Mirry fought hard to maintain her composure during the simple service, but lost it completely when her beloved godmother was finally laid to rest beside her husband in the family vault. By the time Simon and Nick had helped her to recover, they were the last to return to the Hall, where they found the family solicitor standing with a poker-faced Jay Elphick, introducing him to each mourner, in turn.
‘Ah, Simon and the two youngest members of the Grey family, Nicholas and Mirry,’ Mr Golding said affably, and again there was that strangely shocking jolt as she looked up into those cold grey eyes.
As Simon said, ‘I understand you met my sister this morning,’ those eyes raked her from head to toe. ‘Richard and I fell about laughing when we heard she’d left you with a sofa stuck half-way up the stairs,’ Simon went on irrepressibly. ‘But then, the temper goes with the red in her hair. I must say it’s great to meet you at last, Jay.’
Some of the stiffness left Jay’s expression, an element of uncertainty creeping in. That slight loosening up made Mirry realise he was actually very attractive—without her brothers’ ruggedness but with good bone-structure, high cheekbones, a straight nose and slightly jutting eyebrows that shadowed those cold grey eyes. He held himself proudly, with a touch of aggressiveness in the tilt of his chin. Not a face to reveal emotion, though; guarded.
Her gaze had reached his mouth as he made some polite reply to Simon. It was the only feature he had inherited from his father. Like Sir David’s it was full, well cut, though the way he tucked in the corners gave him a buttoned-up look. Unlike David’s, it was a mouth that looked as if it didn’t laugh much.
Simon moved away but Mr Golding detained Mirry. ‘I thought it advisable to get the reading of the will over today. In the dining-room in an hour?’ As Mirry nodded her agreement he went on, ‘Well, Mr Elphick, Mirry knows everyone here so I’ll leave you in her capable hands.’
He wandered off and Mirry took the opportunity to make her overdue apology. ‘I’m sorry for flying at you this morning, Jay, but I’m sure you can understand how sensitive I am where Nick’s concerned.’
Again the silvery gaze raked over her. ‘No one could mistake you for a gypsy this afternoon, Miss Grey.’ His gaze moved to Nick, who still stood behind her. ‘If apologies are the order of the day, then I owe you mine, Nick. My remarks were uncalled for and your sister was justifiably upset. I can only say I’m sorry if you were hurt, and ask you to forgive me.’
A grin spread over Nick’s face. ‘Sure, Jay. Mirry’n’ me, we talked about you coming to Wenlow…hoped we’d be friends.’
That Jay understood Nick’s speech, slurred though it was, was apparent in the derisive eyebrows he raised at Mirry. ‘Did you, indeed? And I was cloddish enough to give you the worst possible impression of my manners?
Mirry was embarrassed by Nick’s guileless confession, but relieved enough by the warming of the atmosphere to concede ruefully, ‘We couldn’t have made a good impression, either.’ Feeling the need to explain her brother’s problem, she added, ‘Nick can cope with most things now, but still has trouble with his speech.’
‘The words sort of jam up.’ Nick’s boyish face lit up. ‘I say, Martha’s bringing on the eats.’
As he made a beeline for the housekeeper, Jay asked abruptly, ‘What happened to him? I gather from your remarks this morning he wasn’t born handicapped.’
‘No, Nick was probably the brightest of all my brothers. He was knocked off his bicycle by a drunken driver.’ Again Mirry felt the wash of futile anger and took a deep breath. ‘The doctors said he would always be a cabbage, but we proved them wrong.’
‘All your brothers? How many do you have, then?’
‘Five. I—’
‘Five?’ He stared at her disbelievingly.
‘You sound as if you don’t approve of large families,’ Mirry challenged. ‘I can assure you we were all wanted, and Mum and Dad had enough love to spare for numerous foster children, too.’
A strange look slid from behind the poker-faced mask Jay seemed to wear habitually. ‘I didn’t intend to criticise. It sounds great, to be part of a large family.’ The note of wistfulness Mirry detected made him seem more approachable, and when he went on, ‘I’ve been introduced to them, obviously, but with so many people… Would you point them out to me again?’
She found herself complying with all her natural warmth. ‘That’s William, by the fireplace. He’s the eldest—thirty-seven. He’s a consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician. Eleanor, the dark girl with him, was a physiotherapist before they married. It’s thanks to her that Nick’s made such a wonderful recovery.’ Her affection for her favourite sister-in-law was unconsciously revealed in her voice.
