his trousers were dragged down slightly, the waistband dipping down the flat planes of his stomach. ‘I can beat off any competitor.’

  ‘Freddie left the Rectory to a relative,’ Maria Dalgleish said bluntly.

  ‘Freddie did…what?’

  ‘Willed the place to a relative. Everyone was as surprised as you are.’

  ‘He didn’t have any living relatives.’

  ‘Perhaps you could try telling that to the woman who moved in three days ago.’

  ‘Woman?’

  ‘I am not too sure what the relationship was. I do not even know what she looks like or how old she is. You can imagine that everyone is buzzing with curiosity.’

  ‘Woman?’ Why would a woman want to move to this part of Scotland? This was beautiful but rugged terrain, not the sort of place a woman would choose to make her home. His mother was one of the few women who had come to the area from afar and he knew from what she had told him smilingly over the years that she had arrived with a truckload of misgivings only to find that the rugged Highlands had suited her far more than she could ever have imagined. Jack Dalgleish had belonged to the place as much as the lochs and trees did and his happiness there had infected her—in fact had turned her into a pivotal member of the tightly knit community.

  ‘No one is really even too sure what her name is.’ Maria couldn’t help savouring the mystery, even though she flushed sheepishly at her own nosiness. ‘Valerie Ross happened to see the removal van heading out towards the Rectory and when she spoke to Graeme—you know Graeme—yesterday he told her that a woman would be moving in, but he couldn’t speak. He was on his way out of the house to the airport and I am sure got a great deal of pleasure allowing Valerie to stew in her own curiosity.’ Mother and son exchanged a split-second of mutual amusement at the accuracy of this surmise, then James was back to his frowning contemplation.

  ‘A woman,’ he murmured half to himself. ‘Well, if she’s decided to make this part of the world her bolt-hole, then she’s either a sad little lady with no life to speak of, hoping to find one here, or else she’s running away from something.’

  ‘What nonsense.’

  ‘Bad marriage, bad love affair, bad job.’

  ‘And what will you do?’ Maria looked at her son with a mixture of indulgence, down-to-earth cynicism and deep affection. ‘Persuade her that it is in her best interests to sell the place to you?’

  ‘Why not?’ He hadn’t realised, until this moment, how much he wanted to turn Dalgleish Manor into something, wanted the Rectory for his mother, wanted to invest some of his vast reserves of wealth and power in a project that was emotionally closer to home. His financial house, a place where deals and mergers were cemented and money made in sums only appreciative accountants could truly understand, kept him busy but it hadn’t been enough. Wasn’t that why he had trained his eyes on an ailing firm of architects and nurtured them into a multimillion-pound concern that now flourished throughout Europe? But the travel and privileges had done nothing for his soul. He wanted this project, wanted to watch it grow like a baby and delight in knowing that he would be doing what would eventually be right for his mother in the process. None of it would be possible without acquiring the Rectory. It was ideal.

  A woman. He felt a slight stirring of interest at the prospect of getting what he wanted. A woman was a far different cry from Freddie or, for that matter, from someone looking to make a quick buck. A woman he could handle. Fairly, generously, magnanimously even.

  ‘I think,’ he said, stroking his chin thoughtfully, ‘I might just pay a little visit to our new neighbour in the morning.’

  ‘I hope you don’t intend to intimidate anyone into doing anything,’ his mother said sternly and he grinned at her, a devilishly winning grin.

  ‘Now, now, Mama, would I?’

  Intimidation would have been the sports car, garaged when he was away and pulled out whenever the weather put him in the mood to drive through the unsullied roads around the estate in a fast car with the top down.

  Now, his old four-wheel-drive, on the other hand. Denim-blue, ten years old and still driving as sweetly as a nut. That wouldn’t intimidate an agoraphobic spinster with a fetish for twitching net curtains. As he now thought of his mystery obstacle.

  At ten o’clock the following morning he drove through his estate, breathing in the fine summer air wafting through the open windows, lush with the scents of grass and flowers and lochs, turned right when he hit the crossroads and took his time covering the short distance to the Rectory.

  Sara heard the car long before she spotted it. Something to do with the utter absence of noise in the place, she supposed.

  Yes, peace and silence had been things she had predicted weeks previously when she had sat at her glass kitchen table in her lavish apartment in Fulham, rereading the letter she had received from a solicitor whose name she had never heard, about a house in the wilds of nowhere willed to her by an uncle whose existence she had only dimly been aware of. Peace and silence that had seemed so alluring and were now proving to be unnerving, even after three days. Just something else unnerving to add to the list already mounting in the back of her mind. And unnerving was a kind way of putting it.

 
She waited by the kitchen window, watching the shimmering landscape and waiting to see the car that was almost certainly heading in her direction.

  ‘Everyone will want to meet you,’ she had been told slyly by Freddie’s lawyer, when they had finally met face to face over a cappuccino in one of the trendy London cafés. ‘They all pretty much expect the place to be sold. As far as everyone was concerned, Freddie was alone in the world. No wife, no children, no family.’

  Fool that she was, she had actually, six weeks ago, looked forward to the country life full of people who would know her name, had pleasantly anticipated walking into shops and chatting with the people inside them. Bliss, she had idiotically thought, after her time in London, where life had been lived at breakneck speed and smiling at the shop assistants was regarded as a form of lunacy.

  Her three days of isolation and peace had put paid to her illusions. She hated it here, hated the lack of noise, hated the horizon-less countryside, hated the utter stillness and had avoided heading into the town with something approaching obsession.

  Naturally, sooner or later, the town, she now thought, would come to meet her. One by one. And there, approaching in a blue vehicle, was visitor number one.

  Oh, heavens, but she had made a dreadful mistake. She had dared to think that the grass was going to be greener on the other side, and greener it was here, yes. Literally. But that was as far as it went. How on earth was she ever going to survive?

  The car trundled through the fields, wending a lazy and inexorable path towards the Rectory, and Sara fleetingly contemplated hiding.

  Where was Simon? She listened, heard him in the snug across the landing from the kitchen, happy as a lark, setting up his bricks on the low wooden table no doubt, a handy, child-friendly piece of furniture, precious few of which had previously cluttered his life.