The Duke's Proposal

by Sophie Weston

  He shook his head, mock defensive. ‘Look, I was messing about with boiling water. A chap has to think of these things.’

  ‘Wimp,’ she said peacefully.

  He kissed her shoulder. ‘Wanton.’

  They sipped coffee in perfect harmony.

  She said dreamily, ‘I think I like boats.’

  ‘They’re good things,’ he agreed. ‘I crewed on a banana boat once. Always wanted to go back.’

  ‘Was that when you ran away from home?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Very glamorous,’ she said in congratulatory tones.

  He chuckled. ‘It makes a great story. I wouldn’t want to do it again.’

  She snuggled into the curve of his arm. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘About being seventeen and running away.’

  ‘Really?’ He sounded disconcerted.

  ‘Really.’

  He pulled a face. ‘Okay. It’s nothing very special. I had a big fight with my father. He wanted me to go in the army. I wanted to go to university and study maths. I was good. I mean really good. I don’t like waste.’

  Jemima was puzzled. ‘Couldn’t he afford it? Aren’t there grants?’

  ‘He could afford it.’ Niall was grim. ‘That was why I couldn’t get a grant. He was getting through money like water then, but he could still have afforded it. He just didn’t want to. He and my brother weren’t academic and he didn’t see why I should be. Younger sons did what they were told.’

  Jemima was indignant. ‘Bastard.’

  He hugged her. ‘It was a bit of a bummer at the time. But—every setback is an opportunity. I was good at numbers; I thought I’d make it work for me. I’d been to a couple of casinos on holiday. I thought I could work my way round the world as a croupier. I even had the tuxedo.’ His voice was heavy with irony. ‘My father would always stump up for stuff he thought was essential.’

  Jemima was astonished at her own fury. ‘Double bastard.’

  He chuckled. ‘You got my vote there.’

  ‘So how did you turn from a croupier into a gambler?’

  ‘I didn’t make it to croupier. I was too young. That was why I went to the other side of the tables. Meanwhile I worked at anything I could to put bread in my mouth. I’ve been a waiter, a courier, a meat porter…you name it, I’ve done it.’

  ‘And sailor on a banana boat.’

  ‘That was one of the good ones.’

  She kissed his neck. ‘I’m glad.’

  He lifted her chin and kissed her mouth sweetly. ‘Thank you for being glad.’

  She returned his kiss with enthusiasm, until he slid his hand along the long naked length of her. He stopped unexpectedly.

  ‘You’re burning. Where’s your suncream?’

  She pouted. But he was adamant. And she was too lazily content to fight him. She found her bag and fished out the tube.

  Niall took it away from her. ‘Lie down.’

  ‘What?’

  He leered at her wolfishly. ‘Captain’s perks. Once aboard the lugger and the wench is mine.’

  She gave a startled choke of laughter. ‘Do you read minds?’

  He was uncapping the tube. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘That’s what I was thinking earlier. Well—wishing, actually. I wanted you to do the full pirate thing. Carry me off and sail into the sunset.’

  ‘You got it.’ He kissed her lingeringly. ‘Now, lie back and think of England.’

  Laughing, she fell back onto the blanket he had spread for her. He started applying the suncream with distracting thoroughness.

  Jemima decided it wasn’t fair. ‘Have you ever been home since?’ she asked brightly.

  He was lingering over her hipbone. ‘Define home.’

  That startled her out of her hazy, sexy dream. ‘You’re not serious?’

  Niall started on her legs. ‘My father had two sons, three houses, five wives at the last count. I went to boarding school when I was five. Spent holidays with relatives or schoolfriends. I’ve been living out of a suitcase a long time.’

  Jemima was appalled. She jack-knifed into a sitting position and hugged him hard.

  ‘Hey,’ said Niall in a muffled voice against her breasts. ‘It made me the man I am today. Are you complaining?’

  She relaxed her convulsive grip. ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’ He touched her face. ‘Are you crying?’ he said, astonished.

  She turned her head away. ‘’Course not.’

  He turned her chin gently to face him. ‘No one’s ever cried over me before. But there’s no need, honey. Really. I did fine.’