She let her gaze move further round the room. ‘The next one’s Richard. That’s him over there by the door.’
‘The one with the gorgeous blonde?’ Jay asked.
‘The gorgeous blonde is his wife, Sandra,’ Mirry said sharply.
He looked down at her from his poker-face. ‘It can’t be because I admired her that put the lemons in your voice. Don’t you like the beauteous Sandra?’
‘Of course I do.’ Then honesty prompted her to confess, ‘But not as much as Eleanor. Richard’s an engineer, runs his own firm. Simon comes next. He’s an airline pilot and lives in London.’
‘And let me guess… unmarried?’
Mirry was surprised into bubbling laughter. ‘Does it show? He’s probably disappeared with the prettiest girl he can find. Now, that’s Andrew.’ She put a hand on his arm to draw him aside where he had a clear view of Andrew doggedly talking to the Frosts while their daughter Annabel was just as doggedly trying to ignore him.
‘He’s not married either, though he’s trying to interest the girl he’s with.’ The Frosts ran the local riding stables, and during her teen years the lovestruck Annabel had dogged the embarrassed and evasive Andrew’s footsteps. Only when he had brought a girl home with him from horticultural college had she relinquished her hopeless love, taking herself off to work as a stable girl on a stud farm on the other side of the country. She had left a coltish schoolgirl and returned a tall, lithe, confident young woman who seemed not to notice Andrew’s stunned expression on seeing her again, or to set much store by his frequent excuses to call at the Frost place. Mirry suspected Annabel wasn’t as indifferent to Andrew as she appeared, but who could blame her for punishing him a little?
Poor Andrew’s dilemma put a sparkle into Mirry’s brown eyes, something that seemed to fascinate her companion. ‘Andrew is my father’s partner in the garden centre. Nick helps there, too.’ Some of her sparkle died. ‘Nick was the brightest of them all,’ she went on sadly. ‘He was at Cambridge and was due to take his finals when that car put an end to everything.’
‘So where do you come in the family?’ Jay wanted to know.
‘At the tail end.’ Mirry grinned. ‘I’m twenty-three, only a year younger than Nick, but he never lets me forget I’m the baby.’
‘This morning I’d have called you a liar, but this afternoon…’ his gaze lingered on the swell of her breasts ‘…I can believe it.’
It was as if he had touched her where his glance rested, quickening her heartbeat, tingling her skin, making her breasts ache for something nameless.
Growing up with five brothers, Mirry believed herself to be knowledgeable in the ways of men. In fact, for a modern girl she was unusually inexperienced. Of course, she had flirted with her brothers’ friends, had laughingly enjoyed their kisses. But nothing had prepared her for the oddly disturbing sensations just a look from Jay Elphick aroused.
‘I suppose you have an equally glamorous career,’ he said, and Mirry found herself longing to impress him, but had to admit, ‘Well, no. For the last two years I’ve lived at home.’
Before she could explain the reason, he said with a distinct sneer, ‘With five brothers to pander to your whims, you feel justified in living off your parents while you wait for your slice of the Wenlow estate?�
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Mirry’s initial reaction was shocked indignation, but with a superhuman effort she managed to rein it in. ‘You do believe attack is the finest form of defence, don’t you?’ she said reflectively. ‘Just what is it you’re defending yourself against, Jay?’
Her restraint paid off because she could see he hadn’t been prepared for it, nor did he like it. But he recovered quickly, that beautiful mouth curving into the semblance of a smile, while the silvery eyes remained contemptuous. ‘Oh, come now, The estimable Mrs Barks informed me the Greys at the Dower House were Lady Jayston’s only relatives. Legitimate relatives. And you must all be hating my guts, the bastard you’re having to share the loot with. So why are you all pretending the friendly welcome?’
Privately Mirry thought some people were bastards by an accident of birth, while others were bastards by nature, but aloud she said gently, ‘Jay, we’ve always known about you, and that Wenlow would be yours one day, so as none of us ever had any expectations, why on earth would we hate you? I’m sorry you—’
But before she could go on a feminine voice complained, ‘Mirry, you are a beast, keeping Jay to yourself when we’re all dying to talk to him.’
