To Marry McAllister

by Carole Mortimer - Bachelor Cousins 03 - To Marry McAllister

  She shook her head, once again glancing at her wrist-watch. ‘I really do have to go—’

  ‘I went outside after you fainted and told Clive to cancel your engagement for this evening,’ Brice told her softly.

  ‘You did what?’ Sabina gasped, her eyes widening disbelievingly.

  ‘I’m sure you heard what I said,’ he drawled. ‘I also told him you wouldn’t be needing him any more this evening.’

  Sabina opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it again. Before opening it again. And then closing it yet again.

  If the situation weren’t so damned serious, Brice would have found her reaction to his arrogance amusing. A speechless Sabina was certainly something to behold. And maybe he had been rather heavy-handed in his behaviour, but if Sabina wasn’t prepared to look after herself, then someone else would have to do it for her. But considering Latham was such a watchdog in other ways—

  ‘Where’s Richard this evening?’ he rasped.

  ‘Away,’ she managed to choke out, obviously still stunned by the way he had taken over her evening for her.

  ‘Again?’ Brice muttered disgustedly. ‘And what does he think you are—a prize exhibit to be taken out and admired whenever he deigns to be at home?’ He remembered all too clearly David Latham’s opinion of his uncle.

  Sabina looked deeply irritated. ‘You’re being ridiculous. Richard is a very busy man—’

  ‘So am I,’ Brice cut in scathingly. ‘But I certainly wouldn’t leave you on your own to get into this state.’

  She glared at him resentfully. ‘What state?’

  Oh, she looked hauntingly beautiful, there was no doubting that. But she was so thin she looked as if he might snap her in half, and her eyes were like huge dark pools, the hollows of her cheeks only emphasising the shadows beneath those eyes.

  Brice shook his head disgustedly. ‘You’re as skittish as an overbred racehorse—’

  ‘Thank you very much!’ she scorned.

  ‘It wasn’t meant as a compliment,’ he snapped.

  ‘I didn’t take it as one,’ she snapped right back.

  ‘You—’

  ‘Dinner is served, Mr Brice,’ Mrs Potter appeared in the doorway to announce, obviously having knocked but not having been heard.

  Not surprising really—when Brice and Sabina were as good as shouting at each other!

  Sabina became very still. ‘Dinner, Brice?’ she questioned softly.

  Brice wasn’t deceived for a moment by the mildness of her tone—Sabina was already furious over his having so arrogantly cancelled her plans for the evening; having the nerve to instruct Mrs Potter to serve dinner to them both here as an alternative was obviously going too far as far as she was concerned!

  ‘We both need to eat, Sabina,’ he told her dismissively; for some reason his own appetite seemed to have returned to him!

  Her eyes flashed her anger at him, but the quick glance she gave in Mrs Potter’s direction showed she was too ladylike to actually say to him what she really wanted to in front of his housekeeper.

  Thank goodness!

  Brice was well aware that his earlier actions had been arrogant in the extreme, but at the time he had been so worried about Sabina that worry had materialised as anger as she’d remained in the faint, so much so that he had marched straight out of the house and rapped out his instruction to Richard Latham’s driver-watchdog, not even waiting to see if they were carried out before slamming back into the house.

  He had merely compounded that arrogance by asking Mrs Potter, when he’d gone to the kitchen for the glass of water, if she could provide dinner for the two of them!

  Brice turned to his housekeeper. ‘We’ll be through in a few minutes, Mrs Potter,’ he assured her dismissively.

  ‘How dare you?’ Sabina turned on him as soon as they were alone again, standing up abruptly to glare across at him accusingly. ‘How dare you?’ she repeated in incredulous anger.

  He shrugged. ‘I think you need to eat, Sabina—’

  ‘I’m not just talking about dinner, Brice,’ she came back heatedly. ‘How dare you cancel my plans for the evening? How dare you send Clive away? One kiss doesn’t give you those sort of rights, Brice,’ she told him scornfully.

  After days of tension, Brice could feel himself starting to relax. Because, despite her denials, he now knew that kiss had meant something to her—she wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise!

