Griffin shrugged, sighing heavily. ‘It doesn’t matter now, surely,’ he dismissed warily.
Of course it mattered! One of the things that had always troubled her was the fact that he had never tried to find her again after they’d left Dungelly Court.
‘It does matter, Griffin,’ she protested heatedly. ‘My father—’ She swallowed again. ‘My father told you I was engaged to someone else when you came to the house in search of me!’
The first letter to her father from Griffin had thanked him for his time, and for letting him know of Dora’s engagement. Griffin had also asked that if ever that situation changed for her father to please let him know…
Griffin shrugged again. ‘I half expected it; you had told me yourself that you had someone else in your life.’
‘I was talking about my father!’ she explained emotionally. ‘I— You frightened me at Dungelly Court. I had never met anyone like you before—’
‘Or I you,’ he put in.
She felt the heat in her cheeks. ‘You were right about me. I did allow myself to be Izzy there, to—to be attracted to you,’ she added awkwardly.
Griffin’s mouth twisted humourlessly. ‘You frightened poor Dora out of her wits!’
‘Oh, damn Dora,’ she dismissed impatiently. ‘Griffin I wasn’t engaged to anyone else—’
‘Six months later you were,’ he reminded her grimly. ‘You were engaged to my own brother! How your father must have enjoyed the irony of that. When I challenged him on the lie he had told me six months earlier, he told me that I wasn’t good enough for you, that I didn’t even have a proper job, let alone somewhere to live. He wanted something better for his only daughter, his only child, than a homeless travel writer. He saw that ‘‘something better’’ in my politician brother Charles!’ he added grimly. ‘A man obviously going places!’
She’d been able to tell all that by the tone of the second letter Griffin had written to her father. Griffin had obviously been furious at the lies he had previously been told. But Griffin had also assured her father that, although he believed that her father’s motives for lying to him six months ago were questionable, to say the least, he accepted Dora’s engagement to Charles, and would never try to interfere in that relationship.
Her father should have known from that letter what sort of man Griffin was; an honourable and honest one. Much more so than her father had ever been!
But her father had deliberately kept Griffin and herself apart two years ago, and if she’d never found those two letters he might have continued to do so. If she couldn’t get through to Griffin now, if he didn’t still feel the same way about her, then her father might still win…!
She had always thought, despite his reserve, that her father had loved her. And perhaps he had. But it had been a possessive, destructive love, a love that hadn’t allowed her the freedom to love where she chose. Because two years ago she’d fallen for Griffin, and had just buried that love away when she thought he had just looked on their meeting as a game.
She looked at Griffin now, her eyes swimming with unshed tears. ‘It’s too late, isn’t it?’ she realised heavily; Griffin looked so hard and unapproachable, so unlike the man she’d thought she knew. So unlike the man she loved…
Griffin sighed impatiently. ‘Too late for what, Dora?’
His deliberate use again of that name for her cut into her like a knife. As she was sure it was supposed to. All the time he had loved her, and she had done nothing but push him away.
‘What your father did to us was wrong.’ He nodded tersely. ‘But perhaps he did us both a favour. How many times have you told me yourself how unsuited we are?’ he added wryly.
Dora and Griffin, perhaps. But not Izzy and Griffin!
She was hurt and stunned by her father’s betrayal, but she was even more stunned by the fact that Griffin had loved her. Now her father was dead, and so unchallengeable, but she and Griffin were still very much alive. And she refused to leave until she heard it from Griffin’s own lips that he no longer loved her!
‘My unicorn collection is in a glass case in the sitting room now, Griffin,’ she told him evenly, hoping he would realise what she was trying to tell him. Finding Griffin’s two letters had freed Izzy, and she never intended to disappear behind the cautious Dora again.
He swallowed hard, a nerve pulsing in his rigidly held jaw. ‘That’s nice for you,’ he finally murmured noncommittally.
Her eyes were so flooded with tears now she could hardly see him. ‘Help me, Griffin!’ she pleaded shakily.
He drew in a ragged breath. ‘I don’t know what you want me to do! Do you want me to talk to Sam for you after all? Is that it—?’
‘Oh, damn Sam!’ she burst out emotionally. ‘Damn my father too. And damn Charles!’ The three men were all the same. They had all wanted something from her, something that didn’t include her own happiness or allow her to be herself.
Griffin had never done that. In fact, he had insisted he wouldn’t have anything to do with Dora, was prepared only to see Izzy again!