Tall and athletic, Annabel Frost always made Mirry feel like a shrimp. Shaking back her glossy fair hair, she smiled flirtatiously at Jay, and Mirry watched as the poker-faced, buttoned-up expression melted, the fascinating mouth curving into a genuine smile that even reached those silvery-grey eyes as he responded to Annabel’s approach.
The two girls had always had a friendly relationship, but at that moment she wished Annabel a thousand miles away. Instead she said politely, ‘I’m sure you’ve already been introduced to Annabel, Jay.’
‘Ah, yes, you run the riding stables, I believe.’
‘You must have a phenomenal memory to remember that when you’ve met so many people today,’ Annabel said admiringly. ‘Actually, I was working on a stud farm near Newmarket until…’
Mirry moved away and neither of them noticed.
CHAPTER THREE
Good manners kept Mirry chatting and smiling, while inside she felt she had received a public slap. Of course she couldn’t blame Jay for preferring the much prettier Annabel’s company, but she was puzzled and hurt by his open antagonism.
She was jerked out of her abstraction when a deep voice redolent of the Canadian prairies said, ‘I kept wondering who the mysterious pocket Venus in black was until I heard her laugh.’
‘Keir!’ Mirry’s face lit up, unaware that her laughing surprise had Jay’s head turning to look. ‘I thought you were still in Canada. Where’s Abigail?’
He moved his large frame sideways, hooking his arm about a roundly pregnant young woman making a smiling remark to the vicar. ‘Never farther from me than I can help. Look who I’ve found, Abby. Young Mirry masquerading as a sophisticated woman of the world.’
‘Take no notice of his teasing, Mirry, you look wonderful.’ Abigail Minto’s accent was uncompromisingly English.
Mirry flushed with pleasure at the compliment. ‘I don’t have to ask how you are, Abby, obviously blooming. I can’t imagine how I missed seeing you earlier.’ She laughed. ‘There’s certainly more of you than there was a month ago. How was Canada?’
‘Wonderful!’ The glance Abby exchanged with her husband suggested that, in spite of her being almost six months pregnant, the trip had been something of a second honeymoon. ‘The flying was tiring but my in-laws have been spoiling me rotten.’ The smile in her dark eyes faded to be replaced by intense regret. ‘But we had to come back as soon as we heard about Georgie. We owe her so much, don’t we, darling?’
‘I’ll say!’ Keir agreed. ‘She had such a zest for life, it was only too easy to forget she was tied to that wheelchair.’ He grinned. ‘Who but Georgie could have weaned my wife from her classical music and given her an interest in jazz?’
‘Which reminds me—’ Abby broke in. ‘What about the send-off the jazz club is giving Georgie tonight? Have you asked the new heir if it can still go ahead?’
Dismay was written clearly on Mirry’s vivid face. ‘Oh, grief! I forgot all about it.’
‘No sweat,’ Keir said easily. ‘We’ll go and ask him now. Is he staying overnight?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ For the first time since walking away from him, Mirry allowed her glance to seek Jay out, a hollow feeling in her stomach when she saw he was still in close conversation with Annabel, who was sparkling up at him as if she’d found the crock of gold at the end of the rainbow.
‘You were talking to him all that time and never asked him his plans?’ Abby asked curiously.
‘He—he was asking about the family.’ She grimaced. ‘I don’t think he likes us.’
‘Oh, come on, honey,’ Keir protested. ‘How could he know on such short acquaintance? And what’s to dislike, for pity’s sake?’
‘Thanks for the commendation, Keir.’ Mirry managed a wry grin. ‘All the same, I think you’re more likely to get his permission to use the music-room tonight than I am.’
Keir’s eyebrows nearly disappeared into the dark fall of hair across his brow, but it was Abby who expressed their curiosity. ‘What on earth did go on between you, Mirry? I’ve never known you take an instant dislike to anyone before.’
‘I don’t dislike him,’ Mirry denied at once. In fact, as she watched the genuine amusement on his face as Annabel flirted openly with him, she was startled to admit her overriding emotion was envy. ‘Let’s just say I’m wary of crossing swords with him again.’
‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ Abby murmured. ‘Come on, Keir, I can’t wait to meet the man who has such an effect on our Mirry.’ Her brown eyes full of mischief she added to Mirry, ‘I’ll report my findings later.’
