The Duke's Proposal

by Sophie Weston

  He was talking about That Woman again. The one who wanted the cats and dogs and horses and broke his heart to get them! Jemima found that her fingers were curling into claws and hurriedly straightened them.

  It was nothing to do with her, she reminded herself. Niall Blackthorne made his own choices. She didn’t even figure in his calculations. But why couldn’t he wake up and move on? It was such a waste!

  And not a thing she could do about it. After all, she could hardly say, Cut your losses and settle for me, could she? Not to a one-woman man who had cherished his hopeless love for years.

  Anyway, she didn’t want him to cut his losses. She didn’t want to be second best. She wanted him to realise that there could be a second woman and it would be glorious. She wanted him to fall in love with her.

  Fat chance. He had already told her as much. He thought she was money-grubbing trash in a hurry. And he thought it because she had told him so.

  I must be out of my mind, thought Jemima, astonished at her own behaviour. The sooner I get out of this hothouse the better.

  She strode up to them, chin high.

  ‘Hello.’

  They both turned. Al smiled, but Niall’s face was unreadable.

  ‘Bill, please. And can I order a taxi to take me to the airport?’

  ‘I’ll drive you,’ said unreadable, tanned, shirtless Niall.

  Oh, it wasn’t fair.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to trouble you.’ Her tone had an edge to it.

  ‘Tough.’ So had his. ‘You do trouble me. You have from the start. It’s never worried you before.’

  Al looked from one to the other, open-mouthed.

  Jemima glared. ‘All the more reason not to see any more of each other.’

  ‘I’ll drive you,’ said Niall obstinately.

  ‘I won’t go with you.’ She was thoroughly roused.

  ‘Oh, won’t you?’

  ‘Hey,’ said Al, making the sort of gesture a conductor used to reduce the orchestra’s volume. ‘Keep it nice, kids. Jemima, the cabs are all meeting a cruise ship today. But if you really can’t bear Niall’s company any more, you can hitch a lift back into town with Gordy.’

  ‘Sure,’ Niall said savagely. ‘Good idea. Get some more free publicity while you’re at it.’

  Jemima stuck her nose in the air. ‘I hardly think I need it. Why do you think he’s coming out here in the first place?’

  He laughed angrily.

  But she was wrong. When the editor arrived, he did not so much as look at her.

  He walked past her, past Al, past the potted palm. Went straight up to Niall and took off his dark glasses, smiling.

  ‘Niall, man. Good to see you.’

  Niall’s eyes narrowed. ‘Hi, Gordy. You saw me last night.’

  ‘And this morning I got a nice e-mail with a photo attachment.’ Gordy put a hand on Niall’s shoulder and grinned from ear to ear. ‘You are the Duke of Powrie and I claim my prize.’

  Niall gave a roar.

  Shock? Fury? Dismay? All of those, thought Jemima. But not denial. He was the Duke of Powrie all right.

  That was when she had her moment of revelation. He was an aristocrat. She should have realised when he’d said that he was the spare of ‘the heir and the spare’. That was why he didn’t blame his not impossible she for her list of absolute essentials. Jemima thought they were shallow and the woman sounded like a gold-digger. But Jemima was not from that world. And Niall was!

  Looking across the lobby, she had the oddest sensation that there was a galaxy of distance opening between them. More than a galaxy. A universe. He had not moved, but he seemed as if he was so far away that if she called his name he would not be able to hear her.

  She stepped back, and back again. Nobody noticed. She retreated further, faster. Gordy and Niall were still arguing heatedly, with Al acting as referee. It was the ideal opportunity. She left.

  She found Ellie in the kitchen.

  ‘I need to get out,’ she said baldly. ‘I’ve saved face until my teeth ache and I’m all out of good behaviour. Help!’

  Ellie stopped giving her kitchen staff instructions and looked at Jemima shrewdly.

  ‘Niall?’

  Jemima shook her head. ‘Don’t ask.’

  Female solidarity kicked in. Ellie took the credit card away and processed payment for the bill that Al still had not managed to prepare. Then she handed over the kitchen to a trusted aide, got out the family runabout, and took Jemima to the airport.

