by Penny Jordan
‘Fraud?’ Rosy interrupted him anxiously. ‘But…’
‘I’ll be back from Brussels the day after tomorrow. I’ll give you my answer then. And, Rosy,’ he told her as he turned to leave, ‘in the meantime, no ads in the personal columns, hmm?’
It wasn’t fair, Rosy reflected indignantly when he had gone. Why did he always have to make her feel like a child? And a particularly stupid child at that.
‘You’ve forgotten to put sugar in my coffee again,’ Ralph reproved Rosy. He frowned slightly, his sandy eyebrows lifting almost into his hairline as he added, ‘In fact you’ve seemed very preoccupied altogether these last couple of days. Is something wrong?’
‘No…no, nothing,’ Rosy denied untruthfully.
‘Mm. You know, Rosy, it’s a pity you didn’t work a bit harder at persuading your grandfather to leave Queen’s Meadow to us. Hallows, the engineering place, is closing down next month and that’s bound to put more pressure on us. God knows how many more it’s going to make homeless. We haven’t got anything like enough beds here as it is. When I think of that damned big house and all those rooms…’
‘Yes, yes I know,’ Rosy agreed guiltily. She hadn’t discussed with Ralph the terms of her grandfather’s will and, since Edward had already made it plain that he expected to inherit the house, Rosy had simply allowed Ralph to believe that as well.
When she had first announced that she was going to do voluntary work at the shelter, she knew her father had been a little concerned but, needless to say, it had been Guard who had taken it upon himself to warn her that, in view of her family connections and her comparative wealth, Ralph might put pressure on her to help fund the shelter.
‘Ralph would never do anything like that,’ she had protested then, indignantly. And she had believed it…Had believed it…Still believed it, and if Ralph was cross with her because he felt she ought to have persuaded her grandfather to leave Queen’s Meadow to their charity, well, she could understand why.
She could never walk into the old, run-down shabby building on the outskirts of the town without a small pang.
They all did their best to make it as homely as possible, but the rooms still had that air about them that reminded her of the boarding-school she had attended when she and her father had first returned to England from his army posting in Germany. She hadn’t stayed there long, but it had left a lasting impression on her.
The first spring she had worked at the shelter she had arrived one morning with the boot of her small car filled with vases she had ‘borrowed’ from home and the back seat covered in a mass of daffodils.
Ralph had found her just as she was placing the last vase in position.
She winced even now when she remembered how angry he had been.
‘You waste money on flowers when we barely have enough to buy them food,’ he had shouted at her.
She had never made the same mistake again, but sometimes the sheer austerity of the shelter weighed her down, her own feelings adding to the compassion and anguish she already felt at the plight of the young people they took in.
Today, though, she was guiltily aware that her mind was more on her own problems than those of the homeless. Guard was due back this afternoon. What would his decision be? What did she want his decision to be?
She knew quite well what Ralph would say were she to ask him for his advice, and the modern, aware part of her agreed with him: there were far more important things to worry about than a house; there were people, her fellow human beings, in far more need than a building and yet, when she walked round the house, something she had found herself doing increasingly frequently recently, she was also emotionally aware of the love, the care, the human effort that had gone into making it what it was. It wasn’t the material value of the Grinling Gibbons carving on the staircase that smote her with guilt at the thought of its destruction, it was her knowledge of the work, the craftsmanship which had gone into its carving. If she closed her eyes she could almost instantly be there, smell the fresh, pungent odour of the new wood, feel the concentrated silence of the busy apprentices as they watched their master, see the delight and pride in their faces when they were finally allowed to make their contribution, when their work was finally inspected and passed, the experienced hands of the master running critically over their carving while they held their breath and waited for his verdict.
The plasterwork on the ceilings, the furniture in the rooms—all of it had been created with human endeavour, with human pride.
Ralph would no doubt see another side of it, of apprentices injured and maimed, thrown out of work to starve, of workmen paid a pittance by their rich patrons.
‘What’s up, boyfriend giving you a hard time?’
