by Penny Jordan
Oh, but she had, Nell acknowledged painfully. She was all too well aware of what Grania described as Joss’s sexiness … She herself would have put it slightly differently, but in essence her stepsister was right. Joss had about him an animal quality of vitality and maleness that no woman could fail to be aware of. And Joss himself knew exactly what he had … and he used that knowledge ruthlessly.
He wore the beautiful girls who flocked around him as a hunter wore his trophies. He never seemed to be without some lissom beauty clinging to his arm, and was often photographed on the society pages of the newspapers with some scantily clad female clinging possessively to his dark-suited arm.
Nell often felt that they were deliberately posed, those photographs, for all their apparent artlessness; the girls were invariably blonde and frail, Joss invariably clothed in the dark formality of a business suit, his face in profile so that the hawlike, almost cruel harshness of his features was thrown into relief.
It was hard to imagine, looking at Joss today, that there had ever been a time when he had been forced to steal to get food … when his clothes had been little more than rags.
Now only the faint burr in his voice betrayed him, and even that was a deliberate policy, Nell was sure of it. He was an excellent mimic, and could quite easily have adopted the clipped, classless accent of her grandfather and his kind had he wished. But for some reason he didn’t choose to do so; for some reason, as she had good cause to know, he seemed to delight in forcing people to remember the life from which he had sprung.
Nell had once attended a local dinner party with her grandfather when Joss had almost shocked one of the female guests senseless by replying to her polite dinner-table queries about his life by telling her in graphic detail exactly what could happen to small children, both male and female, left to scavenge for a living on the streets of the country’s inner cities. He hadn’t minced his words and Nell herself had winced, not due to any distaste for the forthrightness of his speech, but for the vivid picture he was drawing.
Unfortunately he had misinterpreted her reaction, and had taunted her for it during the drive home.
It seemed that she and Joss were destined to be at loggerheads with one another, and now if Grania went to him to complain of the unfairness of Gramps’ will …
Nell could still remember the look on Joss’s face when the will was read; the tightening of his mouth that presaged anger; the hard, flat look in his eyes. Odd how well she could recognise every slight nuance of his moods. Or not odd at all, really … her stomach quivered and she suppressed the sensation as she had taught herself to suppress every similar sensation and emotion that dwelling on Joss brought.
‘Well, I’d better get a move on if I’m going to see Joss … I can take your car, can’t I?’
‘Grania, I’d rather you didn’t. I think he’s got visitors,’ Nell responded stiffly.
‘Visitors?’ Grania stared at her for a moment, and then burst out laughing.
‘You mean one of his women? Oh, he won’t mind me interrupting. He’s probably bored with her already, knowing Joss.’
‘Grania, I’d rather you didn’t talk about Joss’s private life like that,’ Nell interrupted her sharply.
She felt Grania turn to look at her, her stepsister’s gaze sharpening.
‘I don’t believe it,’ she said gleefully, after a moment’s pause. ‘I do believe you’ve actually fallen for him yourself! Oh, Nell … you fool. He’d never look twice at someone like you. He goes for the high-profile glamour types …’ She eyed Nell’s plain skirt and blouse contemptuously. Her stepsister was attractive enough in her own way—she had the most fabulous hair, and her oval face with its wide grey eyes and straight nose had a tranquil beauty which might be out of step with the times, but which was still very appealing.
The trouble with Nell was that she had no idea how to make the most of herself, how to package herself, so to speak. With a modern, voluptuous hair-style, fashionable clothes, heels to give her slim frame height and something fitted to show off her figure, she’d look a million times more appealing … but still not appealing enough to entice a man like Joss.
‘You’d be much better off with someone like David … How is he, by the way?’ Grania asked carelessly.
Personally she found the young solicitor who handled their grandfather’s business deadly dull, but he would do nicely for Nell, and he would be bound to want to persuade her to get rid of the house. That would suit Grania very well. Once the house was sold, Nell could hardly refuse then to split the proceeds between them. With her share … well, the world would be her oyster. She could travel … see things … do things … enjoy the freedom and excitement that she deserved, instead of having to pinch pennies and go cap in hand to Joss for more money.
‘Look, I must fly,’ Grania announced. ‘I’ve arranged for Terry to pick me up at four. We’re having dinner with some friends of his at Aux Quatre Saisons tonight.’
‘Terry?’ Nell queried.
‘You don’t know him,’ Grania responded brightly. ‘I met him at one of the shoots for the underwear commercial. He’s in television. By the way,’ she added mockingly, ‘you do realise, don’t you, that what you’re doing with the house won’t get you into Joss’s good books? He doesn’t approve at all …’
Grania’s taunt and its implied hint that she, Grania, was far more au fait with Joss’s opinions than her dull, boring elder sister, set a spark to the over-dry tinders of Nell’s temper. She had borne so much these last eight months; struggled so hard to keep her promise to Gramps; carried the dual burden of its responsibility and that of knowing their true financial position, which she was sure Grania did not. The allowance she talked about so glibly for instance … the money she believed Gramps had left her. That came from Joss, and it galled Nell more than anything else on earth that she was forced to keep silent, to accept his charity.
