“I give you my word. In fact, I can have Chris make up a contract if you don’t trust me to deliver the goods after you have...served up your side of the bargain.”
Carmen was stunned. Even though she knew him—and she’d spent days trying to figure every possible outcome from this meeting—this eventuality had never figured in her thoughts. “The whole suggestion is outrageous. I don’t intend to humor you in any way.”
“Why? I’m only asking for two weeks of your time, for the manor. Outright.”
What surprised her more—that he claimed he still wanted her, or that he knew she wanted the house so much? She wasn’t sure. What she did know was that she despised him for putting her in this position, and even more than that she despised herself for considering the idea.
His hand on her breast felt good, though, and she hadn’t pushed him away, hadn’t been able to. That old sense of longing had risen up inside her, a simmering fire that she thought she had quashed long ago. She forced it back, refusing to let him take charge of her.
It wasn’t easy, but fury had its call on her, too. She turned her face away and stared at the lines of the windows and pillars of the building they had just left, taking strength from the symmetry of it as she struggled for reason. The house, she wanted the house.
“Give it some thought.” He brushed his thumb over her erect nipple one more time before removing his hand. “Come to the house this weekend, we’ll take it from there.”
Perhaps it would be good for her to spend time at the house with him, for closure. Perhaps it would kill off all those idiotic teenage fantasies she’d had once and for all.
Or joining him there could be the biggest mistake of my life.
“I’ll come to discuss the deal, but you can’t force me to sleep with you.”
He cocked his head to the side and smiled, apparently amused.
She shook her head, denying it, one hand covering her mouth in case she said the wrong thing.
“Two weeks of your company is all I ask. Then Burlington Manor is all yours.”
Carmen clung to what logical thought remained. It was hard to do so. “Even if I wanted to, I can’t just take two weeks away from my business to play house with you.”
“Weekends it is, then.” He stepped away and glanced at his watch, suddenly businesslike. “If you’re in agreement, make arrangements to be away from London for the next four weekends. Our time together will begin on Friday evening.”
His arrogance was infuriating. The fact it was also a massive turn-on angered her even more. How was it that he could push her buttons so easily? He was so self-assured, so knowing, while she clung to the side of the car, filled with torrid imaginings and confused thoughts and needs. Her blood pumped hard, her pulse wildly erratic. She glared at him, hating him for his power and for his ability to suggest such an outrageous bargain. “You bastard, you know I want the house, but that doesn’t mean you can just buy me.”
“Consider this, if you don’t agree...well, if you don’t agree we’ll have to share the house...forever.”
With that final comment he inclined his head and then strolled back up the steps into Montague’s office, leaving her standing there with one hand gripping the car to hold her up—her clothes awry, her body awash with heat, her heart thundering in her chest.
CHAPTER TWO
THE TICKET INSPECTOR returned Carmen’s ticket to her and glanced at his watch. “Less than five minutes until we arrive at Beldover. It’s the next stop.”
“Thank you.”
Carmen appreciated the notice even though she was very familiar with this journey. In fact, she’d taken the train from London Paddington to Beldover village once a year since she’d moved out of Burlington Manor, in order to visit her mother’s grave. She’d also traveled by train the week before, for the funeral. It was actually a relief to be going to Beldover without the prospect of standing by a graveside. It didn’t make the journey any easier, though. Carmen had misgivings aplenty about this particular trip.
Anxiously she focused on the Oxfordshire countryside. The wooded chalk hills of the Chilterns rolled away from the rail tracks in the September sunlight. The beauty of the landscape reminded her why she wanted to be here, even while she contemplated the high level of stupidity she was engaging in, entertaining Rex’s request to turn up at the time and place he’d suggested.
Even though she’d stated her case and said she was coming to Burlington Manor purely to discuss its future with Rex, the wild nature of his proposition was ever present. He’d had such a knowing smile, too, as if he was taking it for granted he’d won.