Rosy turned her head to force a smile in the direction of the thin, pimply boy watching her, ignoring his companion’s snigger and clearly audible, ‘I’ll bet if he was she wouldn’t be looking so miserable,’ without even a hint of the betraying colour that Guard could conjure so easily with a comment only a tenth as sexual.
‘Have you heard anything about that job you went for yet, Alan?’ she asked, ignoring both comments.
‘Nah…Don’t ‘spose I’ll hear owt, either.’
‘You could try getting some qualifications,’ Rosy suggested, ‘going to night school.’
She already knew what the answer would be and wasn’t surprised when the boy shook his head in denial of her comment. When a system had failed you as badly as it had failed these youngsters, it must be hard to have any faith in it, Rosy acknowledged as she watched the two of them swagger off in the direction of the television lounge.
An hour later, as she drove home, her stomach was already cramping at the thought of hearing Guard’s decision. To her surprise, as she pulled up at the rear of the house in what had originally been the stable yard, she saw that an unfamiliar car was already parked there.
As she got out of her own car she eyed the bright red Rolls-Royce uncertainly. She went into the house through the back entrance, through a maze of passages, past a cluster of small, dark rooms.
She could hear voices in the front hall and she tensed as she recognised one of them. Edward, her father’s cousin. What was he doing here and, more important, how had he got in?
Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door into the hall.
Edward was standing with his back to her, his bald head shining in the light from the overhead chandelier which he had switched on.
Both he and the man with him were looking up at it.
‘Mmm…I suppose it could fetch a tidy bit, although there’s not so much call for that sort of thing now. Too big and too expensive. We’d probably be better shipping it abroad, finding an agent—’ He broke off as he turned round and saw Rosy, and touched Edward’s arm, drawing his attention to her.
‘Ah, Rosy…’
Edward’s genial manner didn’t deceive Rosy. It never had. She shared her grandfather’s and her father’s dislike and distrust of him.
‘What are you doing here, Edward?’ Rosy demanded, ignoring his pseudo-friendly overtures.
The man with him had moved slightly out of earshot and Edward’s expression changed as he glanced over to where his companion was studying the carved staircase, his eyes hardening as he recognised Rosy’s hostility.
‘Just checking out my inheritance,’ he told Rosy smoothly.
‘It isn’t yours yet,’ Rosy reminded him fiercely.
Edward gave a dismissive shrug. Unlike her father and her grandfather, Edward had run to fat in middle-age and the angry flush now mantling his face emphasised his heavy jowliness.
Her father had once remarked that Edward had a very nasty temper. On the few occasions when Rosy had met him, the tension that emanated from Edward’s wife seemed to confirm her father’s comment, but this was the first time she had witnessed any evidence of Edward’s temper at first hand.
‘Not yet, maybe, but it soon will be,’ he told her angrily. ‘And there’s not a damn t
hing you or anyone else can do about it. For once in his life, the old man was too clever for his own good. How much do you reckon the staircase will fetch, Charlie?’ he called out to the other man, smirking when he saw Rosy’s expression.
As she watched and listened to him, any ideas Rosy might have had about appealing to his better nature died. He simply didn’t have one, she recognised. He would enjoy destroying the house.
She heard the heavy wooden front door creak as someone pushed it open, and turned round warily, but it wasn’t another of Edward’s ‘business associates’ who had walked in, it was Guard.
He walked over to the fireplace just inside the doorway, frowning as he studied the scene in front of him.
Rosy saw the antagonism and, along with it, the apprehension flare briefly in Edward’s eyes as he glared across at him, but Guard wasn’t even looking at Edward, he was looking at her—looking at her, Rosy recognised in sudden, dizzy confusion, in a way she had never envisaged seeing him look at any woman, but most especially not her.
