CHAPTER ONE
Gabriel Greppi stood outside the compact, ivy-clad Victorian house for a few minutes, his hands thrust into the pockets of his beaten suede jacket. He glanced up towards the left of the house, and saw that her room was in darkness. It would be. She would be at the stables now, even though it was after nine and the countryside was sunk in the frozen grip of winter.
The thought of her brought a smile to his lips. For her, he would go through this, but it wouldn’t always be this way. He knew it. Could feel it in his bones. Knocking on the door of this house and being made to feel like a beggar, a distasteful presence to be endured by her parents with that particularly freezing politeness so typical of the British upper crust. No, things would change. He was only twenty-two and it might be a long haul, but things would change.
He hardened his jaw and pressed his finger to the doorbell, listening to it resound through the house, then he lounged against the doorframe and waited until the door was cautiously pulled open. Gabriel was tempted to ask whether they were expecting bandits to ring the bell before entering the house, but he refrained. A keen sense of humour had never been one of Peter Jackson’s striking qualities, although that might just have been towards him.
‘Greppi. What brings you here, boy?’
Gabriel gritted his teeth together and summoned up all his self-control not to respond with something he would live to regret.
‘Could I have a word with you, Mr Jackson?’ He insinuated his foot through the small opening, just in case Peter Jackson gave in to the temptation to slam the door in his face.
‘What, now? Can’t it wait?’
Peter Jackson gave an impatient click of his tongue and regarded Gabriel’s dark, handsome face with irritation, then he reluctantly pulled open the door and stepped back. ‘If you’ve come to see my daughter, then you can start heading back to that house of yours, boy. Laura’s in bed and I have no intention of getting her out of it at this ungodly hour.’
‘It’s nine o’clock.’
‘Precisely.’
‘And I haven’t come to see Laura, I have come to you. You and your wife.’ Gabriel fought to maintain his composure but, under his weathered jacket and faded jeans, every muscle in his hard body had tensed.
That stopped Peter Jackson in his tracks. He paused and narrowed his blue eyes. ‘I hope you don’t intend to ask any favours of me, boy, because I can tell you right now that the answer is a resounding negative. I am not in the habit of bailing out anyone financially.’
‘I have not come here to ask for money.’ He kept his tone as polite as he could, but the derision underneath was unmistakable and the older man’s mouth tightened.
‘Then say what you have to say and leave.’
This was turning out to be a big mistake. He had chosen to take the honourable path and now he wondered what had possessed him.
‘Perhaps I could speak with your wife as well.’
‘Oh, very well. But you’ll have to be brief. My wife is not a well woman. She needs to get to bed at a reasonable hour.’ He turned and began walking towards the snug and
Gabriel followed behind him, slightly taller and with the easy, graceful stride of someone attuned with his body.
‘Lizzie, darling, we have an unexpected visitor. No, no need to get up. It’s just Greppi.’
Elizabeth Jackson sat in one of the big, padded armchairs, a fragile figure but with the stunning prettiness of a woman who even now, in her mid-fifties, could still make heads turn. The classic English rose who exuded good breeding from every one of her fingertips. Neither invited him to sit, nor was he offered a drink, although both were, he could tell, curious to find out what the hell he was doing in their house at the unseemly hour of nine in the evening.
Peter Jackson stood behind his wife’s chair, as ruggedly impressive as she was delicately pretty. ‘If you’re thinking of buying one of Iho horses, Greppi, then you’re out of luck. Laura tells me that you have a knack with Barnabus, but he’s not for sale. If you could afford him, which I frankly doubt. Might be a bit tempestuous, that stallion, but he’ll make a damned fine racehorse with the proper training, so don’t think you can cut yourself a deal cheaply simply because you know how to handle him. Or, for that matter, because my daughter chooses to associate with you. I am doing enough of a good deed by employing you to do odd jobs around the stables on the weekends.’
‘I have come to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.’
I have come to tell you that I am from another planet. I have come to tell you that I am the son of Satan. Gabriel watched their astounded expressions and figured that he might as well have confronted them with either of those two possibilities.
‘I know that Laura thinks the world of you both and I would very much like to receive your blessing.’ Gabriel’s nerves remained steady as he stared at them both. Young he might be in years, but his life had not been an easy ride and he had learned to deal with pretty much anything that could be thrown at him. Including Laura’s snobbish, insular parents who had made it clear from the very first moment they had set eyes on him that he was one of life’s more lowly inhabitants.
‘I love your daughter, and whilst I realise that at the moment I may not have much to offer her, I assure—’
That broke the gaping silence surrounding them. The mention of his penury. Peter Jackson flung back his head and roared with laughter, then he sobered up sufficiently to wipe a few residual tears of mirth from his eyes.
‘What, are you completely mad, Greppi? Now you listen to me and you listen carefully, boy.’ The older man leaned over his wife and enunciated his words very slowly, as if addressing someone whose grasp of English was faulty. ‘Neither Lizzie nor myself approved of your involvement with Laura, but she’s a big girl and there has not been much we could do about it. However, the only way you will marry our daughter is over my dead body! Do you read me loud and clear, boy? She is our jewel and there is no way on the face of this green earth that we will give our blessing to any marriage between the two of you.’