When she got away from Chris’s office and had time to think, she tried to reassure herself that he was just winding her up, trying to get a rise and managing to do so with very little effort indeed. Rex was a consummate seducer, an eternal game player and the quintessential bad boy. From what she’d heard, he was notorious for being a party animal during the Formula One racing circuit social calendar. He also left a string of broken hearts behind him. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised when he came out with such an immoral suggestion. He probably did it all the time, and some women might love it.
As if he could buy her, though, physically. Carmen frowned. What possessed him to think he could treat her that way? She was a mature businesswoman now.
All it did was reinforce the fact that this meeting at the manor was going to be a battleground. The house was currently tied between them, and it was the house she wanted. Did Rex want it, too? It wasn’t what she expected, but he could’ve walked away from Chris Montague’s office with a check in his hand and have done with it. From what she understood of his business, he had a busy schedule and the funds would come in very useful on the developmental side.
The train slowed and Carmen shoved her ticket and her smartphone into her shoulder bag. Rising from her seat, she lifted her weekend bag from the overhead storage shelf and made her way to the doors just as the train pulled into the station.
“Miss Shelby, welcome home.”
Carmen had scarcely stepped off the train onto the platform when Andy Redmond was there by her side, lifting the bag from her hand. Andy ran the local taxi company and she’d organized for him to collect her.
“Andy, thank you for being here.”
The taxi driver led the way and it made her feel somewhat more relaxed, being with someone she knew. Would Rex already be at the house, or was he planning to arrive later? She had no clue, because she’d refused to give him her phone number. He’d tracked down her business email address and said he would see her there on Friday evening as planned, and that they would begin their negotiations over dinner.
If she’d driven she could have been here earlier. The problem was she didn’t want to drive around Beldover because of her mother’s car crash. It was something she meant to overcome, but even now, three years on, it still seemed too fresh—the sight of her mother being sealed in a body bag on the side of the country road, her car flipped on one side where she’d veered off and hit a tree. It would make her think about it too much, driving around here, although the thoughts were never far away, anyway. As she climbed into the taxi, she focused on what lay ahead instead, Burlington Manor. How good it would be to be there again and, ultimately, to own it.
“It’s a magical house,” Sylvia Shelby had told Carmen when she’d first taken her to see the place. Carmen had been fifteen and her mother had recently announced her engagement to Charles Carruthers.
Carmen had met Charles in London, and she warmed to him immediately. To her he was a charming, elegant man, and she craved a father figure since her own has lost his battle with cancer when she was four years old. As an only child, the idea of having a big brother in her life was immensely appealing, too, although Rex hadn’t turned out to be quite what she might have imagined. Rex had turned out to
be something very different indeed.
“The history of a house like Burlington Manor has to be preserved,” her mother told her. “It’s the responsibility of the current owner.” Sylvia, who was an interior designer, had great respect for property that was steeped in history the way Burlington Manor was. “The current owner of a stately home is like a custodian for the national heritage.”
“Like the knight who looks after the Holy Grail until the next keeper arrives?”
Sylvia had laughed at Carmen’s correlation. “Kind of. Will you help me to help Charles be the best custodian he can?”
Carmen smiled as she thought back on it. Her mother had a very romantic view of the British country estate, and that was something that Carmen had nurtured, too. It wasn’t easy, not in modern times. In days of old the country estate owner rented out patches of land to tenants and the owners were wealthy as a result. That was no longer the case, and rightly so. Many large British estates opened to the public these days to bring income for maintenance, or they would let out part of the property to catering events, weddings and suchlike. Burlington Manor wasn’t grand enough to do that, being an overly large family home rather than a proper estate, but the responsibility to upkeep it was the same.