  ‘What shall I tell him if he wants to get in touch?’

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘But if he does?’

  ‘I hope he has a nice life.’

  Jemima never afterwards remembered the flight back. She might have been at risk of some really bad PR. If an ambitious paparazzo had got a shot of her with her hair mussed, her cheek swollen and grazed and her eyes red he could have sold it for thousands. It wouldn’t have looked good at all.

  But nobody recognised her. Or if they’d thought they had, she thought afterwards, they hadn’t believed their eyes.

  She went straight to the flat. This time she was glad it was empty. She couldn’t face Pepper or Izzy. They were her family. More, they were her friends. But they were in love and they thought love was a happy thing. Whereas she knew it was a hungry, sleepless wild animal that gnawed and gnawed at you. And the only thing worse than being gnawed was when for a moment it stopped and you were afraid that you were forgetting.

  I must be mad, she told herself.

  But it sure as hell put other problems in perspective.

  Her manager at the model agency took one look at her puffy cheek and freaked.

  ‘Get a life,’ said Jemima wearily.

  She got a shot to reduce the puffiness and then went off to her favourite make-up artist to camouflage the remaining injury. And when she got to the shoot she found the photographer, whom she had always regarded as a bit of a pill, took it as a challenge.

  He kept to her good side mostly. But then he took some sultry shots of her peering out from under a Philip Marlowe hat-brim. They both giggled a lot. Then they went out to dinner, where a paparazzo caught them with their arms round each other, laughing helplessly.

  If Niall saw that, thought Jemima, he would know she was over him.

  Madame got in touch again. But this time Jemima obeyed the summons to the House of Belinda in an entirely different spirit.

  She strode into the luxurious office and said, ‘Cards on the table,’ before Madame had got halfway across the room to meet her.

  ‘I’ll do my job. I’ll be Belinda’s ambassador. I’ll do the parties and the premieres and the interviews. But I’m not dating anyone because you think he will look good on my CV. If that’s what you want, we can tear up the contract now.’

  Madame’s thin black eyebrows hit her hairline. But all she said was, ‘Very well.’ And designed a new campaign: The Face of Belinda—Her Own Woman.

  ‘My life,’ announced Jemima to her sister and cousin, ‘is well and truly sorted.’

  Niall got back to London at last in June, in a bleakly unseasonable rainstorm.

  He walked out onto the main concourse of Terminal 4 with his suit-bag over his shoulder and all his other possessions in a battered squash bag. Passport Control ignored him.

  Good, thought Niall. But he wondered how long it would last. Did you have to have Duke of Something on your passport? Oh, well, he would find out soon enough.

  It had been a bumpy flight. Hardly anyone had slept. But all around him people who could hardly stand for weariness were putting on a spurt to run into someone’s arms.

  Niall was not exhausted. But there was no one for him to hug.

  Well, that was good too. He had never wanted people meeting him, laying claim to him, relying on him. He had always taken good care to keep his life as he liked it—unencumbered. And the only thing he had ever had in common with his father was a hatred of public emotion.

  So it was a nasty sh
ock to discover that if Jemima Dare had been here to greet him, he would have dropped the bag, flung his arms wide, swung her into them and kissed her immoderately.

  And then taken her off to the nearest hotel room and made love to her until neither of them could move. If they’d managed to make it as far as a hotel!

  Niall swallowed, suddenly hot. He ran a finger round the inside of his collar. The bad flight must have had more of an effect than he’d thought.

  He wove his way through the hugging, kissing, weeping crowd and told himself how grateful he was that he was alone. Alone was what he liked best. Alone kept him strong.

  There was no point in looking for Jemima. She did not know he was coming. Nobody, not even the estate’s lawyer, who had been writing to him in tones of increasing desperation, knew he would be on this flight this morning. Besides, even if she had known she would not have come to meet him. She hated him. She had not even said goodbye.

  Of course he had not accepted that. Niall, who had never had to pursue a woman in his life, had mounted an impressive campaign. He had called, e-mailed written. Sent flowers. Even a mango.

  None of it had got a whisper of reply. You would think she had vanished from the face of the earth.