She blinked a little, her own eyes darkening as they were caught and held in a gaze of such smouldering sensuality that it actually made her physically shiver. When had Guard’s eyes developed that ability to turn from cool, distant gold into hot, smouldering amber? Where had he learned to look at a woman in such a way that she and every other person in the room with her was instantly conscious of Guard’s desire for her? Only Guard didn’t desire her; he didn’t even like her, he—
‘Guard.’ Rosy exclaimed weakly, her hand going automatically to her throat to protect the small pulse beating so frantically there. ‘I…I didn’t think you’d be back until much later.’
‘I shouldn’t have been,’ Guard told her, ‘but I couldn’t bear to be away from you any longer.’
Rosy gaped at him. She could feel her skin burning. What was Guard trying to do to her? He must know as well as she did that—
She froze in shock as he crossed the hallway, dropping the briefcase he had been carrying with a small, heavy thud as he took hold of her, holding her so tightly against his body that she could feel the strong bite of his fingers against her flesh; her face was buried against his chest, any verbal response she might have wanted to make smothered, as he murmured throatily, ‘God, I’ve missed you.’
Rosy gulped in air nervously.
‘Have you told Edward our good news yet, my love?’
Their good news? What good news? Rosy jerked protestingly against Guard’s strong hold, lifting her head, the impulsive words clamouring for utterance.
But she never got to say them. Instead, the swift descent of Guard’s head and the hard, totally unexpected warning pressure of his mouth on hers stopped her.
Guard holding her. Guard kissing her. Kissing her? Was that what he was doing? It didn’t feel much like a kiss. She opened her eyes and looked anxiously into his. They were still that unfamiliar, heart-thumping, pulse-racing amber colour, and the mouth that had clamped so firmly on hers, silencing her, somehow didn’t feel anything like she might have imagined Guard’s mouth might feel if she had ever actually allowed herself to wander into the pitfall of such dangerous imaginings, which she hadn’t…It felt…it felt…
A dizzying wave of sensation hit her as Guard’s mouth moved slowly over hers.
Her eyes were still open and so were his, almost hypnotising her into obeying the silent commands he was giving her. She could feel her mouth softening beneath the sensual impact of his, her whole body relaxing, melting into his, relaxing and yet at the same time being invaded by a peculiar and unfamiliar frisson of sensation.
To her horror, Rosy could actually feel her nipples hardening and peaking. With a small cry of protest she tore her mouth away from Guard’s.
‘You’re right,’ he agreed, as though she had spoken. ‘This isn’t the time or place.’
His voice sounded soft, a husky purr that made small shivers of sensation run up and down her spine. He reached out and touched her mouth with his thumb.
‘What the hell’s going on?’
Dizzily, Rosy dragged her gaze away from Guard’s face and turned to look at Edward.
‘Hasn’t Rosy told you?’ Guard asked politely. ‘She and I are getting married. I’ve sorted out the special licence,’ he told Rosy softly, turning away from Edward, ignoring the anger emanating from him, the questions he was asking, behaving, Rosy recognised enviously, as though Edward simply wasn’t even there, as though the two of them were completely on their own, as though…
‘The wedding will be just the way you wanted it to be. Very small, very quiet. In church…’
In church! Rosy tensed, but this time she managed to hold back her shocked words.
‘You can’t do this,’ Edward was blustering angrily beside them. ‘Don’t think I don’t know what the pair of you are up to. Don’t think I won’t—’
‘Edward…’ Without raising either his voice or his head, and still looking directly at her, Rosy marvelled, Guard had managed to silence Edward’s outpourings and to get his attention. ‘I think it’s time you left,’ Guard continued evenly. ‘I’ll show you out.’
Now Guard did move away from her and at another time Rosy might almost have been amused by the chagrin in Edward’s expression and the confusion of his friend, who was demanding to know exactly what was going on and why Edward had brought him out on such a wild-goose chase.
‘You haven’t heard the last of this,’ Edward warned Guard threateningly, before turning to leave. ‘You aren’t married yet, and besides—’
‘Goodbye, Edward,’ Guard interrupted him suavely, firmly closing the front door.
‘Did—did you mean that?’ Rosy asked him, dry-mouthed in the heavy silence that followed Edward’s departure. ‘About our getting married?’