‘Haven’t you realised yet, Griffin, that if I had known you tried to find me two years ago, that my father sent you away, I would never have become involved with Charles? Or Sam? That I would have defied my father, would have defied anyone, just so that I could be with you?’ She stood mere inches away from him now. ‘Griffin, I love you. I’ve always loved you. I just never believed—until today—that you could ever love someone like me,’ she groaned.
‘Izzy…?’ He looked uncertain now, totally unlike the forceful Griffin she had always known.
‘Yes— Izzy! Oh, Griffin.’ She put her hands imploringly on his arms. ‘Please believe me when I say I’ve always loved you! Even when I’ve been so angry with you I could have—’
‘Kissed me?’ Griffin murmured, before his mouth came down on hers in a kiss like no other they had ever shared.
Griffin still loved her! It was there in the searching gentleness of his kiss, in the raw emotion he no longer had to hide from her because he’d believed his feelings weren’t reciprocated.
‘Marry me, Izzy?’ He held her at arm’s length, looking down at her anxiously, obviously still not quite sure how this had all come about.
She reached up and cradled either side of his beloved face with hands that trembled slightly. ‘I would have married you years ago if you’d asked me. Would have gone against my father, your mother—anyone who tried to stop us. Do you believe me?’ She looked up at him with clear grey eyes.
He looked down at her searchingly for several long seconds, and then he crushed her back into his arms. ‘I believe you! What a hell of a lot of time the two of us have wasted, Isadora Baxter—soon-to-be-Sinclair!’
Dora snuggled comfortably in his arms, smiling wickedly as she rested her head against his chest. ‘Your mother is going to hate that!’
‘What was it you said earlier? Damn my mother! Actually…’ Griffin chuckled wryly ‘…I don’t think my mother cares one way or another who I marry any more! I told her a couple of weeks ago, in no uncertain terms, that I would never enter the political arena,’ he explained at her questioning look. ‘That I would never marry Amanda Adams, either—’
‘You seemed to like her well enough at Charlotte’s wedding,’ Dora remembered jealously.
Griffin shook his head ruefully. ‘Only because I could see you didn’t like her one little bit!’
‘Well, of course I didn’t,’ she admitted impatiently. ‘I can’t stand seeing you with other women.’
‘Well, you never will again,’ he assured her huskily.
She believed him, knew beyond doubt now that Griffin loved her. ‘You were telling me about your mother?’ she reminded him softly.
‘So I was,’ he murmured with amusement, once again the relaxed Griffin Dora knew so well. ‘With such disappointing children, my mother has decided to take matters into her own hands—she’s going to marry Jeffrey Adams and become a political wife herself once again!’
Dora looked up at him in disbelief. Margaret had been a widow for years…! But she could see that Griffin, for all he was teasing about it, was completely serious about the forthcoming marriage. And why not? It was the obvious answer, really. It was a pity Margaret hadn’t thought of it earlier!
‘How amazing!’ Dora finally breathed dazedly.
‘How convenient,’ Griffin corrected with satisfaction. ‘She isn’t going to have the time in future to be a nuisance to us,’ he said happily.
Dora joined in his satisfied laughter. Jeffrey Adams could have no idea what he was taking on in having Margaret for his wife. Or perhaps he did… Margaret had apparently been a good political wife to Simon Sinclair, and Jeffrey Adams was definitely an ambitious politician. One thing Jeffrey need never worry about, and that was having his wife’s support. He would probably be Prime Minister before he knew where he was!
‘Griffin,’ Dora murmured softly, unable to look at him as she played with one of the buttons on his shirt. ‘After Charles—when he died—why didn’t you—?’
‘Come and declare my love for you, in spite of your father?’ He grimaced.
‘Yes.’ She met his gaze steadily, searchingly.
‘I thought perhaps you might really have loved him.’
‘You’ve been telling me for weeks now that I didn’t!’
‘Wishful thinking, I’m afraid,’ Griffin admitted ruefully. ‘It’s all right if you did, Izzy—’
‘No—it isn’t.’ She gave a firm shake of her head. ‘And neither is my giving you the impression there has ever been a man on—intimate terms in my life.’ Embarrassed colour darkened her cheeks. ‘There never has been, Griffin. Not Charles. Not any man.’
His arms tightened about her possessively. ‘There is now,’ he assured her huskily.