  Except for the gossip columns, of course. As he had kept his cool through the last dangerous weeks of his present assignment he had seen plenty of those. The net kept him well up to speed with the doings of Jemima Dare. She was dating a photographer; having a rose named after her at the Chelsea Flower Show; dancing all night at a charity fundraiser.

  Niall damned all fundraisers and flowers, and double-damned photographers.

  A man in a grey chauffeur’s uniform was standing by the barrier with a large piece of card. ‘Passenger Blackthorne’, it said.

  Niall stopped dead. But nobody knew he was coming, surely?

  He went over to the man. ‘Blackthorne?’ he said, still thinking that there must be another Blackthorne on one of the flights coming in, from Addis Ababa or Tokyo or Banjul…

  The neat man dispelled the hope. ‘Good morning, Your Grace. Welcome home. I have the limousine outside. May I take your luggage?’

  Not being met by Jemima was one thing. Being tracked down by a man with a limousine was unbearable. This was what it was to be a duke. His life would never be his own again.

  There were more Your Graces at the discreetly exclusive hotel in St James’s, where his lawyer had reserved him a room. A butler masquerading as a desk clerk welcomed him, congratulated him on his accession to the title, and asked about enquiries from the press.

  ‘Enquiries?’ said Niall, puzzled.

  ‘We have had several telephone calls from people asking whether you are staying with us, Your Grace.’

  ‘From journalists?’

  The butler permitted himself a small smile. ‘Such people do not normally identify themselves, Your Grace. We have learned to read the signs.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Niall, genuinely impressed. ‘You must give me a few tips.’

  The butler bowed. ‘We shall be happy to, Your Grace.’

  Niall groaned. ‘Every time someone says Your Grace, I look behind me expecting to see my father. And now I suppose I’ll have to put up with it for the rest of my life.’

  The butler drew himself up to his full height. ‘In this hotel, sir, we will call you whatever you wish.’

  ‘How about Mr Blackthorne?’ said Niall, amused.

  ‘The staff will be informed.’

  He was as good as his word. When Dom Templeton-Burke came round for a drink a couple of days later, the staff at the desk robustly denied that the Duke of Powrie was staying with them.

  ‘But there he is,’ said Dom, catching sight of Niall coming down the main staircase. And when a quiet porter politely barred his way, he said, ‘He’s my cousin, for heaven’s sake. He asked me.’

  The porter would still not have let him pass, but at that moment Niall caught sight of him and came over.

  ‘You’re early,’ he said. ‘I was just going to tell the desk I was expecting you. They’re very—er—protective.’

  ‘They’re good,’ said Dom. ‘They were all set to throw me out.’

  Niall grinned. ‘That’s my friend Jeeves.’

  ‘What?’

  Niall led the way into the bar and summoned the barman.

  ‘Jeeves. He’s supposed to be the desk clerk. But he’s actually something between a life counsellor and a Mr Fixit. If you’re a guest here, apparently, you can have anything you want.’

  ‘Great,’ said Dom enthusiastically. ‘I could do with a new design of snowshoe.’

  ‘He’ll probably find it,’ said Niall. ‘He’s turned me into a non-duke, God bless the man. Within these walls I’m plain Mr Blackthorne again.’

  Niall had been at school with the Templeton-Burke brothers, and spent long parts of the holidays with them. Dom had a very fair idea of what life been like in the Powrie household.

  ‘Getting to you, is it?’ said Dom with rough sympathy.

  They ordered their drinks, and while they were coming Niall said, ‘You have no idea what a relief it is to talk to someone who doesn’t think I should be out partying every night with delight.’

  Dom raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I think I probably hated my father,’ Niall said reflectively. ‘All these years I haven’t really thought about him much. But I realised the other day, when I was looking at the mess that he and Derek between them have made of the estate. And I thought, they were pigs, both of them. Idle, spendthrift, stupid pigs. And malicious, too.’

  Dom was startled. It showed.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Niall. ‘My father stopped me going to university to read maths, just because he could. Pure spite. And Derek thought it was cool to be like him. Nothing has been repaired on the estate for three years. All the money went on Derek’s pathetic racing cars. It’s going to be absolutely bloody turning it around.’