‘Yes,’ Guard told her calmly. ‘What is it, Rosy?’ he asked with an abrupt return to his normal, mocking manner towards her. ‘Having second thoughts?’
Rosy glanced towards the staircase and then up at the chandelier and shook her head numbly, not daring to trust her voice to make any vocal reply.
CHAPTER THREE
‘DOES it have to be a church ceremony?’ Rosy asked Guard uncomfortably, uncrossing her leggings-clad legs and getting up from her chair to go and stand in front of the library window.
She had been caught off-guard when he had arrived half an hour ago; nine o’clock on a Saturday morning was not exactly a time she was used to having visitors.
‘Visitors?’ Guard had drawled, as she had told him as much, hastily running the fingers of one hand through her tangled hair, while she surreptitiously tried to lick the small smear of jam from her toast off the fingers of the other.
In her grandfather’s day, breakfast, especially at weekends, had always been a semi-formal affair, served in the breakfast-room. But, since she had been on her own, Rosy had taken to eating in the large, comfortable kitchen. Mrs Frinton, who used to come in daily to clean and cook, was now only coming in once a week. Rosy felt guilty about allowing someone to cook and clean for her when she was perfectly capable of doing both herself.
‘My dear Rosy, you and I are about to be married, supposed in the eyes of the rest of the world to be desperately in love. What would seem odd to them is not so much my calling so early in the day, but the fact that I haven’t stayed here all night.’
Predictably and irritatingly, Rosy had felt herself starting to flush.
‘I have an extremely busy schedule, and there are certain things we need to discuss before the rest of the world learns our news.’
‘Why should anyone else be remotely interested in what we’re doing?’ Rosy had demanded crossly, as Guard followed her into the library. ‘Or by the rest of the world do you really mean all your girlfriends?’
The look Guard had given her had scorched her into wary silence.
Like her, Guard was dressed casually, but whereas her leggings and top shrouded the feminine shape of her body, Guard’s jeans, surprisingly well-worn w
ith tell-tale patches of lighter colour on them, clung snugly to his body, outlining the hard, taut muscles of his thighs, revealing their maleness in a way which was normally mercifully concealed by his more formal business suits.
There was, Rosy was discovering, also something almost hypnotic about the way Guard walked—about the way the denim revealed the movement of those muscles. She had been relieved when he had finally seated himself in one of the deep library chairs.
‘Yes, it does,’ Guard answered her original question now. ‘Why the objection?’
‘Well, it’s just…’ Rosy shrugged uncomfortably, unwilling to betray herself to his further mockery by admitting that, while she was no regular churchgoer, she felt that it was somehow wrong to marry him in church when she knew—when they both knew—that their marriage was simply a convenient expediency.
‘Just what?’ Guard pressed her.
‘It’s just…just that a church wedding is so much more fuss,’ she fibbed lamely. ‘And…’
She could feel her skin colouring under the look Guard was giving her. This morning, in the sharp, clear daylight, it seemed impossible that those clear, cold eyes could ever really have burned with that heat, that desire…that intensity she had seen last night. Nervously she looked quickly away from him. She had told herself last night, after he had gone, that that interlude—that incident—was something she was simply not going to think about. Guard had done it for Edward’s benefit, and she supposed she ought to be grateful to him for going to so much trouble, but…
But it was something that most definitely must not happen again.
‘Stop hedging, Rosy,’ Guard told her sharply. ‘You don’t want to get married in church because it isn’t a “real” marriage. That’s typical of you and your muddled, ideological outlook on life. Try thinking things through from a more logical viewpoint. Like it or not, you and I in our different ways both have a certain standing in the local community. Edward isn’t going to be happy about what we’re doing, we both know that. There’s no point in adding fuel to the flames of his suspicions. A small, quiet ceremony is something we can get away with—just—particularly in view of the recent deaths of your father and grandfather. Not to have a church ceremony isn’t. And as for the fuss, you can leave all the arrangements to me. Which reminds me, you’d better have a word with Mrs Frinton and ask her if she’s free to come back here to work full-time.’