  Jemima swallowed. ‘Sure you did.’ She sniffed. ‘So you don’t go back…’ She hesitated; ‘home’ was clearly the wrong word here. ‘…to the UK? Ever?’ Too late she realised how wistful she sounded. Damn it!

  Niall let her go and said practically, ‘Turn over and I’ll do your back.’

  Oh, hell, it had sounded as if she wanted a proper relationship. She might just as well have said, Come to London and be my love. Not what you said to a footloose pirate. She had probably blown everything now. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  She turned over, grateful to hide her suddenly pink face. She felt the cool cream on her shoulders and tried to think of a way to retrieve her mistake.

  Above her, Niall said thoughtfully, ‘I go to London sometimes. Too many casinos not to. But I’ve only been back to one of my childhood hosts once.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It was interesting.’ His voice was odd.

  Jemima screwed her head round to look at him. His eyes were far away.

  ‘Doesn’t sound good,’ she said with quick compassion. ‘Want to tell me about it?’

  He came back to the present with a little jump. ‘You,’ he said on a startled breath, ‘are the sweetest thing I’ve ever found.’

  She sat up and took the cream away from him.

  ‘Tell me.’

  He hesitated. ‘It’s not very distinguished.’

  ‘So?’

  His throat moved. ‘I was twenty-eight. I thought I knew everything. I’d been everywhere, done everything. I’d never taken a woman seriously.’ He looked ashamed. ‘And suddenly there she was. “The not impossible she.” The one I couldn’t walk away from.’

  There was sudden total silence. Jemima’s hand stilled. She stared and stared at the tube of suncream as if it were a key to another universe. She thought, Well, I asked. Why does it feel as if he just shot me?

  She said, very quietly, ‘What happened?’

  ‘She wouldn’t have me.’ Niall’s voice was quite expressionless.

  ‘Wouldn’t—?’ Jemima thought about Al’s envy, of all those hungry, bewildered women who let Niall Blackthorne get away with murder, of the way he had made her feel loved. ‘She’s crazy, right?’

  ‘Very much not. She’s a homebody. I haven’t had a home since I was seventeen. Never wanted one.’ Niall’s voice was even. ‘But Abigail did. She wanted a home like the one she grew up in.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Jemima, understanding at last. ‘James Bond wouldn’t do, then?’

  There was a pause.

  Then, ‘James Bond’s girlfriends all die,’ said Niall lightly. ‘No woman in her right mind wants James Bond when she stops to think about it.’

  I wouldn’t mind.

  She nearly said it aloud. It was terrifying.

  She said crisply, ‘I have to tell you that’s not an opinion widely shared.’

  ‘Well, not my Abigail, then.’

  My Abigail. Would he ever say My Jay Jay with that aching longing in his voice? No, of course he wouldn’t. She was a sexy amusement for a tropical afternoon. She was crazy if she thought anything else.

  His next words confirmed it.

  ‘Women like mystery, right? Or they think they do. Well, Abigail knows me too well to think I’m a man of mystery. And she would hate living on the hoof. She wants cats and dogs and horses. And an estate to keep them on.’
<
br />   Jemima did not like the sound of the absent Abigail at all. ‘Sounds like a gold-digger,’ she said crisply.

  ‘No.’ Niall’s voice was full of tenderness. ‘She was brought up on a place like that. She was made for that sort of life. I couldn’t give it to her, that’s all. She made the right choice.’

  There was something about that voice that made Jemima want to hit the boat’s woodwork.

  ‘You can’t still be in love with her!’ she cried from the heart.

  ‘Can’t I?’

  Jemima wanted to die. It didn’t show. ‘I thought gamblers knew when to cut their losses.’ Her voice was cool and hard as an ice sculpture. Here, you would say, was the Queen of Don’t Care.

  Niall shrugged. ‘I guess I’m a one-woman man.’

  Jemima was screaming silently with the pain. So why did she have to turn the knife in her own wound?

  ‘Then maybe you’ll go back and marry her one day?’

  Niall did not answer.