Burlington Manor was indeed magical, though, and it inspired love in Carmen as much as it had her mother. As the taxi turned off the main road from the village and onto the estate, the car passed the old gate house. It was a sizable cottage that provided a home for Burlington Manor’s housekeeper and her husband, the groundsman. The garden was, as ever, beautifully kept and the roses around the doorway were in full bloom. When the car proceeded up the driveway toward Burlington Manor Carmen’s chest tightened with emotion.
“It’s good to be taking a fare up this road again,” Andy shouted back to her as he drove. “It’s been far too quiet up here since you left, Miss Shelby.”
“I’m sure it has.”
“I hope that changes. I used to have a busy schedule ferrying people back and forth when your mother was running her house parties.”
“I can’t promise the same, but I’m hoping that the old place will enter a new, more positive chapter in its history now.”
The grass verges on either side of the private road were immaculately kept, as usual. It was one of Charles Carruthers’s bugbears, the importance of the first impression, often at the expense of some more tangible need in the house itself.
“Can I ask if you’ll be staying on?” Andy looked at her in the rearview mirror.
Carmen smiled. She knew he was asking on behalf of the whole village, because each person who lived in the nearby hamlet of Beldover had a vested interest one way or the other. “I can’t say for sure, but I’m hoping that I’ll be involved in the future of Burlington.”
The private road opened out, and there it was.
Set at the end of a sweeping driveway in an elevated position, the placement of the building took advantage of the camber of the countryside, in order to provide stunning views from all the windows in the house. It was at once an imposing Georgian country home, and a crown on the countryside.
The drive passed alongside a lawned area on the right-hand side. It was there that Rex would have impromptu cricket matches with his friends when they visited, while Carmen watched on. Beyond the house the gardens led on to the riverside, where a man-made lake was her favorite family summer picnic spot. It was a beautiful estate and she felt as if she’d been fed soul food just seeing the place. It was still the place that she thought of as home. And that’s why I will have it.
As the car parked up on the forecourt outside the main entrance, Carmen looked fondly at the symmetry of the large gray stones, the orderly windows and stone balustrades that spoke of design and history.
Assessing the state of repair, her gaze flitted along the windows of the reception rooms on the ground floor. As she expected, there was work to be done, and soon. Her stepfather never noticed the little things, or so it had seemed. He’d been a hermit in the house since she’d moved out, shortly after her mother’s death, and he’d let things slide. Not surprisingly, his wife’s death had hit him badly, as it had Carmen.
While she stared at the building, something tickled her consciousness. She looked about, aware of being watched. The taxi driver was at the rear of the car, lifting out her weekend bag. The door of the house opened and Mrs. Amery, the housekeeper, appeared there, with a bright smile and a wave. But it wasn’t Mrs. Amery that Carmen had become aware of.
She looked up, and saw Rex watching her arrival.
He was at the window directly above the entrance door, a window that was on the landing above. He had one elbow up against the frame, his pose casual as he scrutinized her. Rex Carruthers, looking like lord of the manor. His very posture oozed confidence, and ownership. Her mistrust built. He gestured, lifting his free hand, a knowing smile on his face.
Irritated, Carmen turned away and closed the taxi door behind her.
Smug bastard.
She looked along the forecourt and saw a silver Maserati Gran Turismo parked up at the far end. She’d been so busy looking at the house she hadn’t noticed the car. He’d arrived first. Why did he have the upper hand in this situation? Because he was from the family line, he was the natural heir, that’s why. In one sense she was the new generation, just as her mother had been, a break with the past. That was the old way, the old heritage. The important thing was that Rex didn’t really want this house. It was all a game for him, a bit of fun for a bored playboy. She was the one who was going to love the house, just the way her mother had.
“Welcome,” Mrs. Amery said, and she looked genuinely moved to greet Carmen. The housekeeper was dressed impeccably as ever, in a plain jacket and matching skirt with a round-neck top beneath. Her hair, silvered now and no longer the ash blond it once was, was neatly pinned at the back of her head. She was unobtrusive, efficient and old-fashioned when it came to protocol and manners. She didn’t even put out her hand in greeting, but Carmen felt it all the same. Mrs. Amery wasn’t the most approachable woman, but Carmen could tell that it meant a lot to the staff to welcome them both back to the manor. Rex especially, she had no doubt. All the staff had loved Rex and missed him when he had opted to spend his holidays solely with his mother instead.