  Too late for Sabina, he could see that she had just realised that for herself…

  He grinned at her unabashedly. ‘Ah, Sabina, but what a kiss!’

  ‘You—I—you are incorrigible!’ she finally spluttered weakly.

  Brice shrugged. ‘Part of my charm.’

  Sabina eyed him scathingly, but with none of her earlier anger. ‘Arrogance is not a virtue, Brice,’ she told him derisively.

  ‘Neither is starvation,’ he dismissed lightly. ‘Shall we go through to dinner?’ he invited, dark brows raised challengingly as he held out his arm for her to take.

  Sabina returned his gaze frustratedly, obviously fighting some sort of war within herself.

  Brice waited for her to come to her decision. Not patiently. But he did wait. He had probably done enough bullying for one evening!

  ‘Okay,’ she finally sighed. ‘But only as my driver has been dismissed, and my dinner this evening seems to have been cancelled,’ she reminded pointedly. ‘And under one condition…’ she added huskily, her gaze steady on his.

  Brice tensed warily. ‘Which is?’

  She drew in a ragged breath. ‘No more questions about my personal correspondence,’ she stated evenly.

  Brice had thought it might be something like that, and it wasn’t a condition he particularly wanted to agree to, especially after her reaction to his questions earlier. But if it meant Sabina stayed and had dinner with him without any more argument…

  ‘Okay,’ he agreed, once again filing that piece of information away for a future conversation. Because he had every intention, at some time in the not too distant future, of finding out exactly what had been in that letter.

  Sabina made a point of not taking the arm he held out to her as they walked through to the dining-room. But that didn’t bother Brice too much, either; now that she had agreed to have dinner with him he had her company for at least another couple of hours, so why push his luck? In any direction!

  Brice might think he had won this round, Sabina realised as he saw her seated at the dining table before sitting down opposite her, but she could have told him differently. It merely took less effort to agree to have dinner with him than the alternative of having to call a taxi, sit and wait for it to arrive, and then finding something to eat when she got home.

  At least…that was what she told herself.

  She was actually very aware now that she had forgotten to eat at all today, feeling slightly shaky and light-headed. As if to prove the point, her stomach gave a hungry growl as Mrs Potter placed a bowl of thick vegetable soup in front of her seconds later.

  Sabina looked up and smiled gratefully at the housekeeper. ‘I hope I’m not inconveniencing you too much?’

  ‘Not in the least,’ the other woman assured her. ‘It will be nice to see Mr Brice eat his dinner; he’s been completely off his food this last few days,’ she reproved her employer lightly before going back to the kitchen.

  Sabina made a great show of eating her soup, unable to look at Brice for the moment, having trouble keeping her face straight; she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been eating properly just recently.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ Brice muttered after several silent minutes had passed, ‘so I haven’t done justice to Mrs Potter’s cooking the last three days, either.’ He grimaced self-derisively.

  Sabina sobered slightly, not sure that she liked the implication of that statement. It had been three days since she’d last had dinner with Brice. Since he had kissed her…

  She had tried not to dwell on thoughts of that kiss the last three d
ays, knowing she shouldn’t think of it at all, but finding the memory of it popping back into her head when she least expected—or wanted—it to do so. Which was all the time!

  ‘What a pity—this soup is delicious,’ Sabina remarked blandly, unwilling to get into any more discussion about what had happened between them three days ago.

  She was engaged to Richard, owed him so much, and the kiss between Brice and herself should never had happened. And the sooner it was forgotten, by both of them, the better she would like it!

  ‘I’ve been thinking—’

  ‘I really would like you—’

  They both broke off, having started talking at the same time.

  ‘You first,’ Sabina invited.

  ‘No, you go first,’ Brice insisted. ‘Despite what you may think to the contrary, I haven’t forgotten my manners completely,’ he added ruefully.

  She shrugged. ‘I was merely going to ask if you would reconsider not doing the portrait.’ She paused in eating her soup to look at him expectantly.

  ‘No,’ he answered uncompromisingly.

  Well, that was pretty blunt and to the point! But Brice was being altogether silly about this, must know that it wasn’t a good idea for them to spend time alone together.