‘I have to tell you about Charles first—explain what happened,’ she insisted softly. ‘Then we need never talk about it again. I—I was flattered by Charles’s attention at first. Actually, I was still a little raw from my encounter with you at Dungelly Court,’ she admitted, acknowledging his teasing smile with a rueful one of her own. ‘Charles was handsome, obviously successful in his career, and he picked me as the person he wanted to share that with.’ She shook her head. ‘But the whole thing became a nightmare the day I found out the two of you were brothers! I’d heard so much about Charles’s disreputable younger brother—the women—’
‘Do you remember a few weeks ago you said that if we ever exchanged confidences on past relationships mine would take all night to tell you about?’ He looked down at her intently as she slowly nodded. ‘There hasn’t been any woman since I met you at Dungelly Court. It’s true, Izzy. If I couldn’t have you, I certainly didn’t want any pale substitutes.’
‘But you always had—someone with you when you came back to the house at weekends,’ she recalled painfully.
‘A different someone every time.’ He nodded. ‘Camouflage, I’m afraid, Izzy. If you were going to marry my big brother, I certainly wasn’t going to let you see just how much it was hurting me!’
‘That makes this last year, since Charles died, even less understandable.’ She frowned up at him.
‘It was ten months and two days until I saw you again,’ Griffin corrected wryly. ‘But who was counting?’
Obviously he had been! ‘Griffin, you weren’t doing the ‘‘gentlemanly’’ thing, were you?’ She remembered he had once said this was his mother’s single claim to success in his upbringing.
His mouth twisted. ‘I wanted you to be completely free of all past relationships before I came back into your life. Besides,’ he added ruefully, ‘your father’s motives may have been wrong, but after thinking about it a while I decided that what he had said wasn’t, I didn’t have a permanent home, or a job that I took as seriously as I should have done. I decided that it was partly up to me to show that I was capable of being the sort of son-in-law, the sort of husband, your father wanted for you. Which is why I took on the apartment and signed a television contract. How could I possibly have guessed you would become involved with someone else before I came back into your life a changed man?’ He looked down at her reprovingly.
He wasn’t a ‘changed man’ at all! And, given the chance to choose for herself, she would have married Griffin two years ago—permanent home, responsible job or not!
‘We’ve already discussed Sam,’ she dismissed with a smile. ‘He was the same camouflage for me that those women were for you.’ She was pleased beyond belief that there had been no one else for Griffin since they’d met two years ago. She was also aware that it made her two relationships seem positively promiscuous in comparison. ‘Where shall we live once we’re married?’ She changed the subject, putting the past exactly where it belonged—behind them. ‘There’s no way we can live in my father’s house.’
‘Actually, technically it’s your house now, but I agree with you.’ Griffin grimaced his distaste for the idea. ‘And the apartment isn’t exactly right either. Let’s buy somewhere completely new—somewhere big enough for our children. Lots of children,’ he added gruffly. ‘All of them as beautiful as their mother.’
Griffin wanted their children too!
‘Do you remember you once asked me about my mother?’ she said slowly. ‘What she was like?’ She gave a little smile as he nodded. ‘Well, she was outgoing, vivacious, loved to tease, loved life.’
‘Like me?’ Griffin realised what she was trying to say.
She hadn’t fallen in love with a man in the mould of her father, which Charles had been, and Sam too, but with a male version of her effervescent mother…
‘I love you, Griffin Sinclair,’ she told him huskily, knowing he was that ‘right man’ for her they had once discussed.
‘And I love you, Izzy Baxter,’ he assured her gruffly. ‘With all my heart. And for always.’
Yes, he loved her. She didn’t doubt it now, and she knew she never would.
Izzy was here to stay…!
Yes, she would always be Izzy from now on, and was no longer afraid of loving or being loved. Not if it was Griffin she was in love with and Griffin who loved her in return.
‘How about we get out of here,’ Griffin murmured throatily, looking around at their public surroundings, ‘and I show you just how much I love you?’
‘Yes, please,’ she accepted shyly.
He chuckled huskily. ‘And tomorrow, my darling—tomorrow I’m taking you out and putting my engagement ring on this finger.’ He kissed the third finger of her left hand. ‘To be quickly followed by a wedding ring!’
It couldn’t happen soon enough for Dora. They had already wasted enough time!
‘Yes, please to that too!’ she told him happily, her hand in his as the two of them went out into the night.
Together.
Always.
ISBN: 978 1 472 03213 3
THEIR ENGAGEMENT IS ANNOUNCED
© 2000 Carole Mortimer
First Published in Great Britain in 2000
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