As her grandfather’s executor, he was well aware of the exact state of their finances, and probably had been beforehand.
It was odd in a way how much her grandfather had confided in him … how in those last few months, when it became apparent that he had not long to live, he had drawn strength from Joss’s presence … had even come to rely on him in a way that he had never relied on her. But to Gramps she was just a woman—a frail creature who need protecting and directing.
Joss was different. Joss was a man. During those last months he had called regularly two and sometimes three times a week, making time in what Nell knew must be a hectic schedule to come and play chess with her grandfather in the old-fashioned panelled library. Yes, there was very little about the de Tressail finances and the de Tressail family that Joss didn’t know.
Only the week before his death, still chuckling over some reminiscence of when Joss had described his roving teenage years when he had falsified his age and travelled the world working on the huge oil tankers, Gramps had claimed, ‘He’s cut out of the same cloth as the first Sir Hugo, is Joss. A man who makes his own rules. A bit of a rogue perhaps, but tough enough to hold on to what he considers to be his own. Strong enough to stick by what he believes in. I like him,’ he had added staring fiercely up at Nell, as though half expecting her to argue with him.
Now Grania’s taunt about Joss’s views on what she was trying to do to bring money into the estate infuriated her, and she responded fiercely, ‘Well, then, that’s just his tough luck, isn’t it? Easterhay belongs to me, and what I choose to do or not do with it is my business and no one else’s, especially not someone like Joss Wycliffe,’ she added with far more scorn in her voice then she really felt. The scorn in actual fact was for herself, for feeling hurt by Grania’s revelation that she and Joss had discussed her and Joss had revealed his disapproval. Although why she should feel so hurt, so let down …
‘Unfortunately, that’s not strictly true.’
The dry, controlled male voice shocked her, making her spin round, her hand going to her throat in an age-old gesture of self-
protection.
‘Joss … I didn’t hear you come in,’ she said weakly, knowing that she was flushing to the roots of her pale hair … knowing the contrast she must make to Grania’s vivid dark beauty, Grania who had no hesitation at all in running lightly across the room and flinging herself into Joss’s arms.
Only she didn’t quite make it. He fielded her off very neatly just before she reached him, holding her at arm’s length while she pouted and eyed him with wicked flirtatiousness.
Oh, to be Grania and not her dull, boring self!
‘Joss, the very person!’ Grania exclaimed. ‘I need to talk to you desperately. How on earth did you know I was here?’
‘I didn’t,’ Joss told her flatly. ‘I came to see Nell …’
‘Oh, well, that can wait. Besides, Nell’s just about to go and do her boring duty by the wedding party. Honestly Joss, you ought to see the fright of a dress the bride’s wearing. Home-made, I’m sure …’ Chattering blithely, linking her arm through Joss’s she led him out of the room.
Nell watched them, her face shadowed with pain. What a striking couple they made, both so tall and dark. Joss lithely male in his casual clothes, the leather blouson jacket he was wearing so soft that it promised to feel like purest silk to the touch; Grania, dressed in something wildly fashionable and no doubt wildly expensive, while she …
She looked down at her serviceable tweed skirt and blouse. They were good-quality separates, but she had had them for about six years, and they had not been bought for fashion’s sake then. What on earth had prompted her to choose beige in the first place? Her aunt, of course. Aunt Honoria had strong views on the dress and manners of young women. Nell had been eighteen when those clothes had been bought. Just leaving college and starting her first job at the small publishers’ run by an old friend of her grandfather, and the clothes had been those Aunt Honoria had deemed most suitable for her business life.
Like everything else in her wardrobe, they had simply become things to put on so that she could get on with the business of living … dull and worthy, like herself.
The sound of Grania’s excited laughter floated back towards her. In the dimness of the corridor, she could just see how Joss’s dark head inclined slightly toward her stepsister’s, and a pain she knew she ought to have learned to control three years ago knifed through her.
Joss Wycliffe … the very last man on earth she ought to fall in love with. And yet she had … instantly … on sight … and without any chance of ever recovering from the blow that fate had dealt her.
It was just three years ago that she had first met Joss, and she would never forget that heart-stopping moment when she had come to the door in answer to its imperative summons and discovered Joss standing outside supporting her grandfather, who had fallen over and hurt himself while out for his walk.
Joss had been wearing brief running shorts and a singlet, his dark hair sweat—slick, but still inclined to curl slightly. He had been tanned, his skin like Grania’s, naturally far darker than her own.
The sight of him had totally overwhelmed her, and she had behaved, she suspected, like an idiot, staring at him as though she had never seen a man in her life before. Who knew what foolish dreams she might have started weaving in her head if Joss hadn’t looked at her and said coolly, ‘Yes. Shockingly disreputable, aren’t I, and hardly dressed to make the acquaintance of a lady?’ And he had stressed that last word unmercifully, making her colour up painfully.