Pretending a complete lack of interest, Mirry was nevertheless aware that Annabel didn’t welcome the Mintos’ intrusion, nor could she help noticing the growing interest in Keir’s face as the two men talked, or close her ears to the laughter of four people getting on well together. And she wasn’t the only one who felt out of it, she realised, catching sight of Andrew as he too watched from across the room.
Was Annabel turning the screw on Andrew a little more, or was she genuinely attracted to Jay? Mirry wondered, then saw the solicitor join the group and Jay make his excuses. It was time to go to the dining-room for the reading of Georgie’s will.
As Mirry crossed the room, Abby intercepted her. ‘I don’t know what you found so alarming about him, Mirry. He was a bit stiff at first, but he soon loosened up.’ Her eyes widened in a look of innocence. ‘Annabel certainly finds him charming.’
‘Because he put himself out to charm her,’ Mirry said wryly. ‘He didn’t trouble with me.’
‘I wonder why not?’ Abby’s tone was speculative as she eyed her friend. ‘Oh, Annabel’s attractive enough, but you, Mirry—you look good enough to eat.’
‘Thank you, but your partiality’s showing.’ Mirry laughed disbelievingly, then, as Helen Dutton hovered at her elbow, added, ‘Shall I see you later?’
‘Tonight,’ Abby said. ‘Jay has no objections to us using the music-room, in fact he was rather intrigued.’
Jay was already at the long table when Mirry and the nurse walked into the dining-room, Martha Barks sitting at a respectful distance. He didn’t even turn his head to acknowledge her arrival. Mr Golding saw them seated then cleared his throat, rustled his papers and began, the legal phrases rolling off his tongue.
First there was the bequest to the long-serving housekeeper, which meant Martha could retire if she wished. Likewise Helen Dutton. Then Mr Golding continued, ‘And to my beloved goddaughter, Georgina Catherine Grey…’ Her head bowed, she was still aware that Jay twisted suddenly in his chair, his eyes burning into her.
Mr Golding went on to enumerate the pieces of jewellery Mirry knew so well. ‘We’ll check them off against the list when all the legalities have been completed, Mirry,’ he suggested, and she nodded, aware again of Jay’s sudden move
ment.
Afraid he might make another of his snide remarks, she stood up, breaking into Mr Golding’s portentous, ‘And now we come to the main bequest—’
‘Forgive me, Mr Golding, but as the rest doesn’t concern us, perhaps Martha, Helen and I should leave?’
Helen immediately got to her feet, Martha more slowly and much more reluctantly.
‘Yes… yes, of course.’ Courteously, the solicitor rose to escort the two older women to the door.
Mirry moved to follow when she heard Jay say in a stinging undertone, ‘Cutting and running with the loot, Miss Grey?’
Mirry stopped dead, this fresh attack making her feel more hurt than angry. Facing him with unconscious dignity, she said quietly, ‘The “loot” is some personal jewellery of Lady Jayston’s. Besides being my godmother, she and my father were first cousins with a grandmother in common. It’s her jewellery I’ve inherited—my great-grandmother’s. I’m sure Mr Golding will be able to tell you the Jayston heirlooms have all been kept intact for you.’ Without giving him time to reply, she stalked from the room.
The numbers had thinned considerably, her parents standing by the door as people said their farewells. Mirry was still inwardly quaking from Jay’s latest attack, and to keep herself occupied she took the heavy tray from Martha and bore it away to the kitchen where the helpers had already started work. Not unnaturally, the sole topic of conversation was Jay Elphick, a discussion Mirry avoided by bustling backwards and forwards clearing up.
Soon there was only the family remaining—and Jay seeing the solicitor off. ‘I’ll be in touch when the audit’s complete,’ Mr Golding was saying. ‘In the meantime you’re at liberty to make use of the house as and when you like.’
‘Oh, I do hope you’ll move in soon, Jay,’ Cathy Grey said warmly. ‘It’s high time we got to know you. Come round to dinner this evening. That’s if you don’t have to rush back to London…’
Mirry saw first puzzlement and then suspicion reflected in Jay’s silver-grey eyes, and tensed for the snub she was sure was coming. At that moment he glanced at her, and as if in answer to her silent plea said with cool courtesy, ‘Thank you, Mrs Grey, but as you say, I have other commitments.’
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