  As they were doing now!

  They made a very strange couple too, she realised ruefully; she was dressed to go out for the evening and meet the general public, and Brice, besides being unshaven, looked as if he might have slept in the clothes he was wearing.

  ‘Sorry about this.’ He seemed to become aware of at least some of her thoughts, running a rueful hand over the stubble on his chin. ‘I can go up and shave once we’ve finished our soup, if you would prefer it?’ He raised dark brows questioningly.

  She actually would have preferred it. But not for the reason he seemed to think. The truth was, Brice looked more piratical than ever with the dark growth of beard on the squareness of his jaw. Altogether too rakishly attractive.

  What disconcerted her the most, though, was that Brice once again seemed to have picked up on at least some of her thoughts. Although not all of them, thank goodness!

  ‘Please don’t bother on my account, Brice. It’s of absolutely no interest to me whether or not you’ve shaved today,’ she told him coolly, aware by the tightening of his mouth that he didn’t particularly care for her condescending tone.

  ‘It seems I don’t have the monopoly on rudeness,’ he rasped harshly.

  She sat back, her soup finished, a façade of unconcern firmly in place. ‘You haven’t told me yet what you were going to say earlier,’ she reminded lightly.

  Brice’s irritated scowl looked as if he would have liked to continue the conversation they were having now, and then he shrugged it off impatiently. ‘I’m going up to Scotland for a couple of days next weekend,’ he rasped. ‘I want you to come with me.’

  Sabina stared at him disbelievingly; he couldn’t really have just invited her to go to Scotland with him. Could he…?

  His mouth twisted derisively as he took in her stunned expression. ‘I wasn’t suggesting an illicit couple of days away together,’ he drawled mockingly. ‘I’m going to my grandfather’s castle.’

  This explanation didn’t make the invitation sound any more innocent to Sabina; after all, he hadn’t said his grandfather would actually be at the castle…!

  ‘Exactly what are you suggesting, Brice?’ she derided mockingly.

  ‘I—’ He broke off as Mrs Potter returned to take away their used soup bowls, waiting until the housekeeper had once again departed before continuing. ‘I know exactly how and where I want to paint you,’ he told her with satisfaction.

  ‘How and where…?’ she repeated warily, not liking the sound of this at all.

  ‘I am not a portrait painter, Sabina,’ he dismissed impatiently. ‘I told your fiancé that from the beginning,’ he added frowningly.

  ‘But you just insisted you’re going to paint me,’ she reminded with a puzzled frown.

  ‘I am going to paint you,’ he confirmed enthusiastically. ‘The way that you look, it would be a tragedy not to. But I’m not intending to do some posed portrait of you; if Latham wants that he can stick a photograph of you up on the wall,’ he added disgustedly. ‘No, I want to paint you in one of the turret rooms of my grandfather’s castle, sitting at the open window, with that silken golden hair trailing in the wind—’

  ‘Wearing a diaphanous gown, and little else,’ Sabina concluded derisively. ‘The name Rapunzel somehow comes to mind!’ she added tauntingly.

  Although that wasn’t how she was feeling inside, a nervous fluttering having begun in her stomach just at the thought of posing for Brice looking like that. What he was proposing was pure fantasy—and she already knew that, where Brice McAllister was concerned, she had to keep their relationship strictly on a feet-on-the-ground basis!

  Because, if she didn’t, she was very much afraid she might get caught up in the fantasy!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BRICE could already see the refusal forming on Sabina’s lips. And that was something he couldn’t allow.

  He didn’t know how, or when, the idea had first come to him, but he had suddenly known a few minutes ago exactly how he wanted to paint Sabina. That it was the only way he could paint her!

  Sabina had been staring at him wordlessly, but now she shook her head. ‘I really don’t think that was quite what Richard had in mind when he suggested you paint me,’ she began mockingly.

  ‘As I recall, he didn’t suggest it at all,’ Brice rasped impatiently, remembering only too well the other man’s arrogant assumption that Brice couldn’t possibly turn him down. ‘And I really don’t give a damn what Latham “had in mind”,’ he dismissed scathingly. ‘If he doesn’t like the painting when it’s finished, I’ll keep the damned thing myself!’ he added firmly.