And she had seen in his eyes his contempt and dismissal of her; had seen how totally unattractive as a woman he found her, and for the first time in her life she had truly appreciated her Aunt Honoria’s training. As she had gone on appreciating it ever since. If nothing else, it enabled her to act out the role life had designed for her: the unmarried, unattractive daughter of the house who knew her place; and to conceal from Joss exactly what effect he had on her, or so she hoped …
CHAPTER TWO
BY TUESDAY the wedding marquee had been taken down, the tables and chairs packed away and the lawn restored to its normal pristine splendour.
Nell was sitting in the library, working on her accounts. She kept these meticulously, amused to discover that she had quite a talent for bookkeeping; but unfortunately, like all her other talents, it wasn’t enough to build a career on—at least, not the kind of career that would support a house like Easterhay. For that, one needed a business empire to rival Joss’s.
She looked again at her neat figures, her heart sinking. It didn’t matter how many corners she tried to cut, how many economies she made, she just wasn’t making enough money. Last weekend’s wedding had been the next to the last of the season. So far she had managed to keep on all the staff, but with winter approaching …
Her grandfather’s pension had died with him, and although Joss might have come to some arrangement with her grandfather to ensure that Grania had her allowance, Nell was damned if she was going to allow him to support her as well.
Outside, her car sparkled in the autumn sunshine. She ought to drive into Chester to collect some supplies. Her car was only two years old, an expensive model that she would never have dreamed of buying, but which her grandfather had insisted on giving her as a birthday present. Each time she looked at it, she mentally calculated how much she could get for it, but how could she sell Gramps’ last gift to her … a gift she was sure he could barely afford himself?
He had excused his generosity, saying testily that, since he was no longer allowed to drive, she would have to act as his chauffeur, and that he was damned if he was going to be driven about the place in one of those poky modern things.
But a Daimler … for someone in her financial position? She leaned back in the leather chair which had once been her grandfather’s. It was too large for her, and not very comfortable.
She closed her eyes tiredly, only to open them again in shock as she heard Joss saying tauntingly, ‘Finding the old man’s chair too big for you, Nell? Just like his shoes, eh?’
‘Joss! What are you doing here?’
She sat up, flustered that he should have caught her off guard. She was already all too well aware of the most comical contrast she must be to the women in his life … beautiful, expensively groomed women. She hated him seeing her when she wasn’t prepared.
‘It’s quarter day—remember?’
Quarter day … of course Her grandfather still had stuck by the old-fashioned calendar all his life, and he had left intructions in his will that every quarter day she was to present her household accounts to Joss, as first his wife and then his sister had once presented theirs to him.
‘Oh, yes, the accounts. Well, they’re all here.’
She got up tiredly, so that he could take her seat and study the books open in front of her. As she stood, her body reacted to its tiredness and she stumbled awkwardly, catching her hipbone on the corner of the desk. The impact sent a shock-wave of pain through her, making her catch her bottom lip between her teeth.
She saw Joss frown, the amber eyes flaming as they always did when he was annoyed. Of course, her clumsiness would be offensive to a man used to women who only moved with elegance.
‘You look as though you haven’t slept in a month, and you’re too thin,’ he told her brutally. ‘What the hell are you doing to yourself?’
‘Nothing,’ Nell countered, adding pettishly for some reason she couldn’t define, ‘I wish you wouldn’t allow Grania to believe that her allowance comes from Gramps’ estate, Joss. It makes it difficult for me.’
‘You know she believes this place should be sold and the proceeds split between you?’ he interrupted her.
Nell gripped the edge of the desk with slender fingers and agreed bleakly. ‘Yes.’
‘But of course your grandfather felt, as she isn’t a de Tressail by birth, that she should be excluded from inheriting from the estate. A court of law might very probably take a different point of view.’
Nell swallowed painfully. Was Joss telling her that he
shared Grania’s view that Gramps had been unfair in not leaving the house to them jointly?
‘Gramps wanted the house to stay with the family. He hated the thought of it being sold.’
She had to blink back emotional tears and keep her face averted from him. She wasn’t like Grania, she couldn’t cry prettily. At Gramps’ funeral she had been too anguished to do anything more than simply watch in frozen silence. It had been Grania who wept, silent, pretty tears that barely touched her make-up, her head restling vulnerably against Joss’s chest.
She had watched them, telling herself she was a fool for the jealousy she felt. Joss would never look at her. In the three years she had known him, the only time he had come anywhere near embracing her had been the first Christmas. He had arrived at the house on Christmas Eve to see her grandfather. Nell had let him in and his eyes had gone briefly to the mistletoe hanging in the hall, and then to her mouth as he stepped inside. Even now she could still feel her pulses flutter dangerously at the recollection of that moment when she had known he was going to kiss her.
His mouth had been hard and warm and she had quivered in his arms, unable to hold back the sensations storming her. He had released her immediately, stepping back from her, and she was sure she had read derision in his eyes as her grandfather came into the hall to welcome him.
He had not touched her since, and she could hardly blame him. She was not his type of woman and she never would be.
‘I know,’ Joss told her drily. ‘One could almost say, in fact, that he was obsessed with it, to the point where the continuation of the de Tressail name and the family’s occupation of this house were more important to him than anything else. More important than you, for instance, Nell,’ he added cruelly.