  ‘But you will?’ said Dom.

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘What you need,’ said Dom, ‘is a nice wife to help you. Get Abby to break out the gumboots and pearls brigade. Find yourself a woman who knows her Chippendale and her slurry pits, and you’re laughing.’

  Niall smiled but his tone was final. ‘I think not.’

  Cheery Dom realised that he was on delicate ground. ‘Oh. Sorry. There’s a lady in the case, is there?’

  Niall shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Well, come on, Niall. Either there is or there isn’t.’

  ‘Well, there is,’ admitted Niall. ‘Only she isn’t talking to me.’

  Dom’s eyes sparkled. ‘Terrific. Carry her off at midnight.’

  ‘You,’ said Niall resignedly, ‘don’t change. Grow up.’

  ‘That’s fine, coming from a man who’s spent the last fifteen years gambling his way round the world,’ retorted Dom. But his indignation was short-lived. ‘Come on. I’ll help you. Who is she?’

  But Niall shook his head and refused to be drawn.

  ‘My sort-of cousin is in a bad way,’ confided Dom to his beloved as they cuddled up on the sofa watching a film that night. ‘He’s living in a hotel under an assumed name. I think he could do with some home comforts. Could we throw him a party?’

  ‘Sure,’ said kind Izzy. ‘Your sort-of cousin is my sort-of cousin.’

  Dom hugged her. ‘Did I ever tell you what a wonderful woman you are?’

  ‘Frequently, but keep it coming. What’s wrong with our sort-of cousin?’

  Dom pulled a face. ‘He’s a duke and he doesn’t want to be.’

  Izzy choked. ‘We’ll help him forget,’ she promised.

  So that weekend Niall found himself invited to a party to meet his new cousin-to-be.

  ‘I’m Niall—friend of Dom’s.’

  ‘You got here. Great,’ said the large redhead who opened the door.

  ‘Well, Dom’s instructions were a bit polar: turn north, leaving Arcturus on your right,’ said Niall dryly. ‘But he�
�s told me how to get to places before, so I bought an A to Z. And London hasn’t changed that much since—’

  He stopped dead. A glamorous redhead in silky trousers and not very much top had emerged. His mouth fell open.

  ‘You think you’ve met her before,’ said Dom, following the redhead. He slapped a glass of wine into Niall’s hand. ‘Niall, Izzy. Izzy, Niall.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Niall faintly.

  ‘Optical illusion, mate. Happens all the time. You haven’t. But you’ve seen lots of photographs of her sister. Jemima is a model. Got her picture everywhere.’

  Niall recovered. ‘I’ve seen a lot more of Jemima than a photograph,’ he said with feeling.

  Which was unfortunate. Because that was the moment at which Jemima came out of the kitchen.

  She seemed to freeze to the spot.

  ‘Jay Jay?’ said her sister, puzzled. Then, in concern, ‘Jay Jay, are you all right?’

  Niall could not take his eyes off her. She was carrying a tray of champagne flutes and she was laughing. Or she had been laughing before she saw who he was.

  Her hair was loose, a wonderful fiery, silky mass. It had haunted his dreams and brought him out in a cold sweat in the middle of business meetings if he didn’t keep an iron grip on his thoughts.

  She was wearing a brief boned top in shiny emerald satin and dark green jeans. Her shoulders were bare, but this time not because some thug had attacked her. The pale exposed flesh did not make her look vulnerable. It made her look gorgeous and sexy and all too accessible.

  Accessible! And she hadn’t returned a single one of his calls!

  He said glacially, ‘Hi, Jemima. Remember me?’

  The wonderful brown eyes flashed. ‘Oh wow, the Duke! How could I forget?’

  Dom groaned. Even Izzy looked slightly shocked.

  Jemima put her tray of glasses down carefully.

  ‘Not that he told me he was a duke,’ she said, smiling nastily. ‘I wonder why?’

  ‘I haven’t been a duke all that long,’ said Niall, taken aback. ‘And I had a job to finish before I started a new life.’

  ‘A job?’ Jemima gave a light, tinkling laugh that brought Izzy’s brows together in a sudden frown. ‘Gambling?’