‘She’s only a child, Gabriel.’ Elizabeth Jackson’s voice was quiet but firm. ‘Nineteen years old. And you’re only a child as well.’
‘Why don’t we cut through the child argument and get to the heart of the matter?’ Gabriel said with rigid self-control. ‘You see me as an inferior citizen because I am not British.’
‘That’s not true, young man!’ But Elizabeth Jackson’s protest was as empty as a shell. The truth was stamped on her husband’s face and Gabriel turned his head to one side in anger.
‘You’re not what we have in mind for a son-in-law, Greppi. I have no doubt that you’ll make something of yourself, and good luck to you, but Laura deserves...’
‘Better?’ Gabriel’s voice was spiked with acidity.
‘Call it what you will. And I warn you, Greppi, you leave our daughter alone. We haven’t wanted to interfere, but you are no longer welcome at these stables. You can find somewhere else to do your riding and earn your extra money.’
And that was the end of the discussion. Gabriel could see it in the way the old man turned towards the window, offering him the dismissive view of his back.
‘Very well.’ Jet-black eyes smouldered as he looked at the two of them who would both breathe a sigh of heartfelt relief when he disappeared out of their line of vision.
But this was not over. He had appealed to them for their blessing and they had turned him down. Laura would not. He would have preferred to have married the woman he loved with her parents fully on his side, but if that was not to be the case, then so be it.
He turned on his heel and walked out of the room, let-ting himself out of the front door. The
meeting, which he had imagined would have lasted at least an hour, an hour of persuading them that, whatever their prejudices, he would devote his entire life to making their beloved daughter happy, had lasted a scant ten minutes.
The stables were set away from the house. Gabriel made sure to exit along the drive, knowing that her father would probably have leapt to the window just to make sure that he was leaving the premises, and, after a few minutes of walking through the cutting night air, he abruptly turned to his right and ploughed his way back towards the extensive stables.
He had arranged to meet her there and she would be waiting for him. The thought of that quelled some of the fire burning in his soul and he relaxed his pace, filling his head with images of her.
The stables stretched around a huge courtyard, which was occasionally used for lessons for beginners. A long, sheltered corridor bordered the sprawling sweep of the individual horses’ quarters and Gabriel swiftly and assuredly made his way towards Barnabus’s stall.
The light was on and she was grooming him, her long fingers stroking the mane, running along the proud length of his head.
Gabriel felt the familiar hot stirring in his loins and drew his breath in sharply, and both Laura and horse turned to look at him.
‘I didn’t expect you so early,’ she murmured, leaving the horse and wiping her hands along her jeans. She smiled and lifted her face to his, giving a soft purr of contentment as his mouth brushed hers.
‘Disappointed?’
‘Hardly!’
‘Do you want me to give you a hand here?’
‘Oh, no. There’s nothing to be done. I was just chatting to Barnabus.’
‘About me, I hope,’ Gabriel murmured softly, pulling her towards him and keeping her there, with his hands on her rear, so that she could feel exactly what she did to him.
She was the perfect combination of her parents. She had the height of her father and the blonde beauty of her mother. When she tilted her head back, as she was doing now, her waist-length hair rippled over his hands like strands of silk. White silk.
‘But of course,’ she agreed with a small laugh of delight. Who else? What have you been doing since I last saw you? Have you missed me?’
I’ve been slaving at an incompetently run engineering company. I’ve been poring over books so that I don’t completely lose track of my Economics degree. I’ve been putting aside every sweat-earned penny so that I can afford to eat when I return to university. Oh, yes, and I’ve asked your father for your hand in marriage and it was bitten off.
That little titbit, he decided, he would keep to himself. Now, he would lose himself in her and then he would propose. Her parents would simply have to accept him because they would have no choice.
‘If you’re finished with Barnabus...’ he murmured, tucking her hair behind her ear and nibbling it with his teeth until she squirmed.
‘The office...?’
Out here, if you’d prefer, although I cannot truthfully say that I would welcome dealing with the frostbite afterwards...’
The office comprised three rooms attached to the far end of the stables. One small sitting area for clients, a room in which the books were kept and a bathroom, all furnished with exquisite taste. Soon, Gabriel thought, they would no longer need to scurry and hide and make love like thieves in the night. He imagined her face as she heard him ask her to marry him and he felt a fierce quiver of possessiveness.
‘What’s the matter?’
He turned to see that she was staring up at him, all wide-eyed and concerned, and he smiled.
‘Do you ever dream of us making love in a proper bed?’ he asked softly, unlocking the door to the office with the key that, unimaginatively, was hidden under one of the plant pots outside. He pushed open the door and then closed it behind them, capturing her against the back of the door and kissing the nape of her neck. ‘A proper, king-sized bed complete with satin sheets and a feather duvet?’
‘A cramped single bed would do,’ Laura murmured, sighing as his tongue trailed along her neck. ‘Anywhere but here. I have nightmares about Dad bursting in when we’re in the middle of...of...’