“It’s good to be here. Are you well, Mrs. Amery?”
“Not too bad, considering the difficult time we had after Mr. Charles died.”
“It brought about a lot of uncertainty for you, I’m sure. Hopefully that will be at an end soon.” Carmen gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
Andy had taken her weekend case into the reception hall, and returned to her side. Carmen opened her purse.
Andy shook his head. “That’s not necessary. Mr. Carruthers has set up an account.”
Carmen frowned. So, Rex had installed himself and he’d already made arrangements that she considered her own responsibility. She tried not to show her disapproval, quickly opened her purse and folded several notes into his hand. “Thank you, Andy. I’ll be in touch about my return journey. I need to be back in London on Sunday evening.”
She walked alongside Mrs. Amery, up the wide stone steps to the front door, an oversize paneled affair with a lion’s head knocker. It had once been a dark shade of green but Carmen’s mother had suggested red, and Carmen was pleased to see it had been kept that way. The interior reception hall was one of her favorite places, the sweeping crescent-shaped staircase as impressive as it was welcoming.
Mrs. Amery collected her bag where Andy had deposited it and headed toward the staircase. “You’ll find your room just as you left it.”
“How lovely,” Carmen replied vaguely as she looked around fondly. It felt like home. It was home. She owned half of Burlington Manor and soon she would own all of it. As she closed on the upstairs landing Mrs. Amery’s voice
faded away completely because Rex was still sitting there on the window seat at the head of the staircase. It was the perfect place to watch people arrive, and that’s exactly what he was doing. He’d turned away from the exterior view and was now watching her climb the stairs, scrutinizing her as she closed on him.
Self-awareness flooded Carmen.
It was impossible to get to her room without passing him.
Mrs. Amery nodded and smiled as she passed Rex by.
Carmen considered walking past without saying a word, but she couldn’t bring herself to be so rude. He, on the other hand, was sitting there languidly, observing her, looking outrageously sexy without much effort at all.
“Rex.” She nodded her head in greeting.
She couldn’t help herself, she glanced back after she passed by.
He smiled and inclined his head. “Carmen.”
His voice, resonant and suggestive, drew a physical response inside her. Ignoring it, she hurried along the landing, where the doors were arranged in a U-shape around the mezzanine landing that overlooked the staircase below.
The sight of her old room startled her, because it was so familiar she felt as if she were imagining it. She closed the door behind them. “Nothing has changed.”
“It was what Mr. Charles wanted. Exactly as your mother had left the place. We could come in and clean but we were told not to move furniture around or change the look of the rooms at all.”
Carmen smiled. “It’s like going back in time.”
“I expect it is.”
Carmen stepped over to the windows. The dual vista provided by the corner placement of the room drew her eye, as it always did. The room overlooked the gardens at the back of the building, and the view was etched in her memory. The far trees were a little taller. Nothing else had changed.
Carmen’s mother had redesigned the room in Bedouin style for Carmen’s sixteenth birthday, shortly after they’d moved in. Every sensory detail held a memory, from the dark polished parquet floor underfoot to the scatter rugs in shades of red. The parquet floor made her feel elegant when her high heels clicked over it, and the rugs hushed those same steps in the most luxurious way. The furniture was ebony wood with tiny inlaid stone designs to offset each corner. The comforter on the bed was velvet in harem colors, and the carved ebony struts of the bed frame gave the head and footboards a Moorish look. Sheer red drapes on niches in the wall opposite the bed concealed lamps. When the main lights were off, the room became both mysterious and romantic.
The Burlington Manor Affair Page 3