  He would probably want to do that anyway, if the painting turned out to be as good as he hoped it would!

  Sabina shook her head slowly. ‘I really can’t come to Scotland with you, Brice—’

  ‘Why the hell not?’ he demanded impatiently, fuelled with enthusiasm now that the inspiration had come to him, wanting to get started on the painting as quickly as possible. ‘My grandfather will be there, so your virtue will be completely safe,’ he assured her dryly.

  She blinked. ‘Your grandfather will be there?’ she repeated doubtfully.

  Brice grinned. ‘Once I tell him I’m bringing the beautiful model Sabina with me, I’m sure he will,’ he confirmed ruefully. ‘Grandfather may be in his early eighties, but he still has an eye for a beautiful woman!’

  Sabina gave a vague smile at this description of his grandfather, but otherwise continued to look unconvinced.

  ‘Whereabouts in Scotland does your mother live?’ Brice tried a different approach, knowing he had to get Sabina’s agreement to his idea of the two of them going to Scotland. He just had to!

  ‘My mother?’ she repeated dazedly.

  ‘Do try to stay up with the conversation, Sabina,’ Brice taunted teasingly. ‘I’m suggesting we go to Scotland. Your mother lives in Scotland too.’ He deliberately spoke slowly and clearly. ‘If it’s anywhere near my grandfather’s home you could visit her while we’re there.’

  Sabina shook her head, this conversation obviously running on too swiftly for her liking.

  But Brice was always like this when the inspiration hit him. And, despite doing numerous sketches of her, he had been in a complete fog where painting Sabina was concerned; but he could see her at his grandfather’s castle now, knew exactly how right she was going to look.

  ‘But I’ve never—’ Sabina broke off what she had been about to say, biting her lip distractedly.

  ‘Never what?’ Brice frowned at her. ‘Never visited your mother in Scotland?’ he realised incredulously. ‘How long did you say she’s lived there?’

  ‘Five years,’ Sabina admitted reluctantly.

  ‘Then it’s way past time you did v
isit her,’ Brice told her disgustedly.

  Her cheeks flushed resentfully at his obvious rebuke. ‘I think any future plans I make to see my mother are—’

  ‘Your concern,’ Brice finished derisively. ‘Probably they are. But as we’re going to be in Scotland, anyway—’

  ‘I haven’t agreed to go with you yet,’ Sabina protested.

  ‘You’ll need to see Chloe early next week too,’ he continued frowningly. ‘She—’

  ‘Chloe?’ Sabina echoed dazedly. ‘You mean Chloe Fox?’

  ‘Or Chloe McCloud, whichever you prefer.’ He nodded. ‘I want her to design and make a dress for you. I know exactly what it has to look like, so Chloe can actually draw the design before seeing you, and then it will just be a case of making it up to your measurements. Am I going too fast for you, Sabina?’ he drawled mockingly as she was looking more and more weighed down by the minute with this bombardment of information.

  ‘Too fast!’ Sabina repeated agitatedly. ‘You—’ She broke off as Mrs Potter arrived to serve their main course.

  More of the roast chicken that Brice hadn’t been able to eat earlier, served with fresh Rosti potatoes and a mixed salad.

  ‘It looks delicious,’ Sabina told the housekeeper warmly.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Potter.’ Brice smiled his appreciation at his housekeeper before she left the room. ‘You were saying?’ he prompted Sabina, even as he put a large serving of the potatoes onto her plate beside the slices of chicken.

  ‘I have no idea how my schedule stands for next week,’ she told him determinedly. ‘But I very much doubt I have a couple of days free in which to go up to Scotland. Even if I wanted to go,’ she added irritably.

  ‘Which you don’t,’ Brice easily guessed.

  ‘Which I don’t,’ she echoed forcefully.

  ‘Hmm,’ he murmured consideringly. ‘You work too hard, you know. Why is that?’ he mused lightly. ‘You’ve been at the top for years now, so it certainly can’t be because of the money—or can it?’ He stopped frowningly.