‘Making love...?’ he finished smoothly for her and she coiled against him with a smile. His voice always did this to her, turned her legs to water. His dark, deep voice with the lingering traces of his Argentinean background, and his smoky, sexy eyes that could stroke her body even when he wasn’t touching her.
He had turned up out of the blue one wintry morning a year ago. One minute she had been bending over, grooming one of the horses, her long hair roughly braided back away from her face, and she had stood up to find him staring at her from the stable door, his hands in his pockets, his body leaning against the rough doorframe. He had heard about their stables and he had come to see whether he could earn some money helping out because he loved horses and was a natural at handling them. He had only just come up there to live. His father had been made redundant from his post as a teacher and, whilst he could cope until he located another job, there simply was no longer enough to cover his son’s university fees. Gabriel needed to work for a year and had taken a job nearby at a small company, interrupting his university career until he could accumulate sufficient money to put himself through the remainder of his course. He had explained all of this without taking his eyes off her and without moving from his indolent stance by the door. Laura had listened and had hardly heard a word he had been saying. She had been too overwhelmed by his sheer animal beauty.
‘Are you suggesting that you want to make love to me?’ Gabriel whispered in her ear now, and Laura made a low, gurgling sound as he cupped her face in his hands and began kissing her jawbone with infinite, lingering tenderness. Underneath her three layers of clothing, she could already feel her breasts aching to be touched.
It was dark in the office. Dark but warm, with the small fan heater gently purring like a soothing background noise.
What would you do if I said that I just wasn’t in the mood?’ Laura teased, curling her fingers into his dark hair and nudging his face up so that she could cover his mouth with hers. The kiss was fiercely passionate, tongue pressing against tongue with an urgency that spoke volumes about the four days during which they had not seen one another. An eternity, it seemed to her.
‘I would call you a liar,’ he teased back. He slipped his hands beneath her thick, woollen jumper and hooked his lingers under the waistband of her jeans, then he gently circled his lingers round so that he could undo the button and slide down the zip, whilst Laura made a tiny moaning sound in anticipation of what was to come. Heaven on earth. It was the only way she could describe it. Sometimes when, for whatever reason, they had not managed to touch one another for a while, they would scrabble to make love, ripping each other’s clothes off in their eagerness to unite their bodies.
Tonight, Gabriel thought, was a special night. Tonight, they would take their time.
He led her towards the back of the office, where a long sofa was ranged against the wall. In the beginning, it had felt odd to make love in the place where Peter Jackson’s accountant did the books. Necessity, however was the mother of invention, and over time the oddness had faded away.
The sofa could have been specially designed for coupling. Laura had once laughingly told him that, in her opinion, Phillip Carr had stationed it there so that when he came twice a week to do the accounts he had somewhere to nod off when the boredom of the numbers began to get to him.
‘Let me look at you,’ Laura said huskily, stretching her long body on I he sola and staring up at him as he lowered over her. ‘You know I love looking at you get undressed.’ She loosely clasped her arms above her head so that a slither of flat, pale stomach was visible.
‘I have no idea why.’ He gave a low, teasing laugh.
‘And who’s the liar now? You know exactly why I love looking at you. You have the most beautiful body I have ever set eyes on in my life. You’re as powerful and muscular as a
ny one of our prized racehorses.’
‘Thank you very much,’ he said drily, although he knew that, coming from her, this was the biggest compliment she could give him.
He shrugged off his bomber jacket, then tugged his thick jumper over his head, followed by his tee shirt, once black, now faded to a dark, uneven grey.
Laura gave an involuntary groan of physical response at his bare-backed torso, just a shadowy outline in the darkness. She had seen him bare-backed before, though. In the summer, when he had stripped off his shirt and ridden Barnabus, without her father’s knowledge. Her memory could easily fill in the details of how he’d looked, his body bronzed, his muscles defined and rippling with every little movement. She watched, heavy-eyed, as he removed his trousers and the boxer shorts that were low slung on his waist, and her smile met his.
‘Enjoying the view?’
Laura sighed with delicious assent and stood up, ready to wriggle out of her jeans. Her body was on fire. Just looking at him was enough to make her breathing shallow and unsteady.
‘Allow me, querida,’ he murmured. It was one of the rare times when he uttered an endearment. He was a man of passion but essentially a controlled man. Outbursts of verbal emotion were not in his nature. No phoney declarations of love for him. Laura appreciated him for that. His tenderness went beyond mundane utterances. Which was why his endearment now made her heart flutter with pleasure She allowed him to strip off her jumper, her long-sleeved rugby shut, which had been a legacy from her father’s barnstorming days when he’d played rugby for the county, her tee shirt, leaving only her lacy bra, which barely covered the full swell of her generous breasts.
‘Beautiful. You are exquisite.’ He dipped his finger into the hollow between her breasts and languidly stroked her, mesmerising her with his eyes until her breath caught in her throat. I will never tire of looking at you, touching you.’
Laura laughed softly and caught his finger in her hand, raising it to her mouth so that she could draw it in between her lips, whilst she continued to look at him with her amazing chocolate-brown eyes. With her other hand, she lightly traced the hard muscles of his flattened stomach, down to where his manhood was sheathed with dark, vibrant hair.
The Millionaire's Revenge Page 1