  She gave the stiletto another little turn. ‘You might. What do you think?’

  ‘Unlikely.’ It was quite without emotion.

  Another twist. ‘Hey, don’t give up. Maybe your luck will change.’ She sounded positively bracing. ‘Surely that’s the upside about being a professional gambler? You could win enough to buy a mansion with swimming pool and helicopter. All the horses she wants. The full works.’

  There was another, longer pause. Jemima had the sudden feeling that she was saying what Niall had said to himself a thousand times. And always answered the same way.

  ‘But I’d still be me,’ said Niall quietly.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE day darkened after that. In every way.

  Not that Jemima let her hurt show. She was, if anything, brighter than before. She lay down again, turning over so he couldn’t see her too bright eyes, and encouraged him to apply the suncream. All the time she laughed and teased him, wittier than she had ever been in her life.

  They ended by making shattering love again. Niall was passionate, attentive, absorbed. Everything that a woman could want. But when he fell asleep on her breast Jemima looked up at the clouds scudding in and wished she were anywhere else in the world.

  Eventually she wriggled out from under him. Her clothes were still on the beach by the unlit bonfire, but she scrambled into the bikini bottoms, pulling a face at the sensation. She couldn’t face the top—but he had to have a shirt she could borrow.

  She found one in the little cabin. It was crumpled and it smelled of him. She shivered as she pulled it on. It felt like the enchanted beast in the fairytale—embracing her, engulfing her. The sooner she got her own clothes the better.

  She slid over the side as quietly as she could manage.

  The air had got heavy, somehow. In spite of the clouds it seemed hotter. The breeze was no longer fresh. To Jemima, perhaps over-sensitive, it seemed to smell of burnt-out fire. The sunlight was too bright, sharp like a circus spotlight. It hurt her eyes.

  She thought, I must get away.

  Suddenly it was like a physical craving. She could feel it all along her skin, in her bones, through her blood, where Niall had touched her. All the warning voices in the world would not have stopped her. She had to get away from him, be alone, even for a little while. She had to find some way through this new anguish.

  She turned her back on the beach, where she had laughed, the sea, where she had played, the boat where Niall Blackthorne had taken her to Paradise. Leaving her—where? She turned and fled.

  She went round the little headland at a run. It was a mad scramble. Twice she had to put her hand down to keep her balance as she teetered her way over big boulders and pebbles as smooth as glass. The third time she nearly slipped into the sea that foamed about the rocks.

  Careful!

  She took hold of herself. The deck shoes he had bought her were not the greatest shoes for rock-climbing. She had to be sensible. She took the rest of the outcrop more slowly.

  On the other side, she wandered along the new, pristine beach. Picking up a piece of driftwood, she swung it aimlessly. So—the man loved someone else. Really loved her. Didn’t just fancy the pants off her.

  Well, what did that matter to Jemima? She had only known him for—what? Thirty-six hours, tops. And most of that time she had been fighting him.

  She should never have stopped fighting.

  Come on, she told herself. You’ve got through worse than this. Basil made you ill and manipulated you until you couldn’t think straight. You got back from that. You’ll get through this too.

  But Basil didn’t break my heart.

  She stopped dead.

  Basil didn’t break her heart? Did that mean that Niall Blackthorne could? Or even had?

  Ridiculous.

  But it didn’t feel ridiculous. It felt horribly true. Jemima closed her eyes.

  The bit of her that was trying to fight back took her to task. Take it lightly, said Tough Jemima. You’ll come through this.

  Look at it this way: Oh, great, that’s all I need—a collapsing career, a dedicated stalker and now a broken heart to go with it.

  ‘Some holiday this has turned out to be,’ she muttered. ‘Oh, well, a change is as good as a rest.’ Yes, that was better.

  Behind her, a voice called her name sharply.

  And now she had to put on the performance of her life!

  She turned. Niall was balancing on the rocky outcrop. He was too far away for her to see his expression, but he looked concerned.

  Straightening her shoulders, Jemima raised a hand. As if she were glad to see him. As if she were still glowing in the aftermath of that spectacular lovemaking.

  He leaped lightly down and started to lope towards her.

  Smile for the camera, Jemima adjured herself.

  She pinned on a wide one and waited for him.

  As he approached she tried to view him dispassionately. He had obviously failed to find his Bermudas. He was wearing ragged denim shorts, as he had been the first time she saw him. Criminal shorts, a pair of old canvas shoes with more holes than shoe, and a watch that an Admiral of the Fleet would have been proud of. And nothing else.

  In spite of herself, Jemima’s mouth dried.

  He wasn’t spectacularly muscular. Jemima had worked with plenty of male models and he wouldn’t have given any one of them a run for their money. He was tall, but not overpoweringly so. He was tanned, but not burnt-toffee-brown. His hair was seal-dark and smooth, but nothing special by international model standards. And his odd, irregular face, with its bony nose and lazy hooded eyes, certainly wasn’t handsome.

  So why was he so devastating? Because he was. And she wasn’t the only woman to recognise it.

  Yes, that was the thing to hang onto. Jemima brooded. She was one of many. It made her feel more of a fool, but at least it wasn’t quite so frightening.

  He reached her. ‘You look very solemn.’

  ‘Just thinking.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  He put an arm round her. She stiffened, then made herself relax. She had to get through a trip back to Pentecost without making a total twerp of herself.

  She fell into step beside him, letting her head droop onto his shoulder. That way, she didn’t have to look at him.

  ‘Plenty to think about,’ she said with determined gaiety. ‘Have you seen the butterflies?’

  They strolled along the rim of the beach, while Jemima pointed out brilliant butterflies that danced through the shrubs. Niall didn’t know the names of any of them. He was sounder on the plant life.

  ‘Acacia,’ he said, flicking a savagely prickly bush. ‘Thorns like daggers but smell that.’ He snapped off a small branch and held it out to her. ‘Smells of the sea, doesn’t it?’

  Jemima was startled. She recoiled instinctively. She did not want Niall the Heartbreak Pirate bringing her warm seductive scents to try.

  ‘So it does,’ she said without enthusiasm.

  He stopped dead
then, searching her face.

  ‘What is it, sweetheart?’

  The endearment made her eyes sting, even though she knew he did not mean it.

  More likely because he didn’t mean it, pointed out the Jemima who was fighting back.

  She said, ‘Nothing. Maybe I’ve had too much sun. It feels quite oppressive now, doesn’t it?’

  He looked at the sky. ‘There’s probably a storm coming. We should be probably go, if we want to outrun it.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Or we could let it do its worst. Stay here overnight.’ It was half a question.

  Jemima said nothing.

  He said softly, ‘We could set light to that bonfire after all.’

  It was so unexpected she gasped. It hurt like a knife-slash from nowhere. She knew she had been wounded to the heart, but the pain had not started. Yet it would come.

  Niall’s hands tightened on her arms. ‘What is it, Jay Jay?’ No sexy teasing now.

  She swallowed, shaking her head. She could not speak.

  He sighed. ‘All right. We’ll make a run for Pentecost. If you’re sure that’s what you want?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Fighting Jemima took charge. ‘I have just got to wash my hair. It’s never felt so horrible in my life.’

  It was even true.

  He sighed and accepted it.

  They went back to the first beach and gathered up their clothes. Niall stuffed everything into the bag with the un-drunk beer. Jemima could hardly lift it. But he looped the strap over his shoulder and strode back to the boat as if it weighed no more than a piece of dried-out driftwood.

  ‘You are so strong,’ she teased. But it was an effort.

  He smiled. But his eyes were questioning.

  They stayed questioning all through the run back to Pentecost. But there was too much to do for him to demand any dangerous explanations. The sky darkened and the wind whipped even Jemima’s sea-matted hair about her shoulders. By the time they sailed into harbour great fat drops of rain were splashing down onto the deck.

  They ran for the big four-wheel drive. Not hand in hand this time. And though Jemima laughed, it was forced.

  The rain had turned into a real howling storm. Niall concentrated on the road as a curtain of water drove across the windscreen.